| “ | I'm sorry. I see you, Nimona. And you're not alone. | „ |
| ~ Ballister to Nimona after stopping her from killing herself. |
Ballister Blackheart, also known as Ballister Boldheart in the film, is the deuteragonist of Nimona series.
He was lower-classed citizen who tried to become a knight to serve as a role model for other people in the kingdom that were like him, but after he was framed for the death of Queen Valerin, Ballister worked with a anti-heroic shapeshifting heroine named Nimona to clear his name.
He is based on Ballister Blackheart from the comic webcomic.
He is voiced by Riz Ahmed as an adult, and by Zayaan Kunawar as a child.
Biography[]
Backstory[]
Ballister was born in a kingdom as a commoner, and one day, he infiltrated into the knights' training field and destroyed one of the training dolls with a wooden sword, where he then said that he would slay monsters and protect his kingdom. After this, Queen Valerin would allow him to train to become a knight despite him not coming from a noble bloodline.
Ballister would later graduate at the top of his class, and would start dating Ambrosius Goldenloin. While he was able to get the chance to become a knight, many people hated Ballister because they saw him as unfit to be one due to his background as a street kid.
Nimona[]
A few minutes before meeting the queen and getting pronounced as a knight, Ballister sat on the statium's catwalk, and Ambrosius went to see him and assured him that he was worthy of becoming a knight, and told him that he worked harder to become one than anyone else. They then go to put their armors and Todd, who was a bully towards Ballister, tells him that he was always tough on him and thought he didn't belong with the other knights.
Ballister then asks if he wants to say anything else, with Todd laughing at the idea that he would apologize for how he treated him. The Director of the knight's intitution would appear and tell him that the kingdom would see him for what he truly is. They would then go meet the queen, who after pronouncing Goldenloin as a knight, does the same to Ballister, with her saying to her subjects that any of them should become a knight if they want and earn it.
However, Ballister's sword would open and shoot a laser into the queen, killing her. This would cause Ambrosius to cut off Ballister's arm to stop him from causing more destruction, and the jumbotron of the statium would fall and Ballister left the statium. Because of what happened, Ballister would become a wanted criminal, and became seen as the Queen Killer.
Ballister would then get to a lair where he would make a robotic arm for himself. He would then notice someone knocking at his door and would investigating, but after he found no one there, he closed the door, but when he turned around, he found a teenage girl who called herself Nimona. She then showed him several disturbing drawings that had her killing people with Ballister.
Nimona would then see a wall full of pictures and assumed it was a "murder wall", but Ballister told her that he wasn't a villain and that it was to know how to prove his innocence. He would then go to try to go prove his innocence, only to get arrested by two knights. In jail, he meets with the Director, who tells him that he betrayed their trust and that she would not give him a chance to explain himself.
Nimona would then appear and breaks him out of his jail. They would then escape from the knights and Ballister would have a tense moment with Ambrosius before he and Nimona were force to run away. During their escape, Nimona would destroy many parts of the castle and Ballister would get knocked unconscious.
Back in his lair, Ballister would remember how Nimona turned into a rhinoceros and calls her a monster, which angers Nimona, leading him to apologize, and asks what she was, with her saying that she was Nimona. Ballister then asked why Nimona's helping him, with her saying that it's because she is bored and she sympatizes with him because of how everyone hates him just like her.
Ballister then realized that the Institution's squire should know about why the sword killed the queen, and allowed Nimona to help him and told her that he would be a sidekick. While getting to the kingdom's subway, Ballister told Nimona to not use her shapeshifting and avoid being seen.
They then get into the subway, with Nimona distracting the knights guarding it by faking being Ballister so they could get in. There, Nimona once again refuses to tell Ballister what she is and fakes a backstory to mock him. When they arrived at their destination a group of knights with Ambrosius as their commander would appear and try to capture Ballister and Nimona, but they were escape.
They then find the squire, and while Nimona captured the squire, Ballister would try to hide from Ambrosius, only for him to decide to use a car he was hiding on to get to Nimona when he saw her beating up the squire, with him accidentaly knocking the squire unconscious, with tehy then putting the squire in the trunk of the car before escaping.
They would then go to a piped tunel where he finds out that Nimona had an arrow in her leg, so Ballister removed it, only to be shocked by her lack of reaction to the arrow's removal. They would then interrogate the squire, who reveals that it was the Director who switched Ballister's sword and caused the queen's death.
Nimona would then tell Ballister how they should publish the video of the Director switching the sword, but Ballister refused because it would ruin the Institution's reputation, and decided to try to tell Ambrosius. They would then go to Ambrosius, who was with the director, and tried to explain how the Director killed the queen, but he refused to listen due to the Director's manipulation and tried to have Nimona and Ballister.
Ballister, angered by Ambrosius' betrayal, allowed Nimona to use her shapeshifting to fight the other knights, and during their fight, Ballister would get surrounded by Todd and several knights and they begin to beat him up, so Nimona would turn into a dragon and rescue him. However, when she saw a girl about to get hit by a car, Nimona saved her, but the girl called Nimona a monster before the girl's mother grabbed her and left.
At the lair, Nimona would angrily tell Ballister how society teaches people to attack anything that is different, and questions how she's a monster in comparison to them. Ballister would then try to escape the kingdom with Nimona, but she told her that she wouldn't leave until they exposed the Director.
Nimona would then go to the Institution's castle and confront the Director by faking being Ambrosius, and would make her feel like they were alone and the Director admits her crimes, with Ballister then revealing to the Director that he filmed her admiting to have killed the queen and fraiming Ballister for her murder before leaving with Nimona.
They would then upload the video and make a celebration party for exposing the Director. After the party, Ballister would receive a message from Ambrosius about how he wanted to meet him at a bar, which he accepts. At the bar, Ambrosius would tell Ballister that Nimona was manipulating him, since the Director tricked Ambrosius into thinking Nimona was the one who killed the queen and that the footage of the video was Nimona impersonating the Director, and showed him a scroll of Nimona being the monster whom Gloreth fought 1000 years ago, which Ambrosius gave to Ballister.
Ballister would then go back to his lair and ask if the monster in the scroll was her, and would start believing that Nimona was using him and pulled out a weapon, causing her to leave. Todd would then appear and beat up Ballister before stopping when he found out that Nimona was attacking the city.
Ballister would then go to the city and would calm down Nimona and stop her from killing herself by using the sword of Gloreth's statue. They would then hug and when they saw the canons of the kingdom poiting at the city, Nimona would go to the cannons and stop them from firing, killing the Director and presumably herself, as well as destroying part of the kingdom's walls.
Months later, the people of the kingdom would start going outside the walls and rebuild the kingdom, Ballister and Ambrosius would get together again, and they would make a memorial for Nimona while everyone now sees her and Ballister as true heroes, with even a remorseful Todd going there to honor her memory. Ballister would later go to his old lair, where he would find out Nimona was alive, with him getting extremely happy to see her again.
Personality[]
Ballister was someone who is determined to protect his kingdom from evil, despite him coming from a lower status. Because of his past, he is insecure about how people will see him. After he was accused of killing the queen, Ballister tried his best to prove his innocence. Initially, he refused to allow Nimona to hurt others or partake in criminal acts, trying to serve as her moral compass.
He saw the Institution as good, even after finding out that the Director was the one to kill the queen and frame him for her murder. However, after Ambrosius refused to listen to him about the Director's crimes, he lost all interest in doing things peacefully, and allowed Nimona to use her shapeshifting to fight against the knights of the Institution. When Ambrosius told him about Nimona being the creature Gloreth fought in the past, Ballister would come to believe she was using him and called her a monster.
However, when he realised that this made Nimona go on a rampage in the city, Ballister would feel great remorse for how he treated Nimona, and stopped her from killing herself, with him then hugging her. After Nimona's apparent death, Ballister would go to the memorial made in her memory, and would restart his relationship with Ambrosius. When he found out Nimona was alive, Ballister was happy.
Trivia[]
- Back in the comic webcomic, Ballister was originally named Ballister Blackheart.
- This was done presumably to reflect his more heroic attitude in the film, as in the webseries he embraced his pariah status from the start whereas in the film it takes a while before he embraces his role as the "villain" and spends most of the film looking to redeem himself in the eyes of the Institute.