Louis’ actions are wrong and uncomfortable, but they come from a deeply broken place
jacob anderson and delainey hayles did not give us some of the strongest performances and the most compelling arc of this season so far just for people to reduce it to “haha pimp louis is back to his pimp ways” and “once a pimp, always a pimp.”
it's still baffling how that's the main fandom interpretation of this arc when it clearly is supposed to be about louis' grief. it’s about a father grieving his daughter in the worst, most unhealthy way possible.
and if nuance can be applied to every character under the sun, it can be applied to him too. we can discuss that story line without reducing it to shallow conclusions that dismiss both the arc and the writing choices.
louis is a vampire in a perpetual state of grief and guilt, with paul, his family, and his humanity and claudia was deeply tied to that grief and guilt.
he chose claudia partly because of his immense guilt over the violence inflicted on his community (and i also have my own issues with how this fandom talks about that because people are way too quick to blame louis for starting a race riot as if racist white people needed an excuse to brutalize black people)
anyway, louis was not a perfect father. no one is arguing that but he loved claudia. and then he watched her get tortured while both of his lovers played a role in that trial and in the end, she died while he was completely helpless to save her and louis never actually processed that trauma.
immediately after claudia died, he entered a relationship with armand. a relationship built on manipulation, and lies because according to louis’ memory at that point, armand was also the one who saved him.
except we know now armand orchestrated the play and we also know armand manipulated louis’ memories in ways we still don’t fully understand.
we don’t know how often louis spiraled in grief and how often armand stepped in to “help,” only to further distort his reality.
but we know the grief never left, we saw a glimpse of it in the 70s interview when louis walked into the sun and wanted to die. and armand wiped it away.
then the marriage with armand collapses because of daniel in modern day and for the first time in decades, louis is left alone with himself, alone with his grief and guilt.
and then he sees a girl who literally looks like claudia.
imagine losing your daughter in the most horrific way imaginable, blaming yourself and never properly grieving her. and then one day you see her again.
of course he doesn’t know what to do with that.
and i think part of louis genuinely believed he was helping her.
he failed claudia. here is a young girl struggling. he has the money, power, and resources to help. maybe helping regina becomes a way to soothe his guilt and keep claudia close.
also, louis is: 1. rich and powerful 2. a man 3. a vampire.
any one of those things creates an imbalance but louis is all of those things. regina knows that too.
she’s not naive, she’s smart and knows a man this rich and powerful does not approach her with a story about his dead daughter without wanting something.
so she plays the role for money.
the whole story is tragic, and louis knows this is wrong and wouldn't end well but he can't stop because grief does not make people rational.
and louis, despite being a vampire, is at his core still deeply human here. this is a very human thing to do, if you've ever felt grief you'd want to do anything to escape it. it's painful and the pain is all he has left of claudia.
so i don't think the point of the louis/regina arc is to ONLY show that louis would always be a pimp, you can explore his pattern of paying for emotional intimacy the same way we’ve seen him do with miss lily and even daniel in different ways.
but honestly, i also think it’s incredibly boring that every bad thing louis does gets explained by “well, he was a pimp when he was human.”
he’s a capitalist. he’s rich. he’s powerful. he’s a vampire and what he’s doing is deeply immoral by human standards.
but it’s also very relatable and understandable in a deeply uncomfortable way.
grief makes people irrational and desperate. it makes people cling to anything that gives them relief, even when they know it’s wrong.
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