I was nervous about Nimona. When the villain, Ballister Blackheart, is depicted as disabled, I wanted to throw my Kindle against the wall while murmuring something about lazy tropes and boring boring boring. Nimona and I did not get off on the right foot. Luckily, it soon became clear that Ballister Blackheart was only a villain because he was labeled as such by the Institution and that we the audience were supposed to root for him as the true hero of the work.

 Nimona is the book The Cautioner's Tale wants to be. It's funny because they work with similar themes--a corrupt and oppressive government that must be defeated against all odds by brave crusaders who recognize the system for what it is. It's not a particularly original idea. So why did it fall so flat for me in The Cautioner's Tale but work so well in Nimona? I think a big part is that Nimona sets us up for certain tropes (like the disability trope I mentioned above) and then it subverts those tropes. The Cautioner's Tale doesn't bother to play with subversion and so misses the chance to provide the reader with a lot of fun.

Where else does Nimona play with tropes? One place is with the character of Nimona herself. In some ways she seems almost Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl-ish. She has a past, obviously, and the backstory she gives Ballister is sad. But she is playful and childish...until she isn't. Until it becomes clear that Nimona isn't Nimona but is a shapeshifter more powerful than any being in the kingdom. The sidekick is more powerful than the supervillain.

That leads, of course, into the ideas of heroism and villainy Nimona addresses. I'd argue that one of the major themes of Nimona is the theme of semantic power. The people in control (the Institution) get to decide who's a villain and who's a hero. They even have a training program for heroes! This power muddies the meaning of morality--are heroes moral? Or are heroes simply obedient?

One of the most entertaining ways Nimona plays with tropes and expectations is in its setting. Generally fantasy, especially fantasy involving dragons and magic, has this medieval Tolkein-esque feel. Language and technology is stuck in the Middle Ages because who needs the internet when you've got dragons? Nimona subverts this, too, by giving us a technologically advanced society that also has magic and dragons and heroes and shining armor.

Nimona was fun because Nimona took our expectations and gave us something a little different. It pointed the finger at these tropes then tweaked them.