Tom Millward
A year on from the conclusion of HBO’s Succession, and any piece of work labelling the show as Shakespearean would be, to say the least, stating the obvious. Impact’s Tom Millward explores how Kendall Roy embodies the role of tragic hero, and epitomises Succession’s adoption of the Shakespearean.
At its best, Succession resembles more of a Shakespearean play than a television show due to its dialogue-driven approach in self-contained settings, the constant machinations of each character, and the writer’s penchant for dropping the audience in medias res with little context and a distinct lack of flashbacks throughout the show. Add to this the large number of the show’s writers who are working playwrights, such as Susan Soon He Stanton, Alice Birch, and Will Arbery, and Brian Cox’s classical Shakespearean training and receival of two Olivier Awards, and the show’s intentions become clear.
Beyond this, one of the most interesting of Shakespeare’s ideas used in the show is the concept of a tragic hero. This role is embodied by Kendall Roy, the second-eldest son of media mogul Logan Roy who, like the rest of his siblings, is obsessed with wanting to take over his father’s company. Throughout the show’s four seasons, the writing team and actor Jeremy Strong managed to craft a complex and layered tragic hero who is perfectly adapted for our contemporary society whilst maintaining all the necessary characteristics from Shakespeare’s archetype.
Firstly, what is a tragic hero and how have they been used in Shakespeare’s work? Tragic heroes are the protagonists in many of Shakespeare’s plays, such as Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear, and are less straightforward than traditional principal characters. They are not wholly good or bad, instead, they are morally complex: simultaneously attempting virtue, whilst making poor decisions which throw their morality into question. Despite this, a key part of their portrayal is that, to some extent, the audience must wish for them to succeed.
mistakes are amplified and have significant and broad-reaching consequences for the world they inhabit
The suffering of these characters is due to a fatal flaw within their character which precipitates their downfall, known as their hamartia. When the audience are introduced to a tragic hero, they will often enjoy an elevated status within society amongst the nobility, such as Hamlet’s position as Prince of Denmark, which means that their mistakes are amplified and have significant and broad-reaching consequences for the world they inhabit. Although often corrupted by their hamartia, as Macbeth was by his ambition and lust for power, the audience must feel pity or empathy for a tragic hero despite their actions.
This is aided by the final key element of their journey, which is a moment of realisation, known as an anagnorisis, where the hero realises the error of their ways and their now inevitable demise. The best example of this in Shakespeare’s work is when Macbeth realised he had misread the witches’ prophecy whilst fighting Macduff, yet continued fighting despite the knowledge of his inevitable death. This brings us along to the conclusion of the tragic heroes’ journey: they must die.
his position as the son of a billionaire media mogul is one that provides him great scope […] for his actions to have significant consequences
Kendall’s background is the perfect modern interpretation of a tragic hero’s noble birth. His position as the son of a billionaire media mogul is one that provides him great scope, due to Waystar Royco’s global operations, for his actions to have significant consequences. The contemporary relevance of his position with the increasing politicisation of everyday society, extreme partisanship within politics, and growing global inequality means that the position of Succession’s protagonist is an extremely relevant and powerful one that is a smart adaptation from Shakespeare’s work.
Another key element of the tragic hero and a key part of the show’s success is that, despite a certain level of objective moral depravity, the audience both pities and roots for Kendall. As creator Jesse Armstrong is keen to point out, none of the characters in Succession are good people and the writers purposefully resisted making Kendall morally superior to other characters in the show.
Armstrong has stated that, due to his position as the show’s protagonist, the idea of Kendall being morally driven and having a more humane business plan for Waystar Royco was considered amongst the writer’s room. The blunt rejection of this idea means that we must be careful in viewing Kendall as a morally strong character as this was not the intention of the show’s creator and writer. Despite this, the audience cannot help but become emotionally attached to Kendall.
This is originally driven by Kendall’s apparent desire to, as he feels, be a good person amongst a cast of morally depraved characters. Kendall, by contrast, at least operates under the pretence of being driven by certain moral values. Kendall’s abject failure to do this allows for the show to comment on his character whilst also having the audience form some level of attachment to him.
The best example of this comes in ‘Chiantishire.’ After a season of Kendall trying and failing to depose his father, the two negotiate over dinner and discuss their relationship, the future, and the nature of their business. Kendall calls his father evil, stating: “You’ve won because you’re corrupt and so is the world.” This statement illustrates a level of self-delusion and naivety in fitting with his character, but his desire to at least attempt to address these issues and the moral questions surrounding his family’s business is enough for the audience to connect with him. This conversation also shows in stark terms why Kendall can never achieve the position he so craves, due to his naivety and lack of killer instinct.
he will never realise the ambition he holds
This conversation is a brilliant scene which makes the audience pity and sympathise with Kendall whilst clearly demonstrating his out-of-touch nature and why he will never realise the ambition he holds. Both Kendall and his father are bad men who have done bad deeds, as his father so heinously wields against his son later in the same conversation, but Kendall’s obvious guilt over what he has done, specifically his role in the death of a waiter in ‘Nobody is Ever Missing,’ creates a level of relatability with the audience typically not easy to find in a character in his position.
The greatest reason for the audience’s connection to Kendall is not because of his self-awareness and guilt but is due to the pathos we feel for him. Kendall’s father is majorly responsible for the trauma inflicted upon his children. Years of emotional abuse has moulded Kendall into an incomplete man who can only operate within the gravity of his abusive father whose love and attention he craves. This is a vicious cycle. As Logan’s first wife Caroline says: “he never kicked anything he loved to see if it would not come crawling back.” Kendall is the best example of this.
The most heartbreaking line of the show that summarises this cycle and the show’s nature, evoking the deepest level of pathos for Kendall, comes in the finale. When discussing who should become CEO with his siblings, Kendall says: “He ******* promised it to me. Promised. When I was seven, he sat me down at the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton and he ******* promised it to me. Seven years old. Can you imagine? . . . That was messed up, he shouldn’t have done that.”
This is the essence of Kendall’s character and, by extension, the show itself, distilled into one moment. All of Kendall’s past actions are repositioned due to the psychological impact this promise would have had on a young and impressionable child who idolised his father. Logan’s promise is the perfect distillation of the trauma he inflicted upon his children and summarises the key reason for the sympathy Kendall garners from the audience. Kendall is not a good person. However, the trauma he has experienced shaped his world and entire character. The pathos the audience feels for him is in fitting with any of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragic heroes.
Kendall also experiences many small moments of anagnorisis throughout the show, despite an overall inability to recognise the flaws of his ways and perpetuation of the cycle of abuse. Kendall’s recollection of the promise his father made to him in the Hamptons and awareness of the awfulness of this promise acts as one of these moments.
Similar moments exist throughout the show such as his breakdown with Shiv in the show’s second season when he admits that he knows his father will never make him CEO, his admission in ‘America Decides’ that he is an absent and neglectful father, and the final shot of the show representing his full anagnorisis moment. As Kendall stares out over the Hudson, with Colin shadowing him as a constant reminder of his father and the waiter’s death, it is possible that he has finally realised that he was never the man his father wanted him to be and was never going to live up to his expectations in the way he wanted to.
paralleling Macbeth’s monarchical aspirations, he is willed on by fate
Kendall’s most defining character trait is his fatal flaw, his hamartia. This is his ceaseless desire for his father’s approval, represented by Waystar Royco’s CEO position. This is Kendall’s underlying motivation for the entire show and he cannot escape it despite many opportunities to do so and the unparalleled financial freedom he enjoys. No matter what he is always drawn back to the allure of the position as if, paralleling Macbeth’s monarchical aspirations, he is willed on by fate.
For instance, as shown in the second half of Season 3 Kendall has the power to “cash out and **** off” whenever he pleases, he is completely emotionally destroyed and at his lowest point in ‘All the Bells Say’ but jumps at the chance to depose his father, attempts to buy Pierce during Season 4’s opening just to spite Logan, and goes for the CEO position one final time in the show’s concluding days. No matter how many times it seems Kendall has either moved past this desire or fallen so low he cannot recover, he can never stop pursuing the top job, thus perpetuating this cycle of abuse.
A close examination of Kendall’s journey in Season 4 illustrates his role as a Shakespearean tragic hero, serves as a microcosm of his broader journey throughout the show, and fittingly concludes his ill-fated journey. Kendall undertakes two parallel journeys throughout the show’s final season: a repeat of his overall arc of the show and the adoption of many of his father’s cruelties and abusive traits. Kendall begins the season by bidding $10bn for Pierce to spite his father, plots to tank the deal to sell Waystar even after his father’s death so he can run the company with his brother Roman, partners up with Frank as he did in the first season, and, as in the sixth episode of the show, fails in his coup to assume power in the very same boardroom as before.
Succession’s final season provided a microcosm of Kendall’s entire character arc with heightened stakes due to his father’s death, election interference, and possibility of losing the company forever. Kendall was consistently driven by his fatal flaw and met a fate deserving of the decisions he made. His assumption of his father’s behavioural traits and penchant for abuse highlights his delusion and compounds his inevitable downfall. Kendall became a twisted version of his father, physically abusing Roman and neglecting his own children whilst claiming them as his sole motivation, all whilst still failing to obtain what he desires most.
He has repeated the cycle of trauma and fulfilled the prophecy he himself uttered: the poison has dripped through. This destruction of any moral character increases the depth of the tragedy that befalls him. Kendall ends the show exactly where he was at the end of the sixth episode: destitute and adrift, although this time the CEO position is gone forever. Throughout the final season Kendall loses every fragment of his moral compass and soul. The most tragic part? Kendall killed himself through imparting the same abuse Logan did onto Roman, his own children, and retracting his confession about the waiter’s death which he had shown so much guilt about. Kendall does not just lose his supposed birthright and aspiration he covets most in Succession’s final season, but also his soul.
kendall’s entire life and character has been centred upon living up to his father’s wishes
This conclusion brings us onto the role of death in Shakespeare’s tragic heroes and how this works in Kendall’s case. Whether it is Macbeth, Hamlet, or King Lear, Shakespeare’s tragic hero’s journeys always conclude with their death. However, Kendall ends the show, at least physically, very much alive. Whether Kendall hurls himself into the Hudson, as Jeremy Strong attempted during one take, or mopes back to a luxury penthouse to drown his sorrows, is left up to the audience’s interpretation. Regardless of his next steps and contemporary physical state, Kendall Roy, in true Shakespearean tragedy fashion, dies at the end of Succession.
For four seasons, we have followed Kendall as he has attempted to navigate his adult life with his entire being and lifeforce devoted to the single goal of succeeding his father. As Kendall himself admits in the finale, this is his only desire and the only role he believes he knows how to do in this world. Ever since Logan made him that promise when he was seven years old, Kendall’s entire life and character has been centred upon living up to his father’s wishes and achieving that. That promise was the single most important moment in Kendall’s life and impacted upon every subsequent decision he ever made, moulding him into the person we meet at the beginning of the show. Thus, the death of this aspiration represents the death of the Kendall Roy we see throughout the show.
Tom Millward
Featured image courtesy of @JESHOOTS via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
In-article videos courtesy of @Moron Productions and @Max via Youtube. No changes were made to these videos.
In-article photos courtesy of @succession via Instagram. No changes were made to these photos.
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