Nimona Summary | GradeSaver (2025)

Nimona is a young adult graphic fantasy fiction novel by Stevenson. The story's protagonist is Nimona, a young shape-shifter woman working as an assistant to Lord Ballister Blackheart. There is a major conflict between Lord Ballister and Sir Ambrosious, the current champion of the Institute of Law Enforcement. Lord Ballister hates Sir Ambrosious because he is the most recognized man and the conqueror in the public eye. Paradoxically, at one point, Sir Ambrosious and Lord Ballister worked together at the Institute of Law Enforcement, but Sir Ambrosious rose to a higher rank in the organization, which angered Lord Ballister. In the early days when Sir Ambrosious lost to Lord Ballister, he fiercely shot Ballister's arm. Ballister is a villain because he can no longer win the physical war against Sir Ambrosious. Consequently, Lord Ballister secretly plans to overthrow Sir Ambrosious from the Institute on allegations of corruption and poor leadership. Ballister knows that Nimona is a shape-shifter, and he thinks she is the most valuable person to work with to overthrow Sir Ambrosious and take the Institute's leadership.

Despite being a villain, Ballister is a good man who gets along very well with Nimona and works in harmony. Ballister only kills when necessary, especially when his life is in danger. In addition, Ballister is a man who understands science and morals, while Nimona is a blessed woman with the ability to transform her body at any time using magic. Nimona and Ballister have many encounters with Sir Ambrosious as they scheme to bring him down. Firstly, Nimona and Ballister raid a bank and steal the money they share with the poor people, and they raid research facilities to taint the image of Sir Ambrosious. Ballister secretly introduces a poison component that endangers people's lives, and he blames the Institute of Law Enforcement and Heroics for that catastrophic occurrence. On the other hand, Nimona transforms her body, enters the Institute's offices, and steals files, which reveal that Sir Ambrosious and his team are secretly planning to start making jade root weapons, which is an outlawed poison plant. Ballister needs all these proofs to bring Sir Ambrosious down and show the public that he is corrupt and unfit to hold office.

When Sir Ambrosious discovers that Ballister and Nimona have fixed him and they are ahead of him, he decides to tell the Institute's director that he has failed in executing his work as required. He also tells the director that the people behind the expose are Nimona and Ballister. The director orders Nimona to be assassinated and Ballister to be caught alive. Sir Ambrosious is assigned the duty of killing Nimona and capturing Ballister. However, Sir Ambrosious fails to execute the task and is sacked from the Institute. Later, Ballister learns that the poison he developed earlier is killing people, and he volunteers to go to the hospital to give antidotes to those still alive to recover. Unfortunately, the Institute arrests Ballister and sends him to jail. When Nimona tries to rescue Ballister, she is also caught and sent to prison. Later, Sir Ambrosious writes an apology letter to Ballister asking for forgiveness.

Towards the novel's end, Nimona realizes that to save Ballister and both escape from prison, she must divide her body into two parts, one strong and the other weak. The stronger part is very powerful because it transforms into a dragon that kills everything in its way, including the king, the director of the Institute, and many other powerful people. Sir Ambrosious tries to kill the dragon but in vain. For Ballister to escape, he needs to reconcile the two halves of Nimona or kill the stronger half. Fortunately, when Ballister kills the stronger half, Nimona survives. The novel ends when Nimona disappears into the crown, and Ballister looks forward to meeting Nimona again in his lifetime.