Succession and the tragic misreading of Shiv Roy

We are still girlbossing and gaslighting in 2023.

SPOILERS for the entire run of Succession abound. If you don’t like it, fuck off.

Babygirlification is kind of a weird phenomenon to me. Maybe it’s because I don’t go for stan culture. Maybe I’m just a grumpy misanthrope. But unless you’re Cristobal from Barry or Duquan from The Wire, it’s very unlikely that I’ll adore your character to the point of sanding down all of your humanity until you’re a glossy, flaw-free avatar of all that is good in the world.

This is not the case for a very vocal corner of the internet, though. In this corner, being a fan of a show includes having at least one character that you infantilize and adore, ignoring all of their faults and sometimes the actual text of the show so they can be your little cinnamon roll. And, despite this show’s best efforts, that has been perversely, devotedly true about Succession fans.

I’m not going to act like I don’t over-identify with Siobhan “Shiv” Roy, because of course I do. I too am a severe, sarcastic woman who loves a good turtleneck and has a blistering relationship with both her parents. (It’s fine. I’m fine.) And her significance to me as a character is likely why I’m particularly sensitive to the jarringly superficial fandom that I keep seeing for her. It’s there for all of the Roy siblings (except Connor. There’s really no caring about Connor), and it’s all a bit disturbing, but the Shiv stuff is just what I see the most.

There’s even TikTok discourse about whether this is a callback to Mr. Darcy’s hand flex. What are y’all doing?

Take the above tweet. Not to be rude, but what fucking show were y’all watching? Because she’s a woman coded as competent—deep voice, power bob, confident in her own expertise—it’s extremely tempting to take Shiv at her word that the only reason Logan and her brothers don’t take her seriously as a potential CEO is their misogyny. But if we took Shiv, or any of the Roy siblings, at her word, we’d be ignoring every other piece of information the show gave us. Shiv has been the literal opposite of a gladiator since we first met her. She’s the worst kind of paper tiger—one who believes her fangs are real. Let’s run the tape back on Shiv’s greatest hits:

• Is too cowardly to tell her husband until her wedding night, when he pretty much can’t leave her, that she wants a non-monogamous relationship

• Sabotages her legitimate job with presidential candidate Gil Eavis due to her snobbery and lack of basic human empathy (he was legitimately annoying and sanctimonious, though)

• Talks a sexual assault survivor out of testifying against Waystar Royco (she’s very proud of this one)

• Sabotages her relationship with the Pierces due to her inability to socialize normally (awkward)

• Sabotages her chance at CEO by trying to force Logan’s hand in front of the Pierces (desperate)

• Telegraphs shamelessly that she wants her husband to fuck off to prison/get fired from ATN (weird)

• Allows Mattson to use her to secure his buyout of Waystar while she gets nothing in writing (girl…)

Her evil* stepmother Marcia was completely accurate when she quietly, passionately hissed at her, “[your father] made you a playground, and you think it’s a whole world.”

Her entire eulogy for her father was a painful, loving ode to his ambivalence towards his family. Towards her. And ambivalence from the most important men in her life is what guides her biggest decisions on the show.

In the season two finale, Tom tells her during a sad argument, “I don't know. I love you, I do. I just, uh, I wonder if, I wonder if the sad I'd be without you would be less than the sad I get from being with you.” This disclosure triggers Shiv pretty deeply. So when Logan cruelly asks her to decide which man he should use as a “blood sacrifice” to take the fall for the sexual assaults and general mayhem that their company stands accused of tacitly sanctioning, Shiv chooses her brother, Kendall, rather than her husband, Tom.

Then, in the series finale, when Shiv goes out on a limb and asks Tom if he’s “interested in a real relationship,” Tom again expresses his heartfelt ambivalence about being with her. “Honest to god? I don’t know, Shiv. I just don’t know.”

This is 100% how I would react to that response, though.

And again, by the end of the episode she chooses Kendall as a blood sacrifice, voting against Kendall’s last-minute bid to kill the Waystar buyout and instead appointing the husband who betrayed her twice as CEO. She may enjoy thinking that he’s “fathoms beneath her,” and that she holds all the power in their relationship, due to her name and her seeming ambivalence about him. But he clearly holds a tremendous amount of emotional power over her in ways that neither of them seem to fully understand. And at the end of it all, the Roys will only ever choose self-interest over anything else, including their belief that they are a better person (Kendall), smarter person (Shiv), or more talented impersonator of their father (Roman) than the rest of their family.

This isn’t gladiator behavior. None of it ever was. As Kendall feared on their fateful election night, the poison drips through—not just from their monstrous father, but from their monstrous wealth and monstrous power, all of which make it impossible for them to be normal and decent people. No matter how much we may want them to be.

*Step on my neck, Marcia, fr