#but I also think one of the questions succ explores in tom as a character (and others) is how difficult it can be to leave these situations

[tomwambsmilk]

It's 100% true that the Roy siblings did not choose to be Logan's children and Tom and Greg and the old guard did choose to work for him so their relationships to Logan are fundamentally different, and the degree of culpability they bear for their own moral degradation is also wildly different. But workplace emotional abuse is also very real and omnipresent in the way Logan treats the people who work for him. And one of the impacts of workplace emotional abuse is creating an extreme attachment to the abuser and becoming less cognizant and even defensive of their abuse towards yourself and others, and in cases where the emotional abuse is institutionalized and systemic it can also create a strong aversion to leaving because your whole sense of personal identity becomes wrapped up in the organization and so being forced to leave can cause an intense psychological crisis. I don't think the situation of working for Logan is at all equivalent to being his child but I also think that it's a bit misguided to imply that Tom and Gerri and Frank and Karl are operating from a place of pure rationality without any undue psychological influences when they make the choice to stay with and support Logan

#used to work at a place that had an extremely emotionally abusive president for years and years and the people who worked there long term #were FUCKED UP. it was wild #i think it's easy to overlook that on succ bc it's very secondary to whats going on with the roy family proper. as it should be #but I also think one of the questions succ explores in tom as a character (and others) is how difficult it can be to leave these situations #even if you did choose to get into them #I don't think 'tom can leave at any time' is really a fair assessment bc technically yes. but practically? psychologically? #like yes he bears responsibility for getting himself into this situation due to his own greed and selfishness in a way the roy kids do not #but that doesn't mean it's easy or straightforward to walk away #also. tom is married to shiv which places him in the unique position where the only way to walk away is to cut off both his wife #and the company he's spent his whole life at #he could have NOT married shiv this is very true. and I think the choice to marry her even after she lied to him about sleeping with nate #means that he did have some idea of what he was getting into. he knew this was not going to be the fairytale marriage he wanted #he already knew about cruises too. he knew waystar was corrupt #that moment was the opportunity to walk away and he did NOT take it #and that is on him #but that does not making walking away now any easier