Welp. This fandom is pissing me off yet again with their lack of media comprehension skills regarding Lotus/Natah/Margulis, so here we fucking go. There are going to be spoilers for ‘The Old Peace’ Quest ahead (as well as some very brief spoilers regarding one of Roathe’s KIM chats, specifically a certain one in which he speaks about Margulis and Ballas, though I won’t be fully discussing that because I think I want to make another post about it in detail at some point).
Here are a few TWs for some stuff I’ll be talking about in this post:
Memory loss.
Domestic violence/abuse.
So, this post is going to address two main things, and I’m sure that many of y’all likely already know which two I’m talking about. Firstly I’ve been wanting to talk about the whole situation with the Operator, Lotus, and Loid since TennoCon, and seeing as the quest is out and we have the full context, now seems like the perfect time to do so.
Lotus does not act the way that she does because she doesn’t ‘care’ about the Operator. She acts the way that she does because, among other reasons, she’s a leader. There are times when things need to be done, regardless of how uncomfortable they might be. That’s the unfortunate reality of her position as the Leader of the Tenno (and it’s a reality that Natah—and Margulis, in her own way—was also familiar with). She wouldn’t have put the Operator, one of the beings whom she thinks of as her children, one of the few beings that she does care immensely for, at risk if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
She also knows better than anyone (and far better than Loid ever will) what it is like to have one’s memories taken from them. Yes, at this point, fighting the Indifference is the catalyst for going back and revisiting the Operator’s memories, but they deserved to know them anyway. The choice was theirs all along. Not hers. Lotus didn’t force them into that Pool, she doesn’t force them to continue before they’re ready (whenever they come out of the memories for a moment, it’s always the Operator who signals that they’re ready to go back under), everything is on their terms (or, as much as it can be with the whole Indifference thing, at least). The Operator deserves to know what happened to them, they deserve to know about Adis, and they even say that to Loid multiple times.
And Lotus is likely just as scared for the Operator as Loid is. That waver in her voice when we go back under one final time (the “My child” line)…that’s not the sound of someone who doesn’t care. Of course it isn’t. This is the same character who would have gone back to an abusive ‘relationship’ (I loathe to call it that, but a better-suited word escapes me at the moment) so long as that meant her children would’ve been safe (can we tell I’m still not over ‘The New War’ yet?). Lotus cares immensely, she’s terrified of the prospect of her child never coming back.
And she also knows that this is necessary. That the Operator needs to do this, both for the System and for themselves.
And, despite what every part of her might be screaming, she isn’t going to take that choice away from them.
This is not a woman who ‘doesn’t care’ about the Operator. And I don’t think that we can say that Loid ‘cares more’ when they’re both worried, they just have different ways of showing it.
Now, switching gears for the rest of this post, I’d like to talk about how Margulis is depicted in ‘The Old Peace’, because despite the quest quite literally spelling it out word-for-word, some people evidently still refuse to comprehend what actually happened.
Margulis did not do what she did because she is ‘evil’ or because she was conspiring with Ballas this whole time.
Margulis did what she did because she needed to.
We know that that relationship was built on a massive power imbalance. Ballas is an Executor, one of the most powerful members of Orokin society (and, as we’ve actually learned from Roathe, he was one of the most powerful Executors, possibly second only to Nitokh, at least in his eyes).
Margulis did what she did in order to protect her children as much as she was able to from the person who, at that point, already loathed the Tenno for a) being loved by her, and b) blinding her.
She would’ve died to save them.
Ballas was always going to do what he did, with or without her. There wasn’t any talking him out of it. And despite the fact that she didn’t agree with it, Margulis couldn’t exactly disagree with him, especially not publicly. Refuse to obey, and it would be her head, her children’s heads (because let’s be honest for a moment…Ballas enjoyed playing mind-games. He wouldn’t have gone after her…at least not immediately. Harming the Tenno was by far the best way to hurt her and to show her what would happen if she crossed him), on the line. Her hands were tied…and he knew that.
And likewise, Margulis knew that the Tenno were in danger, especially if Ballas’s plan went awry (again, he already hated them. It wouldn’t have taken much to cause him to get angry enough that she couldn’t talk him out of killing them). She knew that he and the rest of the Orokin would spin the narrative and paint the Operator as a “traitor”.
We’ve seen time and time again that, unfortunately, Margulis is not the one with the power in that relationship. Unfortunately, try as she might to change Ballas’s mind, she can’t, at least not the majority of the time. Hell, we’ve seen this happen regarding the damn Tenno. She fought until her death to protect them, and he still spun that around to use against the Tenno after her death.
Even the Operator realized that.
They don’t blame her for what happened, and even if they do, that thought disappears immediately after Margulis answers them with “You already know the truth”. The resignation in that line tells us far more than the words themselves do…They both know how Orokin society works. Margulis’s words aren’t an admission of guilt, they’re an ‘I had no other choice’.
And the Operator knows that.
They’re clearly aware of at least some of the reality of Margulis’s situation, judging by their response to her plan for them:
“But Ballas…if he did this…he’ll kill y-you…”
They know that she’s in a very dangerous situation, even as a child, and even with everything that has happened, they’re scared for her.
And then, moments later when they awaken in the present-day, the Operator’s immediate reaction towards the Lotus system isn’t betrayal or anger. No. It’s an apology. A genuine one. One that weaves itself into every line of their expression and one that we, as the viewer, can hear run even deeper than the seemingly-simple words that they say.
And Lotus’s response?
“You were used. Just as she was.”
The game directly spells it out for its players and that still isn’t enough for some people. There was a choice made to not only show the reality of what was going on through actions, but to also tell us verbally that Margulis was not doing this because she agreed with Ballas or because she wanted to.
The moment that I realized what was happening in the quest, my immediate thought wasn’t ‘Oh my god, Margulis betrayed us’. No. It was ‘Oh no, please don’t give this fandom something else to misinterpret and hate her character for’. And then, they spelled it out. That she was used. That she didn’t go along with Ballas’s plan willingly. And a part of myself was relieved, because the game was acknowledging what I knew would be the nonsense that some players would spout.
But even all of the confirmation in the world can’t convince some people. Even stating it point-blank won’t stop some from ignoring the facts of what happens within the game. They’d rather condemn a character who was being used by her abuser than take the time to think about why she did what she did.
And that’s what I dislike. Ignoring the facts presented in front of oneself in order to perpetuate another version of the story that is not the truth.
The core of Margulis’s story is unfortunately close to reality for many women. Domestic abuse is frighteningly common. Power imbalances are even more-so. There is only so much that someone can do when they’re with a partner who has all of the political, financial, and social control in the relationship. Sometimes, that means that (for the safety of themselves and any others who might be impacted by the abuse, such as children), instead of arguing or trying to change their partner’s mind, they need to try to mitigate the damage done. Sometimes it’s safer not to rock the boat, it’s safer to avoid making the other person angrier so that their anger doesn’t come back to cause even worse harm. And that’s the reality for many, many people.
Abuse isn’t always bruises or screaming matches. A lot of the time, it’s walking on eggshells, making plans to navigate pain that maybe hasn’t even happened yet, because one wrong move and the tension’s going to snap. A lot of the time, it’s a concession masked as agreement just to keep that veil of peace for even a moment longer. And most of the time, it’s making choices that no one would want to make in order to try to keep themselves (and potentially others) as safe as they can.
And personally, I applaud DE for giving us so many layers to Margulis, as well as Lotus and Natah, to make it feel real and to make them such well-written characters outside of what they’ve been through. Because most of the time, abuse is quiet. It contains things that look different to everyone besides those who know. But that doesn’t mean that the control isn’t there. It doesn’t mean that the danger wasn’t still lurking above Margulis’s head no matter what she did.
At the end of the day, people’s opinions are their own, of course. But if my post does anything at all, I just hope that it makes someone think. That’s all. Just think about the reasons why someone might do something like this, and the reasons why Margulis had very little choice in the matter.
