#I’m so compelled by Shiv and motherhood

[laniidae-passerine]

yeah cause on one hand Shiv being a mother would kill her and staying with Tom is a very bad idea but on another hand it is what people do, they stay in bad marriages and raise their kids awfully and it wouldn’t be unrealistic for them to fall into that trap and on this other hand i found on the cruise ship if Shiv had an abortion then maybe she and Tom could reconcile but on Logan’s dead cold paw they should never ever be near each other again and also maybe Shiv should have that baby on her own because does she not want to be a mother or is she just afraid that she is her mother and anyway uh love is real but also it is not enough

#I’m so compelled by Shiv and motherhood #it wasn’t like an active choice to not be a mother imo #like I love women who see babies and are like ‘oh god. no way not for me.’ #but idk if Shiv doesn’t want to be a mum or just believes she’d fuck it up so bad #like does she not like children or does she just not want people being reminded that she’s a woman #is she being asked to give up something she wants because it would remind people of what she is biologically of her unforgivable weakness #shiv do you not want a baby or do you just not want a baby as much as you want to keep your dignity #like oof. I love women not wanting to be mothers. but there’s something so dark and sad #about the narrative of a woman who wants to be a mother but not be seen as a woman. would shiv have taken the option of being a father #if that was a possibility #anyway AHHHHHHHHHHHHH #succession #shiv roy #tom wambsgans #tomshiv

[transmutationisms]

Love ur takes on the bio/body politics of Succession and I thought 4x09 delivered so much to unpack there!!! Found it so tragic/interesting the way Shiv was talking about her unborn child throughout the episode so resentfully, like a parasite/leech that she’d be prepared to neglect to pursue the company just like her father did…. The cycles of abuse are cycling lol. What do you make of shiv’s relationship to her motherhood and her awareness of her body’s utility to logan’s empire/under capitalism generally? I do really feel like her characterization this season is an interesting summation of the “having it all” discourse of neoliberal feminism (from catherine rottenberg’s Rise of Neoliberal Feminism, dk if you’ve read but I highly reccomend!) Just watching her last ditch attempts to cling to any remaining vestige of power within the company while so brutally reckoning with/abdicating her future motherhood that was hoisted upon her in part due to tom’s striving and ambition…. WHEW.

Also, do you have any insights on why roman was so shaken by seeing his father’s coffin/“is he in there?” I’m still trying to fully unpack that line with regard to what we know about his fear of death/aging and implied abuse he suffered but maybe I’ve got my tinfoil hat on lol.

yeah shiv's position is quite interesting right now. as my bf pointed out, she basically kept her position with matsson by promising not to love her baby. motherhood can be part of 'having it all' as long as there's a huge behind-the-scenes network of domestic workers, assistants, &c to support you. her lines in 4x04 about how she wishes logan could have held his grandkids are also telling; although she hasn't said anything explicitly about producing an heir, we know that's something logan wanted from her because his racism and ableism prevented him from seeing sophie and iverson as filling that role. shiv's earlier reluctance to have children was partly about her relationship with tom, but was also suggested to be partly a reaction to her fear that if she got pregnant, she would basically be relegated to the domestic sphere forever ('mommed') and would no longer be able to even try to become logan's successor. so, having a baby is useful to the company in terms of the long-term line of succession, but also has the potential to basically exclude shiv herself from the game. it converts her body into something that serves logan's interests in a very different way: she's no longer an employee but a mother.

as to roman, this was the culmination of a long fixation with his father's body. way back at the beginning of the show, roman was the one who denied logan was "an elderly patient" in the hospital; he saw logan as basically invincible, except of course for when the worry would break through ("i heard you tried to kill our dad with the sun"). he asked for one of logan's sweaters to sniff, which is later inverted by roman leaving his suit jacket with logan's body on the plane, then echoed by roman wearing logan's sweater around in 4x05. roman was also seen a few times taking logan's advil, a kind of logan relic and a way for roman to metaphorically consume him, which is resonant given how physically unaffectionate and actually violent logan was with him.

roman also has a fraught relationship with his own body, as shown by the body-checking, his restrictive eating, and his inability to fuck or even take his cock out in front of matsson. roman was disturbed when connor sent the funeral home photo of logan's body, and again when connor was talking about going to visit the body. for roman, bodies in general are a site of violence and shame, and logan's body specifically is something that logan always tried to deny existed or to transcend, yet also the way he physically inflicted pain upon roman. so, roman has this fixation on the physicality of logan's dead body, which both is and isn't logan, and which both disgusts and compels roman. seeing the coffin was disturbing because the body was both hidden and displayed, and roman almost couldn't force himself to believe that logan really was dead or even had a physical body that could be killed. and in the "can we get him out of there" line, roman was sort of hysterically trying to 'free' logan, both from death and from the constricting box, as well as trying to get physically closer to the father he misses greatly and has always both loved and feared.

#you eat me i eat you #stop sending people your blood