Nimona

love when authors and writers take tropes and character roles and put their own spin on them, sometimes even subverting them. Specifically in genre works like fantasy. In fact, I am trying to do the same thing with my own fantasy novel. Nimona takes the familiar hero and villain roles and twists them. They are, in fact, roles within the world of the comic that need to be performed.

There is a broad trope of hero vs villain, not only in fantasy novels, but generally in story where there is a clear “good” character, often the one the audience associates with. Though they might make mistakes, it is always clear to the audience that “good” character always has the best intentions. The “hero” and protagonist are not conflated in Nimona. We follow the “villains” in the comic’s world whose antagonist plays the role of the hero. Stevenson made these two conflicting characters, Ballister and Ambrosious, fit into their roles as much as possible in order to then subvert them.

Visually, Ballister fits his role, with darker features—hair and armor—and facial hair that one would expect of a villain. He also has a scar across his right eye and has a mechanical arm. Disabilities, especially if visible and physical, is traditionally an attribute given to the villain as a way of othering them. Ballister very much hits all the typical checkpoints of what a villain will look like in a fantasy setting. On the other hand, Ambrosious has all that a hero should have. His armor is yellow—golden—with blond hair, abled bodied and just a very pretty person. No scars on his skin and holds himself up. Even the names express their roles. Lord Ballister Blackheart against Sir Ambrosious Goldenlion, names that are color coded and obvious to the reader. Gold is associated with valor, nobility, and when paired with a lion the connotation is almost glaring. It is the same with black, and the author’s choice to use those names was, for me, a hint that something wasn’t right because it was too obvious. We as readers follow Ballister’s perspective first, indicating that he was who the reader would be making a connection to. I expected a subversion of tropes because Stevenson presented them so obviously that I felt it had to be done on purpose.

With a genre filled with traditional tropes and character roles, I was excited to read Stevenson’s graphic novel that utilizes the tropes themselves in order to create an interesting and refreshing story. With readers already familiar with these associations placed on who the hero or villain is, even if they are not avid fantasy readers, helps to create an impact when revealing the twist. The author makes the readers place certain expectations on the characters based on superficial details and slowly breaks those expectations. So when Ambrosious asks to meet with Ballister and then places his hand over his, an actions so heavily coated with intimate/romantic significance, I was ecstatic. What I enjoyed about Nimona is that the roles are exactly that, roles that Ballister and Ambrosious perform without any depth to them. But they have a history together, playing roles given to them, and seeing how Stevenson used those roles as the story progressed made Nimona much more fun to read.