What makes Nikita such a worthy role model is not that she’s some flawless superheroine who never bleeds or cries; quite the opposite. She’s a woman who has been forced to do terrible things in the name of her country; a former drug addict; someone who feels unworthy of love and is incapable of living a normal life. She considers herself a monster because of the lives she’s taken, and yet, her capacity for good, her intense loyalty and her fierce protectiveness ensure that she continues fighting the good fight when she’d probably rather give up and run away to a desert island (or put a gun to her head). She’s not a martyr who can barely function without wallowing in self-pity; she has friends and a lover and is capable of laughter, and she’s also stubborn, judgmental and arrogant. None of these traits are mutually exclusive, and none of them make her more or less worthy of love or pity. In other words, she’s a fully-formed character of infinite contradictions, just like an actual woman, and that is “Nikita’s” greatest strength, as both a character and a show.