When "The Vampire Diaries"
launched its spin-off series, "The Originals," with a backdoor pilot,
fans were floored to learn that the new show hinged upon Klaus's
discovery that he and Hayley, his werewolf one-night-stand, were
expecting a child. Though we'd previously thought vampires couldn't
conceive, as the Original hybrid, Klaus is an exception to a lot of
rules -- so it shouldn't surprise us that he stumbled upon "nature's
loophole" when he slept with Hayley.
The reaction to the baby
news was certainly mixed. The backdoor pilot fared well enough to merit a
green light for the series from The CW, but many "Vampire Diaries" fans
found the parenthood story troubling. In particular, fans rooting for
Klaus and Caroline to get together were pretty vocal about their
dissatisfaction, worried that Klaus having a child with another woman
was the death knell for "Klaroline."
But in actuality, the baby
isn't as relevant to the Klaus/Caroline romance as one might initially
assume. In fact, the pregnancy is such a non-factor, it may not even be
addressed with Caroline, as she's far more concerned with Klaus's
behavior toward the people she cares about than she is with his sexual
dalliances and ties to New Orleans.
Julie Plec, executive
producer of both "The Vampire Diaries" and "The Originals," understands
the concerns of the "Klaroline" fandom, but also makes the point that
there's a much larger story to tell about Klaus outside of his romance.
"To
be fair, there are plenty of people who hate the idea that she would
ever look sideways at the guy that murdered her boyfriend's mother and
sent him running from town like a chicken -- there's definitely plenty
of those people rooting against that twosome," Plec tells us. "It's our second-most
controversial love triangle, I suppose. But on behalf of those who
love Klaus and Caroline together, they look at this pregnancy
storyline and think that means 'Oh, Klaus is going to go away and be a good
dad and fall for the baby-mama and forget all about Caroline.' No.
Hell no."
For Klaus, the hybrid baby -- whatever sort of
supernatural creature it may turn out to be -- is just a means to
getting the French Quarter back under his thumb, and a means of leverage
with Elijah. It's not about Hayley, for him, and there's not some grand
"Klayley" endgame romance brewing in Louisiana. In fact, while Klaus
and Hayley both have a degree of investment in the pregnancy, they don't
particularly care about each other at all.
"The bottom line is
that this baby, as we move forward in 'The Originals,' is just a power
pawn for him," Plec says. "Klaus's journey will be to live
up to Elijah's hope, which is that this is going
to be the thing that can bring their family back together. This is
absolutely not Papa Klaus nursing and changing diapers and suddenly
being a good guy, nor will it
ever be."
In some ways, the
baby drawing Klaus to New Orleans is one step toward building him into a
man who might be suitable for Caroline to legitimately consider in the
future. "This is part of a big picture
of taking someone who has been terribly villainous and filled with
rage, and hurt as a result of being colossally disappointed by his
family, repeatedly -- this is another layer onto the evolution of
trying to bring him some sort of inner peace," she says.
In the
meantime, look for Klaus and Caroline to share at least one significant
moment in the finale, which airs this Thursday, May 16 at 8 p.m. EST on
The CW. "We haven't seen the last of
Klaus's affection for Caroline, and we certainly haven't seen the last of Caroline's confusion about
Klaus,"
Plec assures us. "That'll take us past the finale and into both series,
in small and subtle ways, certainly, and then possibly with crossover
opportunity moving forward."
Souce
