I don't think I've ever really spoken in depth about how much I love Lauriam as a character, which is honestly a crime because out of all the Union Leaders I'd probably have to crown him as my number one favorite.
I love Lauriam not only as a character (pink, sibling plotline) but also as an example of how much prequels can recontextualize an entire character. While Ventus is also an example of this, I think we all knew that he probably had some sort of messed up past that landed him in the clutches of Old Man Xehanort. Marluxia, on the other hand, had absolute zero background to infer from his screentime. He was the villain, you're not really meant to think too hard about him and how he became who he is because he sucks and you hate him.
I don't think there were many people chomping at the bit wanting to get info about his past. Like, it would've been cool to get, but I don't think a background for Marluxia was necessary for the story at that point in time. His role was to establish the organization as a threat to Sora and the other guardians, and that was pretty much the extent of it.
And then Union X happened, and Lauriam entered stage right into a tragedy where his fate was already sealed. You look at Lauriam with his polite little smiles and cute little chibi animations and immediately think "what is this man up to" because you are already primed to distrust him on principle due to COM. Did not help his case that he was introduced in the cutscene immediately following the death of Strelitzia, painting a huge target on his back. Fandom reaction was hostile towards him before he was even fully on screen. Occam's Razor, the most obvious answer is the correct one. Lauriam is the obvious suspect because of his actions in the future, so he must be the killer. Literally him just existing in a scene caused more ire to build against him.
But then the Shift Pride cutscene happened. Then it was revealed that Lauriam and Strelitzia -the girl who so many thought he killed- were siblings, and that he was quite worried for her wellbeing, actually.
Every cutscene a clearer picture of who Lauriam is a person was painted, and soon you stopped looking at him with distrust, and it's replaced with the question of "What happened to you?". What happened that caused Lauriam, someone who has been shown to care deeply and immensely about the people he loves, someone who is willing to do anything for those people, become Marluxia? It became increasingly obvious that they were incredibly different people, even though Marluxia came from Lauriam.
And this isn't to say that there was no connection between the two. Lauriam seemed to be incredibly self-confident in his abilities, enough to be pretty steadfast in his resolve to square up with goddamn Maleficent of all people (even if he did get his ass kicked). There's also his very intense anger, as seen in the cutscene where Ventus confesses to being the reason why Strelitzia "vanished", as well as a bit in the scene where he's at Ventus's bedside.
This is all to say that Lauriam was not a necessary addition to the khux cast, he very well could've been swapped with a random new character and the plot probably would've worked fine, all things considered. But because it's Lauriam -the somebody of a character that has already been established to be a prick- it gives his whole plotline a hell of a lot more punch. If it was a new character, people probably wouldn't have been as distrusting of him right of the bat, the sibling plotline would be sweet, but because it's Lauriam and we know how he ends up in the future, it becomes a hell of a lot more tragic. How did the change happen? He's tragic because we know that whatever he does will lead to the outcome of him losing his heart and falling to darkness, something that is essentially the exact antithesis of the keyblade wielder mission statement.
Lauriam is someone who was made to struggle against the destiny that was written out for him with a neat pen and ink, and someone who was doomed to fail in every regard. He could not save his sister, he could not defeat Maleficent, he could not help Ventus, he could not keep his memories when thrown into the future. He couldn't do anything about it.
I realize this is all rounding back around to "the inherent tragedy of prequels" but it's true.
...and yeah that's basically it. I have a lot more thoughts about this guy but I feel like if I write anymore I'm just gonna sound completely incomprehensible bc I'm very tired. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to sparkle on
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