A Quickie: A True Father (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was an excellent sequel. It had good music, great jokes, and good characters. Today I'm going to be focusing on Peter Quill and Ego's relationship as I found it to be a highlight of the movie.

Now this is going to be extremely spoiler heavy so if you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read on. This movie was just recently released or else I wouldn't have bothered putting the warning here.

Ego

Ego is a creature known as a celestial. They're basically gods. Unless he takes on another form, he is a planet. If there weren't so many other odd things in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), this would make me be speechless for hours. Also if I hadn't read about asteroids that eat things in the Animorphs series, I would also be really shocked.

Anyways...Ego spread his seed across the galaxy and wasn't a real father to any of them. So it goes without saying he wasn't there for Peter's younger years.

Ego is very goal driven. His main goal in life is to fulfill what he sees as his purpose for existing. Now if his whole purpose wasn't to destroy everything, I would find his dedication admirable. One of the things that would have stopped him from destroying everything was Peter's mother.

So Ego did the logical thing and put a tumor into Peter's mom's head. Therefore it was Peter's father that killed his mother.

And I thought my family had issues...

By the movie's end Ego has revealed his plans for Peter Quill: basically it's to use his son to power his death machine.

Yondu

Yondu, aka Mary Poppins, was tasked with bringing Peter Quill to Ego. But the alien never did that. During the first movie Yondu said that it was because the planet was a jerk but in the sequel you find out there is another reason.
Peter isn't the first of Ego's children Yondu was tasked with picking up. But Peter was the first one Yondu didn't deliver. This was because he knew what Ego would do with the boy and he wouldn't deliver anymore helpless children to their doom.

Yondu, unlike Ego, was there for Peter. He was there to raise him. Now you could bring up the fact that this father figure constantly brought up eating his son figure but...it was a joke. A very odd joke but a joke nonetheless.

Peter Quill's Realization

When Peter meets Ego he likes the man. He doesn't mind that this person is his father.  Though it's really Gamora who gets Star-Lord to reconnect with his father. But once he starts to he is really enjoying it. Finally he has a real father. Finally he feels some normality like playing catch with his old man.

What breaks Ego's hold over Peter is the fact that the celestial killed his mother. Once that fact is revealed Peter no longer admires his father. The man adores his mother hence carrying around that mix tape.

Peter Quill, by the end of the movie, realizes that Yondu was more of a father to him than Ego was. It wasn't just that he had known the former more than the latter, but the fact that Yondu had actually cared about him. Ego just needed his son, one of many, for what he saw as his purpose. The moment Peter wasn't willing, Ego stopped treating him well.

Earlier in the film, much earlier, Drax makes a comment saying that he thought Yondu was Peter's father. While watching the movie the first time you think it's just a gag. But when you start to think about that line...seems like Drax has a very good sense of father and son bonds.