#tl;dr- the way everyone else expressed their feelings on ballister's dismemberment to show they they were Good And Right People No Really

[snickerdoodlles]

nimona fix-it that i'm not writing. may properly clean this up when i have more brain space

(tags originally from this post)

this has been sitting in my drafts for. months. as i tried to gather my thoughts beyond a big hearty Yeah.jpeg #honestly? what would've made the movie work a lot more for me? #is if during nimona's freak out over the kid being scared of her/calling herself a monster #ballister had turned to her and gone ''uh. aren't you?'' #because i think it wouldve helped them better tie several themes in the movie: first that nimona does not actually want to be destructive. #that's very much her lashing out in a ''you call me the monster? well ill BE your monster'' #but it comes from a place of emotional pain so directly facing with the consequences of it understandably sets her on a spiral #second is ballister's own spiral of going ''burn me? fine i burn YOU'' and parallel him hitting a similar spiral nimona had for contrast #third. i dont think ballister's prejudice should have been prompted externally. #the movie like. doesnt actually want to/doesnt trust itself to deal with its characters actually being prejudiced #which is why ballister's turning away from nimona had to be prompted by the director through his ex #to give him an easier rejection of it and reconciliation with nimona (to give ALL of them an easier rejection/reconciliation of their #prejudice with the exception of the director. who just dies.) #if ballister had called nimona a monster in that moment i think it wouldve helped illustrate a few things better: that societal prejudice is #ingrained deeper than most people realize. ballister would have fully accepted nimona as a monster but not recognized that he shouldnt be #thinking of her AS a monster in the first place. theres still something inside him that he needs to finish unpacking and heal. #i think it also would have shown better how people who are victims of prejudice can still perpetuate it. making it so that ballister had to #be externally manipulated to enact that against nimona undermines the message of harm by societal prejudice that the movie tried to send #also i just think switching up that betrayal wouldve made for a smoother sequence of events in movie. ballister calls out nimonas destruction #and reveals he still has ingrained prejudice. nimona runs and ballister can even still run into his ex again afterwards. and if they want #to keep nimona's backstory the ex revealing that to ballister could instead be how ballister realized how wrong he was in the first place #itd give context to realize the extent to which he hurt nimona with his thoughtlessness and work better to prompt him running out to #reconnect with her. and fix that 'change the narrative' line because as is its like???? kinda hanging in the breeze as is oof #ANWYAYS tl;dr--nimona falls apart for me because the movie wants to tackle heavy topics but doesnt want any of its characters to act out in #any truly problematic ways. so ALL the bad as to fall on one specific villain (whose so much of a prop she only gets a title and not a name) #that they can just kill at the end and absolve the entire town of their 'sin' (prejudice). its v much the christian theme of the#sacrificial goat+scapegoat actually. the director stops representing prejudice and is just there to give everything a clean resolution #it has a lot of the pieces but its too…timid to really dig into and address them. this prejudice isnt the only one but my tags are SO LONg #nimona

#*bounces this post in my head* #might return to this post later in a reblog because i also have. ThoughtsTM on how nimona handled ballister's dismemberment #trying to do this outside of tags but like #tl;dr- the way everyone else expressed their feelings on ballister's dismemberment to show they they were Good And Right People No Really #vs ever digging into how ballister himself felt about it #also contrasted to how ballister's distancing of self from that violence could have absolutely been something to address and dig into #but the movie never touched on that #which looks even worse then because all the time taken to address that violence on ballister is all about other peoples feelings vs his own #..............im trying not to do this in tags hjghjg ANWAYS not to my tastes to say the least #it has good pieces but fumbles pretty much all of them except the trans allegory #sighs #nimona #ask game: fics im not writing #ik no one asked for this one but thats my tag sorry