Warrior Nun: The Bravery of Yasmine

It's not easy to be a hero.

[Warning: This essay contains spoilers for Warrior Nun seasons 1 and 2.]

At first, Yasmine was the most jarring addition to Warrior Nun season 2.

She appears out of nowhere at the Vatican, posing as a journalist to ask Pope Duretti questions about the OCS. There’s very little notice to her introduction, making her feel like she came out of nowhere. While Yasmine is unable to derail Duretti’s preconceived answers regarding the secretive nature of the OCS, the audience has a strange feeling of uneasiness. Who is this unknown person that has entered the scene, seemingly with knowledge of the OCS and how they operate? What does she truly want, and will her presence threaten the very secretive existence of the OCS as a whole?

Yasmine is introduced during Warrior Nun at a time of great uneasiness. Season 2 comes off the heels of Adriel being unleashed from his place of captivity beneath the Vatican. Mary is missing and presumed dead, with her death being confirmed by the end of Episode 2. However, Season 2, Episode 1 establishes the existence of the Firstborn Children, a group of people dedicated to worshipping Adriel and who see him as the messiah. Adriel has not only gained a lot of power between Seasons 1 and 2, but he has also utilized it to influence an unknown number of people across the world. People who may have knowledge of the OCS because of him, and want to use said knowledge for nefarious purposes. While it’s initially unclear what they might do with confirmation of the OCS’ existence, it’s easy to see how Duretti confirming they are real to Yasmine could have dire consequences.

This is why I didn’t trust Yasmine when she was first introduced. I was also wary of her because of the destruction of the OCS at the start of the season, which I suspected she was heavily involved in. This is because, not long after Yasmine questions Duretti about the OCS’ existence, chapters of the organization worldwide are targeted and attacked by an unknown force. In my head, the connection had already been made. Somehow, Yasmine had learned everything she needed to know from what Duretti said. Somehow, the way he worded his sentences must have tipped her off to the existence of the OCS. Which means that, somehow, she managed to discover where their key locations were. If she was one of Adriel’s Firstborn Children, Yasmine could have tipped off the rest of the group, helping to launch a coordinated attack against the OCS.

But there are a lot of “somehows” to the idea of Yasmine being an agent of the Firstborn Children. While it seemed like an easy way of explaining the coordinated attack, it seemed too easy. As if the series was trying to make me think Yasmine was untrustworthy so I would begin to question her role in the narrative. And, I’ll admit, that suspicion stayed with me for quite some time. Especially once Yasmine shows up in Madrid as Mother Superion and Camila are investigating a signal coming from the lost OCS chapter. While Yasmine tries to show she’s trustworthy, Superion and Camila shared my own belief that Yasmine was trying to con them. This suspicion grew when she said she knew how to defeat Adriel, but could only tell the Warrior Nun. If Yasmine was working with Adriel, her promise of defeating the false prophet would lure Ava and Beatrice out of hiding. Giving Yasmine ample opportunity to set a trap so Adriel could capture Ava.

However, I started to get the notion that any ideas of untrustworthiness surrounding Yasmine were red herrings at the end of Episode 2. This is when Father Vincent informs Adriel the survivors from the OCS are gathering somewhere. His information prompts Adriel to send Vincent out in search of them. It’s how he ends up in Madrid, but also explains how he’s able to learn about the team’s plan to steal the Crown of Thorns from a museum. This is a plan entirely centered around Yasmine’s information, which is that the Crown of Thorns is a holy relic that can be used to dampen Adriel’s power when placed atop his head. The team decides to steal it from a museum, but the plan goes awry, ending with Ava captured and Camila gaining a tormenting, psychic link with Adriel. Because of how badly the plan goes, it would be easy to blame Yasmine. After all, this was based on her information, meaning she easily could have fed the same ideas to Adriel and Vincent.

But these suspicions are exactly what Warrior Nun wanted me to think.

Distrusting Yasmine so much was a key component of understanding her character’s role in the story. Which is that, yes, she really is part of a secret group of nuns with knowledge of the Crown of Thorns. That she really does want to defeat Adriel and stop his Firstborn Children from wrecking havoc across the world. And that much of her untrustworthiness comes from her behavior—worry that everything will go wrong if she does the wrong thing. It’s clear from her nervous characterization in Season 2, Episode 4 that the reason she wanted to tell Ava face-to-face about the Crown is because she wanted to ensure the information didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Just as Superion and Camila couldn’t entirely trust Yasmine on her word, Yasmine couldn’t entirely trust them on theirs. Yasmine wanted to play it smart because that’s just what she does. So, to ensure Ava got the information Yasmine wanted her to have, she waited until Ava was in Madrid to relay it. Yasmine may have seemed suspicious at first because of this. But, in reality, it was because of her careful nature that she waited to inform Ava about the Crown directly.

As for the botched attempt at stealing said Crown, the unfortunate reality for Yasmine is that she can’t control everything. She had no way of knowing Adriel and Vincent would be there to kidnap Ava. Nor did she account for the possibility of a fake crown on display. Yasmine is clearly someone who wants everything to go perfectly. Someone who is scared of failure and of things going wrong. It’s why she’s so nervous about driving the pastry van in Season 2, Episode 4. She’s not scared just because she doesn’t know how to drive. It’s because she is a planner more than she is a woman of action, but one that can’t account for the unaccountable external factors of any given event. It’s the fear of the unknown, of not being able to predict the danger behind the next corner. Better, then, to run from that which threatens you, because you don’t know if you have the strength to fight it or not.

Despite being a core character in the first half of Warrior Nun Season 2, Yasmine ends up falling into the background to an extent during the second half of the season. As Warrior Nun is apt to do, the series wastes no time that isn’t spent furthering the characters or the plot. While I would have appreciated more time with Yasmine in Episodes 5 and 6, the focus on the core characters in the show makes her background role here fit. She’s not a direct part of the action because Yasmine wouldn’t be a direct part of the action. While she has her role to play in the attempt to subdue Adriel, she isn’t as primarily focused on as other characters are at this point in the season. However, I think this works in her favor, as it reflects Yasmine’s fear in a unique way. By making Yasmine not a direct part of the action, Warrior Nun reveals her fear without directly showing it. It’s accentuated because she doesn’t have as key a role to play as everyone else. She’s along for the ride, and isn’t always happy about it.

However, all of this changes in Season 2, Episode 7, when she’s forced to confront the aftermath of the group’s failure to subdue Adriel. At this point, Camila has been captured by the Firstborn Children, now housed in Adriel’s cathedral, helpless to their plans. Plans which involve having everyone the group has imprisoned become possessed by Wraith Demons. While captured, though, Camila realizes that Yasmine—who had been with her during the attack on Adriel—is nowhere to be found. While she flirts a little with a guy named Todd, he too is soon taken and possessed, leading Camila out of her area of captivity alongside other, masked Firstborn Children. As they are walking, though, one of the Firstborn Children attacks the others. Camila is shocked, until she discovers Yasmine is underneath the mask. Not only was she able to escape the grasp of the Firstborn Children, but she was also able to disguise herself in just enough time to save Camila.

This marks a very quick shift for Yasmine’s character. While she was willing to help the group in what ways she could, her tolerance for direct conflict with the enemy was low. Even when she rescues Camila, it’s clear she’s far outside her comfort zone by taking the Firstborn Children on face-to-face. However, what makes this moment so important for Yasmine is that she goes through with saving Camila by putting herself in harm’s way. This is unprecedented for her, as she has never been one to jump into conflict directly. By saving Camila, Yasmine not only fully dismisses any notions of secret disloyalty, but also shows she’s willing to break through her fears to help her friends.

Yasmine pushing her fears down becomes an incredibly important element of Warrior Nun's Season 2 finale. Here, the main heroes launch their final assault on Adriel’s cathedral, intent on destroying a giant cross feeding off people’s prayer, as well as the Ark Adriel wants to use to summon millions of Wraith Demons to Earth. Much of the heavier, more story-relevant action is done by Ava, Beatrice, and Camila. Even so, Yasmine has her own role to play in the attack, which proves once and for all how brave she can be when the people she cares about are in danger. Late into the operation, Yasmine ends up paired with Beatrice, the latter of whom is trying to fight her way down to the basement to save Ava. As Beatrice dons her signature nun armor and begins fighting Firstborn Children to the death, Yasmine stays far away from the main action. However, it isn’t long before she’s attacked by Cardinal William Foster, a former advisor for Duretti who joined the Firstborn Children.

The struggle between the two is tense, especially since viewers haven’t seen Yasmine in a physical fight before. However, there is one aspect of Yasmine that gives her an upper hand in the fight: Her intelligence. Despite being afraid of villains like Adriel and the Firstborn Children, Yasmine has always showcased her ability to craft intelligent plans within the bounds of her knowledge. Yasmine didn’t know Adriel and Vincent would be interfering in the plan to steal the Crown of Thorns, for example, which would have been successful if the pair hadn’t gotten involved. She also made a calculated effort to save Camila, waiting until she was outside the cage before leaping into action. Yasmine is a highly intelligent character, and her smarts make up for the fear she feels when directly confronting her opponents. Which is why, when she is forced to fight William because of circumstances beyond her control, she relies on her intelligence to win.

Yasmine stabs William in the leg, which he tries to brush off as nothing but a flesh wound. Until Yasmine reveals she stabbed William in the femoral artery. As she tells him this, he realizes he will bleed out. While he tries to take Yasmine with him into death, William fails, forced to die alone, succumbing to his injury. Yasmine killing William completes her character arc, as it underscores her ability to maintain her cool even in a situation where she has to directly confront her opponents. While Yasmine started out as a character who plotted for the heroes from the shadows, circumstances drove her to have to fight for herself. Despite being scared of directly confronting her enemies, Yasmine found the strength to do so by protecting her friends, like Camila and Beatrice. While Yasmine likely still prefers to stay off the front lines after watching William die, there’s no doubt that she now has what it takes to physically ward off her enemies when it becomes a necessity.

It’s unclear where Yasmine’s story will go from here, though. Warrior Nun Season 2’s finale served to bring her character arc full circle. It also seems the purpose of the Crown of Thorns has been realized, with Ava using it to communicate with Reya in the finale. There doesn’t seem to be a place for Yasmine thematically now that her story is done. At the same time, though, the way her character was handled in Season 2 was expertly done, which is why I’d want to see more of her. Not just for the sake of it, of course. Warrior Nun rarely ever does something without using it to further the plot or characters. But it would be interesting to see how Yasmine could fit into the larger story. I don’t want her to disappear like J.C. did in Season 1. Instead, I want to know how Yasmine will flourish in the series’ future.

And I think Warrior Nun laid the groundwork for Yasmine to grow beyond her bravery.

Yasmine is related to the Coptic Order, a group of nuns that are not directly affiliated with the OCS. Because of this, it’s possible Yasmine’s storyline will move beyond the bounds of her character development and into the realm of her association with a different Order of nuns entirely. There is, admittedly, little evidence to suggest this is where the story will go from here. But it’s still a possibility that, in order to justify keeping Yasmine around for story reasons, the Coptic Order will become a major part of Warrior Nun going forward. After all, they had knowledge about the Crown of Thorns, a device that existed on Earth hundreds of years before Adriel arrived. Perhaps Yasmine’s past is a key to Warrior Nun’s future.

But even if that isn’t the case, Yasmine’s character arc was an interesting addition to Warrior Nun Season 2. While she was first presented as someone that may not be entirely trustworthy, Yasmine’s true character was slowly revealed over the course of the season. By the time she was a full-fledged member of the group, she was beginning to see people like Camila and Beatrice as friends. Which is why she could combat the inner turmoil telling her to run away, and instead face down William and the Firstborn Children. Killing William completed her character arc, making her a vital member of the OCS, and a friend to the core team of the series.

Hopefully, we see more of Yasmine’s bravery in Warrior Nun’s future.

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