Numbers on a Screen:

A character analysis review of Succession

by Tristan Pagan

Together, people form a market

There is a scene towards the end of "Dundee," the 8th episode of the second season of HBO's "Succession," which always stuck with me. Logan Roy celebrating the 50th anniversary of Waystar, the neo conservative multimedia empire he built from the ground up. It should be a rather joyous affair for him. If there is one thing Logan loves dearly, it’s his empire. He takes pride in it being his and only his, a self made man, a Gatsby who built his empire from the ground up. But there is something rather melancholic about the whole thing. How his own kids can’t even remember the baseball team he’s a fan of, how he damaged his relationship with his current wife Marica, and his empire is showing its first sign of crumbling. As his brother Ewan says at the end of the episode 

This is your fault. This Empire of dirt. Time to pay up.

Logan never would pay up. He died two seasons later, on plane from heart failure. He died on his own private jet, with his empire secure. He was literally and figuratively at his highest.

What kind of man was Logan Roy? Ewan at one point calls him worse than Hitler. I am inclined to share his view. Logan Roy was many things. He was a neo conservative monster who ran a news network that made its money off selling propaganda as news. He was an openly homophobic, racist, xenophobic, who often used people's sexual orientation, wealth status, and sex as put downs. He was verbally and physically abusive to his children. He was the worst kind of monster. His evil was out in the open. He profits from systems of oppression through the legality that comes with wealth and power. And this almost absurd level of power comes with a cartoonish level of cruelty towards everyone around him. In the words of his ex wife:

“Logan never saw something he loved, that he didn’t want to kick to see if would come back.”

And there is something almost inhuman about Logan, something more sinister. Logan is less so a man, and more of a representation of an idea. He is the personification of hypercapitalism. He is constantly looking for an angle, a way to gain more power and favor, and even at one point mocks the idea of giving someone a fair deal. This results in him viewing every relationship with his kids and family as extensions of his empire, as investments that aren’t yielding the results he wants. He degrades his kids for showing any sort of weakness or affection, chastising his son Kendall for leaving a business deal early to come to his birthday party. Logan does not view his kids as people. They are an extension of his empire, his market. They are products through and through, things that can be used to his advantage then discarded when they don’t have any more use to him. Logan says in the pilot for season 4.

“Together, people form a market”

There is something rather sad about this statement. When Logan says it is a rare moment of self-reflection. He should be celebrating. It's his birthday and he just made a huge deal, a deal that will secure his empire for the foreseeable future, and he screwed his kids over, which is like his favorite thing in the world. But he sits in this diner with his bodyguard, a person who is paid to take a bullet for him, which he calls ‘his best pal.’ How people are nothing more than that. He also wonders what happens after death. He almost seems to doubt whether or not he made the right choices in life. It’s the closest thing he comes to being vulnerable, to being human.

I know you’re lying, but I still found it quite charming and appealing.

Rhea says this to Logan in her final scene, when she asks if he knew about the abuse happening under his nose, which he denies. She knows he is lying. He lies constantly throughout the series. To his kids, to business partners, to the government, but the biggest lie told in the end was the one to himself. The idea that he wasn’t going to die. That he could just keep building and building his empire forever. In a way he thought he would live forever, like he knew he would die, but he would never see it. But in the third episode of season 4 he dies. He dies on a plane, on top of his empire.

What is legacy? In the end, Logan won. He beat the market. He died rich and on top. He died alone. He died with his children estranged, with them struggling to say he was a good person before he died. Legacy is the choices we make. It's how people remember us. He chose to put business over his family. To constantly belittle his children and friends. As a result, Logan died with his children hating him. He died with no friends, he died with the people closest to him calling his death a business decision that has to be accounted for. At the end of the episode his youngest son Roman takes a look at the stock prices drop after Logan dies. He points to Logan and says, 

That’s dad.

And that is all he is. Logan Roy, the monster, sad old man, the man who died unloved, the man who won, died a number on a screen. That is his legacy.