Nimona: Good to Evil By Andrea Grubaugh
After nearly getting scraped by a certain mouse-who-won't-be-named, Nimona has finally
been released- albeit on the small screen through Netflix. Based on the famous graphic novel,
it's time to discuss who in this adaptation is a true hero and who's the actual monster.
I'm Kifinosi with WickedBinge, and this is Nimona: Good to Evil.
Major spoilers ahead for this latest film. Also, because the cast of characters in this
film is a bit smaller than most, this video is going to be short and sweet.
As always, let's start with our most noble and heroic characters. These are The Good.
For our Gold Medal of Good, we're giving it to the briefly seen Queen Valerin. It may be a bit
strange to give such a minor character our top spot, given that she is only in a couple scenes
before being murdered. However, what earns her this spot is the fact that she's the only
character with authority who is willing to take a chance and defy tradition. Even though he's not a
descendant of Gloreth and her original knights, Valerin still sees that Ballister has what it
takes to be a truly heroic knight, seeing him for him and not his lack of 'noble' bloodline.
She's his biggest supporter, and would have granted that chance to other commoners too,
changing what is a huge part of the current establishment. It's just unfortunate that her
kindness is what ended up getting her killed - not by putting her trust into Ballister,
but by not being more concerned about her director when she started questioning her decisions. Some
may see her as a bit naive or dismissive, but she truly was just trying to do good by her people.
Onto our Silver Medal of Good, it's going to the so-called Queen Killer, Ballister Blackheart. Once
a firm believer in the Institution, Ballister ends up getting completely betrayed and framed
by the Director for the murder of the queen. But even once he's branded as a villain,
Ballister still wants to try and do things the proper way, not wanting to hurt anyone
or cause too much damage. Granted this may come from a desire of not wanting to get into even
MORE trouble, but avoiding unnecessary harm and collateral damage is still a noble goal.
It should be noted though that the more time that Ballister spends with Nimona,
the more comfortable he becomes with being more rambunctious and snarky towards his
enemies. Again though, he never crosses that line into being purposely cruel or evil,
no matter how upset he gets at the current situation. Even with Ambrosius, he never
tries to seriously hurt him. He also becomes Nimona's biggest supporter by the end of the film,
even saving her life at one point by letting her know that she isn't alone, fully making up for
when he briefly doubted their friendship. As the Queen says, even if Ballister isn't perfect or
worthy of knighthood by society’s standards, he still has the makings of a true hero.
From the quote-unquote 'villain' to his eager Sidekick, the Bronze Medal of Good is going
to Nimona. Billed as a sort of 'anti hero' and a rebel, Nimona may seem pretty rough on the surface
thanks to her supposed willingness to kill people and break stuff. But while she still may lean more
on the destructive side of things, often using her transformation abilities to mess with others
and cause as much chaos as possible, Nimona tends to act more evil than she actually is,
believing that there's no point in being good if everyone still sees her as a monster. There
is an exception to this though, and that's in how much she genuinely wants to help Ballister
clear his name. She may enjoy messing with others and can be a bit rough around the edges,
but she's still a decent person at heart who just wants to be understood. Even when
she lets her pain and rage get to her, she never tries to actually hurt anyone. When
she goes full monster and stomps into town, she doesn’t even try to kill or destroy anything,
instead only looking to put herself out of her own misery, with the only damage she
causes being because of the knights attacking her. After Ballister manages to talk her down,
she nearly sacrifices herself in order to protect everyone else from getting hurt by destroying the
Director’s laser cannon. All in all, definitely an anti-hero - strong emphasis on hero.
Next up, let's quickly talk about Diego the Squire. While he's ultimately just another minor
character, we feel he does juuuuust enough to make it into the Good Tier. When he inadvertently gets
video of the Director swapping out Ballister's sword for the booby-trapped one, Diego does try
to tell Ballister about it, but gets stopped at the last second by the Director's arrival.
Some may look down on him for not stepping forward with the evidence as soon as the queen was killed,
but considering how sketchy the Director was being, we can't exactly blame him for being
worried about 'disappearing' after daring to accuse the kingdom's highest form of authority.
In the end, he was still able to help Ballister discover the truth, and we'd say that's enough
to earn him some points. We suppose we should also mention that the whole reason why he was
able to catch a recording of the Director’s actions in the first place was because he
was goofing around with Ballister’s armor - but again, it’s not exactly an ‘evil’ action,
just maybe one that shows why this guy is more squire material than knight material.
Just barely making it out of the Grey Area, our final Good character to discuss is Ambrosius
Goldenloin. In many ways, Ambrosius is the perfect example of a heroic antagonist.
Kinda hard for him to not take on that role, given that he was the one to literally disarm
Ballister. Although he's the one who leads the manhunt for Ballister over the queen's murder,
despite the fact that the two are in love with each other, Ambrosius only assumed control of
the search because Sureblade made it clear that he planned to make Ballister suffer
if he caught him. Beyond that, there are also multiple times he hesitates during his pursuit,
being willing to question if Bal is the true villain and even confronts the Director
about her role in the whole situation. Additionally, whenever he's on the field,
he's always seen looking out for the citizens he's supposed to protect, as we see quite well
in the film’s climax. Even if he’s still unsure of Nimona’s intentions, he abandons the fight
against her in order to try and stop the Director, fully being willing to confront and question her
ideals. He may have been in the wrong when it came to not fully trusting the man he
loved - and yeah, maybe it took him just a biiit longer than necessary to finally come around -
but Ambrosius is still a good guy who is willing to do what's right, even if it takes him a bit to
realize what 'right' is instead of just following the Director's manipulations.
Next, let's look at the characters who could certainly be better but aren't
completely heartless. Welcome to the Grey Area.
Starting off, let's discuss the legendary Gloreth. At the start of the film, she's deemed as this
legendary hero who banished a monster from the kingdom 1000 years ago. We eventually learn,
however, that not only was Gloreth friends with the so-called monster, that being Nimona, but we
also see that she ultimately chose to reject their friendship despite everything. As sad as this is
though, you can understand her perspective, both because she was young at the time and
because she watched Nimona accidently set fire to the village. Ambrosius also makes a good point in
that he and the other descendents were forced to become knights because of Gloreth's decree,
but again, this was done with good yet flawed intentions, so we ultimately can't critique her
too much. It’s unclear what else she did in her life, given that Nimona is the only so-called
‘monster’ that we see, and while we’d like to think that she did some actual good in order to be
worthy of her legendary status, sometimes people just end up becoming symbols on accident. As such,
we can’t really claim that she was a full hero or villain, just that
she misunderstood the final moments - and the final confrontation - between her and Nimona.
From a legend to a total knight wannabee, last in this section is Sir Thoddeus “Todd” Sureblade.
Needless to say, this guy is a total dude-bro meat-head, only really wanting to be a knight for
the glory and fame. He was also one of Ballister's biggest bullies in the knight academy, constantly
treating him like garbage just for being a commoner. Thoddeus also seems like the type to
use his authority to be more cruel than what's necessary, making that very clear both when he
tries to be the leader in the hunt for Ballister as well as when he finally gets his hands on
Ballister. Then in the climax of the film, when it comes time to fight off Nimona's monster form,
he proves to actually be a total coward. Not all that surprising if we’re being honest… All these
negative traits might have otherwise put him in the Bad to Evil area, but one thing that saves him
is that after Nimona saves the day, Todd is shown putting flowers at her memorial, being thoroughly
humbled and even treating Ballister with a bit more respect. It may be a small moment,
but it’s signifying change in Todd’s attitude is juuuust enough to keep him out of our bottom tier.
We've finally made it to the film's true villain within our Bad to Evil section.
Taking the Gold Medal of Evil by default is the Institution's Director. For some villains,
the ends justify the means - and for the Director, that means being willing
to frame others for murder, lying, manipulating, ACTUALLY murdering people yourself - such as when
she tries to kill Nimona when she’s disguised as Ambrosius - and basically doing whatever it takes
to destroy all monsters. This eventually leads to the Director turning the cannons on her own city,
not caring if she kills her own people so long as she's able to take out Nimona too. For as much
as she may claim she cares about the kingdom and protecting her people from monsters, the Director
only really cares about protecting her own beliefs regarding knights and commoners, keeping
the Institution intact, and destroying anything and everything that could potentially get in the
way of these things. She’s cruel, calculating and selfish, absolutely refusing to change her
beliefs even when repeatedly confronted with the possibility that she and the system that she is
a part of could be wrong. For all these reasons, the Director easily earns the title of Most Evil.