Succession’s fourth and final season’s first episode aired on HBO on March 26th. The millionaire family drama and politics is one of the most successful current shows on the streaming service. The show was nominated 48 times and won 13 Emmy Awards in only three seasons. Succession is also one of the highly speculated shows to be nominated for this year’s award with its last season. There is no denying the spectacular production of this story, and it has some interesting elements from reality, tying it into a timeless archetypal tale from arguably the best writer of all time, William Shakespeare.
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Taking inspiration from Shakespeare’s stories is something almost every writer, knowingly or unknowingly, has done. His stories deal with fundamental elements that are present in almost every narrative: hunger for power, betrayal, love, etc. What is brilliant about creator Jesse Armstrong’s show, is that it takes all of these and places it in an ambiance where conflict runs high in its natural state — a millionaire family in the modern media landscape. This family was also inspired by a real news congregate that could even be compared to an empire, owned by the Murdoch family.

Here is a bit more about Succession and how it is similar and takes some of the best elements of a Shakespearean tragedy, and combines them with the Murdoch family.

HBO

The series follows the millionaire Roy family. The family owns Waystar RoyCo, a global media and entertainment conglomerate worth millions of dollars, and, perhaps, one of the most interesting evil fictional corporations on TV. Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is the patriarch of the family. He is the founder and owner of Waystar RoyCo. He has four children: all with careers and degrees of success – mostly due to their last names. Everything starts to crumble when, on his 80th birthday, the patriarch is about to step down from the chief position – until he doesn’t.

Related: HBO Boss Says He Would Have Approved Two More Seasons of Succession

Succession is a political game inside and outside a family that plays with the idea of power and bloodline. Just because they are related doesn’t mean the players will be any less violent, and some may argue because of it: they will be even worse. One of the most successful and loved TV series since it aired the first season has had some influences from real life and even classic works of fiction. This only attests to the quality of the narrative, as one of the main stories people remember while watching the show is none other than the tragedy of King Lear.

King Lear and Succession

Amazon StudiosBBC

King Lear is one of the most celebrated plays by Shakespeare. It has inspired, as in his other works, hundreds of stories that came after. King Lear is about legacy, family dynamics, and the hunger for power. Needless to say, sounds very familiar when talking about Succession’s storylines and characters. And what the characters do in King Lear, would not be too far out from what they do in Succession.

The play starts when King Lear, the ruler of Britain, decides to retire and divide his realm among his sons-in-law. His daughters are supposed to flatter him: how they do it will determine how he will divide his kingdom. The two oldest daughters, Regan and Goneril, comply, and he gives them each a third of his kingdom. However, the third and youngest, Cordelia, is yet to marry. She refuses to play this fake affection game, leading the King to cast her out. Cordelia marries the King of France and travels without her father’s blessings.

Related: What Is Succession About and Based On?

However, these stories are never simple, and soon after, the daughters take away the King’s power and cast him out. From illegitimate sons to murder and suicide, to getting power at every cost – King Lear is a classic for a reason. The story also dives into the emotional core of a family, which is always entertaining to watch, regardless of when it is set.

Murdoch Family and Succession

BBC

Another influence doesn’t come from fiction but rather from real life. Remarking that the Murdochs are a powerful family is an understatement. The patriarch, Rupert Murdoch, is the founder of Fox News. Rupert Murdoch, currently 91 years old and the subject of a $1 billion lawsuit from Dominion, owns an impressive conglomerate of news channels and newspapers in his company News Corp, including The Sun, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Post, to name a few. He created a billionaire legacy for his six children from his four marriages – and now that he is getting older, the fight to be his heir is nothing short of an HBO series, which Succession takes in stride.

The idea of Rupert Murdoch stepping down has created an impressive internal fight among his children. It is clear the influence it had on the show creator Jesse Armstrong, as the Roy family is very similar, especially in the media conglomerate they run. The room for conflict and entertainment in this story is almost endless, and with the strong group of actors that Armstrong has: he created a gold mine. The Murdoch family went beyond influencing a work of fiction: it also has two investigative documentary series, one by BBC called The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty and one by CNN+ The Murdochs: Empire of Influence. So, if you are interested in knowing a bit more about the real family, and not the drama with the Roys, the documentaries are a great opportunity to do so.

After watching the series, it is quite clear how Succession combines King Lear and the Murdoch family. It is intriguing to see how much inspiration Armstrong took from fiction and the real world and how blended and balanced two things, separated by hundreds of years, and made it such a topical, brilliant, and compelling series.