The MCU is known for many things – great action scenes, brilliant acting, attractive actors and stories that tug at your heartstrings. They are also good at teaching lessons, embedding didactic functions within all the glitz that is this franchise. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, the final instalment in the James Gunn Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, is the culmination of an important lesson that has been building from the first film.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 sets out to explore a very important lesson that does not get a lot of attention in media, and that is fatherhood. While there is an overall sense of the importance of family in the trilogy, this final instalment places a lot of attention on Fatherhood and what it can mean for different people. This lesson is present in the relationship between Gamora, Nebula and Thanos, for Drax and his daughter, Quill with Ego and Yondu, and even for Rocket and The High Evolutionary.
Peter Quill “Learns To Swim” By Going Back To His Roots
When we meet Quill in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, he is obviously on a path of discovery that seems to have no destination. He is a thief who has had many interplanetary and universal relationships. After one of his heists, he meets people who quickly become his teammates; Gamora, Rocket, Groot and Drax. For the rest of the film, Quill’s restlessness is present; the sense he is looking for something more remains present all through the movie. This seems to change in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, until he has to kill his father, Ego and then his foster father Yondu, dies, while saving his life. The only thing that grounds him is Gamora, who dies in Inifinity Way but by a stroke of Avenger luc, returns to life in Endgame.
In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, while he tries to convince “Gamora who is not his Gamora” that they had a great relationship she asks what is missing in his life that he desperately needs her to fill it. This is compounded by the analogy that Mantis delivers to him through Drax about learning to swim. Implying that he needs to go take a break and learn to live life. By the end of the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, we see Quill take a trip back to Earth to meet the only living father figure he has, his maternal grandfather, seemingly finding his way back home to learn how to swim, just as Mantis had suggested.
Drax The Destroyer’s Real Purpose Is Discovered
The first time Drax viewers are introduced to Drax, he has murderous intent for Gamora, as he blames her father – Thanos, for the the death of his wife and daughter. From the first introduction of Drax, his role as a father is put front and centre and in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, he gets the opportunity to become a dad again, this time to many children. He chooses to leave the Guardians for this purpose.
From Peter Quill going back to his grandfather, who he erroneously thought hated him, to Drax taking on the role of a father when it was needed the most, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 puts the lesson of fatherhood front and centre, showing that while people are the summation of many influences, their fathers hold one of the important keys to who they become.
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