Balder

Balder
Series	Bayonetta
First Appearance	Bayonetta
Species	Lumen Sage
Age	+600 years old
Year Created	2010
Created by	Platinum Games
Voiced by (English)	Crispin Freeman
Voiced by (Japanese)	Takehito Koyasu

Balder is the main antagonist of Bayonetta and a major character in Bayonetta 2. He is the father of Bayonetta and the husband of Rosa. In his youth, Balder was one of the most important member of the Lumen Sages, being the bearer of the "Right Eye of Light", one of the Eyes of the World. After being possessed by Loptr, he spent 500 years to prepare the world for the return of Jubileus, The Creator and to warp the mind of the humans into thinking that the Angels were purely a force of good while the Demons were purely evil which is false in the Bayonetta universe. In the present day, Balder became CEO of the Ithavoll Group, a Paramilitaristic and religious group.

While Balder is an antagonist in the first game, he becomes a playable character in the Tag Climax of the second game.

History

Before the events of the game

Balder was born on October 25, 1379 in the Lumen Sage clan, as a child Balder displayed the abilities necessary to become a Lumen Sage. Once he is a sage he falls in love with an Umbra Witch named Rosa, and the lovers have a daughter that they decide to name Cereza. This broke the tenet that was believed to have kept the balance between the Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages in place, Balder is exiled and Rosa is imprisoned for all eternity. Those actions led to the prophesied Clan War that killed all the Lumen Sages (except Balder who was in exile) and almost all the Umbra Witches allowing Loptr to prepare the return of Aesir, The God of Chaos without any opposition.

During the Clan Wars, Balder is told by the Angels that the witches were planing a "rebelion" since most of the Lumen were killed during the early stages of the conflict that turned in a conflict between Paradiso, Inferno and the Human World and as such the witches were not kept in check by their counterpart. Balder decided to head to Vigrid in order to make sure that the rebelion is stoped, he enacted The Witch Hunt to act as a countermesure to the Witches' fighting abilities. Once reunited with Rosa, he learned that Fortitudo lied to him and that it was only a plan to reunite the Sages and the Witches to destroy them and proclaim the reign of the light on the Human World by claiming the Eyes of the World for themselves. While Balder is trying to defend Rosa, Loptr attempted to kill him with one of his cards, Rosa takes the hit and dies in Balder's arms. While mourning her death Balder is pulled 500 years into the future by future Loptr.

The Masked Lumen

Once he arrived in the future, Balder found himself atop of Fimbulventr where he met an adult form of Loptr who claimed that Loki was the one who killed Rosa, since Loptr changed his appearance to differentiate himself from Loki who still looked like a child, Balder believed him and took the name of "Masked Lumen" and headed to Noatun to get rid of him.

The Masked Lumen attacked Loki and would have killed him if not for Bayonetta's intervention, the Masked Lumen was an enigmatic individual in the eyes of Bayonetta since she killed the present version of Balder only month ago and he was believed to be the last Lumen Sage. The two engaged in a ground fight where they summoned Fortitudo and Labolas to fight alongside them, after both summons are defeated they engage in a aerial fight where the Masked man turns into his "Father" form while Bayonetta spreads her "Malphas" wings while summoning Madama Butterfly and Temperantia. The fight end in a draw, and Loki and Bayonetta manage to escape.

The Masked Lumen is then fought Inside Insidious where he tries to get to Loki only to be stopped once again by Bayonetta and the two engaged in a second battle where the two summon Hydra and Sapientia, the fight damages Insidious' insides and while the Demon is exploding, Bayonetta notices Rosa's lipstick container hanging around the Sage's neck, the Masked Lumen profit of the distraction to try to strike a decisive blow to the Witch, however Loki, now awake, throw one of his cards at the Lumen's Mask destroying the part covering the right eye of his face. The "Right Eye of Light" is revealed, and Insidious explodes shortly afterward.

The sage find the group as they were about to enter Inferno via "The Gates of Hell" while Bayonetta and Loki prepare themselves to fight the sage for a third time, a spiritual projection of Loptr appears and takes on Bayonetta and left Loki to the Masked Lumen. Both Bayonetta and Loki lose against their respective opponents. The Masked Lumen reveal his face to Loki who asked him what he has done to provoke his wrath but Loki cannot remember since he isn't the one who met Balder 500 years ago, the Lumen puts back on his mask and gets ready to get back to fighting. Meanwhile Bayonetta recieves a vision from Loptr who showed her the death of her mother and the good intentions of her father, a thing that she don't want to accept since the only version of Balder she knew was the mad tyrant she killed months ago. Loki profits of the distraction to use his card and open the "Gates of Hell" which sucks the Masked Lumen, Loki and Bayonetta in, Loptr is forced to back off.

Back to the Past

The young Balder in his "Father" form.

The Masked Lumen finds Loki alone in Inferno and engages in a fourth fight with Loki while Rodin and Bayonetta take care of Alraune, Rodin gives Bayonetta the weapon he just turned Alraune into and wishes her luck. Bayonetta stops the Masked Lumen once again who start to get tired of her meddling in his affairs and reveal himself as the past self of her father, he then take his "Father" form and overpowesr the witch with the resolve of killing her. Loki awakens his "Remembrance of Time" power and sends the three of them 500 years into the past.

Once in the past, Balder witnessed Rosa's murder for the second time but this time Bayonetta makes him notice that the kid bears the Loptr mark and not the Loki one, Balder is asked to watch over Cereza as she will become the next bearer of the "Left Eye of Darkness" by his dying wife. Balder and Bayonetta decide to go back to the present to definitely stop Loptr.

The last battle against Loptr

The duo uses a jet piloted by Jeanne to reach the sacred mountain of Vimbulventr where Loki was transported. While fighting the armies of Angels and Demons that try to prevent the two humans to reach Vimbulventr as they want Loptr to return to his status of God of Chaos.

At Fimbulventr, they witness Loptr stealing Loki's "Sovereign Power" and telling them their origin and how they were once Aesir, The God of Chaos, he then tried to trick Balder that he will allow him to kill Loki as he promised him, Balder now knowing the truth strikes Loptr instead. Loptr fights briefly Balder while Bayonetta tries to go to Loki's rescue, Loptr fires a projectile at her and Balder takes the hit and is knocked out as a result. Loptr takes Balder's "Right Eye of Light" while he is unconscious and engages Bayonetta, he defeast the witch and steal her "Left Eye of Darkness" and becomes Aesir, The God of Chaos. Balder wakes shortly after and joins his force with Bayonetta to face the God.

The duo is no match for Aesir with the two Eyes of the World but they distract him long enough to allow Loki (who was saved by Luka) to unleash the true power of Aesir, the power to erase anything and everything from reality. With it he destroys the Eyes and leave Aesir powerless. Balder and Bayonetta then summon Omne to separate Loptr's body from his soul, Jeanne uses Gomorrah to destroy his body while his soul tries to escape to the past in order to be reborn, Balder traps the soul inside him and return to his time knowing that the soul will eventually drive him insane, before going he tell Bayonetta that he knew that she was his daughter and that she wants her to call him "Daddy" one last time before he loses his mind, Bayonetta obliges and Balder thanks her and disappears while telling her that he will always watch over her.

The Tyrant Sage

After his return to his time, Balder succumbed to Loptr's influence and damaged the Crescent Valley from there, he led The Witch Hunt in order to destroy the remaining witches. The only witches left alive were Jeanne and Bayonetta, the witches are declared dead and Balder founded what would be known as the Ithavoll Group, a company that would expand during the next 500 hundred years and become one of the world's leading conglomerates. Due to the Witch Hunt and the Ithavoll Group, Balder was able to impose his vision of the Trinity of Realities to the human world which would result in a divinization of the Angels. He would later use his organization to build Isla Del Sol, a massive artificial island from which he could use the worship of the Vigridians toward the Laguna to plot the return of Jubileus, The Creator, the ruler of Paradiso.

For this Balder needed to find the Eyes of the World. Since he was already the holder of the right eye, he only needed to find the left eye and since Rosa said to him that his daughter would be the heir of the left eye, he hires Antonio Redgrave and has him work to uncover the location of his Bayonetta. However, Antonio begins spreading rumors concerning the true nature of the Lumen Sage. Balder intentionally begins leaking information regarding himself to the journalist, aware that Antonio has been spreading rumors in an attempt to uncover the truth and as a warning to his extent of his power and influence. Antonio succeeds in tracking down the location of Cereza and shortly after she awakened, he sends angels to kill Antonio before the eyes of Luka Redgrave, his son. He would also track down Jeanne and then use his magic to subject her to mental reprogramming.

20 years after the awakening of his daughter, Balder baited her with the fact that he possess the right eye, since Bayonetta know nothing about it except that she possess the left eye since she lost most of her memories during her slumber. Enzo tracks the owner of the right eye and learns that Balder is in Vigrid which he inform Bayonetta of. Once she arrives in Vigrid, Balder starts to talk to her by telepathy, bring her younger self to the present and send a brainwashed Jeanne to confront her in order to awaken the left eye.

Once Bayonetta reaches the top of Balder's tower, he exposes her to the truth and his own goals, he also reveals that he killed Luka and that Jeanne was innocent. He then engages Bayonetta in a fight and feigns his death to complete the awakening of the left eye. Bayonetta falls unconscious and Balder ascends with his daughter up to the statue of Jubileus and launches it into outer space.

Death

Jeanne comes back and frees Bayonetta from the statue and Jubileus is incompletely resurrected and soon destroyed by the witch. Balder crash on Earth with the head of the ruler of Paradiso. In his dying moments, Loptr tries to escape Balder's body but Balder use his powers to seal him definitely and dies with him, his last thoughts are for his daughter.

Super Smash Bros. series

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Balder is featured as three different Spirits. The first one is based on his Bayonetta 1 appearance and is an Advanced Shield-type Primary Spirit with two open slots for support Spirits and the ability to be enhanced at level 99. After enhancing it, the Spirit turns into one depicting his "Father Balder" form from both games, this one is an Ace Shield-type Primary Spirit with two open slots and grants the ability to start battles with a Franklin Badge equiped. The third one is a depiction of his "Masked Lumen" persona from Bayonetta 2 and act as an Advanced Shield-type Primary Spirit with two open slots and the ability to boost the magic attacks of his user whan equipped.

In-game descriptions

Bayonetta

A tyrant of a man motivated purely by self interest, who 500 years ago incited The Witch Hunts, annihilating not only the Umbra Witches, but also his fellow Sages. Balder also used his magical abilities to take control of the captured Jeanne. Named after the Norse God of Light, Balder showed promise in becoming a powerful Lumen Sage; however, he broke his clan's one unbreakable tenet of faith, consorting with an Umbra Witch, begetting a child. It was all a ruse to take possession of The Eyes of the World, the overseers of history that had previously been equally divided amongst the clans. During the following 500 years, Balder gathered the devotion of his pious followers. Now his ambitions have reached their climax, placing the last remaining Sage on the cusp of a universe anew, as he and Bayonetta, bearing his own very blood, become the Eyes of the World to resurrect Jubileus, the Creator, and unify the Trinity of Realities. Their fate nearly decided; who will truly see it through to the very end?

Bayonetta 2

Masked Lumen

According to Vigird Chronicles of Avenllanedo, the 500-year struggle between the Umbra and the Lumen ended with the defeat of the last remaining sage at the hands of two Umbra Witches. Yet, as if to mock these records, a masked man appeared before Bayonetta with the power of heavens and the swiftness of light. The Lumen had not perished.

Balder

A bright light seeps through, the mask's crack. It is a light unlike anything else found on Earth--the light of the Right Eye. Long ago, a tyrranical man was said to have led the Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages to their demise. Legends claim he killed his wife, sabotaged his daughter, and decived the people, all for the sake of building a new universe with the Eyes of the World. He was said to have achieved an omniscience almost equal to that of a god. How this main came to obtain this ambition remains unknown, yet a glimpse of the truth can be seen in the fragment of history the Prophet revealed to Bayonetta. A young man had been called from the Vigird of 500 years past to the modern day. In his hands he held a weapon ready to strike at his enemy. His name is Balder. Later, he would have been known as the Tyrant Sage. In the Prophet's vision,however, he seems only lost in rage, seeking revenge for the death of his wife, Rosa.

Trivia

• Balder is named after the Nordic God of light.
• During the fight with Father Balder in Bayonetta, if the player does not steer Bayonetta's lipstick bullet correctly, Father Balder regains his composure and lunges at the screen, which triggers a game over.
• Balder was born on October 25, 1379.
  • It is assumed that Bayonetta 1 took place around the date of the original release since the game takes place in "Present Day". By that logic, Balder would have been around 630 years old when he died.