Jordan’s Favorite Things of 2015
You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t want it. You don’t even care that it’s here. But here it is, so you might as well read it: It’s Jordan’s Favorite Things of 2015!
So, I thought it would be fun to do a Top One list from a bunch of different mediums and then add a brief paragraph (or two, or three) explaining why they are the Top One Thing of their respective mediums. So here we go!
Game: Undertale by Toby Fox
Every year, I replay Bastion by Supergiant Games, and then semi-jokingly declare it the best game of that year. Because it’s the best game that mankind has ever created. This year, however, I didn’t even feel compelled to make that joke (though I did replay Bastion on PS4 and get all the trophies. Still the best!) because Undertale is So. Damn. Wonderful.
I feel like if you care about video games in any serious way, you at least kind of know what Undertale is. You’ve certainly HEARD of it, but maybe you know nothing about it. That’s because Undertale is that most frustrating of things to recommend; the kind of thing that must be experienced relatively blind to truly experience. But here’s what I can say: Undertale is a JRPG that gets rid of all the annoying bullshit that plagues the genre. No grinding, an interesting combat system, and it’s only like 5 hours for a single playthrough (though you will do at least two, trust me).
But what truly sets Undertale apart is its writing, music, and commitment to subtle player choice that really matters (we’re talking player choice so subtle that you might not even realized you made a choice until you beat the game or read the wiki). The characters and world are so memorable that you honestly feel like the characters in this world are your friends by the time it’s done, and I know how hokey and stupid that sounds, but it’s true. If you have a heart, Undertale will touch it.
The game is $10. Play it.
Honorable Mention: Tales from the Borderlands, Ori and the Blind Forest, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows.
Book: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
Uh, this is sort of a default entry because I can’t think of another novel I read this year that was actually published in 2015 (the English Major Curse, I suppose). I’m working my way through Welcome To Night Vale right now, but that one probably wouldn’t even take the spot anyway because I have a fondness for YA fiction and I think Rainbow Rowell might be our greatest living YA writer.
The concept of Carry On is extremely hard to pitch to a stranger. In Fangril, one of Rowell’s previous works, the protagonist Cath writes a lengthy fanfiction about the conclusion to Simon Snow, a Harry Potter knockoff. Carry On is that fanfiction, the eighth book to a fantasy series that doesn’t exist, and one in which two former enemies, Simon and Baz (a vampire) realize that they are both gay and in love.
The book is extremely fun, funny, and endearing. It uses the reader’s presumed familiarity with Harry Potter to draw them into this similar, but very different, world. Yes there’s a British school for wizards, yes there’s a chosen one, yes there’s a wise and mysterious headmaster, but Rowell makes these characters her own, and uses shifting character POV to tell a truly engaging story on top of the aforementioned romance between bitter enemies-turned-boyfriends.
Honorable Mention: N/A
Movie: Max Max: Fury Road and Inside Out
Gasp! A tie!
Mad Max: Fury Road is an two-hour chase through a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with only a few brief minutes of respite. With minimal dialogue and maximal visual storytelling, director George Miller tells a simple-but-compelling story filled with laconic-but-detailed characters. I’m the kind of guy who usually nods off during lengthy action scenes, but the film is an utter thrill-ride, but one with enough brains, heart, and character to captivate any audience. I just saw it for the fourth time yesterday, and it continues to be incredible.
But in addition to being fun, Fury Road is important. While the characters of the film find hope in a desolate wasteland of warlords and violence, we in the real world see a bit of hope in the desolate wasteland of misogyny and poor representation in media. Fury Road is a feminist film through and through, a film about female captives breaking their chains own chains and escaping their male oppressors (with a little help from Max). It’s progressive without being in your face about it, and what a lovely day it will be when the rest of cinema follows suit.
Inside Out is a very different film, though no less important. It’s a Pixar film, and I think it might be their greatest yet (and I am a big Pixar fan). The film follows Riley, a preteen girl who moves from Minnesota to San Francisco and is greeted by a crippling bout of depression when she gets there. The story is told both inside her brain - as depicted by her emotions Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust working to restore happiness to Riley’s memories - and externally, as Riley finds it difficult to communicate with her family and finds despair in the simplest things, such as disappointing pizza. It’s a film about growing up as much as it is about depression, and more importantly, it’s about empathy, the most important of human traits. I’ve only seen it once, and I’m embarrassingly coming up with little more to say, but you should absolutely see Inside Out, one of the funniest, saddest, and most human pieces of media I’ve experienced this year.
Honorable Mention: Age of Ultron, Ex Machina, and Creed,
Comic Book: Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson
I feel like anybody who knows me would be pretty surprised if this wasn’t the comic I chose. I love Kamala Khan (the titular Ms. Marvel) so much that I wrote a 20 page research paper about her earlier this year, so I’m going to use this space to briefly touch on why that is (technically she just finished her second year as a character but I’ll just be talking about her in general).
Kamla Khan is a 16 year old Pakistani-American, Muslim, and nerd who writes fan-fiction about The Avengers and plays MMOs in her free time. She’s also a shape-changing superhero who fights crime, both on the streets of New Jersey and (as of this November) alongside the likes of Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America in the All-New, All-Different Avengers.
In a lot of ways, Kamala Khan is the successor to Peter Parker (so is Miles Morales, I assume, but I don’t read his comic). A nerdy, relatable teenage superhero for the new generation. In Ms. Marvel, the punching of villains is a fun part of her comic, sure, but it’s not why you’re there. In every arc, G. Willow Wilson tackles some vital aspect of our current society, from internalized racism (Kamala’s first arc is about overcoming her instinct to shapeshift into the white, blonde, blue-eyed Carol Danvers as she fights crime), to gentrification.
But perhaps what makes Kamala important more than anything else is the way she uses empathy and compassion as a tool with which to perform heroics. In her most standout moment, Kamala discovers that a number of missing teenagers have actually been brainwashed into believing that their generation is hopeless and that the only way to find self-worth is to give up their lives as fuel source to resolve the energy crisis. Before she goes to beat up the villain who did the brainwashing, Kamala asks the kids about their interests, and tells them how they can benefit the future and make something of herself, telling them that giving up on their generation is to give up on the future of humanity.
Kamala Khan stands as a symbol of why superheroes can be really important. They show us the best that humanity can be, and Ms. Marvel does this in a way that is relevant, progressive, and thoroughly enjoyable. If you’re even casually interested in comics, absolutely give this one a read.
Honorable Mention: Sandman: Overture, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour (Color Edition), Hawkeye.
TV Series: Jessica Jones
I could say a lot about Jessica Jones, but I would just be echoing Devin Faraci of Birth.Movies.Death because he nailed it, and this post is already pretty long. If you need to know why Jessica Jones is amazing, go read the last two paragraphs of his review (or all of it, but there are spoilers so maybe don’t). Short version: It’s a superhero show about dealing with trauma and facing its source, and the harrowing process thereof. It’s an almost perfect show, and I can’t recommend it enough.
Album: Beat the Champ by The Mountain Goats
I am the least qualified person to talk about music, but John Darnielle is one of the most poetic lyricists of all time and this band, quite frankly, rules. It’s a folk album about wrestling on the surface but it’s also about parenthood and death and searching for justice and meaning through fiction. At the very least, you ought to check out “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero.”
Anyways, this actually the second best album of the year because the actual best goes to…
OVERALL BEST THING: Hamilton: An American Musical
Before November of this year, I had only encountered one piece of media that so perfectly clicks with all my interests and philosophies that it transcends genre and medium and becomes not just my favorite movie or comic or game or whatever but my Actual Favorite Thing, a piece of media that feels like a reflection of my soul and what I care about and what I love. That one thing was Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley.
Well, now there are two.
Hamilton is a musical written by and starring Lin Manuel-Miranda about the life of early America told through the story of underrepresented Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. It’s one of those things that I saw so many people love so much that I snobbishly assumed that it couldn’t actually be that good. But one morning in November, I decided to buy the album on iTunes and give it a listen, because I love early America and I love musicals. I have scarcely listened to anything else since.
The musical is a blend of hip hop and more traditional musical theater stylings, and every minute of it is wondrous. Cabinet meetings are settled via rap battle, the recurring musical and lyrical motifs are incredible (and sometimes heartbreaking), and the number of ways it rhymes the phrase “Arron Burr, sir” is one of the great achievements of the English language.
And although the story is about America in the 18th century, it is very much told by the America of the 21st. There is hardly a white actor in the show (I think Jonathan Groff, who plays King George III might be the only one? I don’t actually know), but it doesn’t call any attention to this fact. There’s a certain reclaiming of history in this, I think, reminding us that yes, the Founding Fathers were white, but the country isn’t, and never has been, built entirely by white dudes, and things like the other characters’ obsession with Alexander’s status as an immigrant seem to be reminders that we as a nation been holding the same prejudices and having the same conversations for more than 200 years now. In other words, it’s a historical work, but an extremely relevant one, as all great historical works are.
Hamilton is so much fun, the music is good, and if you love yourself, you will go check it out on Spotify or something (and then buy it on iTunes because it super, super deserves it).
Honorable Mention: Luna, my three-month-old Corgi.
