#nimona said acab

[amorphousbl0b]

Watched Nimona last night and a thought occurred to me.

The knights’ armor doesn’t seem to be very protective against their swords. Bal’s arm is easily severed and we are led to believe that a stab through the stomach would not only be possible but would kill Ambrosius.

And yet. Characters wearing the armor survive a LOT. Ballister is beaten to hell and back by several incidents, random guards are tossed around without raising worries about their health (which Bal definitely would do if they were in real danger), and Todd survives his serious crash in the finale with major but recoverable injuries. It seems to be effective. It seems that it is protective, that it can shrug off damage that would be more dangerous to an unarmored person. But it’s utterly useless against their own swords.

The kingdom’s police force is wearing equipment that is clearly not meant for combat with an equal but protects against any weaponry a common citizen could wield. The knights are designed for oppression right down to their gear.

[woadge]

Spoilers for Nimona and TW for Christianity & Catholicism mentions

Heads up: This post contains a lot of Christianity talk, and I know that’s not for everyone, and I also don’t want this to be taken as some attempt at proselytizing; I simply resonated with this reading of the story as a queer Christian myself and I wanted to share. Tl;Dr, Ballister is a Queer Unitarian Christian and we love that for him and the story is about how he and his Genderfluid Satanist daughter destroy the pope and the catholic church together. Here’s a reading of Nimona I haven’t seen yet: While the story of Nimona (the character) is about transphobia and how fascistic and discriminatory governments often are willing to kill entire populations simply to kill “the monster”, Here’s a way I read Nimona as a Transfem Pansexual Christian Anarchist: The story of Knighthood being Christianity, the institute being the organized Catholic church. We see two opposing knights, a black knight (black sheep ref for sure), and a golden one. Both queer, and in this reading, both Christians. Both pushed by the institution and “brainwashed” as Nimona says, into dogmatic belief. The status of being a knight is the allegory for being a Christian. The moment the institution turns their back on one queer, the golden queer turns his back on him as well; he cuts his arm off in the reaction, and spends most of the first half of the movie hunting him to throw him in prison or kill him. The organized religion has actively turned the queer lovers against each other. Throughout the movie, Ballister maintains his knighthood. He maintains his practices, his belief systems, and his desire for honor, justice, etc. At first he tries to justify his hatred of the director but not the institute, and then becomes disillusioned with the organization as a whole, at one point considering abandoning the religion and leaving with Nimona. Nimona tells him, functionally, that he’s a good person. And if he can be a good person and still be a knight, then others can as well. Nimona never encourages him to abandon his core beliefs, even when the organization is very obviously corrupt, because there isn’t anything inherently harmful or even necessarily untrue about his yearning for knighthood; only his reliance on the structure of the state as a means to acquire it. Ballister’s story to me reads as a queer Christian, abandoned by the church and other queers who sought acceptance from said church. He maintains his Christian faith but learns to exist without the structure of the church, even hybridizing many of his beliefs with those of other systems; he even hangs out with someone who is frequently depicted as a monster and a dragon, who has been cast out from the land: Nimona being an allegory here for anything the church considers evil, and to some extent, satanism as a concept (which is not inherently evil even from a Christian standpoint, instead it is hated because it is misunderstood by many). But yea Ballister is Unitarian and we love him and I refuse to read Ballister as a cop like some others might do because Ballister is actually perfect in every way and acab

[hellochildrenoftheatom]

Watched Nimona

(slight spoilers under the cut)

Damn I didn’t know this movie said ACAB, nice

Also I can finally go on my tumblr again, this thing has been all over my dash

Oh and it would make a great double feature with Wolfwalkers