Heroes and the Creation of Myth: Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Superheroes occupy a nearly-unique position in the history of human character creation. They are creatures of myth, but at the same time people with the concerns of human beings, even when they are themselves alien. This puts them in a position to not only be the subjects of myth, but to interact with and in some cases control the creation of the mythology which surrounds them.

In this series I set out to analyze the different ways heroes participate in the creation of their own mythology. I've decided to begin with the largest single continuity ever attempted in film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was going to watch or rewatch the eighteen existing MCU films in order to look at them specifically from this perspective in the time leading up to the release of The Avengers: Infinity War. I totally didn't get there in time, but I'm going to finish anyway. Today I'm less than a year from catching up, looking at Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017).

Ego is Peter Quill's father, which might be a little on-the-nose. But the character Ego, aside from being a galactic manifestation of self-importance, is also an excellent mythmaker. In fact it's more than a little astonishing that anyone ever called Loki the God of Lies with this guy around.

Ego has formed a narrative of everything Peter could want in a father, complete with visual aids. Sure, he was absent from Peter's life, but he was a god, and also a planet. He had far more important priorities. Peter wants to believe any reason for his father not being there that doesn't make it about himself or his mother, and Ego hands him an epic one.

Ego, of course, wants to be there for Peter now. He wants to make up for lost time, be the father Peter never had, atone for his mistakes. The narrative isn't hurt by being a colossal cliché; in fact Peter buys into it harder for its universal features. He got to play catch with his dad! It's everything he always dreamed of, because Peter's dreams have never been all that interesting.

I wonder, did Ego have this sort of narrative prepared for every species he attempted to sire a child with? Did he do extensive research into every culture's paternal mythology, just so that he could take advantage of his offspring if he needed to? Did he miss that every human narrative of this type eventually ends with the father figure being the villain, or did he just not care?

Gamora doesn't need human mythology to be suspicious, but of course she has long personal experience with someone's inept attempts to be a father figure, and the motivations that are really behind it. She's well-equipped to recognize Ego for what he really is: someone who uses myth to disguise his quest for more power for himself.

Ego, of course, eventually follows the standard course of this narrative, revealing to Peter that he caused Peter's mother's cancer, and setting off the active conflict that's necessary for the third act of an MCU movie. Did he really want an excuse to control Peter rather than cooperating with him? Did he lose sight of the narrative he was creating in his own self-importance? Or was he just following through on the cultural mandate of Peter's childhood, finishing the myth with the paternal betrayal that human expectation makes inevitable?

Either way, it's time for Peter's real father figure to arrive on the scene. Yondu is everything but idealized. He's been in conflict with Peter for his entire life, and they've had time to learn to dislike each other. Peter has built up a lifetime of resentment for Yondu, and quite a lot of it is well-deserved. In turn Yondu has never seen the loyalty from Peter that he really wanted, the loyalty that Ego was able to briefly create with a few dioramas and an imaginary baseball.

But when Peter needs backup, it's Yondu who shows up, and when it comes time to sacrifice to save Peter's life, it's Yondu who pays the price, with true appreciation of what he's choosing to do. It's the perfect contrast to Ego, and the revelation that Yondu hid Peter from Ego on purpose to save his life only adds to it. It's the power of Yondu's flawed father figure compared with Ego's constructed ideal one that makes this one of the best emotional climaxes in the series, and makes Yondu's funeral a true tear-jerker.

Well, that and I'm a sucker for Cat Stevens.

Previous entries in this series:
Part 1: Iron Man (2008)
Part 2: The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Part 3: Iron Man 2 (2010)
Part 4: Thor (2011)
Part 5: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Part 6: The Avengers (2012)
Part 7: Iron Man 3 (2013)
Part 8: Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Part 9: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Part 10: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Part 11: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Part 12: Ant-Man (2015)
Part 13: Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Part 14: Doctor Strange (2016)

_{All images in this post are from Guardians of the Galaxy 2, copyright 2017 Marvel, used in this post under Fair Use: Criticism. Provided courtesy of Movie-Screencaps.com}