Eric and Pam Remain True Blood's True Power Couple

10 years ago, the acclaimed horror-romance series True Blood, which was based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries book series by Charlaine Harris, reached its final season. A show that had its fair share of ups and downs story-wise, it also felt like an end of an era as it’s the last horny-on-main series in recent memory that’d feel like an anomaly in our current largely sexless cinematic climate. But above all, when the series ended, viewers had to bid farewell to its iconic power pairing: Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) and his progeny, Pamela Swynford de Beaufort (Kristin Bauer van Straten).

From the show’s beginning to end, it was the on-again, off-again romantic pairing of Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) that always took center stage. Given how fond audiences are of forbidden romances involving humans and vampires — as seen in the response to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight, which came out the same year that True Blood premiered and helped kick off another Hollywood vampire craze — it’s easy to see why the at-least half-human Sookie and the vampiric Bill would be at the forefront. However, as the series went on, the dynamic between Eric and Pam proved to have more staying power.

A Viking-turned-vampire, Eric Northman acts as the Sheriff of Louisiana’s Area 5, which includes the town of Bon Temps, where the show is primarily set, and the owner of vampire bar Fangtasia along with Pam, a former brothel madam who he turned during the days of the Old West. They don’t share a romantic bond the way some vampires in the show do with their progeny. Yet Eric still treated Pam as his equal and his right-hand woman; the way they’d go to battle for each other and be honest when necessary made them an ideal pairing.

We first meet Eric and Pam in the Season 1 episode, “Escape From Dragon House.” While solving a string of murders of women who’d engaged in sexual activity with vampires, Sookie and Bill head to Fangtasia for answers. When Eric finally interacts with Bill and Sookie after they both spent time observing the bar patrons, the moment becomes a quick encapsulation of his most recognizable character traits — he’s cocky, seductive, and also a foil to Bill Compton. The hedonism and relishing of his vampire existence along with his progeny instantly establishes him as the antithesis to the life of domesticity and assimilation, also known as “mainstreaming,” that Bill prefers. 

As queer individuals, Eric and Pam are more inclined to avoid assimilation. The bisexual Pam and the more sexually fluid Eric happily live on the periphery in a series that was notable for having visibly queer characters and playing into vampirism as a metaphor for queerness, to the point where, in an interview with The Advocate 10 years ago, Bauer van Straten described True Blood as a show that could open people’s minds. 

Though Eric and Pam clearly cherish their undead life, they do sometimes exhibit the loneliness caused by immortality, only it isn’t specifically queer loneliness. For Eric, it’s shown towards the end of Season 2 where his maker, Godric (Allan Hyde), chooses to meet the true death by sunlight after growing disillusioned with the struggling coexistence between humans and vampires. Eric, whose only other connections are to Pam and his half-sister Nora (Lucy Griffiths, who shows up later in the series), is shattered by the loss of his maker, and his grief exemplifies the pitfalls of immortality. 

Pam is similarly shaken by the solitude of eternal life in the Season 4 finale, “And When I Die.” At that point in the show, Eric is deeper into the love triangle involving Bill, Sookie, and himself. Always one to channel her animosity toward Sookie through dry, biting wit, Pam’s resentment reaches a breaking point where she has a meltdown in her office, crying, “I’m so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name!” Besides not wanting Eric to risk his life for someone who wouldn’t fully commit to him romantically, Pam is incredibly distraught at the idea of walking the Earth alone.

Then again, it’s a reality that Eric himself had to come to terms with in the Season 5 episode, “We’ll Meet Again.” In a moment that expertly highlights how the relationship between maker and progeny serves as a partial allegory for a parent/child bond, Eric chooses to break the strain they have. He tells Pam “As your maker, I release you,” so that she can stand on her own feet and forge her own life without him, in case he doesn’t make through what he has to face. Likewise, when Eric almost succumbs to the contagious virus called Hep-V in the final season, Pam is once again faced with the possibility of living without him. But like before, they forged ahead, with Pam laying her own life on the line to try and save his.

Although they willingly demonstrate their supernatural strength and strategic cunning, they’ll still aim to plot against those who’ve wronged them, as shown in Season 3, when Eric goes deep into antihero territory. After the glimpse of his emotional side while grieving the death of his maker, Eric shows a willingness to use those around him as a means to an end. That includes Sookie, who becomes entangled in his quest for vengeance against the villainous Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington (Denis O’Hare), who claimed the lives of Eric’s family. Knowing that, despite his tall stature and physique, he’s no match for the speed and agility of the 2,800-year-old Russell, Eric opts for a more methodical form of vengeance, attacking Russell’s heart by seducing his husband Talbot (Theo Alexander) before staking him. 

For all the double-crossing that transpires during the third season, Eric proves himself as more of an adversary for the seemingly noble Bill Compton, especially when, in the season finale, he reveals to Sookie that Bill romancing her was mostly a ploy by Sophie-Anne Leclerq (Evan Rachel Wood), the Queen Vampire of Louisiana, to claim her for her fairy blood. Sookie isn’t exactly forgiving of Eric, due to how he used her as a pawn in his revenge chess game. But unlike Bill, Eric doesn’t pretend to have the higher moral ground. 

This revelation even opens up the cracks in the turbulent romantic bond between Bill and Sookie, who go from being deep in love to Sookie being devastated by Bill’s manipulation. Bill then manifests into the powerful “Bilith” after giving his “Vampires turn on those they love” speech, accompanied by ominous music, signifying a fuller ascent into villainy and being a Big-ish Bad. They eventually end things with a small declaration of love, as Sookie takes Bill’s life in a mercy killing so he can reunite with his deceased family in the series finale.

By comparison, Eric and Pam are bad when they need to be and care about almost no one but each other and themselves. They aren’t shy about how they’ll scheme when necessary or their lovable narcissism. Their “two against the world” mentality has helped them endure after the show’s end, along with their charisma, humor, and killer fashion sense. 

Matthew St. Clair is a freelancer from New England.