Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona is a refreshing twist on queer literature.
For as long as queer authors have existed, so has queer coding as a way of putting queer characters in their books without having to face the associated backlash. In more restrictive times, authors had to be very careful about what they tried to publish and relied largely on subtle references to stereotypes and coded slang from queer communities. Now that homosexuality is no longer illegal and queerness of all kinds is becoming more widely accepted, authors are able to be more bold in the way they code their characters as queer. Many authors simply skip over coding and make their characters explicitly queer. Others, like Noelle Stevenson, use a combination of queer coding and explicit queerness to appeal to a variety of audiences on a variety of levels. Today, queer coding often gets a bad rap, because writers tend to most obviously queer code villains (looking at you, Disney), which perpetuates negative stereotypes about queer people. But any character–good, bad, or morally ambiguous–can be coded as queer.
Every main character in Stevenson’s graphic novel Nimona is queer coded, hero and villain alike. Actually, the three main characters are all some combination of hero and villain, which defies the queer villain trope right off the bat through lack of villain to queer code. Nimona is all about subverting tropes of all kinds. She subverts the queer ones rather neatly; she doesn’t have queer-coded villains, all the characters have well-rounded personalities, none of the queer characters die, and the same-sex romance is written just as multifaceted and enduring as any straight romance. All of these sum up to make an all-around smashingly good (there’s a lot of smashing on Nimona’s part) graphic novel that gives the reader a refreshing break from the tropes that pervade so much of queer literature.
Nimona is the title character of the book; she’s a badass shapeshifter with a dark and mysterious past who loves wreaking havoc and hates scary movies. Her hair is short, unnaturally colored, and partially shaved, all trademark looks for modern queer women. She also has several piercings, another common look for queer people of all genders. Although Nimona’s sexuality is never mentioned, she’s drawn to look queer. Her appearance is also fluid, as evidence from the very beginning by her dragon wings on the cover. She changes shapes, sizes, species, and even genders, depending on what the situation calls for. She transforms into a huge, brutish man to carry her friend and fellow “villain” Ballister Blackheart’s heavy chest before they rob the bank (60-61), she transforms into Blackheart himself (34), and she even spends a day as a little boy named Gregor when she and Blackheart go to the Science Expo (103). But even as she transforms, she keeps her identity as a woman, including female pronouns (she/her). When Blackheart comments on how heavy she is to carry as a little boy, she responds that “It’s rude to comment on a lady’s weight” (106). Nimona may look like a boy, but she still identifies as a girl, which codes her as transgender and offers a mirror in which trans people can see themselves represented. Fortunately, unlike too many trans-coded characters throughout film and literature, Nimona and her gender representation aren’t the butt of anyone’s jokes.
Ambrosius Goldenloin is the “hero” of the story. He wears golden armor and works for the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics. But Stevenson is never one to follow well-known tropes, so instead Goldenloin, even though he calls himself a hero, is the damsel in distress. He’s oblivious to his role as a pawn in the Institution’s evil plots, and he’s easily injured and defeated in a fight. He’s also extremely effeminate. He has long, blond hair—blond hair is considered more feminine than brunet—his outfit resembles a flowy skirt, his body language oscillates between flamboyant (7) and meek (15), and he has an hourglass figure (45). All of these traits feminize Goldenloin, and as a man, that codes him as queer, even without the implied romance between him and Blackheart, Goldenloin’s former best friend/current nemesis. Blackheart is the nominal villain of the story, but of all the characters, he proves to be the most morally upstanding. He, like Nimona, has pierced ears and a partially shaven head; piercings and alternative hairstyles are common physical markers of queerness in men just as much as in women.
Throughout the story, Stevenson implies that frenemies Blackheart and Goldenloin have some kind of mutual romantic feelings for one another. She gives clues to their relationship, like a single moment of handholding when they meet clandestinely at a tavern (94) and Goldenloin’s subtle flirting during a fight scene (13), but nothing is explicitly stated until Blackheart, at a time of overwhelming desperation, calls Goldenloin “someone I love” (214). This moment makes their romance explicit, thwarting the expectation of queer baiting, a trope in which writers code two characters of the same gender as potential lovers but never follow through. Blackheart and Goldenloin’s relationship stands up to the test of time, enmity, and the forces of evil. Unlike countless ill-fated and “equal parts temporary and shameful” (Waters). Not only do they both survive—subverting the despicable “bury your gays” trope—they both live happily ever after, an ending that not many same-sex couples get.
Stevenson does an excellent job of representing a variety of types of queer people and their relationships and avoiding harmful stereotypes while she does it. Simply putting queer characters in a book is not enough anymore; these characters need to exist as more than just a set of stereotypes and victims to harmful tropes. Stevenson does an excellent job of subverting these tropes by making her characters well-rounded, queer coding everyone except the true villain of the story–the Director–treating characters’ identities seriously, showing a long-lasting same-sex relationship, and best of all, not killing off any of her queer or queer-coded characters. If all these subverted tropes aren’t enough, Stevenson also has a field day subverting all kinds of fairy tale tropes, too. Overall, Nimona is a spectacular book all around for anyone–like me–who is tired of the same old tropes in every story.
Works Cited
“Queer coding.” LGBT Fiction Guide, 21 Mar. 2017, http://lgbtfiction.com/index.php?title=Queer_coding. Accessed 13 Dec. 2018.
Stevenson, Noelle. Nimona, HarperCollins, 2015.
Waters, Michael. “A Brief History of Queer Young Adult Literature.” The Establishment, 3 Aug. 2016, medium.com/the-establishment/the-critical-evolution-of-lgbtq-young-adult-literature-ce40cd4905c6. Accessed 29 Nov. 2018.
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