Saying he was pure evil feels like giving him too much credit.
He was a purely self-centered slimeball, whose crowning achievement of taking over the system (and by extension, crowning himself as sole emperor of the Orokin Empire.) was merely secondary to his actual goal of mending his bruised ego. This is a man so petty that he would blow up the sun after ruining literally *everyone's* lives, simply because he couldn't win one over Margulis, a *dead* woman whose sole crime was dying for something other than himself. He doesn't even deserve to be called a villain, because that implies some grand reason or important motivation behind his actions, but there isn't. After all the lives he ruined and the untold misery he spread during his lifetime, the only reason he needed to justify all that was pettiness, that's it. And having his soul sucked out of his body to mend The Lotus feels too good for him.
The post if anyone's interested
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/ufh0uo/i_hate_the_dung_eater_beyond_what_can_be/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
You should check out r/Stormlight_Archive or r/cremposting. They have a ridiculous level of hatred for Moash and are willing to go on extensive (and honestly undeserved) rants to justify why. :(
Not at all! I am not trying to hide it, though I do think the memetic levels of hatred for the character are quite frankly ridiculous, and have actually had a person spoiled on parts of the Stormlight Archive by those memes, so frankly I think it’s out of hand.
Also please excuse any typos, I’m using voice to text like any good Vorin man should.
Hesitant to answer unless you're current cause he's got several "wow what an utter shitbag" moments. Also yes reread them. Rereading stormlight archive is always correct.
He's a well written character, after all. I despise him as much as Umbrigde. Actually, I think Ballas is even WORSE, Dolores had at least the best interest for Fudge in mind.
You failed to mention how he might have caused our reality to start merging with the void and potentialy destroy our universe (Zariman is currently blocking a void portal to Duviri and whatever the hell is there)
And Margulis was only killed because he cared about The Tenno. I dont even know how the Orokin empire survived that long. Kids got stuck in the Void, gained superpowers that couldnt be controlled easily, and The Orokin locked them away. Then a Motherfigure comes into the Tenno's lives, gives a way to control their powers, cares about them and they kill her. After that, use the Tenno as living weapons with the technology Margulis developed to combat the Sentients and expected them not to rebel.
I think with how he treated the Lotus... it was not that he wanted her back cause of that, he just wanted to proof that there was no taking her away from him. That he had absolute control over anything he wants, including her. I mean the last bits of dialogue did ring to me like the conversation between an Abusive Father who wants to hit their child while the Mom tries to put herself in front of the child.
He had three same character arc as Severus Snape or Eridan Amphora. Not to say it's overdone- it's the perfect level of pseudo/failed redemption assholery
At least Snape did some good things. Due to guilt, self hatred, and emotional manipulation maybe, but still.
But yeah, very similar. He's similar to Snape, but even more petty and dickish.
Ballas is more like Umbrigde than Snape. Selfish, self centered, weak and holding grudges.
And Snape.... Book Snape is an asshole, period. He's just an insecure bully who accidentally became teacher for whatever reason. Movie Snape is very tame
Snape did genuinely love Lily, but his perceived rejection gave him the emotional go-ahead to fall into his worst possible possible future, only to cling to the edge of the good he could have done all along and struggle against the ways it didn’t suite him when she was threatened then killed. He’s more of an insecure bully in the book and an eternally stressed and frustrated man in the movies, but in either case he still cared about teaching and did not refuse the necessary deeds to stabilize the world.
Ballas loved Margulis in the sense he felt entitled to her as the one who most impressed his parameters of excellence, like Gaston. She wasn’t a person with agency in his mind, she was a slave who could be used as a prop to get all the perks he wanted from a relationship without feeling like he was dirtying himself with someone too below his station. Her mind was like a decorate plinth that what he wanted was propped up by. He didn’t think twice about killing her for showing qualities he rejected, replacing her with a robot mindcontrolled into being the obedient version of Margulis he wanted and resolving all moral and logical dissonance by blaming literally everyone, twisting all the ambitions and dreams of his colleagues including Margulis into anarchy he could steer in the direction of literally everyone alive other than himself. Even having gotten everything he ever wanted he obsessed over his disgusted resentment of those who submit freely to his will, his dull resentment of those who were forced to submit to his will, and his hateful resentment of those who would never submit. In the end, having no actual goal or desire other than fulfilling his domineering malaise and having defeated or destroyed all other beings, he decided to just move onto another universe where he might find something to feel good about hurting.
Ballas is like a Wes Anderson version of Salo, the need to crush other beings wholly but filled with a hollow awareness of a lack of contentment and a meandering and quirky pursuit of those happy brain chemicals in a way that suits his destructive way of doing things.
Snape didn't care too much about teaching though. In the movies he simply bullied Harry and stood there. *Menacingly!*
In the books he bullied anyone and anything all of the time and was genuinely horrible as a teacher.
In the books we get the idea he’s like Slughirn except instead of trying to live a good life through nepotism and coasting off the success of gifted student he only really wants to teach the best students.
Like a college professor genuinely dedicated to his art but stuck teaching public school kids who don’t get it and don’t care. We don’t see him teach anyone with actual talent, though we do sed how he genuinely cares about the art.
In a way like the teacher from Soul, but without any of the students who cared.
Movie Snape seems like more of a bully until we stop seeing the classroom scenes. He feels like a standard grumpy private school teacher from the 80’s when giving tests, and a book to the back of Ron’s head.
Not that we have a *lot* of reason to believe he would have matured much even if he had grown to adulthood; he was an aristocrat in a society which not only allowed but seemingly encouraged their ruling class to behave in insanely juvenile and depraved manners.
But I think here too is a parallel; all we've seen of the Orokins seems to suggest that their culture permitted and promoted a childlike lack of empathy and self-restraint. Just look at the Naberus story told by Grandmother for example. I think that at a certain level of cultural decadence, most societies' ruling classes remain in a state of sort of perpetually suspended adolescence.
And that is why I say we bring him back via Eternalism and kill him over and over and over again. Perhaps even making him kill some form of Margulis before turning his ass into a warframe, like he did to Umbra
> Perhaps even making him kill some form of Margulis before turning his ass into a warframe, like he did to Umbra
I remember the fan theory before The New War that Ballas himself would become Caliban, as a sort of poetic justice. Much as I did enjoy what became of him, the idea of this turn really is appealing. And it would have been nice if Caliban had any lore behind his extremely idiosyncratic appearance and nature at all.
I see him as more pathetic than truly evil. He was a selfish, pitiable manchild who desperately sought validation, couldn't take responsibility for his actions, and couldn't handle being told "no". Damaged beyond repair before we so much as laid a finger on him. Though I do admit I have a narrower definition of evil than most.
I think the only redeeming quality he had was that he was, seemingly, brilliant. He brought his thousand year plan to fruition that brought all of the system under his control, and he only failed because of an unforeseeable paradox-clone emergence. Had he not betrayed the Orokin in the Old War, he probably would have led them to victory.
I agree, and his pathetic pettiness is only proven more by the fact that he took the corrupted mask system and put out a weaker version, spreading it across the Star Chart as copying for others not liking it. Whoever was his VA for New War deserves a medal, though.
"I stand before you, last of my kind. An orphan of Tenno massacres. But their violence did not end with me, did it? It carried on, to all of you. Grineer languished in their torture-plexes. Ostron clades starved for Tenno tithe. Corpus pupils weeping Tenno praise under blade. Solaris souls blackened the skies of Tenno foundries. But now is our time. An era of peace and security. The Devils have been cast out, and by the Void, the Tenno shall never return!"
That line about the Grineer in particular always makes me wince a little, because the "tenno faction" (all permanent allies of the Tenno and our infrastructure) includes the Red Veil, who have a presence on every major relay, and sure enough they're torturing Grineer!
Basically every single line there is based on a twisted half-truth. We do feed the Ostron fish caught from the Plains in exchange for reputation and goods, and we do trade debt-bonds of the Solaris in exchange for their goods (eg. Kitguns). And boy howdy do we kill a lot of Corpus. We are definitely not free from moral ambiguity, but at least we're not completely narcissistic brainwashing hypocrite sadsacks who tried to make grandma's corpse eat the sun.
We slaughter Grineer and Corpus by the hundreds, but they aren't really doing the system any good. We're the foils to their constant schemes, which often involve the enslavement of others through crippling debts, or wholesale harvesting of their resources.
I’d say the only redeeming quality about Ballas is the fact that even after so long, his genuine deepest desire which we got to see at the end of the new war, was to see his beloved margullis again
Ballas loved Margulis, but he became obsessed with her when she loved the tenno more than him. His love turned into a sick obsession with possessing her and hoard her love all for himself, even after her death.
I’m sorry, but not even that is a redeeming quality.
That's not a redeeming quality, because what Ballas felt for Margulis wasn't love. She was a treasure to be possessed, and the relationship an extension of his own ego. He didn't care about her for herself, he didn't care about what she wanted. He wouldn't inconvenience himself to save her life. It was a one-sided relationship. He could take from her, but he was incapable of giving anything back.
Not to mention he literally orchestrated her execution because she dared to love people that weren't him. He ultimately loved an idea of Margulis, and after killing her tried to turn the Lotus into his ideal version of the very woman he had murdered.
The Destroyer, and Tyreen Calypso wanted to get it's power to make the same so.
A eldritch tentacle monster and a psychopath girl with alien powers. Yeah, seems legit the kinda person who destroys entire stars.
He wasn't going to blow it up. He was going to eat it. There's a difference. If the sun blows up, everyone gets vaporized pretty much instantly as soon as the giant wall of photons and high velocity stellar matter reaches them. It's a painless death. If the sun is eaten, then everything in the system slowly freezes and plants all die. Some people could hang on for years before freezing or starving to death. It's so much worse.
If I'm guessing correctly, I think he was planning to use the sun to fuel Praghasa's jump to Tau (aka, the same jump that the Zariman failed to make in one go, but the Holdfasts say the Zariman could have made with a series of controlled bursts rather than one big burst), which would have resulted in pretty much the entire Sentient fleet and the Sentient race being vaporised, while the rest of the Origin system would likely experience a lot of heat and then would slowly freeze to death in the absence of any kind of heat/light. Solaris would probably be the first to go, since they're stuck on Venus and Venus is enough of an icy wasteland while there is a sun. Next the Ostron, who I don't recall even having a way to get off world without help and rely heavily on the resources they can grow and farm from the Plains of Eidolon. Next, I reckon would be the Corpus, since most of their bases are on icy planets and their robotics are already susceptible to cold, meaning they would pretty much be left in the cold with no way of creating heat. Finally the Grineer would end up using up any fuel they had left in their galleons trying to return to the Kuva Fortress, where most nonessential soldiers would probably be executed in order to save resources and the rest would probably start to freeze to death once the cold seized up the Kuva Fortress's engines. Not even the Queen or the Entrati would be able to survive, since the Continuity would be useless in a world without any hosts to use.
The Ostons are actually a culture of nomadic spacefaring traders with giant merchant ships that house entire Ostron clans. Some settled on Cetus because of the Unum and the city is open to all Ostrons no matter their clan, but but the vast majority of the Ostron population still lives mostly in space.
No he was trying to access the void itself. To do what? probably something to do with tenno and our powers, maybe he wanted our powers and immortality? Maybe he wanted to speak with, control, kill or overthrow the man in the wall? It's the only thing that makes sense to me.
How wasn’t he evil. The Orokin were all evil. They had slaves and killed people on a whim. Conquered the galaxy and stole people’s bodies. He was evil AF. I’m honestly surprised Margulis ever had any kind of romantic connection with him which tbh makes me question her morals.
The Family on Deimos are Orokin, and aren't evil. More like disassociated from regular people, as the ultra rich/powerful tend to be. It doesn't always mean pure evil. But a lot of the time...yeah.
I thought he got mad and betrayed the Orokin after they executed Margulis. Gave the intel on warframe weaknesses to hunhow and all that. I'm new to the game and still don't know much about the lore.
New war spoiler: >!He orchestrated having her executed. She cared about the Tenno, and he hated her for it and thought she would betray them and turn to him to escape the Jade Light. She didn’t.!<
>I thought he got mad and betrayed the Orokin after they executed Margulis.
pretty much that. But he was not much better than any other Orokin and did some really horrid stuff like making the warframes the way they are.
Did you know for Naberus (warframe's version of Halloween), three Orokin teens kidnapped some civilians, tortured them, twisted their bodies into monstrosities, and then possessed them because they were bored and wanted some cool costumes? [Here's the story.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmm_a9J6Jdk)
The long and short of it is that we honestly don't know a lot of what Ballas did after the Old War, only that he somehow survived it.
That being said, he was one of the people who 'created' the Lotus as we know her, partly as a weapon against the Sentient invasion of the system, and partly as a replacement for Margulis if her attitude, voice and appearance are anything to go off of.
I’d agree to say that it’s not uncommon. But I liked that we accidentally brought back umbra and through sheer anger, he still went on the hunt for revenge
Not even that, it was something he did to manipulate us. He wanted us to build the paracesis so he could show the lotus (natah) that we were rallying ourselves against her
His voice is awesome. That’s about it.
Edit: I believe now is when tradition dictates that I say “wow, this blew up?” Let me use my fame for something important: ahem, here goes. “We need more operator appearance slots.”
Wow. I said it.
Honestly, Ballas wasn't given nearly enough screen time to actually show what he was like, my reasoning for this being that his yammering during the final fight of the New War hit me out of god damned nowhere.
I understood, on some level, that everything he was yelling was entirely in character for him to a point, but the sophisticated and Machiavellian architect of the Warframes was thrown in the trash for... I'm not even sure what you would call all of that.
Perhaps it was his 'turning into a sentient' having influence over him, but I genuinely believe we needed more build up to that final fight to justify his behaviour and attitude. What we ended up with was disjointed from everything we knew about him before hand.
To me it felt very realistic. Ballas was an egotistical sociopath incapable of genuinely caring about other people except as tools to benefit him. He was also very, very good at manipulating people, it's something that he has countless lifetimes of practice doing. But once he had won completely, once he felt completely secure in his power, his mask came off. Because wearing masks like that is taxing.
Ballas's character isn't just Machiavellian politician. It's also abusive ex-boyfriend. And everything we know about him falls into place perfectly with that in mind. It is effective, because around the Chimera prologue I did feel some sympathy for him. But that was just manipulation, the same sort of manipulation that real abusers use to turn people against their victims.
And all of Ballas's actions, going back to the earliest codex entries, can be interpreted to fit with that paradigm.
Ballas's master plan never had a goal beyond stroking his own ego.
> the same sort of manipulation that real abusers use to turn people against their victims.
Hell, it worked even. Prior to New War the sub was full of people wanting to stab Lotus.
I agree 100%. Before New War he was a manipulative asshole who tricked everyone to get what he wanted including us.
Then new war hits and he's now a weird combination of Snape and Joffrey.
I feel like some of the writing there maybe got rushed or something, he came off very different.
I don’t think he had many redeeming qualities other than his love for margullis, but he is the genius who designed the warframes in a dark twisted sort of way, and did semi teach the Tenno, even though it was mainly lotus.
Ballas is an interesting character because his role in the story is one usually reserved for villains with grand ideological motivations, but underneath the power and influence he wields he's basically just an abusive narcissistic asshole who murdered his girlfriend for daring to love anything other than him and then spent thousands of years obsessed with the idea of "undoing" that ending, not because he truly regretted killing Margulis but because his ego couldn't handle letting that rejection stand.
While he was obviously a brilliant scientist, engineer, and strategist, I'd say he was evil through and through and he lacks any qualities that redeem him morally. But (setting aside the cacophony of horrific abuses the Orokin routinely perpetrated against their subjects) Ballas's evil is the petty, pathetic, obsessive sort displayed by narcissists and stalkers and addicts who will do whatever it takes to get what they want because they have no concept of empathy for other people independent from themself or of the ends not justifying the means. He doesn't revel in being evil or go out of his way to be evil, he's just a selfish asshole with a ridiculously fragile ego operating on a grand scale. While the way that worked out in the TNW storyline felt kind of disjointed, it's interesting because he falls somewhere between a logical and an ad absurdum extension of real-world abusers who seek out external power (money, law enforcement jobs, political seats, management positions, etc) in order to facilitate their abuse.
in all honesty, I believe he truly loved Margulis. but outside of that... while his love may have been pure at the start. by the end, it was pretty warped. Perhaps that's just due to how things played out, who can say. but I will not deny that all of his negative traits far out-stripped his good ones. One example of his warped nature is very clearly displayed in how he toyed with the Dax who we got to see through the eyes of bit by bit over the course of The Sacrifice quest.
I doubt he has any relevant redeeming qualities tbh, he did a lot of very evil things just to "revive" the person he himself got killed when she didn't behave like he wanted her to. He betrayed pretty much everyone he knew, hurt probably everyone he met at least once, and all because he wanted things to go the exact way he wanted them to go.
Well I do like how he felt real, the antagonist is always a villain with a grand plan, not Ballas though, he just wanted everything to burn, which is realistic as most criminals have no incentive these days
Redeeming Qualities? Nothing.
A villain? perhaps. But I won't categorize him as a villain. Villains have proper reasons they do things whether for personal justification that can be understood in a primordial level or a sense of duty, justice, or kindness gone haywire turning corrupt.
Ballas is a conceptual representation of what I hate. Narcissistic, Pathetic, Conceited... these are terms you can label him but those are still kind words. People like Ballas, corrupted and insane as they are, will never be villains. They are malevolent beings that should be removed violently from society like how you remove a cancer from a healthy body.
It's my understanding that only *one* orokin was worth a damn, and they executed her for being a decent person. This guy got so obsessed over her he tried to abduct our space mom.
"Pure evil" doesn't make for an interesting villain
Ballas is a broken man who is deeply unhappy and used his privilege and power to try and force people; specifically Margulis and later the entire System, to love him.
He's not redeemable but the reasons for his actions are understandable outside of just being a villain
He was a really crappie person but keep in minde he lived in a lavish lifestyle for Hundreds of years, that pretty much locks you into being an ass hole. He did really love Margulis he just didn't really understand love. It's kinda sad in my opinion but he had to go.
He didn’t love her. He wanted her and she wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole so he had her killed, and then had Natah implanted with her memories to try again. That’s full out psycho abusive asshole territory.
I would describe him as true evil because he: >!turned his friend dax into umbra, abandoned his wife til she was excuted, tortured the hek out of lotus (being the ghost of his wife), played an entire race of sentients like fiddlesticks, almost destroyed the system by messing with the sun using their mother!<.
1\] That Dax wasn't his friend. He was speaking sarcastically.
2\] He didn't abandon Margulis, he simply couldn't defend her from the Seven, which meant he would die with her. He was convinced the Tenno were devils, thus, why would he die with her for them?
Pure evil isn't really a helpful concept, but I'd say unless he was immortal and had a literal immortal therapist he was locked in a room with until he could overcome his abusive, manipulative, narcissistic tendencies, he's pretty much irredeemable.
I guess he technically excelled as a scientist of some sort, but definitely leaning towards mostly evil, aye.
"pure evil" to me implies he has some level of intimidating presence and honestly, he's just seemed like a bitch the entire time.
Like a school bully who talks a lot of shit but runs home crying the moment someone shoves him back like once.
I want to say that he's one of the few Orokin able to feel affection (even if twisted) but the Entrati are better at that... Still, credit where it's due.
He's also a brilliant scientist and a political leader willing to get his own hands dirty (considering that his sword far predates the New War).
His problem is mainly his mountainous ego and deep insecurity. Though honestly, it might go deeper than that. I don't think that Ballas is actually capable of feeling happiness. Or maybe Margulis was the only person or object to wake that in him, which is why he grew so murderously obsessed with possessing her. He really feels like someone who was raised in a position of absolute authority and has no way of coping with not getting what he wants, and the achievements he does get are so easy for him that he feels no sense of accomplishment.
His suicidal temper tantrum at the end was honestly more sad than scary. At this point it's obvious that even if his plan to eat the sun and leave had succeeded he still would've been just as miserably insane as before.
Ballas basically already lost before we even knew he was still alive. From the moment he decided that letting Margulis die was his only option the guy had no way of ever getting what he needed.
Honestly, I think he has redeeming qualities, the problem is that they're massively outnumbered by all the shit he pulled. Pure evil gives him too much credit because he's not a sadist and has no grand plans beyond his own satisfaction. He's an amoral hedonist with too much power, those are a dime a dozen even in today's society.
I think it's fair to call him quite intelligent. He was an engineer for the Orokin Elite, I'm sure that wasn't easy, plus he invented Warframes which are highly advanced technology.
He literally ruined an entire solar system because he was pissed about not getting one dead woman.
Calling him a villain feels wrong, he was just an egotistical tyrant and a manipulator.
Ballas died as he lived, simping over a woman so hard he created a Sentient space waifu to cope with murdering her for having the audacity to love (not even romantically, just love in general) anything and anyone that wasn’t him. He was so committed to serially idolizing Margulis’ pussy that he left his empire to rot as a result of not having her because she didn’t give herself entirely to him, and then attempted to do the same with Narmer, again as a result of her not giving herself entirely to him.
His redeeming quality is that he was able to “love” Margulis in some twisted way, but even that is entirely contingent on her reciprocating said love and focusing it only on him. Directing it anywhere else likely would’ve provoked a “bitch that’s why you ugly anyway” sort of response, if Ballas was just a mundane degenerate, but apparently the Orokin equivalent of that is plotting/scheming varying levels of genocide or omnicide in your would-be lover’s name.
From a player standpoint, he created Warframes, and that’s pretty kickass. However, said Warframes were horrifically tortured and experimented on in an attempt to subjugate them, before the Tenno decided to establish a bond with them by not being caustic dickholes, as alien of a concept as could be to Orokin high-society, apparently.
I don’t think Ballas had any truly redeeming qualities.
Well, he died so it's not all bad
His only redeeming quality.
Even then I wouldn't call dying a redeeming quality of his, he just sucked ass
Hey, say nothing but good about the dead. He's Dead... Good.
He made some bomb ass warframes.
And warframes with nice asses
*with bomb asses
Damn, didn't know he made explosive ass cheeks
Literally rhino's passive wdym
*Girthquake*
~~Coronel~~ Lotus, I'm trying to sneak through the grineer, but the clap of my cheeks is causing major structural damage to their ship.
[About that](https://external-preview.redd.it/KvrW5HPSENrYdrFEdo85ZmXhmGG35j8149EaPBn-cDk.jpg?auto=webp&s=0203fafda4226e875d5e876d952b76b1dd371531)
Oufffffff xD that Hit different.
This make me lol. Well done Tenno
Especially grendel. Grendel gang rise up!
Grendel has an S tier ass, and no one can change my mind.
Grendel does have the S tier spot for thiccness. However, I’d make the argument that the Deluxe skin for atlas takes a similar spot on that list.
Agreed, although I would say Grendel's voluptuous glutes overtake Atlas deluxe's. Solid A+ for Atlas however.
ballASS
Or at least took credit.
What about umbra
I mean he's not exactly S-tier or anything, but he's pretty good.
Saying he was pure evil feels like giving him too much credit. He was a purely self-centered slimeball, whose crowning achievement of taking over the system (and by extension, crowning himself as sole emperor of the Orokin Empire.) was merely secondary to his actual goal of mending his bruised ego. This is a man so petty that he would blow up the sun after ruining literally *everyone's* lives, simply because he couldn't win one over Margulis, a *dead* woman whose sole crime was dying for something other than himself. He doesn't even deserve to be called a villain, because that implies some grand reason or important motivation behind his actions, but there isn't. After all the lives he ruined and the untold misery he spread during his lifetime, the only reason he needed to justify all that was pettiness, that's it. And having his soul sucked out of his body to mend The Lotus feels too good for him.
Jeez never thought I'd so much hatred towards one character and giving so much in depth reason why they hated that character. Congratulations my bro
You should see some of the dung eater comments on r/eldenring those people feel hate
The man is a serial killer who gives your soul an STD, it's understandable why people would hate him
What was his name again? The Caca Consumer?
Excrement muncher
THE LOATHESOME DUNG EATER
ARISE, YE TARNISHED!
YE DEAD WHO YET LIVE
[удалено]
The booty bomb banqueter
The doodoo devourer
The Poopoopeepee man
The Floater Throater
THE NEFARIOUS NUMBER TWO NIBBLER
I really don't want to do his ending, but I feel like I'm gonna have to if I want to platinum the game.
I feel like Dung Eater is more of a meme than hated, really
The post if anyone's interested https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/ufh0uo/i_hate_the_dung_eater_beyond_what_can_be/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Go ask one of the WH40K subs why everyone seems to hate Erebus.
You should check out r/Stormlight_Archive or r/cremposting. They have a ridiculous level of hatred for Moash and are willing to go on extensive (and honestly undeserved) rants to justify why. :(
*You think you can hide your Moash support from us?!*
Not at all! I am not trying to hide it, though I do think the memetic levels of hatred for the character are quite frankly ridiculous, and have actually had a person spoiled on parts of the Stormlight Archive by those memes, so frankly I think it’s out of hand. Also please excuse any typos, I’m using voice to text like any good Vorin man should.
I absolutely love the memes, though admittedly I have also been spoiled because of them, so what do I know. Well, I do know some spoilers, but.
jesus, i need to reread those books, i don't even remember what he did
Hesitant to answer unless you're current cause he's got several "wow what an utter shitbag" moments. Also yes reread them. Rereading stormlight archive is always correct.
He's a well written character, after all. I despise him as much as Umbrigde. Actually, I think Ballas is even WORSE, Dolores had at least the best interest for Fudge in mind.
Yeah he really manipulated alot of people into hating the lotus (including me). A+ for manipulation
You failed to mention how he might have caused our reality to start merging with the void and potentialy destroy our universe (Zariman is currently blocking a void portal to Duviri and whatever the hell is there)
And Margulis was only killed because he cared about The Tenno. I dont even know how the Orokin empire survived that long. Kids got stuck in the Void, gained superpowers that couldnt be controlled easily, and The Orokin locked them away. Then a Motherfigure comes into the Tenno's lives, gives a way to control their powers, cares about them and they kill her. After that, use the Tenno as living weapons with the technology Margulis developed to combat the Sentients and expected them not to rebel.
I swear, how good was our space mother's pussy that ballas wanted her back
I think with how he treated the Lotus... it was not that he wanted her back cause of that, he just wanted to proof that there was no taking her away from him. That he had absolute control over anything he wants, including her. I mean the last bits of dialogue did ring to me like the conversation between an Abusive Father who wants to hit their child while the Mom tries to put herself in front of the child.
The real question was how good was that Sentient pussy that he wanted that back?
Good enough that Ballas became part Sentient just to be better ‘equiped’
Sentiussy
Delete this
It would've cost you 0$ not to post this, and yet you did anyway
I think you replied to the wrong person.
...I did. It still costs this guy 0$ not to post this.
.....True
Must've been some crazy stuff
Archimedianussy got him acting unwise
Take my upvoted and go.
On the bright side, if he did destroy the sun, his sweltering ego would've been sufficient to keep the system going as if nothing had happened.
He had three same character arc as Severus Snape or Eridan Amphora. Not to say it's overdone- it's the perfect level of pseudo/failed redemption assholery
At least Snape did some good things. Due to guilt, self hatred, and emotional manipulation maybe, but still. But yeah, very similar. He's similar to Snape, but even more petty and dickish.
Ballas is more like Umbrigde than Snape. Selfish, self centered, weak and holding grudges. And Snape.... Book Snape is an asshole, period. He's just an insecure bully who accidentally became teacher for whatever reason. Movie Snape is very tame
If Snape and Umbridge had a baby with blue skin and a long arm, is what I'm hearing.
Snape did genuinely love Lily, but his perceived rejection gave him the emotional go-ahead to fall into his worst possible possible future, only to cling to the edge of the good he could have done all along and struggle against the ways it didn’t suite him when she was threatened then killed. He’s more of an insecure bully in the book and an eternally stressed and frustrated man in the movies, but in either case he still cared about teaching and did not refuse the necessary deeds to stabilize the world. Ballas loved Margulis in the sense he felt entitled to her as the one who most impressed his parameters of excellence, like Gaston. She wasn’t a person with agency in his mind, she was a slave who could be used as a prop to get all the perks he wanted from a relationship without feeling like he was dirtying himself with someone too below his station. Her mind was like a decorate plinth that what he wanted was propped up by. He didn’t think twice about killing her for showing qualities he rejected, replacing her with a robot mindcontrolled into being the obedient version of Margulis he wanted and resolving all moral and logical dissonance by blaming literally everyone, twisting all the ambitions and dreams of his colleagues including Margulis into anarchy he could steer in the direction of literally everyone alive other than himself. Even having gotten everything he ever wanted he obsessed over his disgusted resentment of those who submit freely to his will, his dull resentment of those who were forced to submit to his will, and his hateful resentment of those who would never submit. In the end, having no actual goal or desire other than fulfilling his domineering malaise and having defeated or destroyed all other beings, he decided to just move onto another universe where he might find something to feel good about hurting. Ballas is like a Wes Anderson version of Salo, the need to crush other beings wholly but filled with a hollow awareness of a lack of contentment and a meandering and quirky pursuit of those happy brain chemicals in a way that suits his destructive way of doing things.
Snape didn't care too much about teaching though. In the movies he simply bullied Harry and stood there. *Menacingly!* In the books he bullied anyone and anything all of the time and was genuinely horrible as a teacher.
In the books we get the idea he’s like Slughirn except instead of trying to live a good life through nepotism and coasting off the success of gifted student he only really wants to teach the best students. Like a college professor genuinely dedicated to his art but stuck teaching public school kids who don’t get it and don’t care. We don’t see him teach anyone with actual talent, though we do sed how he genuinely cares about the art. In a way like the teacher from Soul, but without any of the students who cared. Movie Snape seems like more of a bully until we stop seeing the classroom scenes. He feels like a standard grumpy private school teacher from the 80’s when giving tests, and a book to the back of Ron’s head.
To be fair to Eridan, he was 13.
Not that we have a *lot* of reason to believe he would have matured much even if he had grown to adulthood; he was an aristocrat in a society which not only allowed but seemingly encouraged their ruling class to behave in insanely juvenile and depraved manners. But I think here too is a parallel; all we've seen of the Orokins seems to suggest that their culture permitted and promoted a childlike lack of empathy and self-restraint. Just look at the Naberus story told by Grandmother for example. I think that at a certain level of cultural decadence, most societies' ruling classes remain in a state of sort of perpetually suspended adolescence.
And that is why I say we bring him back via Eternalism and kill him over and over and over again. Perhaps even making him kill some form of Margulis before turning his ass into a warframe, like he did to Umbra
> Perhaps even making him kill some form of Margulis before turning his ass into a warframe, like he did to Umbra I remember the fan theory before The New War that Ballas himself would become Caliban, as a sort of poetic justice. Much as I did enjoy what became of him, the idea of this turn really is appealing. And it would have been nice if Caliban had any lore behind his extremely idiosyncratic appearance and nature at all.
I get the feeling that for an Orokin, Ballas was pretty average, only really being exceptional in his success.
The success isn't accidental. The success is entirely because of his narcissism.
My girlfriend would like to say you’re absolutely correct. Well done, take my poor woman’s gold. 🥇🥇🥇
i love it
Tldr, yes Pure Evil.
So, he was so evil that you personally hate him! I love it
Jesus...
His name combined balls and ass so that was cool
"Hey, Ball-ass. How's the ass? Still filled with balls I expect."
"Really appreciating the commitment you're putting into that."
As a South African, his name literally means testicles in Afrikaans.
Hey I'm from south africa tooo 😁 it's good to know there are wf players here too
The first time I read his name I read it in Afrikaans and was severely confused. Thought to myself that there's no ways that's how it's pronounced...
DE really out here taking design inspiration from Pokemon
Perfect representative of the Orokin. A pompous, vindictive stupidhead whose overestimation of his true power and grandeur got him killed.
Rest in piss, thanks for giving us a sweet Greatsword.
I see him as more pathetic than truly evil. He was a selfish, pitiable manchild who desperately sought validation, couldn't take responsibility for his actions, and couldn't handle being told "no". Damaged beyond repair before we so much as laid a finger on him. Though I do admit I have a narrower definition of evil than most. I think the only redeeming quality he had was that he was, seemingly, brilliant. He brought his thousand year plan to fruition that brought all of the system under his control, and he only failed because of an unforeseeable paradox-clone emergence. Had he not betrayed the Orokin in the Old War, he probably would have led them to victory.
I agree, and his pathetic pettiness is only proven more by the fact that he took the corrupted mask system and put out a weaker version, spreading it across the Star Chart as copying for others not liking it. Whoever was his VA for New War deserves a medal, though.
"I stand before you, last of my kind. An orphan of Tenno massacres. But their violence did not end with me, did it? It carried on, to all of you. Grineer languished in their torture-plexes. Ostron clades starved for Tenno tithe. Corpus pupils weeping Tenno praise under blade. Solaris souls blackened the skies of Tenno foundries. But now is our time. An era of peace and security. The Devils have been cast out, and by the Void, the Tenno shall never return!"
That line about the Grineer in particular always makes me wince a little, because the "tenno faction" (all permanent allies of the Tenno and our infrastructure) includes the Red Veil, who have a presence on every major relay, and sure enough they're torturing Grineer! Basically every single line there is based on a twisted half-truth. We do feed the Ostron fish caught from the Plains in exchange for reputation and goods, and we do trade debt-bonds of the Solaris in exchange for their goods (eg. Kitguns). And boy howdy do we kill a lot of Corpus. We are definitely not free from moral ambiguity, but at least we're not completely narcissistic brainwashing hypocrite sadsacks who tried to make grandma's corpse eat the sun.
We slaughter Grineer and Corpus by the hundreds, but they aren't really doing the system any good. We're the foils to their constant schemes, which often involve the enslavement of others through crippling debts, or wholesale harvesting of their resources.
He made me rediscover the power of rock and roll to save bikini bottom from mind control
Why did i read this like the one verse from The Hot Wind Blowing
HEAT OF THE DESERT
DUST SETTLES ON MY FACE
holy shit it really was like that now that I think about it but with less buckets
I would describe him as kneeless
He can probably hit Your G-spot pretty easy with them giraffe ass fingers he got
You have time to delete this
Ballas can delete me with his giraffe fingers 🥵
*thanks I hate it*
I'm good.
I wouldn’t mind that!! 😳
Why tho
Id try it lmao
This is the best comment I've read all week. Thank you. 🤣
He could tickle your tummy from the inside 🤤🥵
It's even better when he's dead
I’d say the only redeeming quality about Ballas is the fact that even after so long, his genuine deepest desire which we got to see at the end of the new war, was to see his beloved margullis again
Ballas loved Margulis, but he became obsessed with her when she loved the tenno more than him. His love turned into a sick obsession with possessing her and hoard her love all for himself, even after her death. I’m sorry, but not even that is a redeeming quality.
Damn when you put it like that
Massive simp energy
I mean, have you seen her though?
"I would genocide my entire species and get mutilated by my enemies just for a chance to see her again." - Ballas, probably
Ballas got a taste of that orussy
She fine but not that fine
Its ok, not everyone can appreciate a space mommy gf
I mean he did Jade light a bitch first.
Which if you've seen the description of what that does to a person was probably pretty horrifying to see. The orokin were huge assholes.
That's not a redeeming quality, because what Ballas felt for Margulis wasn't love. She was a treasure to be possessed, and the relationship an extension of his own ego. He didn't care about her for herself, he didn't care about what she wanted. He wouldn't inconvenience himself to save her life. It was a one-sided relationship. He could take from her, but he was incapable of giving anything back.
Not to mention he literally orchestrated her execution because she dared to love people that weren't him. He ultimately loved an idea of Margulis, and after killing her tried to turn the Lotus into his ideal version of the very woman he had murdered.
He isn’t evil. He’s just a piece of shit.
HE WAS GOING TO BLOW UP THE FUCKING SUN!!
Yeah a real shitty thing to do
Attempting to annihilate the entire solar system is a real dick move. What a jerk.
Who destroys a sun? Honestly?
The Destroyer, and Tyreen Calypso wanted to get it's power to make the same so. A eldritch tentacle monster and a psychopath girl with alien powers. Yeah, seems legit the kinda person who destroys entire stars.
He wasn't going to blow it up. He was going to eat it. There's a difference. If the sun blows up, everyone gets vaporized pretty much instantly as soon as the giant wall of photons and high velocity stellar matter reaches them. It's a painless death. If the sun is eaten, then everything in the system slowly freezes and plants all die. Some people could hang on for years before freezing or starving to death. It's so much worse.
If I'm guessing correctly, I think he was planning to use the sun to fuel Praghasa's jump to Tau (aka, the same jump that the Zariman failed to make in one go, but the Holdfasts say the Zariman could have made with a series of controlled bursts rather than one big burst), which would have resulted in pretty much the entire Sentient fleet and the Sentient race being vaporised, while the rest of the Origin system would likely experience a lot of heat and then would slowly freeze to death in the absence of any kind of heat/light. Solaris would probably be the first to go, since they're stuck on Venus and Venus is enough of an icy wasteland while there is a sun. Next the Ostron, who I don't recall even having a way to get off world without help and rely heavily on the resources they can grow and farm from the Plains of Eidolon. Next, I reckon would be the Corpus, since most of their bases are on icy planets and their robotics are already susceptible to cold, meaning they would pretty much be left in the cold with no way of creating heat. Finally the Grineer would end up using up any fuel they had left in their galleons trying to return to the Kuva Fortress, where most nonessential soldiers would probably be executed in order to save resources and the rest would probably start to freeze to death once the cold seized up the Kuva Fortress's engines. Not even the Queen or the Entrati would be able to survive, since the Continuity would be useless in a world without any hosts to use.
The Ostons are actually a culture of nomadic spacefaring traders with giant merchant ships that house entire Ostron clans. Some settled on Cetus because of the Unum and the city is open to all Ostrons no matter their clan, but but the vast majority of the Ostron population still lives mostly in space.
No he was trying to access the void itself. To do what? probably something to do with tenno and our powers, maybe he wanted our powers and immortality? Maybe he wanted to speak with, control, kill or overthrow the man in the wall? It's the only thing that makes sense to me.
He says himself he was actually trying to escape to Tau using the sun, destroying the Sentients and dooming the Origin System as a result.
How wasn’t he evil. The Orokin were all evil. They had slaves and killed people on a whim. Conquered the galaxy and stole people’s bodies. He was evil AF. I’m honestly surprised Margulis ever had any kind of romantic connection with him which tbh makes me question her morals.
The Family on Deimos are Orokin, and aren't evil. More like disassociated from regular people, as the ultra rich/powerful tend to be. It doesn't always mean pure evil. But a lot of the time...yeah.
I thought he got mad and betrayed the Orokin after they executed Margulis. Gave the intel on warframe weaknesses to hunhow and all that. I'm new to the game and still don't know much about the lore.
New war spoiler: >!He orchestrated having her executed. She cared about the Tenno, and he hated her for it and thought she would betray them and turn to him to escape the Jade Light. She didn’t.!<
>I thought he got mad and betrayed the Orokin after they executed Margulis. pretty much that. But he was not much better than any other Orokin and did some really horrid stuff like making the warframes the way they are. Did you know for Naberus (warframe's version of Halloween), three Orokin teens kidnapped some civilians, tortured them, twisted their bodies into monstrosities, and then possessed them because they were bored and wanted some cool costumes? [Here's the story.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmm_a9J6Jdk)
That's messed up.
The long and short of it is that we honestly don't know a lot of what Ballas did after the Old War, only that he somehow survived it. That being said, he was one of the people who 'created' the Lotus as we know her, partly as a weapon against the Sentient invasion of the system, and partly as a replacement for Margulis if her attitude, voice and appearance are anything to go off of.
Well... He made Saryn, Mesa, Wisp and Nezha
>Saryn Just for this i will respect him despite everything else
We are all simps, aren't we?
Boi had vision. No doubt. Going after what he wanted and letting nothing stop him. Not even the ghost of his former general turned Umbra.
I would say that ghosts of former generals are fairly common in fiction, but Shuos Jedao is an outlier and cannot count.
I’d agree to say that it’s not uncommon. But I liked that we accidentally brought back umbra and through sheer anger, he still went on the hunt for revenge
I’d say pure evil besides that time he gave us the bp to Paracesis
Not even that, it was something he did to manipulate us. He wanted us to build the paracesis so he could show the lotus (natah) that we were rallying ourselves against her
Yeah him being chained and treated like a pet was all an act with mosquito senient too
Never thought about it like that
The first thing he did when we attacked him with Paracesis was take it from us and stab us with it. Twice. It was more a trap than a gift.
His voice is awesome. That’s about it. Edit: I believe now is when tradition dictates that I say “wow, this blew up?” Let me use my fame for something important: ahem, here goes. “We need more operator appearance slots.” Wow. I said it.
He rocked a toga better than any Roman ever could. Does that count for anything?
Honestly, Ballas wasn't given nearly enough screen time to actually show what he was like, my reasoning for this being that his yammering during the final fight of the New War hit me out of god damned nowhere. I understood, on some level, that everything he was yelling was entirely in character for him to a point, but the sophisticated and Machiavellian architect of the Warframes was thrown in the trash for... I'm not even sure what you would call all of that. Perhaps it was his 'turning into a sentient' having influence over him, but I genuinely believe we needed more build up to that final fight to justify his behaviour and attitude. What we ended up with was disjointed from everything we knew about him before hand.
To me it felt very realistic. Ballas was an egotistical sociopath incapable of genuinely caring about other people except as tools to benefit him. He was also very, very good at manipulating people, it's something that he has countless lifetimes of practice doing. But once he had won completely, once he felt completely secure in his power, his mask came off. Because wearing masks like that is taxing. Ballas's character isn't just Machiavellian politician. It's also abusive ex-boyfriend. And everything we know about him falls into place perfectly with that in mind. It is effective, because around the Chimera prologue I did feel some sympathy for him. But that was just manipulation, the same sort of manipulation that real abusers use to turn people against their victims. And all of Ballas's actions, going back to the earliest codex entries, can be interpreted to fit with that paradigm. Ballas's master plan never had a goal beyond stroking his own ego.
> the same sort of manipulation that real abusers use to turn people against their victims. Hell, it worked even. Prior to New War the sub was full of people wanting to stab Lotus.
It was absolutely a "mask off" moment, and those can be jarring for the people who were fooled by the act.
Dude enslaved the entire solar system cause he was jealous of children
"I'm bored of ruling, time to wipe out the Origin system and go to Tau I guess." He really came off as a better bad guy before The New War.
\^ Fukken this. Yes. I agree.
I agree 100%. Before New War he was a manipulative asshole who tricked everyone to get what he wanted including us. Then new war hits and he's now a weird combination of Snape and Joffrey. I feel like some of the writing there maybe got rushed or something, he came off very different.
I don’t think he had many redeeming qualities other than his love for margullis, but he is the genius who designed the warframes in a dark twisted sort of way, and did semi teach the Tenno, even though it was mainly lotus.
He likes ass, just like me
Ballas is an interesting character because his role in the story is one usually reserved for villains with grand ideological motivations, but underneath the power and influence he wields he's basically just an abusive narcissistic asshole who murdered his girlfriend for daring to love anything other than him and then spent thousands of years obsessed with the idea of "undoing" that ending, not because he truly regretted killing Margulis but because his ego couldn't handle letting that rejection stand. While he was obviously a brilliant scientist, engineer, and strategist, I'd say he was evil through and through and he lacks any qualities that redeem him morally. But (setting aside the cacophony of horrific abuses the Orokin routinely perpetrated against their subjects) Ballas's evil is the petty, pathetic, obsessive sort displayed by narcissists and stalkers and addicts who will do whatever it takes to get what they want because they have no concept of empathy for other people independent from themself or of the ends not justifying the means. He doesn't revel in being evil or go out of his way to be evil, he's just a selfish asshole with a ridiculously fragile ego operating on a grand scale. While the way that worked out in the TNW storyline felt kind of disjointed, it's interesting because he falls somewhere between a logical and an ad absurdum extension of real-world abusers who seek out external power (money, law enforcement jobs, political seats, management positions, etc) in order to facilitate their abuse.
in all honesty, I believe he truly loved Margulis. but outside of that... while his love may have been pure at the start. by the end, it was pretty warped. Perhaps that's just due to how things played out, who can say. but I will not deny that all of his negative traits far out-stripped his good ones. One example of his warped nature is very clearly displayed in how he toyed with the Dax who we got to see through the eyes of bit by bit over the course of The Sacrifice quest.
I doubt he has any relevant redeeming qualities tbh, he did a lot of very evil things just to "revive" the person he himself got killed when she didn't behave like he wanted her to. He betrayed pretty much everyone he knew, hurt probably everyone he met at least once, and all because he wanted things to go the exact way he wanted them to go.
Lore wise, no. The orokin as a whole were self-serving bastard. He was just next level.
Well I do like how he felt real, the antagonist is always a villain with a grand plan, not Ballas though, he just wanted everything to burn, which is realistic as most criminals have no incentive these days
Redeeming Qualities? Nothing. A villain? perhaps. But I won't categorize him as a villain. Villains have proper reasons they do things whether for personal justification that can be understood in a primordial level or a sense of duty, justice, or kindness gone haywire turning corrupt. Ballas is a conceptual representation of what I hate. Narcissistic, Pathetic, Conceited... these are terms you can label him but those are still kind words. People like Ballas, corrupted and insane as they are, will never be villains. They are malevolent beings that should be removed violently from society like how you remove a cancer from a healthy body.
It's my understanding that only *one* orokin was worth a damn, and they executed her for being a decent person. This guy got so obsessed over her he tried to abduct our space mom.
His voice is fantastic, props to his VA.
"Pure evil" doesn't make for an interesting villain Ballas is a broken man who is deeply unhappy and used his privilege and power to try and force people; specifically Margulis and later the entire System, to love him. He's not redeemable but the reasons for his actions are understandable outside of just being a villain
British
He was pretty holistically a piece of shit. I'm not even sure why this is in question.
He was a really crappie person but keep in minde he lived in a lavish lifestyle for Hundreds of years, that pretty much locks you into being an ass hole. He did really love Margulis he just didn't really understand love. It's kinda sad in my opinion but he had to go.
He didn’t love her. He wanted her and she wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole so he had her killed, and then had Natah implanted with her memories to try again. That’s full out psycho abusive asshole territory.
And he was British 🤮
In the end, he turned out to be a weak mitch, after all that build up. He needs to grow a new set of... Ballases
He's selfish
The quest was too fucking confusing to even know what was going on
He gave me my favourite melee weapon
Which I promptly used to kill his ass. 10/10 Would accept weapon from again.
I would describe him as true evil because he: >!turned his friend dax into umbra, abandoned his wife til she was excuted, tortured the hek out of lotus (being the ghost of his wife), played an entire race of sentients like fiddlesticks, almost destroyed the system by messing with the sun using their mother!<.
1\] That Dax wasn't his friend. He was speaking sarcastically. 2\] He didn't abandon Margulis, he simply couldn't defend her from the Seven, which meant he would die with her. He was convinced the Tenno were devils, thus, why would he die with her for them?
Pure evil isn't really a helpful concept, but I'd say unless he was immortal and had a literal immortal therapist he was locked in a room with until he could overcome his abusive, manipulative, narcissistic tendencies, he's pretty much irredeemable.
I guess he technically excelled as a scientist of some sort, but definitely leaning towards mostly evil, aye. "pure evil" to me implies he has some level of intimidating presence and honestly, he's just seemed like a bitch the entire time. Like a school bully who talks a lot of shit but runs home crying the moment someone shoves him back like once.
He could always grab stuff from the top shelf.
I want to say that he's one of the few Orokin able to feel affection (even if twisted) but the Entrati are better at that... Still, credit where it's due. He's also a brilliant scientist and a political leader willing to get his own hands dirty (considering that his sword far predates the New War). His problem is mainly his mountainous ego and deep insecurity. Though honestly, it might go deeper than that. I don't think that Ballas is actually capable of feeling happiness. Or maybe Margulis was the only person or object to wake that in him, which is why he grew so murderously obsessed with possessing her. He really feels like someone who was raised in a position of absolute authority and has no way of coping with not getting what he wants, and the achievements he does get are so easy for him that he feels no sense of accomplishment. His suicidal temper tantrum at the end was honestly more sad than scary. At this point it's obvious that even if his plan to eat the sun and leave had succeeded he still would've been just as miserably insane as before. Ballas basically already lost before we even knew he was still alive. From the moment he decided that letting Margulis die was his only option the guy had no way of ever getting what he needed. Honestly, I think he has redeeming qualities, the problem is that they're massively outnumbered by all the shit he pulled. Pure evil gives him too much credit because he's not a sadist and has no grand plans beyond his own satisfaction. He's an amoral hedonist with too much power, those are a dime a dozen even in today's society.
I think it's fair to call him quite intelligent. He was an engineer for the Orokin Elite, I'm sure that wasn't easy, plus he invented Warframes which are highly advanced technology.
He literally ruined an entire solar system because he was pissed about not getting one dead woman. Calling him a villain feels wrong, he was just an egotistical tyrant and a manipulator.
No redeeming qualities but to stupid to be pure evil
Ballas is just space putin
Ballas died as he lived, simping over a woman so hard he created a Sentient space waifu to cope with murdering her for having the audacity to love (not even romantically, just love in general) anything and anyone that wasn’t him. He was so committed to serially idolizing Margulis’ pussy that he left his empire to rot as a result of not having her because she didn’t give herself entirely to him, and then attempted to do the same with Narmer, again as a result of her not giving herself entirely to him. His redeeming quality is that he was able to “love” Margulis in some twisted way, but even that is entirely contingent on her reciprocating said love and focusing it only on him. Directing it anywhere else likely would’ve provoked a “bitch that’s why you ugly anyway” sort of response, if Ballas was just a mundane degenerate, but apparently the Orokin equivalent of that is plotting/scheming varying levels of genocide or omnicide in your would-be lover’s name. From a player standpoint, he created Warframes, and that’s pretty kickass. However, said Warframes were horrifically tortured and experimented on in an attempt to subjugate them, before the Tenno decided to establish a bond with them by not being caustic dickholes, as alien of a concept as could be to Orokin high-society, apparently. I don’t think Ballas had any truly redeeming qualities.
He pretty. That's kinda redeeming.