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The HBO blockbuster’s four-season-long family circus is more than just a dark comedy—it’s a commentary on how trauma breeds trauma, when left untreated

What 'Succession' reveals about the perils of growing up around a narcissist

The HBO blockbuster’s four-season-long family circus is more than just a dark comedy—it’s a commentary on how trauma breeds trauma, when left untreated

It’s episode two of the fourth and final season of Succession, the HBO series that has now been embedded in internet and pop culture parlance in ways that you would find hard to escape. Around the 45-minute mark, the audience witnesses the impossible in Succession-verse—Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the patriarch and ringmaster of a billion-dollar media circus, walking into a karaoke bar to meet his three nettled and rebelling children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (aka Shiv, played by Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin), and his oft-forgotten eldest offspring Connor (Alan Ruck), who isn’t a turncoat yet.

The scene is an oddity because it marks Logan’s first descent from his iron throne of a bloated ego not just literally, but also metaphorically, where in order to gain the controls back on his kids, he is having to become a pedestrian venturing into the neon bulb-lit hole of a shady New York shack—a far cry from the steely board rooms and yacht chambers he convenes at routinely. (For the uninitiated, Logan is an American Conservative media-mogul owning Waystar Royco, and as the name of the series suggests, this entire shebang that took off in 2018 is about finding his worthiest successor.) After the failed siblings’ coup at the end of season three where Logan bests his children by ousting them from the business, he has finally been forced to swallow a bitter pill and call for what seems like a ceasefire. However, this attempt to create a truce ends with Logan bluntly saying, “Look, I do no apologies, but if it means so much to you…then sorry.”  

Kendall and Siobhan 'Shiv' Roy. Image: HBO

Kendall and Siobhan 'Shiv' Roy. Image: HBO

The clincher that ties the entire show together is that Logan Roy does not do apologies. Image: HBO

The clincher that ties the entire show together is that Logan Roy does not do apologies. Image: HBO

The clincher here that ties the entire show together is that Logan Roy does not do apologies, which happens to be one of the most telltale signs of a narcissist, or what modern-day psychology terms as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). It is a condition marked by extreme self-involvement that makes a person disregard the emotional needs of others, and this includes being oblivious to the effect that their behaviour has on people.

However, it’s important to note that while narcissism is an attribute, it is also a part of this larger personality disorder, as not every narcissist has NPD since narcissism is a spectrum. People lying at the highest end of the spectrum are those that are clinically classified as having NPD, while others may still fall on the lower end of the scale.

Living with a person diagnosed with NPD

According to a study by the American Psychiatric Association, the prevalence of NPD is, in fact, two per cent to 16 per cent in a clinical setting, while in the general population it’s less than one per cent, which makes it relatively uncommon, and yet not too uncommon either. (To simplify the math, one in every 100 people is diagnosed with NPD, which brings the total number of such individuals to 80 million in a population of eight billion).

Twenty-nine-year-old Saba Mohseen (name changed on request), a techie from Hyderabad, identifies as a Succession superfan. For her, the familial premise felt eerily familiar. Her father was diagnosed with NPD in 2016, and growing up with him meant constantly battling insecurities and a need to assert her self-worth in the face of incessant manipulation, gaslighting and crippling anxieties about always being in the wrong. “I was astounded to see how familiar Logan felt, which wasn’t the most comfortable thought to cope with. I mean, the man is everything you wish to never be or be surrounded by. But soon, I realised that’s exactly what I have grown up around,” she says. 

Colloquially, the term has been misused to synonymise behaviours of selfishness or conceitedness, which may not always be signs of the disorder. This has led to difficulties in recognising narcissistic abuse, especially in a parent-child equation where the parent may even have two sides to their personality—one for the outside world that projects a compassionate, over-protective caregiving figure, while the reality inside is quite the opposite.

“Here, we are talking about someone who has extremely low self-worth and self-esteem. But this is not what you see on the face of it, because on the face of it these people try to show extreme entitlement, self-importance and self-worth to others, which is not true. All their interactions with others is about maintaining this excessive sense of self-importance,” says Dr. Itisha Nagar, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi. Therefore, as a child of someone with NPD, one exists only in association with their parent, sans a sense of individuality with their own likes, dislikes and opinions. In this equation, the child is merely an extension of their narcissistic parent where everything revolves around the latter’s needs. “We develop our sense of self and a sense of the other—or relationships with others—through the kind of relationship we have with our parents,” Nagar says—a developmental aspect that is therefore severely damaged in the shadow of a narcissistic parent.

A vicious cycle 

The same has been made amply evident in Succession, where, according to Dr. Ramani Durvasula, an American psychologist who specialises in NPD, the showmakers seem to be experts on narcissism. Each child has trauma-bonded with their father in identical and different ways, as Logan sits right on top of the food chain, and feeds off of everyone below to satisfy his ‘narcissistic supply’—a psychoanalytic term that refers to the constant flow of attention and admiration required by a narcissist in order to sustain their self-worth. This abuse manifests in myriad ways in children of narcissists who may grow up to exhibit signs that include, but are not limited to, anxiety, depression, other personality disorders, or even narcissism itself.

Logan is a malignant narcissist with the dark triad. Image: HBO

Logan is a malignant narcissist with the dark triad. Image: HBO

Durvasula (whose YouTube channel hosts a series of videos analysing the ins and outs of Succession) argues that every lead character in the show displays traces of a different kind of narcissism. Logan is a malignant narcissist with the dark triad, which makes him not only narcissistic but also moderately psychopathic, Machiavellian and exploitative, “where he will throw anyone under the bus, and he is sadistic,” she says. She explains how none of his relationships are functional, and are only transactional to serve as a source of narcissistic supply.

Meanwhile Kendall seems to be a vulnerable narcissist, according to Durvasula. “He is sullen, resentful, socially unskilled, riddled with anxiety and chronically goes through the world viewing himself as a victim or presenting as a victim,” she says, adding that he clearly has an anxious attachment style towards a father “who has nothing but contempt for him.” He, too, is incapable of forming normal, intimate relationships with anyone, including his children, and is prone to substance abuse as a means of soothing himself. For Roman, Durvasula interprets him as having “malignant narcissism lite”, with a vulnerable narcissistic underbelly where instead of using drugs and alcohol like Kendall, he exhibits sexual dysregulation and an incapability to form intimate relationships, much like his siblings. He also shows hints of grandiosity and as the psychologist puts it, thinks of himself as the “Logan whisperer”, with glimpses of humanity shining through every now and then in his anxious attachment style. 

Then there is Shiv, the one who most closely resembles the patriarch, with a lethal combination of communal and malignant narcissism, one that is most often seen in cult leaders. Communal narcissists posture themselves as social messiahs out to save the world, but people like her “will cut anyone to get ahead”. “She shares that strong malignant, manipulative and exploitative streak (as her father), and is short of a 24x7 schemer. She is also a cheater and a liar like her father, and tries to play the family card a lot…Everything she does is self-serving,” Durvasula says, and goes so far as to state that Siobhan might actually be the most narcissistic and toxic character, second only to Logan.

Connor Roy is also a communal narcissist. Image: HBO

Connor Roy is also a communal narcissist. Image: HBO

Roman Roy is viewed as having “malignant narcissism lite”. Image: HBO

Roman Roy is viewed as having “malignant narcissism lite”. Image: HBO

Lastly, on Connor—who, by the way, is running for president of the United States even though his most notable achievement is that of owning a ranch in New Mexico—Durvasula remarks, “He, like Shiv, is also a communal narcissist, but this time with some grandiosity, and some vulnerable narcissism thrown in.” Unsurprisingly, he, too, lacks the capacity to form meaningful bonds, with even his girlfriend Willa being “bought and paid for”. The series, therefore, is an insightful study of the perils of a personality disorder that often stays hidden in plain sight.

A looming presence

***Major Spoiler Ahead***

It so happens that even in Logan’s death—which occurs shockingly early in the final season—his absence is as palpable as his presence, and the old guy crushes every hope one might have of a narcissist changing their ways and finding that elusive heart when inching close to death. With Logan’s passing, the children seem to lose a crucial—and perhaps the only—part of their identities that was built around their father’s existence. They no longer have their dad’s dangling carrot of love and approval to chase, and this only throws their fractured sense of self into further disarray. Logan continues to control them from beyond the grave, haunting them not only in their sleep, but also in their wake.

This now brings us to the point about how historically, NPD has been more common among men than in women, which makes it easy to spot several male characters in pop culture who may score high on the narcissism spectrum. “For example Kabir Singh [the protagonist from the eponymous film from 2019]…I won’t say he has NPD, but most certainly the way men in general are presented in our cinema, their needs, wants and desires are what the story revolves around,” Nagar says. “They’re extremely self-centered and are shown to be the victims, even though they might be hurting others through their words and actions, and yet, we still see them as heroes. So broadly, and very loosely speaking, we can’t certainly say that these characters have NPD, but the way they are portrayed definitely puts them on the spectrum.”

Similarly, Donald Draper from Mad Men, Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones, Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada, and Patrick Bateman from American Psycho are among the more (in)famous pop culture icons who would score unusually high on the narcissism scale. “However, it appears to me that Logan Roy might just have beat them all to the throne,” Mohseen laughs, as she talks about how until recently, her favourite fictional narcissist was Gilderoy Lockhart from the Harry Potter series. And indeed, it truly is a tall order to find a worthy successor for Logan, whether within Succession, or outside of it.

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