#atn-speaks

[syl-stormblessed]

guys if we're all feeling this insane about a 32 page short story that expanded a 30 second scene from Nona the Ninth. how are any of us gonna survive when the entire full length book Alecto the Ninth comes out. there is still an entire locked tomb book that we haven't read yet. what are we gonna do.

[arithmonym]

GIDEON DIED??!?? AGAIN????!!!!?????

[wifegideonnav]

anastasia content in alecto please please please you’re nothing

[fortjester]

i like the idea of Alecto speaking Like That in the NtN epilogue bc that's. that's just how she speaks. I like the idea that whatever conversation they had going in the John chapters was filtered thru Harrow into a language we as modern readers could understand, and the way that Alecto and John actually spoke to each other was like. just feeling each other's feelings via soul sharing and parsing out meaning from that - apart from John like naming the schools he went to and contellations and all that. I like the idea of John teaching Alecto how to speak with her mouth and use human languages by reading Shakespeare plays n stuff to her, and that's why he knows so many quotes just off the top of his head. Alecto speaks like the Bard's Cleopatra and Beatrice and Lady Macbeth, Elizabethan English style iambic pentameter, the odd rhyming couplet, and so on. the idea of it. i dunno. just delights me, i guess.

[boyfeminism]

i watched a very good video about like recapping gtn and htn before ntn (which tbh i should have watched before reading ntn bc boy did i forget a lot) and somehow i have more questions but tbh mostly i got answers

[ask-the-nova-scotians]

// Haven't drawn these three in a very long time, but then again, I haven't drawn much for this blog in a long time either. Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦🍁

[leviathanspain]

you NEED to write more for Tom 😭😭😭 like I’ve been thinking so much about age-gap f!assistant tropes with Tom it’s actually insane, like Tom asking you nonchalantly to ride his thigh (or him) in his office 🌸🌸

skin tight

tom wambsgans x assistant!reader

synopsis: tom knows how to push your buttons perfectly, and you let him

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

tom wambsgans was a total asshole. he was arrogant, thought himself to be the hottest piece of ass to ever come out of ATN and you were stuck working for him, bringing him coffee just to never drink it, or to make you run all around the city looking for a bagel that didn't exist. it was an endless cycle, but you found him to be the most tolerable associate of the roy family, and decided that between him and kendall, being tom's assistant wasn't all that bad.

if you ignore the obvious sexual tension of course.

"here is that-" you didn't get to finish your sentence before tom waved you away. you sighed, rolling your eyes as you spun on your heel and stepped out of his office, tossing the scalding cup of coffee into the nearest bin before settling back down at your desk. that had been the third time today that tom had made you get things for him, just for him to send you and it away. normally you wouldn't let this behavior phase you, but it was starting to get to be too much.

there had been a break in your thoughts and you turned to glimpse into tom's office, and found him already looking at you. you gasped slightly in surprise and stood up, knowing that this had been no coincidence.

you kept your head bowed as you stepped inside the office. you could feel his eyes on you, feeling the irritation coming from his gaze. you swallowed thickly, "tom?" was all you could manage, unsure of what to say, especially to him.

"close the blinds," he spoke quietly, not whispered but a quiet, and serious tone. you did as he said, moving to first close the one directly facing your desk. you watched as the life of the ATN office was shut away by the white blinds. your hands shook slightly but you finished the rest. you turned around, silently waiting for him to speak.

he finally did speak, after a minute of unbearable silence.

"now come fuck yourself on my thigh." his words had left you speechless, but you weren't exactly opposed to not doing as he said. you stared at him for a moment and he shrugged, "clearly you've been angry with me. i am giving you an opportunity to release that anger." he spoke cooly, glancing over at his computer, as if this was like any other work conversation.

you waited, thinking.

"okay." you decided, and watched as tom looked up in mild surprise, as if he hadn't expected you to agree. how could you not? not when he's been subtly hitting on you since your employment. tom wambsgans was an asshole, and cheating on his wife had been nothing new at this point. nearly everyone in waystar royco had heard of shiv and tom's marital problems.

tom watched as you walked over to his desk. you were wearing a tight black pencil skirt, so tight that he could see your hip indentations. you leaned against his desk, his thigh next to you. "i need you to pull my skirt up. It's-" you didn't finish, his fingertips grazed your skin as he shucked your skirt up, seeing your lacy underwear peeking out. he looked at you and you remained unmoving, letting him proceed to remove your panties, gently pulling them and letting them slide down your legs.

he patted you to step out of them. you inhaled a breath as his finger ran once over your slick folds. your breath shook slightly but your thoughts were clouded by lust. all you could think about was how good your cunt will feel against his thigh.

tom didn't remove his pants. he was going to let you fuck yourself on his hundred dollar suit pants.

you hovered over him, and his hand found it's way to graze your cheek, brushing your hair back as you finally sat down on his leg, feeling the friction of the fabric against your cunt. you shivered, and tom's hand moved to your waist, gripping it.

you inhaled sharply as your hips began to move.

"i was doing it on purpose." he spoke, eyes glued to the sight of your pussy grinding down on his thigh. tom smirked, "watching you listen to my demands like it was the word of god.." he trailed off and you grunted, "shut up." you whispered weakly, too focused on the pleasure to defend yourself properly.

you knew tom saw you as nothing but his young female assistant, nothing other than someone to fuck. what you were currently doing did not help your image. in his eyes, you were weak, a plaything, a punching bag.

you moaned, unable to hold yourself up, you grabbed onto his shoulder to steady yourself. tom grunted softly, "mmhm, let me hear you baby." he whispered, hand brushing through your hair. it was slightly romantic, and it made you feel uneasy. romance was something that had to be avoided at all costs with tom wambsgans.

you panted, and gripped his shoulder tightly as you felt yourself getting close. he chuckled deeply. "you're so wet, you're seeping through." he loved it, he loved how good his thigh was making you feel. he could only imagine how you would look stuffed with his cock.

you shivered, moaning loudly as you came all over his thigh. tom gripped your waist, and he was smirking, watching as you fell against him. he was warm, the fabric of his suit felt nice against your cheek. even his hand had been rubbing your back.

you jolted up, and awkwardly leaned off. you stood up, deciding to struggle to get your skirt down as he looked at the mess you had made on his thigh. you were blushing red, hot and absolutely bothered. you stared at him, and at your crumpled panties that you had forgotten to slip back on. he followed your gaze and picked them up.

tom stuffed them into his pocket, and scooted back behind his desk. he began to work as if nothing happened and you remained planted, quiet and exhausted.

tom didn't glance at you, "you can go. and don't ever roll your eyes at me again." you began to walk away, "yes, sir."

asshole, you thought silently, letting his office door slam behind you as you walked past your desk, deciding to take the rest of the day off.

[gideonisms]

also in our no atn news wasteland I have seen many posts like "reminder this is a tragedy you can't cancel the author if your ship doesn't go canon" and others like "I'm going to die if the ship doesn't go canon" and still others like "I think it's all leading up to their demise" okay but my attitude is this. First of all if they die together it's canon and I'm counting that as their marriage. secondly come ON you think they won't kiss?? everyone else has! and I mean everyone. She made jarpedon canon. Thirdly come ON you think Gideon is never going to speak to harrow again??? Ortus who died in chapter 2 of book 1 spoke to harrow again. Fourthly COME ON you think they're not running away together????? lesbians are fucking constantly running away together in her stories have you read the rest of them she believes in love. and bloodspray. My point is not that I think we're going to get an unambiguously happy ending my point is if you add a million events per book (constant temptation for tazmuir) statistically nearly everything that could happen is likely to happen meaning that among other things gideon and harrow's mouths Will be meeting and you can quote me on that when atn comes out

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - Review

firstly, i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has taken an interest in and encouraged me in doing these liveblogs! this has been such a fun project to work on, and reading these books for the past nine months or so has been a bright spot in what has otherwise been a relatively tough period of my life. i’ve really enjoyed getting to theorise about all of the lore of these books and make horribly ill-advised emotional attachments to inevitably doomed characters

more fun statistics that no one asked for: this liveblog was the longest, at about 20,000 (!!) words. my GtN liveblog was 12000 words for comparison. i have no excuse other than i like to talk

NtN definitely was an interesting diversion from the other two books so far. it wasn’t exactly a breather, since it was still incredibly heartbreaking and horrifying, but it was fun to see a part of the worldbuilding very different from what we’ve seen before. as much as I missed both Harrow and Gideon, i liked that it gave other characters time to shine outside of interacting with them. it was fun to see more of Palamedes, Camilla, and Pyrrha, and how those characters act in a vastly different environment to the Nine Houses

although NtN was essentially telling two different narratives, John chapters vs Nona’s, it still didn’t feel particularly disjointed - i think it was thematically held together by being a bit more grounded than the other books so far, sci-fi and fantasy elements notwithstanding (contemporary issues like climate change and nuclear war, & John’s world being a setting far closer to our own vs Nona’s domestic life & very real problems of living in a warzone)

i also loved getting John’s perspective in the chapters narrated by Harrow, his point of view and recollections were equal parts funny, terrifying, and fascinating. he’s certainly got a … unique perspective on the world. it was just a slow horrifying journey trying to figure out how the world ended, knowing that it was doomed but not exactly how it happened

Muir really has a talent for endearing you to a protagonist, and Nona was no exception, I absolutely loved her, and just, her whole story and how tragic it was physically hurt me. i also wasn’t expecting to get as attached as i was to Hot Sauce and the school gang - i hope we get just even just a mention of what happens to them in AtN

tldr: 11/10. reading this series is like the emotional equivalent of voluntarily getting stabbed in the heart repeatedly. i have absolutely no clue what I’m going to do with my life now that this is over for the meantime, other than go crazy in a locked room with a red string conspiracy board trying to figure out whats going to happen in Alecto the Ninth

speaking of, obviously its not a pressing issue since to my knowledge there isn’t even a release date yet, but i’m not sure if i’ll do a liveblog for Alecto when it comes out? on one hand the most fun bit about liveblogging has been the reaction from everyone who’s already read the books and we’ll all be in the same boat of not knowing what’s going on when Alecto comes out, so i don’t know how much of a point there is? on the other i would very much enjoy doing it anyway, and i’m a perfectionist so it would be nice to have completed all of the books like that. so i guess it depends on how impatient i am to read the whole book when it comes out lol

[toxic-mothers-tourney]

PSA: with this is mind, I'm replacing Medusa'a guaranteed slot with Beatrice Horseman's. Medusa is not necessarily disqualified, but I included her before I thought very hard about the specifics of this tournament and I think Beatrice embodies the archetype better than Medusa (and most of these evil scientists) do

getting a LOT of submissions for evil scientist moms who experiment on their kids. I wonder at the widespread connection in media between presenting a woman as cold/cruel/unmotherly/inherently evil and their non-traditionally feminine careers

[darkestspring]

What would happen when Aegon III gets tired of seeing his cousin flirt with noble boys? When he decides to try to win her heart? When did he decide to make a formal proposal? Yes Senya accepts but Aegon II does not accept it, I imagine them capable of having a Valyrian wedding like Daemon and Rhaenyra.

Something's wrong, Senya observes as she watches her cousin out of the corner of her eye while chatting with one of the lannister boys that approached her.

He's been tightly gripping his glass for the last few minutes, something is definitely wrong. She notes.

"My princess, what are your thoughts?" Tyrell Lannister speaks moderately as he gazes at her and Senya giggles behind her hand.

"Oh my, I'm afraid, you'll have to hear my opinions another time. It seems my poor cousin is searching for me." Senya leaves as quickly as she appeared living up to her nickname of the Realms' Flower.

"Cousin." Senya peers up atn her cousin with glinting purple eyes as she tilts her head to the side. "Hm, I want to see that garden. Come with me?"

Aegon wastes no time as he holds out his hand to her and guides her to the garden. He watches her for a few moments as a smile lights up her face. Ah, that lovely smile. He'd kill for that smile.

"You seemed upset to see me talking to Lord Tyrell, do you have a rivalry with him?" Senya seemed half teasing and half curious.

Him? Have a rivalry with Tyrell Lannister? His father's voice rung in his ears.

You're a dragon, there's no one living amongst the nobles that could ever be better than you.

That's right, he has no reason to be jealous. He's better than that damned Lannister.

"I'm a prince, he's a lord. what is there to be jealous of?"

"I never said you were jealous." Senya raises an eyebrow at him.

"Senya, I'm in love with you. You must know that, you must have known for years, don't toy with me." His voice gets low but he stares at her.

Senya hums at his words. "I do know. Really, boys are so stupid. Isn't it obvious that I love you too." She huffed out. "But papa will never let you marry me."

"So," Senya got up, eyes gleaming mischievously. "Run away to dragonstone with me."

[syl-stormblessed]

spell that manifests Alecto the Ninth news. like to charge reblog to cast

[zeondraws]

Caz didn’t have time to think, he was covered in oil and had to get help, however he realises he wasn’t in his own body. Running to the bathroom he notices it’s Roper’s. He quickly makes his way up to Marine Control in utter panic.

"Argh...Where? There.."

He walks to his chair but falls down due to his vision distorting

"Shut up, please.. I'm checking"

Struggling to get up his chair he drags himself up, grabbing a cigarette

"....what, I... "

The readings on the panels are going crazy in front of him. He quickly realises how bad the situation is, trying to look around but his vision is extremely blurry. His stomach is starting to feel weird

"arghhh.. this is not good.. rrhhhhhggg. I'm gonna boke..."

Rennick bursts the door of the Control Room open, walking up to Roper. He's extremely confused what is up with the old man, he yells at him for answers.

"Do something you Ejit! Are ya ears no workin? I'M SPEAKIN TO YOU"

"SHUT IT, I CANNAE SEE ANYTHING"

Roper, being extremely irritated by Rennick, tries to snap back. But it gets harder with each breath he takes.

"Can. ye not... see the problem..? This. Thing-"

They argue back and forth, things get heated quickly. Rennick's ignorance doesn't stop, even after seeing his crew mutate on the deck.

"You gobshite shut it, do something before I kick ya USELSS ARSE into the ocean. Stap WHININ and concentrate!"

"YOU SHT IT....FF Ya LSI.TN TO MeE. WE..WLNT..BE..N TIS.. STU..ATN.."

It feels like his lungs are filling with blood, Roper can barely manage to speak at this point, his body starts to feel like he's on fire.

"What are ye on bout? Roper...? HEY, LOOK AT ME!"

The Installation Manager doesn't seem to notice what is happening, he walks closer to Roper who starts to cough up blood, grunting in agony.

"...Ro- Roper.. What is. Ey, look at me. What's goin on with yaa???"

He screams out in pain, grabbing his chest frantically, as if he's trying to remove something but is unable to. Roper can barely see Rennick at this point, who is starting to slowly back off but not leaving the room. It took a few seconds until Roper's torso explodes, the mass spreading around him, faces and arms start to form on his body.

He notices that Rennick was covered in blood. But he had so much adrenalin rushing through his body, that he couldn't utter a word at that moment. All he could hear was Rennick's voice taunting him inside his head.

Rennick tried to get the blood off his face, but decides to leave the room and heads over to the bathroom. Before heading over to his office again.

Moments later Caz‘s vision becomes blurry, before turning into black. Next time he opens his eyes, he finds himself surrounded by tall grass.

[a-big-apple]

Gideon, Harrow, and "Wedding Vows"

i frequently see the interpretation that this:

"The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee," said Gideon. (GtN 438)

plus this:

"If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten," her mouth was saying. "Add more also, if aught but death part me and thee." And, unsteadily: "Griddle." (HtN 360)

plus this:

It didn't even matter when Kiriona said, "Sure, Cam. Marry a moron, then die. I get the urge." (NtN 372)

equals Gideon and Harrow are married! crying face emoji!

i'm not disparaging that interpretation, i think it's valid and has some basis in the text, and even if it wasn't/didn't, i think fans should have all the fun they want. but for me, it doesn't fully capture the complexity of what Gideon and Harrow are to each other, and i want to explore a slightly less straightforward reading.

Catholic weddings, vows, and Ruth under the cut ;)

Gideon and Ninth House traditions

let's start with Gideon quoting Ruth. i've seen folks repeating the idea that this is a wedding vow. it's more accurate to say that this is a verse often used as a wedding vow, in other denominations of Christianity, and secularly as well. but in a (traditional) Catholic wedding, the couple can't write or choose their own vows--the Celebration of Matrimony has specific text, with one or two variations, that is always used.

now, we haven't seen a Ninth House marriage ceremony. if we do see such a thing in AtN and discover that Ruth 1:17 is part of that tradition, i will cry a million happy queer tears about it. but i think it's somewhat likely that Gideon has never even seen a Ninth House wedding, given how small and trending elderly the population is, and that we know no couples in her lifetime have had kids other than the Reverend Parents.

what i'm getting at here is that this quotation from Ruth doesn't seem, to me, to represent something that's religiously or traditionally binding in Ninth House culture. it uses some similar language to Catholic marriage vows, "until death do us part" etc, but i don't think these are words that make them married in the eyes of the Ninth or the Houses at large, i think these are words Gideon has chosen as a specific expression of her devotion. and where does she get them from, if not some Ninth House ceremony or scripture?

well, this is a slightly longer stretch, but at the point in the story when Gideon says this, she's already dead. Harrow has begun to absorb her--and thanks to "The Unwanted Guest," we know that souls are porous, permeable, and rub off on each other when they're in contact. Gideon's soul is at this moment being integrated into Harrow's; Harrow has certainly read all kinds of books on the Ninth ranging from usual to totally heretical, some of them probably extremely old, and it's not unreasonable to think writings from before the Resurrection might have been copied and recopied into something Harrow could access. And speaking of soul permeability, Harrow's had Alecto's soul clinging onto hers for seven years, and Alecto's soul is in intimate contact with John's soul--there are so many ways for this bit of scripture to make its way into Gideon's non-corporeal mouth. the STI (Soulfully Transmitted Infection) of biblical knowledge.

Ruth in context

now let's talk a little about Ruth, the book of the Bible and also the character of the Bible, and Naomi, who she is swearing her devotion to. tl;dr, Naomi and her husband and two grown sons are Israelites who immigrate to Moab, a "pagan" nation, to escape famine. Naomi's two sons marry Moabite women; then the sons both die, as does Naomi's husband. Naomi, having lost everything, decides to return home where she'll be penniless and have a bad life but at least she'll be among her people; she tells her two daughters-in-law to go back to their families. One of them goes.

The other, Ruth, refuses, and swears beautiful devotion to Naomi, as we've heard Gideon quote: "She answered: Be not against me, to desire that I should leave thee and depart: for whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go: and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee."

in a biblical context, this has nothing to do with a wedding vow. Ruth is promising to leave the comfort of her own people, religion, and homeland to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi, even though the connection they had (Naomi's son, Ruth's husband) is gone, and all they have to look forward to is a terrible life of grief and bitterness. this is frequently interpreted as a parallel to Jesus, who (in the religious perspective) made the sacrifice of leaving his place with God and becoming human out of devotion to humanity, in order to live and suffer and redeem us. woof, this is giving me flashbacks to CCD.

of course, many Christians resist interpreting what passes between Ruth and Naomi as resembling a wedding vow for homophobic reasons too--making it about Jesus is a way to make it less queer--but i think the point still stands that this is a more complicated, and less marriage-related, expression of love than it seems taken on its own.

Harrow's lamentation

when Harrow later echoes it back, she conflates it with a different biblical quotation: "On the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments. For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion. How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee: If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy."

it's a lament, an expression of mourning, a longing for home from someone who has been forcibly removed from it. when combined with the Ruth quotation, in which Ruth is giving up her home in her devotion, this really reads to me as both Harrow's grief, immediate and overpowering, and a realization that Gideon is her home, and failing to acknowledge that is as disabling as the loss of a hand or of the power of speech. Gideon is the beginning of her joy, and Harrow is, in this moment, putting Gideon above the Ninth House in her devotion. above Alecto. above everything.

and again, i'm not saying all of that can't be about marriage, but it's about a relationship much more complicated than marriage can encompass in the context House cultural norms.

Kiriona Gaia, saddest girl

this brings me to Kiriona, and "marry a moron, then die." consider the context of this, and the tone. Kiriona's deeply, deeply hurt. the saddest girl in the universe. she died for Harrow, avowed her devotion to Harrow, and then (from her perspective) was rejected; buried; excised from Harrow's brain and then from her body. Kiriona, as she did when she was Gideon, covers her emotions with humor and sarcasm. i suspect she's even less able to handle being vulnerable as Kiriona than she ever was before. she's making light of Canaan House and what happened there, and it's only in sarcastically downplaying what she's been through that she recounts her relationship to Harrow as a marriage--something she has almost no positive examples of, something that is in her experience frequently political and joyless. also notably, she frames it as a marriage that occurred before she died.

Their actual vow

what Gideon (and Kiriona) really wants--she tells us over and over again--is to be a true cavalier.

and what does Gideon's ghost repeat right before she devastates us with Ruth 1:17?

"One flesh, one end," said Gideon, and it was a murmur now, on the very edge of hearing. Harrow said, "Don't leave me." (GtN 438)

it's taken me a dozen paragraphs just to propose that this is their vow. "One flesh, one end" are the actual words that need to be spoken, in Gideon and Harrow's cultural context, to bring them into an official union with each other; a union that is arguably more fundamental in the Houses, and certainly more complicated, than a marriage. a union Gideon specifically wants, and has seen in action.

in the pool, they vow to each other as cavalier and necromancer. in the moments before Gideon's death, she forgives Harrow again, and exposes her heart: "'You know I only care about you,' she said in a brokenhearted rush" (GtN 430). then she repeats their oath again, acknowledges the pain she's about to cause for Harrow, and rededicates herself to the Ninth--a place she never really belonged, Harrow's home and people more than her own, as Ruth dedicated herself to Naomi's home and people. Gideon "married" her moron in the pool, and now she dies to fulfill that vow.

and as we saw above, after Gideon's death, she reminds Harrow again of their union--of its importance, of how she's fulfilling what she has interpreted to be her whole purpose as a cavalier--and it's in response to Harrow's "don't leave me" that Gideon offers a final reassurance of her devotion. in her mind, this sacrifice is its ultimate expression, the most inextricable and undeniable union two people can achieve.

Gideon believes she'll be part of Harrow forever.

[transmutationisms]

caden caden caden i am SO EXCITED to hear your thoughts for this episode. consider this ask an open prompt to say literally anything at all about it whatsoever <3

ok here goes. this was the payoff of an idea the show has been exploring for nearly four seasons now: that spectacle and showmanship can become reality, or more to the point, there is no essential difference between the two in the first place. politics is a particularly effective, and off-putting, demonstration of this process: the whole episode is driven by the tension between the created narrative and the material events, and through waystar's machinations, the dichotomy between the two can finally be totally collapsed and the country brought into line with atn's story of a mencken victory.

this is genuine, if genuinely repulsive, performative speech: a discursive practice that enacts or produces what it names. very few people are empowered such that they are capable of performative speech: presidents, lawmakers, judges, &c are the classic examples. and, in a world in which politics is not just a show but a profitable one, a company like atn can also join this list. this is not the first time we've seen atn use language to alter reality (for example, logan ultimately evaded the cruises scandal largely by pressuring the president through the manufacture of bad press) but it's a new height of brazenness for the siblings. what the show suggests is that the electoral process—the voting, the polls, the campaigning—is theatre, and what appears at first to be theatre—the television cameras, the graphics, the anchors touching up their makeup—is the speech that actually makes events happen, functioning of course as a mouthpiece for possibly the most powerful family in america.

succession has always been interested in the power of speech and the significance of language—"words are just complicated airflow" is from the second episode. the way characters talk is frequently bullshit, like tom and greg making up corporate-speak jargon in 'argestes' or kendall promising eternal life in 'living+'. they use profanity and metaphor to talk around their feelings, or as games in which the object is to assert dominance and the specific argument at hand barely matters. so much of the dialogue is 'meaningless' on the lowest level. yet, bolstered by a family dynasty and uttered by an anchor on an atn camera, words become not just meaningful but actually constitutive of reality. what kendall didn't understand in episode 2, and what logan understood instinctually but probably never in so many words, is that what constrains the reality-making capacity of speech is not some impotence inherent to language itself, but the social power structures its speakers exist in. speech in the hands of the powerful is itself also a technology of power.

ultimately this sort of tension between speech and event, or spectacle and reality, is why the show has always depended on the roys being a media family specifically. the commentary here is not just on a vague or generalised definition of capitalism, or on the effect of profit motives on politics. succession is specifically interested in how a corporation like waystar becomes successful by capitalising on the total spectacularisation of life, and how waystar can then use its position to create spectacle that is constitutive of a new reality without needing to be reflective of a preexisting one. it's a kind of frankenstein's monster: a beast raised by electricity whose powers far exceed what it was meant to be endowed with. this is why, as much as logan disdained certain cultural products and media (plays, music), he always valued the atn mouthpiece. what the siblings produced in this episode, and what logan valued atn for being able to produce, was not 'news' in the sense of being a reporting on reality, but 'truth' in the sense that the company simply willed it into reality instead.