Identity as Self-Actualization in Nimona Anonymous College

Identity is a prevalent theme of young adult literature. To an adolescent target audience, this concept and its associated questions are very relatable to their confusing, change-filled existences. Nimona, a graphic novel by ND Stevenson, presents identity as one of its foremost themes, however it does not reduce identity to smaller aspects such as race, gender, class, etc. Rather, it presents identity as a malleable construct which characters forge on their own in an act of self-actualization. Self-actualization in this context refers to the determination of one’s own identity through the choices they make to define themselves. Stevenson presents identity in this manner via the story’s two central characters: the titular Nimona and Ballister Blackheart, her supervillain mentor. Regardless of the fact that the characters’ arcs take them in starkly different directions, they both present opposite routes of the same identification model. Through the choices they make to forge their own identities, Nimona and Blackheart present identity as a product of one’s own self-actualization.

When the reader is introduced to Nimona at the beginning of the narrative, she’s bright-eyed and eager to study under Ballister Blackheart’s tutelage...