Succession and the Inescapability of the 4th House
WARNING: spoilers ahead
Succession is over, but the legacy it leaves on television will reverberate for a good long while.
As an astrologer, I couldn’t help but to think about the 4th house and the themes it contains, such as heritage and foundations and family, the entire time I was devouring this show over the past 2 months (yes, I was late—I’ve been busy). The theme of legacy is obviously very prevalent in Succession, and ultimately we see our main characters lose or give up their “birthright,” but the legacy of their choices echoes hollowly when we see each of the 3 competing Roy siblings for the final time. Roman is alone in a crowded room, accompanied by a substance of choice; Shiv is resigned to her fate as a wife to a figurehead; and Kendall is… empty.
Legacy is often discussed as a 10th house topic in terms of the legacies we aim to leave, but it is just as much a 4th house topic in terms of the legacies we cannot escape. Jeremy Strong had this to say about Kendall and his father’s legacy: “I remember going to the writers' room […] and seeing all the note cards on the wall. And at the very top was this question of: can you escape legacy? Does it define you? And by escaping it, are you still defined by it?” And that’s the rub: even in escaping or differentiating yourself from a legacy you didn’t choose, your path is still defined by that differentiation. In aiming for the opposite of something, that which you oppose is always going to be a point of reference.
Kendall tried many times to escape his legacy, before attempting to embrace it, and in both approaches, his father was the center of his universe. Logan was the reference point in the 4th house that cannot be ignored or treated as a non-factor when it is, in fact, THE factor. “The funeral oration about, ‘My God, I hope that it's in me, his life force and his vigor and his terrible energy’-I was gonna say that Kendall doesn't possess it, but I think by the end we see that he has become a version of his father. There is a ruthlessness in him,” said Strong about his character’s aspiration to become his father—or, at times, become the very opposite. Both are attempts at individuating from the 4th house, a process we all must go through.
“He's trying to individuate, I think, in a certain way, but he has never been able to escape the tractor beam of his father. I wanted for him so badly to […] just leave it all. But he couldn't do that.”
In the case of this fictional character, the true differentiation point doesn’t get to occur until both his father and his company are yanked from his grasp. In the final scenes of Succession, we have seen exactly how Kendall has become like his father, in all his terrible energy, but we also see the difference between them: Logan was a patriarch and corporate giant, and Kendall can’t be either one. This is a devastating expression of the journey of individuating from 4th house influences, but an astute one.
The influences in your 4th house, for better or for worse, are a fixed point. They are not going to change. Your personal histories and the lineages you sprang from are out of your control. You do not get to choose who or what molds you at your most malleable, and you alone are tasked with continuing forward with these forces in tow. Making peace with your 4th house and the planets who occupy it means loosening your grasp on resentment for that which you cannot change and choosing responsibility for what you can change and the parts of your legacy you can exercise control over. The stories instilled in you and repeated to you don’t have to be the same stories you go on to create. Getting cozy with your 4th house means understanding each of the energies in it are allies, guiding and encouraging you as you figure out how to come home to yourself. Their legacy doesn’t need to be the same legacy you leave, but you have been shaped by their legacy regardless. The 4th house contains that which is inescapable, even if you do manage to escape from it—or in Kendall’s case, even if you’re abandoned by it.
My beloved 4th house offering, RELIC, is retiring. You can book a reading with me (at a discount) any time between now and May 31st at 11:59 pm PST.
