Lord Van Bloot and Mind Control

Was Lord Van Bloot actually brainwashed during his stint under the M'arrillians as he claims, or was he just allying with them?

The book seems to give the indication it was out of free will, as he apparently wanted the power.

On the other hand, the card is Brainwashed and it seems out of character for Milla'iin to not be thorough.

I personally say he did it out of free will and just accepted the power-ups M'arrillians give those they brainwash. It seemed like his claim of being brainwashed was more like an excuse(that backfired when he had to hide out with them)

It started out that Van'bloot did ally the M'arrillians. Whether or not he was mindcontrolled somewhere along the way, I'm not sure.

I feel like the brainwashed text on the card is just really to allow van Bloot the opportunity to enter armies with marrillians. Else they would have had to make a special case just for him. I mean there are plenty of cards with special cases of abilities on them - Heptad, Iparu. So he could have had some ability that says. "May enter loyal armies with M'arrillians..."?

Of course this is assuming that he wasn't indeed brainwashed. But the relation between the show and game do fade often anyway so I wouldn't try to create a correlation.

Well even within game context, we know Bloot is a traitor and always power hungry.

I don't think it'd be out of character for him to join the M'arrillians willingly, but it's just as likely that Milla'iin was just being through