been stewing for a long time on exactly WHY it is that marriage=death in the world of succession, specifically tossing between it being 1) a "pretty girls make graves" sort of philosophy about the whole nature of existence, vs 2) a simple matter of marriage being an end. just... one as violent as death. your old life is over, your freedom is gone, you're imprisoned.
part of me leans towards the second because the first is perhaps too goth and defeatist for the whole vibe of succession, but then again, divorce is entirely on the table for every single married couple on succession... even if none have finalized by the last episode.
that fact certainly does go hand-in-hand with marriage being death if only as a point to symbolism within the confines of the narrative, since it would undermine it were any of them to "come back to life" as it were. kendall actively refusing rava her divorce is thus another facet of his suicidal nature. logan drawing out his marriages up until the point that he wants to hop to the next one, and even then maintaining contact and complicated divorce agreements, runs parallel to the tomb he plans to spend eternity with all his children. connor wedding happens the same day of his father's literal death, and any passion in his relationship with willa seems to settle at once into an aristocratic sort of arrangement where their image is frozen in time and thus he and willa are fully prepared to live apart. and of course most significantly, tom and shiv (whose wedding indirectly causes a real death) are the closest to coming to a mutual divorce agreement just as tom gains the ultimate power. the two of them may still be stuck in time, not quite yet revived, but in the show's final moments, they're on the verge with shiv, if anyone, the most hesitant to go through with it.
...except there IS one couple that shows no particular sign of divorce: caroline and peter. their wedding is also one out of three that's concurrent with only a vague suicide attempt and symbolic/corporate death as opposed to a real literal death. maybe that means something, maybe it doesn't. and is it perhaps a coincidence that this is also the pair that is the most unlikely to create children? i'm tempted to say it's not, and therefore i'm leaning back toward option 1. at least enough to say that it may be both, as well a third option. 3) marriage is the death of the spirit, specifically in those who get them for the wrong reasons.
tom proposed in the first place out of a fear of losing his stability in the roy family unit. he attached himself to a woman who is, emotionally and sexually, in a whole different world than him. he was very clearly following a model of marriage and family that he got from his middle-class childhood and which simply did not fit, and then even his attempts to be the kind of "new"/untraditional husband that shiv wanted did not and could not work. he was thinking of divorce as an option a year in. and he had [symbolic/corporate] murder on the brain - for the purpose of being able to "marry" greg instead - soon after.
pretty girls make graves when you're unable to look forward to the life you'd live in between. if there's real desire driving you, getting married wouldn't be the end but the beginning. you wouldn't be doomed by the very thing that you've been working toward. your union and promise of fidelity instead means a violent death indeed; the potential for true self-actualization, pleasure, and happiness... all gone.
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
origamiaround
titsay
prguitarman
janainaart
vaporwave
