In the unbridled deluge of utter shit that is modern TV, HBO’s Succession is a relative island of quality, a condition I believe derives in no small part from the many BASED elements that appear in the show.

A brief 🧵 on some based elements in Succession:

Spoiler Alert ‼️

AGGRESSION & SURVIVAL

The longhouse, safetyism, gynocracy… all these terms describe the same phenomenon: the pervasive HR-ification of the world and thus the removal not of anti-social behavior but of male-coded, vitalist, aggressive action.

However, due to muh free-market economics, these trends have not yet penetrated into the Darwinian world of top-level corporate wheeling and dealing.

In this sense, one of Succession’s main appeals is its depiction of predatory executives who must either kill or be killed.

In the show we see how Logan Roy, the larger-than-life CEO of a Fox News-type media empire, does not believe his firstborn son, Kendall, is fit to succeed him as top-dog because he’s simply “not a killer”.

Logan knows Kendall is competent but can also see the weakness inside him

Another scene has Kendall defend himself when Logan critiques him for being “weak and conflict averse”.

Kendall claims he wasn’t “looking to get into a big-dick competition”, but Logan, long in the tooth and knowledge about the world, responds:

“I know you’ve read a lot of books about business management, but, you know what? Sometimes it *is* a big dick competition”.

There’s also a fair bit of underhanded aggression. Everyone is deft at manipulation and the value of mere words is always suspect.

In any case, be it the fox or the lion, the subtext is clear: it’s every man for himself

As Logan says: “life is a fight for a knife in the mud”.

THE MAGICAL BODY OF THE KING

This is a concept I picked up from the great @bronzeagemantis

BAP uses the term to describe the ineffable but, at the same time, PHYSICAL power that emanates from the presence of a kingly figure, in this case Logan

Countless times we see Logan absolutely melt his opposition through nothing more than the sheer weight of his being.

Like in season one, when a boardroom coup is arranged against him and Logan turns the tables on the plotters with only his “beefy Logan voodoo”

BAP deploys the term to point out how Moldbugian types tend to ignore the non-rational, unquantifiable aspects of power. Not everything in a political system can be accounted for through systems architecture.

At the end of the day, power must be wielded by a person and Logan is a great example of someone who is able to channel these energies into physical form.

THE FRAGILITY OF THE SELF

This is one is more subtle, but it comes up more than a couple of times and I don’t think it’s a coincidence

In a couple of poignant moments, the show slips in some dialogue that is decidedly pessimistic about the nature of modern existence.

When Kendal and a girls he's wooing are enjoying some vodka and tomfoolery in a helicopter she suddenly hits him with:

It’s an interesting bit of dialogue, though I didn’t make much of it until I saw a later scene where Roman, Logan’s second son, is drunkenly celebrating a win and takes the opportunity to be a dick to his siblings.

In response, Kendall looks him in the eye and says:

I believe there’s philosophical interpretation to these lines. I took them as passing nods to the tenuous sense of self inherent in the modern condition, very similar to Rust Cohle’s monologues in True Detective.

Logan’s children have a lot more to animate them than most, yet they seem just as rootless and deracinated as everyone else…

Not a based perspective per se but it flies in the face of normie thinking about modernity and how better off we all are.

I though I'd end the thread with one aspect of the show that's decidedly not BASED and sometimes rubs me the wrong way.

It's well know that Succession is inspired by Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns Fox News.

And considering how libs utterly dominate the media sector its pretty hilarious and just straight up delusional how Logan Roy's media empire is portrayed in the show.

Literally the ONE substantial network that is not a direct enforcer of liberal values is depicted as a sort of hulking monolith that poisons all public discourse and is destroying the US.

The only bastion of resistance is viewed as an existential threat that might wipe us all out. It's quite an education into the liberal mind and the reason why the left dominates the right at every turn.

shamelessly tagging some of my fav accounts hoping this might get some traction @DisgracedProp @MysteryGrove @AuronMacintyre @martyrmade @L0m3z @CovfefeAnon @giantgio @Babygravy9 @0x49fa98 @kaschuta @conan_esq @CityBureaucrat @LokiJulianus @MainstreamViews