As graduation season rolls around.. .

it’s normal to remark upon how far we’ve come in their life. Whether it be the obstacles we overcame, the laughable gaffs we learned from, the ‘awkward stages’ we had in the midst of puberty, the friends we gained and lost along the way, or the ‘aha!’ moments we had when something finally hit us. With this in mind, it is no surprise that the coming of age story permeates so deep within our popular culture. These sorts of narratives are able to be understood and enjoyed by a wide audience due to how they touch upon universal human experiences of transition and growth.

Book: “The Wednesday Wars”

In the realm of literature, there are so many comingof-age stories to talk about, but I decided on a novel that I think is rather underrated: “The Wednesday Wars” by Gary D. Schmidt. The novel follows Holling Hoodhood, a witty boy who finds himself contending with a complicated teacher-student relationship with homeroom teacher Mrs. Baker, his architect father’s high expectations, and wacky-hijinks involving the class-pets over the course of his seventh grade year.

Besides its S-tier humor, the true meat of “Wednesday Wars’’ comes from its backdrop being the Vietnam War. Schmidt uses Holling’s interactions with the other characters to expose how people on the homefront are affected by the war. We see the war’s exacerbation of anti-Asian sentiment through the racist treatment of Holling’s classmate and Vietnamese refugee Mai Thi, we are witness to the grief and anxiety held by those with loved ones fighting in the war like Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Bigio. We also get a front row seat to the war’s political divisiveness through dinner table arguments where lima beans get thrown between Holling’s father and his hippie older sister, Heather. Through his relationships and interaction with these people, Holling gains a deeper understanding of the world around him and himself as he becomes determined to forge a path for himself.

Video Games: “God of War: Ragnarok”

The cinematic and mythology-inspired “God of War: Ragnarok” picks up some time later from where ”God of War” (2018) left off with Kratos (voiced by Christopher Judge) and his son Atreus (voiced by Sonny Suljic). In Ragnarok, Atreus is no longer just a kid sidekick attached to the hip of his father, but is instead a young adult trying to strike out on his own. Having been revealed as their take on Loki in the previous game, Atreus in Ragnarok is a playable character with his own individual storyline that follows a comingof-age arc with the archer trying to *literally* find his own destiny by looking into prophecies related to the encroaching apocalyptic Ragnarok behind his father’s back, scavenging for pieces of a mysterious artifact with the likes of Odin (voiced by Richard Schiff) and Thor (voiced by Ryan Hurst). And, along the way, he makes friends with the likes of giantess Angraboda (voiced by Laya DeLeon Hayes), Thor’s daughter Thrud (voiced by Mina Sundwall), and Midgardian and future first king of Denmark, Skoldr (voiced by A. J. LoCascio). Atreus’s journey towards self-discovery is not without its grave blunders; he frees the monstrous Hound of Hel, gets deceived by Odin, and unwittingly puts people close to him in harm’s way. Despite this, the game pushes that Atreus needs to be able to step into his own apart from his father and Kratos needs to learn to let go of his son. This message is furthered by examples the game gives us of dysfunctional parent-child relationships that feature a controlling parent being at the root cause of their adult child’s maladjustment. The game’s depiction of Odin is a masterful yet disturbing representation of a manipulative-narcissistic parent who degrades recovering-alcoholic Thor to a sobriety breaking-point in order to maintain his control over him. In another example, we have Vanir Goddess Freya (voiced by Danielle Bisutti) doing all she can to keep up an invulnerability spell that she casted on her son Balder (voiced by Jeremy Davies) that drove him down a path of insanity due to his inability to feel anything. In both of these cases, we see children being denied a certain type of agency by their parents long after they’ve reached adulthood and being negatively affected because of that. “God of War: Ragnarok’’ ends with Kratos giving Atreus his blessing to go leave in search for other giants and the pair share a big heart-warming hug.