Posted by Nimona is definitely a movie able to stimulate many meaningful considerations. Based on the 2015 graphic novel by the American cartoonist ND Stevenson, the Netflix movie tells us a story that invites us to question what we see and find a personal interpretation of things. Because the villain is not always what everybody thinks it is, and what’s different is not always an enemy. In this article, we will analyze the plot, the ending, and the movie’s meaning, having all the details explained.
You can watch the official trailer for Nimona here on Youtube.
Nimona plot & ending explained: who is the villain?
At the beginning of Nimona, the movie presents how the story started: centuries ago, the Kingdom was a quiet place, until one day, a monster came from the woods, threatening peace. A warrior, Gloreth, stood up against the monster, rejecting its attacks, and promised to train generations of warriors, all descending from Gloreth, that would keep the monsters away. This lasts until the present day, when a new warrior Ballister, who doesn’t belong to Gloreth dinasty, is being welcomed by the Queen among the Kingdom’s warriors.
While the plot of Nimona evolves, the movie challenges us to question what we have assumed since the beginning, who the villain really is. During the official ceremony, Ballister’s sword takes the initiative and kills the Queen. Ballister is marked as the Queen’s killer, and everybody hates him, although we understand he was framed. Nimona shows up at his door: it’s a creature able to shapeshift, who introduces herself as someone hated by everyone. Together, they try to discover the truth.
Through adventures, tricks, and flashbacks, we understand that Nimona is the monster the Kingdom has always fought. However, she never wanted to hurt anyone. In a flashback, we see how things happened centuries earlier: Nimona is different from anyone else, and nobody wants to be her friend. One girl, though, opens up her heart, and they become friends. Until one day, people in the Kingdom discovered Nimona was different and attacked her, pushing her out of society. The other girl was Gloreth, who sided with the Kingdom and promised to always fight “the monster” Nimona.
This is how the plot of Nimona invites us to see things differently, to challenge the consolidated knowledge, and to verify with our own heads if someone is really a villain. Because it’s easy to mark someone, or something, as a villain, only because it’s different from us. But what if the villain has nothing wrong, and doesn’t represent any threat? In that case, by casting them away, we become the real villains. This is precisely what happens to the Institute director, who frames Ballister and kills the Queen, only because her mission is to protect Gloreth’s descent from the Queen’s idea to allow anyone to become a warrior.
Technically, Nimona is “a monster.” She is not human; she shapeshifts; she wants to break things. But that doesn’t mean she is a threat to our society. By marking her as an evil monster, we turn her into the real villain, only because she’s different from us. From this point of view, the plot of Nimona also has another meaning, representing a perspective shift on the queer context: the characters from the graphic novel belong to the queer world, and the plot of Nimona invites us to think about how sometimes society rejects people belonging to the queer community only because they are different. Being different doesn’t necessarily mean being an enemy – this is the real meaning Nimona wants to convey.
The ending of Nimona presents several aspects that need to be explained. After being marked as a monster for centuries, Nimona developed irrepressible anger and frustration. She wants to break things, she’s angry, because she’s always been rejected by the Kingdom. That’s how society can turn someone into the villain, “the bad guy,” just by emarginating and rejecting them. But Ballister understood that Nimona deserves love like everybody else. That’s why he stands in front of her at the moment when she is about to take her own life. And that simple act of love immediately turns Nimona again into a good creature: she sacrifices herself; gets hit by the cannon, saving the Kingdom from its destructive power.
After that, Nimona is celebrated as a hero. She died for the Kingdom; she proved she wasn’t a villain. And the last aspect that needs to be explained is whether Nimona is dead at the ending of the movie. In the movie’s final scene, we hear her voice saying, “hey, boss!,” and we see Ballister’s face happily surprised. After all, Nimona is probably still alive, and that can leave us with the hope of seeing her powerful character again in the future.
