I absolutely love the idea that Claudia’s actress change between s1 and s2 is also because of Louis as an unreliable narrator. While yes, it can be said that it was due to Bailey Bass going to work for avatar, I think it also does wonders for the story.
Through the interview, Louis is beginning to piece his memories into a more full, coherent picture. He is losing some of the bias from emotion and inconsistency from memory as he relives his past. Therefore, the change of Claudia between seasons could still be relevant for the plot.
In the first season, Bass’ Claudia looks more like their child. Of course, interracial couples can have kids of all different shades (I am mixed myself), but it’s interesting to consider this Claudia as an unreliable construction within his memory. This Claudia, the one he reminisces during his ‘golden years’ before everything went downhill, looks like she could be their love child if biology allowed it.
As the fruit of the disaster that is them, the peeling band aid holding together a dying marriage, it wouldn’t surprise me that Louis remembers Claudia as looking like both him and Lestat. She is both the best and worst parts of them, sharing a mental connection with Louis (literally) and an emotional one from his coddling. Yet, she inherently acts like Lestat as well. Much to Claudia’s dissatisfaction, she cannot escape his likeliness, cannot help but think like him. She uses this to her advantage at the end of season one, but knows he will return because of Louis’ fragility.
After being turned while grieving Paul, all Louis knows how to do is love, and protect. But he cannot protect Claudia from her fate, which Lestat tries to tell him. By possibly envisioning her as a more traditional mix of the two of them, perhaps Louis is trying to offload some of the blame and guilt to Lestat, while simultaneously knowing subconsciously that he still played a major role in her doomed existence. Claudia is the byproduct of two broken hearts desperately trying to heal, which the dark gift does not allow.
It was never about her.
In the second season, she resembles him more as he comes to terms with his involvement in her death. Or, she has taken on a less biased appearance as Louis becomes less unreliable. Or, the memories are so vivid that no amount of self-preservation could alter her, leaving Louis’ guilt to construct her image. Perhaps he sees himself in her, or sees his family in her, sees Paul in her. He couldn’t save her, just like he couldn’t save Paul.
His nurturing nature within his retelling is thrown into question as he experiences neither her birth nor death, yet Lestat witnesses both. Louis is blinded by his pain, the ache left in his heart from his inability to protect, whilst Lestat must watch as the child he loved and detested (not in equal parts, I will die on the hill that Lestat loved Claudia in his own fucked up way, one that he learnt from Magnus’ torture) be birthed without her consent and die without her consent.
He must watch on as his fledgling achieves what he never could - true love. He must watch her sing, still serving a performative function in her last moments. She is nail glue for their dying relationship, then she’s a crowbar from a shitty marriage, she is a weapon to protect Louis from the world and himself, only to be a doll, positioned on stage as the crowd puppeteers her demise.
Claudia was never her true self in Louis’ retelling, nor will she be in Lestat’s. Even in death, Claudia only serves a function for storytelling, unable to give us her side of the story. But how could she?
