brian Cox has often said that Logan roy’s fatal flaw is he loves his children so much,do you agree?
I think Logan Roy is a narcissistic father, and a very realistic one at that. The issue isn’t that Logan doesn’t love his children, it’s that, as someone who was born into deep poverty, who was also an immigrant and came from nothing, he likely went through extremely difficult situations. He probably didn’t have the childhood he should have had, and most likely felt neglected by his parents, or that they couldn’t provide him with the security and stable emotional bonds he needed.
This often translates—because it happens a lot in parent-child relationships—into unresolved intergenerational trauma. So what happens? Logan becomes an incredibly powerful billionaire magnate. He doesn’t just escape poverty; he becomes part of the capitalist power structure, someone who can pull strings within society through his connection to the media world. And so, for him, the way he shows love or affection to his children is by giving them everything he never had. But he completely neglects the emotional side. He disregards it entirely because he believes it isn’t necessary. In his mind, what matters is that his children have not only what he lacked, but a hundred times more.
This is something that happens with many parents. Throughout Succession, there are multiple scenes where Logan treats his children like spoiled, ungrateful brats. And in those moments, you can clearly see that what infuriates him is that his children don’t think what they have is enough, that they demand something beyond money and power. Because he comes from a world where the lack of money and power is, in his mind, the root of his trauma and the reason his life was once so miserable. So, from the perspective of someone who has done no emotional work and hasn’t processed his trauma at all, he concludes that his children are ungrateful and useless. But there’s a second issue here: he doesn’t see his children as people or as independent individuals, he always sees them as children. He can never let them go because he doesn’t consider them fully capable adults. To him, they’re kids who can’t do anything by themselves, because he’s always bailed them out of every problem.
What he fails to realise is that their lack of tools or independence is a direct consequence of how he has raised them: spoiling them materially, in terms of power and social capital, their entire lives. In other words, he has built their prison while trying to protect them. But he hasn’t protected them emotionally, only materially. He’s indulged them materially, but never created bonds of support or emotional security. In fact, they constantly fear him, because he has never been a source of emotional safety. At the same time, they are deeply emotionally tied to him, because the lack of affection has created a desperate need for paternal approval, a need to finally be seen by him. To be seen as adults, as capable individuals, as independent people. But Logan has never allowed that, nor has he allowed himself to, because he always sees them as children he has to rescue.
All of this creates a relationship of total dependency, which in turn feeds his ego and reinforces the self-fulfilling prophecy that his children are useless because they always depend on him, when in reality, he is the one who created that dependency. It’s a vicious cycle. At the same time, it ensures that his children remain incompetent, because when it really matters, he never lets them fail and learn. He never allows them to stand on their own. And he doesn’t allow it because that would require something he cannot tolerate: losing control over them. Just as he cannot lose control over the company, he cannot lose control over his children. He simply cannot tolerate a lack of control in any aspect of his life.
So, does he love his children? I think he does, but he loves them terribly. You can love people and still love them in a deeply unhealthy way. Logan loves his children, but very, very badly, because he has never learned how to form healthy relationships or clean emotional bonds. His relationships are chaotic, rooted in power dynamics and in creating dependency, because knowing that others depend on him—whether financially or emotionally—makes him feel secure, makes him feel in control. And not being in control is something he cannot handle. So yes, I agree that Logan loves his children, but he loves them badly. And he is responsible for the fact that his children are walking collections of unresolved trauma, and for their often disruptive and dysregulated behaviour.
He also refuses to acknowledge that anything is wrong with them, because that would mean he is at fault. He can’t accept, for example, that one of his sons has sexual dysfunction, or that another might be bipolar, he can’t accept any of that, because doing so would mean admitting he allowed it to happen. So instead, he acts as if they are perfectly fine, just useless, just immature. Which leads to the conclusion: he has to take care of them, they owe him everything, and therefore he maintains control.
It’s fucked up, but Logan Roy is a terrifying character because he’s a perfect representation of a narcissistic father. And narcissistic parents—whether they’re billionaires, wealthy, middle class, or working class—often relate to their children in this way. The dynamic is so toxic that, despite the emotional abuse, the children still feel completely dependent on their parent, because they were never allowed to “fly” on their own, never trusted.
Do they love their children? Yes. But they love them very badly.
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