Lester Ballard
E1031910
Lester Ballard is the violent, mentally unstable drifter and antihero at the center of Cormac McCarthy’s novel "Child of God," known for his descent into extreme depravity and isolation in rural Tennessee.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Lester Ballard canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T12942477 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lester Ballard Context triple: [Child of God, mainCharacter, Lester Ballard]
-
A.
Lester Burdon
Lester Burdon is a conflicted police officer whose personal and moral struggles drive much of the tension and tragedy in the novel and film "House of Sand and Fog."
-
B.
Lloyd Barker
Lloyd Barker was an American gangster best known as a member of the notorious Barker–Karpis crime gang during the early 20th century.
-
C.
Lester Whittington
Lester Whittington was an architect best known for designing the Alaska State Capitol building in Juneau.
-
D.
Russ Ballard
Russ Ballard is an English singer, songwriter, and musician best known for writing hit songs for artists like Argent, Rainbow, and Kiss, as well as for his own solo work.
-
E.
Leland Patton
Leland Patton is a theatre professional best known as a founder of the Crossroads Theatre Company, a prominent African-American theater organization.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lester Ballard Target entity description: Lester Ballard is the violent, mentally unstable drifter and antihero at the center of Cormac McCarthy’s novel "Child of God," known for his descent into extreme depravity and isolation in rural Tennessee.
-
A.
Lester Burdon
Lester Burdon is a conflicted police officer whose personal and moral struggles drive much of the tension and tragedy in the novel and film "House of Sand and Fog."
-
B.
Lloyd Barker
Lloyd Barker was an American gangster best known as a member of the notorious Barker–Karpis crime gang during the early 20th century.
-
C.
Lester Whittington
Lester Whittington was an architect best known for designing the Alaska State Capitol building in Juneau.
-
D.
Russ Ballard
Russ Ballard is an English singer, songwriter, and musician best known for writing hit songs for artists like Argent, Rainbow, and Kiss, as well as for his own solo work.
-
E.
Leland Patton
Leland Patton is a theatre professional best known as a founder of the Crossroads Theatre Company, a prominent African-American theater organization.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (42)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
antihero
ⓘ
drifter ⓘ fictional character ⓘ literary character ⓘ |
| adaptedIn |
Child of God (2013 film)
ⓘ
linked to:
Child of God
|
| appearsIn | Child of God ⓘ |
| associatedWithTheme |
dehumanization
ⓘ
isolation ⓘ madness ⓘ moral ambiguity ⓘ violence ⓘ |
| authorNationality |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| characterRole |
antihero
ⓘ
protagonist ⓘ |
| createdBy | Cormac McCarthy ⓘ |
| fictionalLocation |
Sevier County, Tennessee
ⓘ
rural Tennessee ⓘ |
| firstAppearance |
Child of God (novel)
ⓘ
linked to:
Child of God
|
| gender | male ⓘ |
| hasNotableTrait |
extreme social withdrawal
ⓘ
necrophilia ⓘ serial violence ⓘ |
| languageOfWork | English ⓘ |
| literaryGenre |
Southern Gothic
ⓘ
psychological fiction ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | contemporary American literature ⓘ |
| medium | literature ⓘ |
| mentalState | mentally unstable ⓘ |
| moralAlignment | morally ambiguous ⓘ |
| narrativeFunction |
embodies social alienation
ⓘ
explores themes of depravity ⓘ represents moral decay ⓘ |
| nationality | American ⓘ |
| occupation | drifter ⓘ |
| personalityTrait |
misanthropic
ⓘ
socially isolated ⓘ violent ⓘ |
| portrayedBy | Scott Haze ⓘ |
| residence | caves in rural Tennessee ⓘ |
| settingPeriod | mid-20th century ⓘ |
| socialStatus |
marginalized individual
ⓘ
outcast ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Lester Ballard Description of subject: Lester Ballard is the violent, mentally unstable drifter and antihero at the center of Cormac McCarthy’s novel "Child of God," known for his descent into extreme depravity and isolation in rural Tennessee.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.