The Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics
Ballister was originally in training at the Institution of Law Enforcement & Heroics to become a hero alongside his best friend Ambrosius Goldenloin. During this training, Goldenloin cut off Ballister’s arm, claiming it was accidental but which Ballister insists was purposeful. During one of the many arguments over this point of disagreement, Goldenloin tells Ballister to stop blaming his turn to villainy on him, insisting that he chose to turn evil. Ballister thunderously responds by saying he never had a choice in the matter. Since the Institution had no need for a one-armed hero and since every hero needs a villain, the role of bad guy was made for him and not by him. This assertion by Ballinger situates the Institution as a symbol of the paradoxical duality of the law enforcement system which requires a never-ending supply of bad guys in order to situate, justify, and maintain its perceived role of eliminating crime.
Jaderoot
The Institution, which is the iconic foundation of good in the eyes of the citizenry, has secretly been hoarding supplies of a plant called jaderoot considered so dangerously toxic that the Institution itself outlawed its use. Ballinger doesn’t know what plans the Institution has in mind for using the jaderoot, but he can’t image any reason that qualifies as “heroic.” Jaderoot becomes the symbolic incarnation of the hypocrisy of “good guys” countries using things that it works hard to forbid “bad guy” countries from having. Such as, for instance, the hypocrisy of the only country in the world to ever actually use a nuclear bomb against an enemy forbidding other countries from even developing the technology.
The Time-Released Non-Fatal Poisoned Apples
After an initial attempt to warn people through the media is undone by adopting the Big Lie approach of falsely terming the report a hoax, Ballinger devises a plan to cultivate suspicion of the Institution. His plan involves manufacturing a non-lethal toxin in his secret lab which will be injected into just enough apples. Nobody will die, but just enough people will get just sick enough for their imaginations to immediately head straight toward conspiracy theories that cast suspicion back upon the Institution. Further adding to the complicated nature of this plan is that the toxin is constructed to work as a time-release agent, so it takes several weeks before the scheme even begins to prove fruitful. This exceptionally complicated, slow-working, non-fatal plan is placed in juxtaposition to the Institution’s directive to simply kills Ballinger’s shape-shifting young female sidekick. Together, they work as symbols of ambiguity that blur the line between “villain” and “hero.”
The Witch and the Dragon
When Nimona is a young girl, her village was constantly under attack by raiders from the west. She desperately wanted to help but as a young girl there wasn’t much she could do. One day she stumbled across a witch who had fallen into hole. In exchange for helping her out of the hole, the witch agreed to turn Nimona into a powerful dragon which would allow her both to rescue the witch and to save her village from the raiders. Unfortunately, the villagers reacted with fear since Nimona couldn’t explain to them that she had been turned into the dragon. In this scenario, the witch stuck in a hole represents the stalled history of feminist empowerment from which the younger generation learns and becomes stronger which only serves to instill fear among those wanting to cling to the known dangers of the patriarchal status quo than the mystery of the alternative. Almost needless to say, perhaps, is that everyone in Nimona’s village is wiped out by the raiders because of their fear of the non-threatening dragon.
Shapeshifting
Nimona doesn’t immediately identify herself as a shapeshifter to Ballinger when she arrives to apply for the job of sidekick, appearing to be just an average young girl. Ballinger has no interest in a sidekick until she surprises him by transforming into a shark. Over the course of the narrator, Nimona transforms into a number of different entities and this ability eventually earns her the distinction of being called a “monster” and accusations of being “possessed.” This transformative ability of Nimona is a symbol of the concept of the fluidity of identity that lies at the heart of the movement as well as the oppressive backlash against by opponents implicating trans individuals as deviant from normality.
