#the recent news tho... i am trying not to perceive so i don't go insane..... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tomwambsmilk · 2 years

Note

brenna i'm sorry to tell you it was nicholas braun who said greg was 'on the side of morality in the show' and sparked all the recent discourse. https://theplaylist.net/succession-nicholas-braun-on-gregs-turn-to-the-dark-side-interview-20220617/

NAUR…….. this is why I don’t read actor interviews 😭😭😭😭😭😭

...... However. I have had an essay kicking around my drafts about the succ characters and how they approach morality for a while that interview + this discourse has reminded me it exists, so I'm gonna drop a little bit of it here. Because, while I do think "Greg is on the side of morality" is.... wrong, objectively speaking, it's very interesting to me that Nich Braun thinks that, and I wonder how much of this is "Nich Braun is kind of stupid" and how much of it is "he's speaking from the perspective of how Greg perceives himself". (If it is actually the second it is atrociously worded though... Please sir I am begging you to think before you speak.) But I'm going to assume more of the second just because if that's the case it reveals some really interesting things about how Greg understands morality and this is something I've been thinking about for a while.

TL:DR; Greg is NOT a moral centre and if Nich Braun actually genuinely thinks that he's insane. However, its very plausible to me that Greg thinks of himself as a moral centre, and if so the specific context Nich Braun is talking about here is incredibly revealing as to what Greg's moral decision-making framework looks like.

[Also re: the whole "Shiv can be a real bitch" thing... That line absolutely grates on my soul because it is a massive oversimplification. I do understand what he was trying to say having seen it in context though. Still an incredibly shitty word choice.]

Anyways. Before we dig into questions of "how moral are the characters" there's a much bigger looming question of "what is morality" and more specifically "what do the characters think it means to be a moral person" and "do they think morality is a useful decision-making framework". If I had to characterize Greg's approach to morality, I think I'd probably describe it as 'cosplaying morality'. I think he knows that he should be a good and moral person, in some sort of abstract sense, but he doesn't really know what that means, so he ends up with these broad-strokes statements like "I'm against racism" that are clearly pulled from very surface-level cultural discourse, and maybe whatever Ewan rants he's absorbed over the years. He also defines morality as things you shouldn't do, rather than things you should - don't be racist, don't lie if you're the news (which are much easier standards to fulfill than a moral standard that requires some sort of positive action). On the flipside, though, he struggles to apply any sort of objective moral standard to his actual day-to-day interactions with people. He doesn't really agonize over the moral quality of his decisions beyond the move to ATN. I do think he perceives himself as a moral actor, but in practice it's more hitting the talking points that he sees "good people" hitting.

I think he also has a really cartoonish image of what "bad people" are, which is part of why he jumps to the defence of Waystar in conversations with Ewan. Yeah a lot of that is very self-serving. But I think in his mind bad people are cartoonishly bad, and most of his day-to-day interactions with these people are.... not that, actually. When it's bad it's really bad, but there's also the fact that he spent about 8 months in Parks with Tom in Season 1 where nothing noteworthy enough to make it into an episode script happened, so I'd wager most of the day-to-day is probably... just a mundane corporate job to him. This might sound kind of crazy, but unfortunately I have actually seen this play out in real life with grown-ass adults, who get so stuck on "well x is a good/friendly/pleasant person most of the time, or to me personally, so no way they could be a bad person, and those bad things they did do were probably misunderstood, or maybe it was bad but they had good reasons, etc". That's a very convenient stance for Greg to take, but it's not beyond the bounds of reason in my mind that he actually believes it on some level.

And the specific context of this quote talking about Tom and Shiv tells us a few things. For one thing, he's defining being a moral actor in this specific situation as advocating for Tom and encouraging him to leave Shiv for the sake of his own personal well-being. Which is FASCINATING to me because (again assuming that he's speaking from a Greg headspace here) it indicates that for Greg being a moral actor is rooted a lot in the personal relationship. He's looking at everything that happened and going "well, whatever makes Tom happiest is probably morally good, and the right thing for me to do as his friend is to support that". Additionally, in his mind Tom's choice is justifiable because Shiv makes him miserable (and specifically because she makes him miserable by "being kind of a bitch" which... I do love Shiv and that's a massive oversimplification but its also not altogether inaccurate I guess). So there's also an element of comeuppance there in his worldview; a sense of "well, Shiv got what was coming to her". And finally, it indicates that for Greg loyalty isn't really a moral concept. There's no moral imperative in his mind for Tom to stay loyal to Shiv or to the Roy family as a whole, if doing so is detrimental to him personally.

So in the end it kind of circles back to the last two seasons of interviews where Nich's emphasized that Greg is doing what he does out of a sense of survival. I think there's an implication that he's turned survival into his moral framework. He's looking at everything going on with Tom and Shiv and saying "it's morally justifiable for Tom to do whatever he needs to in order to get into a better situation". Obviously, the massive problem with this worldview is that it's incredibly easy to abuse. And that's kind of what's happened with Greg - he went from being slimy in kind of a sympathetic way bc he was struggling to being slimy in a self-serving way incredibly quickly. And I think it also explains why his "principles" are almost cartoonishly broad - being "against racism" and "don't lie if you're the news" are unlikely to interfere with his ability to pursue what's best for him and the people he's close to. (I think part of the reason the move to ATN is so distressing for him is that it undermines his ability to say 'well I'm a good person because I don't do x' because now he is in fact involved in x'.)

It's also interesting that he doesn't extend this to Shiv - there's no sense of "well Shiv is entitled to do whatever she needs to in order to better her position". Maybe he doesn't perceive her actions as being to better her position, so it doesn't fall under that category. Or maybe for him a lot of it is rooted in that personal relationship he has with Tom - Tom is his friend and so Tom is the one he has a moral obligation towards, rather than Shiv. Or more likely - a combination of both, because its also very plausible to me that consciously or unconsciously Greg, who is so desperate for friendship and connection that he's spent almost a year putting up with Tom's abuse to get it, would make "I have some form of substantial connection to this person" a significant deciding factor in the extent of his moral obligation. Also a deeply problematic moral framework, because it obviously makes it morally acceptable to mistreat people you aren't close to. (Although at the same time I think most people do factor personal relationships into their moral decision-making in the sense that we feel that friends and family are owed more than strangers, but that's a separate topic.)

I have theories as to why Greg is like this, and the biggest one is that I think he was fairly neglected as a kid - maybe not physically, but Marianne doesn't seem like she was a super engaged parent, probably, and kids who are raised with excessively hands-off parents often don't have great moral frameworks, because a big part of learning to be a moral person is your parents implementing and enforcing rules and consequences that teach you how to be a moral person in your day-to-day actions, as well as explaining why certain things are right and wrong. I expect that's not something that Greg really had growing up, hence the broad cartoonish notions of morality he'd ended up with.

#sorry to answer this with essay you absolutely didn't ask for ming....#I'm too obsessed with my own thoughts and opinions for my own good #I realize I might be giving nich braun too much benefit of the doubt here too #in assuming he intended this as being more from greg's perspective as opposed to an objective statement #but the concept of someone thinking greg is 'on the side of morality' is SO insane to me that I'm like.... he can't just straight-up #believe that. right?#but maybe he is just stupid or insane. idk #anyways I also have thoughts on the other five main characters and morality but that's for another post I think. I have some restraint #a bare minimum of restraint

14 notes · View notes

bluewinnerangel · 3 years

Note

Oh god I feel like I need a masterpost or rant or sth re the shit with taylor why was it so shitt why was everyone so dramatic am I missing something

OH GOD I MADE A HAYLOR MASTERPOST

Oh god.... Okay this got WAY outta hand I just couldn't stop digging.

I'm assuming because you're in my inbox you came from the post about how Ever Since New York might be about Haylor in the context of it absolutely breaking Harry into pieces by linking to a bunch of songs including some of Taylor's. That kinda stands on its own tho as it's purely based on how their (Harry/Louis/Taylor) lyrics fit together. I expressed my thoughts on Haylor there a bit but these are not the thoughts of someone who lived through that stunt tho, and are mostly based on how I interpret their lyrics. But lucky for you I love digging so I unhinged once again:

HERE IS A VERY LONG COLLECTION OF LINKS FROM ALL OVER THE PLACE RELATING TO HAYLOR

I was part of the blissful general public in 2012 so I didn't pay much attention as it went on, so for real good rants about this let's listen to the people that did and saw it all go down on a day to day basis. Inchrestingly there were some haylor talks the past few days, so have some really fresh 2021 larriewarflashbacks to dec 2012:

this anon rant in @twopoppies inbox

>>this rant<< by @lornasaurusrex ,tag and all the links in that post

this about their recent interaction at the grammys

And from some digging:

TIMELINE MASTERPOSTS

GP - Haylor from the public's point of view or basically just a collection of pics of them together in choronogical order by someone who isn't questioning if it was real, showing very perfectly how they are perceived by the public and actually how succesfull this stunt was, while all they did was hang out and be seen, smile for cameras. This isn't really helping to get clarity on the subject but I always like to view things from other angles, and I think this post shows the stunt from a GP's point of view. Also there's a link at the end to a video of Harry just trying to PR stunt with Taylor's father instead of her it's hilarious.

Haylor was a stunt - MASSIVE debunk (this is really really long and I didn't read it so sorry if it's not great lol)

SWIFTGRON - debunk timeline from someone who believes Taylor was actually dating Dianna at the time

1D - daily timeline of what 1D was doing at the time of the stunt, basically highlighting how ridiculously busy they were, if you look at this and don't think they were under an insane amount of pressure (even without any closeting/stunting on top of it) I don't know what to tell you. It also puts a lof of things in perspective (also note how Harry&Louis are both sick around the same times, hmm)

LARRY - some cute nov 2012 still happy at this point moments - a collection of miserable faces in december, also that debunk and the 1D timeline serve as one.

Back to rants:

this tag rant:

tag rant about "horrible fking told you" Taylor shading Harry during an award show

tag rant about Louis having to comment on Haylor, actually im just gonna paste that one in a pic here too because it's too important

And now to go on a rant myself (still some links in there), I think that's a good time for a cut:

Since that NY kiss resurfaced from a "better angle" somewhat recently (here that is, which is... hard to watch.) let's just go there too. Looking into how a face is looking miserable or body language can all easily be misinterpreted, but I mean cmon, if that kiss doesnt trigger any fight or flight responses in you you're really not paying attention. Seriously Harry looks like he's fking praying (ever since new york, thinking almost over, had enough from you) just a shell of a person. (a post about this too)

Harry never (AFAIK) talked shit about her or crushed anyone's fantasies in any deliberate matter that he might not want much to do with her, that his songs might not be about her, or at least not in the way people would like to think, and Harry has done nothing but praise her (songwriting) whenever she was brought up (harry talking about her for 7 mins straight, he's good at these things but pay attention to what he doesn't say, how he's doing the bare minimum, how when asked about her he focuses on her songwriting instead, maybe because he doesn't have much positive to say about her as a person perhaps?), but back in the early days Louis being a subtle petty lil shit slipped through quite a lot, he was salty about it, (still sneaking in a shady comment as far as in 2015 and harry's reaction is pure gold too). Then from Taylor's side of things, I haven't paid enough attention to her, but judging from these rants she sure went places that weren't very nice a couple of times.

I think with all the songs we have now, and maybe you're not as much into trying to interpret their songs with lyrical deep dives as much as I am and think there isn't much to gain there, I think there is, and I think it all fits with this stunt happening back in 2012 absolutely destroying harry(&louis) and pushing them further into narnia, continuing to curse him for the longest time, and with that I'd say all the sad faces and little things that did slip through the cracks of the show they were all putting on back then that were picked up on by the ranters linked above, that these were indeed showing their true feelings. That they were crushed. They were miserable. They didn't want any of it. Then again from Taylor's side of things, there's a severe presense of some kind of he don't try at all tho-vendetta going on in Taylor's music, like she just can't stop just poking that ghost, just littering her 1989 album with things that can be linked to Harry, which I think more often than not are just stunt lines, just cover ups for whatever she was really dealing with, and still going at it in her latest albums, although less "look at us playing this game" and more "yeah ok that was really shit that stunt".

I'm really not sure if that answered anything. I mean if the part of "am I missing something here" was that you're missing why they were miserable, why people are pressed about this, and I need to go a little more meta and start linking why oh why why this stunt could possibly make them miserable, why closeting is horrible, maybe for that just plomp down this quote from Lance Bass who was closeted while in a boyband:

“Bottom line is what the record labels look at. They just wanna make money. And if this artist isn’t going to pull in this many fans because they are gay, they are not gonna support him this much. And I see that with so many people. It was very torturous because I didn’t want people to find out who I truly was. I thought especially in the 90s that if anyone knew I was gay that my life would be over. People would hate me, N’Sync would be over. It was a lot of pressure. You become very lonely.” - Lance Bass

as well as having to deal with how you're portrayed in the media and it not reflecting who you really are (while you're really young too) while being put under pressure not just just being busy doing promo, being away from home, but while that's all going on to be constantly on your toes not to slip up and hide not just who you really are yourself but also your relationship and seeing the one you love having to do the same added on top of it, and then getting whole new fresh layer of shit added to it when after months of that including the buildup media speculation of "haylor" actually having to go out to be seen with someone that's not the person you want to be spending your time with, even having to kiss them, while having to be physically away from the person you want to be with and they are out there doing the same, all while most likely being told and perhaps even believing that this is best for everyone, so you do it, but maybe just maybe that would make you just a tad bit unhappy.

/masterrant out

#holy shit #masterpost #wtf did i just do #haylor #haylor EVERYTHING.

179 notes · View notes