GOD vampirism is SOOOOOOOOOOo!!!!!!!! I know we as humanity have talked about it to the ends of the earth but god it's such a compelling thing isnt it. the metaphors you can pack into the concept are like. innumerable. the monstrosity the grotesque the beautiful the tender the life the death the love the connection the spirit the power the tragedy the curse the blessing of it all. there are a million different facets to it and no two stories are ever going to be the same even though it's all the same basic tropes like. the religious side of it the sexual connotations the familial nature of turning the method of taking a life and giving a new one the grief of transformation and the incredible freedom of it. the loss of humanity the exploration of a new community the GRIEF. the grief. the love. the need. the grief. do you know what I mean!!!!!!!
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I love all your succession thoughts in your tags haha. Connor self-correcting about Logan not even liking him because it upset Kendall and Shiv 😭 him comforting all three even though he got left out, again (but didn’t complain). so Big Brother, and I especially love how different Kendall is as the eldest to Roman and Shiv versus as Connor’s little brother. so good and so sad ):
Ahah, thank you, anon! And yes! God, I could talk about Big Brother Connor all day because I love everything about him, not just in terms of his character, but what he means for the story. The show would be worse off without him, not just because Connor's an interesting character and Alan Ruck's wonderful in the role, but because Connor plays as such a neat, narrative shorthand to immediately undermine Kendall's entitlement when it comes to being the clear heir, and the trickle down effect that has on all the dynamics in the show is just so good. It'd be a really, really different show without him.
More to your point though, I really do love Connor's dynamics with all three of his siblings, and I know everyone particularly loves Connor's dynamic with Roman at the moment (which, gosh, I do too!) but I do think I find Connor and Kendall's a more interesting one overall.
All the dynamics are different, but Connor's and Kendall's just marks such a shift in terms of both their places within the family unit. Roman's always the youngest son, Shiv's always the youngest and only daughter, but Connor and Kendall both feel as though they are the eldest son and something else too. There's a version of Connor that's an only child - he has a different mother, he's so much older, he's an outsider more than he is an insider with his little half siblings, and there's a version of Kendall that's a middle child, a little brother; even once, for a few years before Roman and Shiv were born, a youngest son.
In so many ways, Kendall's birth is symbolic for Connor in a way that Roman and Shiv's aren't. It was the end of a period in his life (fifteen years, as Alan Ruck has said), where he was an only child, and the beginning of him having a family beyond his parents. An imperfect one, sure, and I imagine all three of the Golden Trio were absolute nightmares as kids, haha, but I think Connor loves them deeply and in some ways I think they probably saved him. From what the show's peppered in, I can't even fathom what his life would've been like if it had just been him, Logan and his mother, and honestly, it's hard to imagine what Kendall, Roman and Shiv's lives would've been like without Connor too. From childhood camping trips to him being there to walk Shiv down the aisle before Logan decided to show up, Connor's role in their lives is irreplacable and, yeah, taken for granted.
But of course, there is this strain there when it comes to Kendall being so regarded as heir apparent for so long, and I do think it complicates Connor's relationship with Kendall a bit. I think it's easier with Roman - they're the cast offs together, y'know? - and with Shiv too - her gender disadvantages her even more than Connor's mother disadvantages him - but I also don't necessarily think it complicates it as much as either of them think it should. After all, Kendall's not a clear cut golden child, he's not a perfect image of or for their father, and for every time he's an overconfident, brown-nosing, entitled little prince, he's also an anxious stammering, insecure, submissive little boy with addiction issues, and while Connor can chafe and roll his eyes at the former, he seems to be pretty soft and protective when it comes to the latter.
And I think on the flipside, Connor's presence as the eldest son does feel undermining to Kendall. He really clearly tries to position himself as the oldest and the heir, not just in the business, but in the family, and the fact that it's not technically true I think is this kind of awesome character note that underscores all the ways Kendall performs as something he's not. He's not a killer, he's not the eldest, he's not the heir, he's nobody and he's nothing, and it eats him up, and kind of interestingly, I think Connor's the only person Kendall doesn't seem to perform for. He performs for Roman and Shiv all the time, but when it's just him and Connor, they tend to just be Kendall and Connor, warts and all, and I think that's indicative of a safety a little sibling often only finds in an older sibling, especially one who gives as much as Connor gives to them.
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