The following contains spoilers for Our Flag Means Death, now streaming on HBO Max.
The Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby-helmed Our Flag Means Death has garnered praise for its brilliant comedy, strong acting and deconstruction of pirate myth. The show has also garnered attention for its smart handling of queer themes. As fans finish up an all-too-short first season (and campaign for a second), the hugely popular show has audiences clamoring for similar content, be it in the form of a movie or television series, something that was actually scheduled to happen years ago.
In 2019, Disney made headlines by canceling a huge stock of the projects taken on along with their acquisition of Fox. Among the losses was Blue Sky Studios, shut down in 2021, which left a 75 percent completed adaptation of ND Stevenson's Nimona abandoned. Although the storylines and settings are vastly dissimilar, many of the other aspects of Our Flag Means Death echo those of Nimona, making it a spiritual predecessor of the HBO series.
Both Our Flag Means Death and Nimona Features Queer Relationships
Our Flag Means Death is a comedy that features a queer relationship. Likewise, Nimona is an action/adventure graphic novel that also features a same-sex relationship. This is one of the aspects of both novels that has been praised. The story features queer characters prominently without making it the focus of the books. Essentially, Nimona and Our Flag both position queerness as simply another kind of romantic love.
Both relationships are integral to their characters' development and growth throughout their respective stories. In Our Flag, the story helps to bring both Ed and Stede to the realization of who they are and who they can be. In the end, it is Stede's apparent rejection of Ed that leads to a more malevolent and cruel version of the pirate to reappear. In Nimona, the relationship between Ambrosius Goldenloin and Ballister Blackheart is tenuous and scarred, but very real and present in their treatment of each other. The closeness of the two is what eventually leads to Blackheart questioning authority, and a kiss between the two men was disapproved of by Disney.
Nimona and Our Flag Means Death Are Irreverent and Brilliant
Nimona also displays a somewhat irreverent attitude toward fairytale tropes that may have contributed to the position taken by Disney. At one point, the titular character calls poisoned apples "classic," which is evocative of the classic Snow White. Additionally, there is a deeper corruption afoot in the fairytale world, as both Blackheart and Goldenloin represent the machinations of a shady organization that uses the hero/villain duality to further their stranglehold on the region.
In Our Flag, the pirates of legend are relentlessly made fun of, reduced from myths to real human beings. Blackbeard is tired of being a legend and yearns retirement, while the other pirates are ridiculously beholden to their love of "pirate" things. The legendary figure also ridiculously admits to enjoying the act of maiming others, although he admits to not having killed anyone since his father. Even though this is a comedic moment, it brilliantly emphasizes the pirate's trauma. Both narratives fuel their comedic moments by making fun of their genres or turning them on their head, while also subtly using them in order to make a point.