But the benefits of those bargains were always contingent on women’s relationships to men, Kandiyoti wrote. (Now for the required warning: “Succession” spoilers appear below.) One way to view the events of “Succession” is as the story of Kendall’s tragic misapprehension of his position in the family under his father’s patriarchy. He thought that as a son — the “eldest boy,” as he yowled angrily (and incorrectly) in the final episode — he was set to inherit everything. But actually, in patriarchal terms of power and position though not actual gender, he was effectively as vulnerable as a wife or daughter trapped in Logan’s orbit.

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Persons: Kandiyoti, yowled