History Fridge / GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2

** This would explain why the Nova Corp geneticist on Xandar only identified Quill as half-"something very ancient we've never seen before". In retrospect, of ''course'' he couldn't be Celestial: there's a whole moon-sized-head worth of ''actual'' Celestial tissue samples readily available on Knowhere, so presumably ''that'' ancient race's genetic information would already be in Xandar's databases.

** This would explain why the Nova Corp geneticist on Xandar only identified Quill as half-"something very ancient we've never seen before". In retrospect, of ''course'' he couldn't be Celestial: there's a whole planet-sized-head worth of ''actual'' Celestial tissue samples readily available on Knowhere, so naturally ''that'' ancient race's genetic information would already be in Xandar's databases.

** As a side note, the lyrics of the chorus are pretty much a warning, especially when it plays during Peter's big fight with Ego; "''And if you don't love me now/then you'll never love me again''" is directed from Ego to Peter-- Peter will never get the chance to love Ego again because his trust and respect for Ego is so far gone that he's willing to kill him, while on Ego's side, if he doesn't love Peter like the dad he wanted (which he gave up when he dishonored Meredith and her gift to Peter), then he'll never be able to love him again.

** Appropriately, "Brandy" is about a sailor who 'likes'' Brandy enough to keep coming back to her, just not enough to either remain with her or cut ties and let her get on with her life. Ego enjoys Meredith's company, maybe even loved her, but the possibility of just letting her live out her brief human lifespan was apparently off the table; she was Ego's, which was also a no go, or she was nothing at all.

** Alternatively, one can consider the Sovereign to be the counterpart of HYDRA, as they are both [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi-type villains]] with a cult-like hierarchy. Of course, HYDRA started out as ''literal'' Nazis, while the Sovereign were [[FantasticRacism Nazi analogues]] due to their [[ItsAllAboutMe arrogance]] towards other species. In addition, while HYDRA [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier prefers to]] [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron resort to]] [[Series/AgentsOfSHIELD subterfuge and sabotage]] to achieve their goals (namely, by infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D., the Sovereign are far too arrogant to dirty their own golden hands with that type of work, hence their use of mercenaries and {{Attack Drone}}s. Finally, HYDRA attempted to [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier replicate]] [[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Super Soldier Serum]] by creating the Winter Soldier, while the Sovereign created ComicBook/AdamWarlock to defeat the Guardians.

** Alternatively, one can consider the Sovereign to be the counterpart of HYDRA, as they are both [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi-type villains]] with a cult-like hierarchy. Of course, HYDRA started out as ''literal'' Nazis, while the Sovereign were [[FantasticRacism Nazi analogues]] due to their [[ItsAllAboutMe arrogance]] towards other species. In addition, while HYDRA [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier prefers to]] [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron resort to]] [[Series/AgentsOfSHIELD subterfuge and sabotage]] to achieve their goals (namely, by infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D., the Sovereign are far too arrogant to dirty their own golden hands with that type of work, hence their use of mercenaries and {{AttackDrone}}s. Finally, HYDRA attempted to [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier replicate]] [[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Super Soldier Serum]] by creating the Winter Soldier, while the Sovereign created ComicBook/AdamWarlock to defeat the Guardians.

** Alternatively, one can consider the Sovereign to be the counterpart of HYDRA, as they are both [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi-type villains]] with a cult-like hierarchy. Of course, HYDRA started out as ''literal'' Nazis, while the Sovereign were [[FantasticRacism Nazi analogues]] due to their [[ItsAllAboutMe arrogance]] towards other species. In addition, while HYDRA [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier prefers]] [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier to]] [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron resort]] [[Series/AgentsOfSHIELD to subterfuge and sabotage]] to achieve their goals (namely, by infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D., the Sovereign are far too arrogant to dirty their own golden hands with that type of work, hence their use of mercenaries and {{AttackDrone}}s. Finally, HYDRA attempted to [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier replicate]] [[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Super Soldier Serum]] by creating the Winter Soldier, while the Sovereign created ComicBook/AdamWarlock to defeat the Guardians.

* "Stolen batteries." At first it seems like something funny Rocket did, then of course those same stolen batteries [[spoiler: wind up destroying Ego from the inside out]]. And finally Rocket likens Yondu to himself [[spoiler: at Yondu's cremation]] when he says, "They came back for him, even though he was mean, yelled at them, stole some batteries..." When you think of it that way, Yondu ''did'' steal some batteries: [[spoiler: he stole Peter. Ego said that Peter would act as a battery for the next thousand years while he drained his powers... before that, though, Yondu stole him during his childhood rather than deliver him to his murderous father. So to Ego, Yondu might have "stolen some batteries" (i.e. Peter) from him, but of course, Yondu really rescued Peter and raised him as his own son]].
** [[spoiler: Batteries, ''plural''. Yondu stole some of Peter's half-brothers and -sisters for Ego previously; it wasn't his fault they turned out to be ''dead'' batteries.]]

* Peter cannot master Ego's powers in the way Ego uses them, he has to use them the way Yondu uses his own powers. [[spoiler:Because Yondu is Peter's true dad.]]

* [[spoiler: In the same kind of vein, the first movie ended with Peter finally opening his mother's last gift to him, which turned out to be a new mix tape. The second movie ends with him getting a new list of songs, from his true father: the man who raised him, protected him, trained him, and ultimately, died for him.]]

* The reason behind Mantis' (attempted) turn wasn't merely that Drax was kind to her, she decides to do so after sharing his grief over his lost daughter. [[spoiler: Because that shows her how a true father reacts to the death of his children and she realizes, at that moment, what a real monster Ego is.]] Also, he tells her that she reminds him of his daughter, being innocent. Mantis senses how Drax wanted to protect his daughter while reading his emotions, and how he wants to protect her. He's only known her for a few days, and Ego raised her. But it becomes clear to her that while Drax legitimately cares about her as a person, while to Ego she's just a "flea" who helps him sleep.

** [[spoiler:While Yondu's line "He (Ego) may have been your father, boy but he wasn't your daddy!" seems clever and funny, it may not make sense at first since there's not much of a difference between the words... except there is. "Father" is a formal and respectable way to call your male parent, but sometimes sounds forced and impersonal while "Daddy" is more casual and is mostly used by kids. Yondu practically raised Peter since he was a kid and is definitely closer to him. Compare to Ego, who he just met. Ego may be Peter's FATHER, but Yondu is his DADDY. In some translations, it's made more poignant, using the contraposition between "father" and merely being a biological parent.]]
*** [[spoiler: On Latinoamerican Spanish, they translated Yondu's affirmation of being Peter's daddy as "Ego may be your father, but I raised you" to make it clearer -- since grown up Latino men (and some women) usually don't use "papi/papito/papacito" (daddy) to call their fathers but their sons -or sexy young men- (in a similar fashion, "mami/mamacita/mamita" is more used to call your daughters or sexy young women).]]
*** In the Italian dub [[spoiler:the line is reworked to mean "He (Ego) may have brought you to this world, but he is not your father", stressing how Ego's role as a father figure was merely biological.]]
** [[spoiler:One of the aesops of the film is that there is a major difference between a 'father' and a 'dad'; a father being merely a genetic donor, while a dad is someone who raises you and is the stereotypical father figure.]]

** The film goes out of its way to define 'father' and 'dad' as being two completely separate concepts, so [[spoiler:why does Ego introduce himself as Peter's dad rather than his father? Because it is another example of his, well, egotism - he doesn't even stop to consider that there might have been another male parental figure in Peter's life; one who actually stuck around to raise Peter.]]

* Peter being half-Celestial also retroactively explains how he survived being outside the mining craft in the first movie for a much longer time than the large number of characters that get spaced in this movie, [[spoiler:including Yondu.]]

* [[spoiler: Why does Ego have statues of all his various conquests in addition to Meredith? Because he probably spun the same sob story that he gave Peter to ''every single one'' of his many children, with the statue of his 'great love' front and center, putting them at their ease and getting them to trust him... note that also none of the statues are fixed structures. They are shown to be able to be made and changed at a whim. Because none of them are actually permanent.]]

* [[spoiler: Why do all of Ego's statues look, well... ''plastic'' compared to everything else Ego created? Firstly, it probably requires less "processing power" to create bare facsimilies of people than to create completely lifelike representations similar to his own avatar. Secondly... they don't look like real people because to Ego, ''they weren't''.]] Similarly, why does the statue of Ego himself match the same stylized look? [[spoiler: It's because he thinks of the avatar in the same way as those people: it's not really him, so why should he put detail into it?]]

* When Ego is describing his contact with alien life with Peter, he creates a slide showing his human body meeting a small alien child as the music swells. [[spoiler: The child statue does nothing but wave its doll about right before Ego admits he found the rest of creation "disappointing."]]
** [[spoiler: Indeed, the first sapient being which Ego ever encountered was a small child with a doll: an object she interacted with ''as if'' it were another person. Could Ego's nascent personality have developed the way it did - as a narcissist who equated other sapients with tools or pets to be manipulated - because its first glimpse of "social interaction" was a faux-relationship between an immature mind and the object it employed as a social proxy?]]

* Ego's single-minded focus on his plans, to the detriment of all else, might actually have been his undoing; if he'd had more patience he could well have succeeded. [[spoiler: That Peter has Celestial powers, when his half-siblings apparently didn't, could just be due to the fact that he's old enough to have developed them. ''Without'' any interference from his biological father. If Ego didn't immediately get what he wanted he simply wrote his children off as a loss [[PoweredByAForsakenChild and found another use for them;]] if he'd waited for any of them to reach maturity, it could well have been another story.]]

** When Yondu comes drifting down out of the sky holding his Arrow, Peter snarks, "You look like Mary Poppins!". Yondu, not familiar with that particular aspect of Peter's geekiness, quizzically asks, "Is he cool?" Peter hesitates for a moment before saying, "Hell yeah, he's cool!" That isn't just him being polite -- think about ''Film/MaryPoppins''; Peter realizes that just like her, Yondu is a specially talented person who floated out of the sky one day to take care of and teach a neglected child with DaddyIssues by taking him on fantastic adventures. Mary was never really clear about her feelings, either. Yondu just taught Peter how to be a SpacePirate instead of a QuintessentialBritishGentleman. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Mary ended up having to leave the children she helped raise.]] Yondu embracing the name winds up being prophetic.

** Alternatively, one can consider the Sovereign to be the counterpart of HYDRA, as they are both [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi-type villains]] with a cult-like hierarchy. Of course, HYDRA started out as ''literal'' Nazis, while the Sovereign were [[FantasticRacism Nazi analogues]] due to their [[ItsAllAboutMe arrogance]] towards other species. In addition, while HYDRA [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier prefers]] [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier to]] [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron resort]] [[Series/AgentsOfSHIELD to subterfuge and sabotage]] to achieve their goals (namely, [[spoiler: by infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D.]], the Sovereign are far too arrogant to dirty their own golden hands with that type of work, hence their use of mercenaries and {{AttackDrone}}s. Finally, [[spoiler: HYDRA attempted to [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier replicate]] [[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Super Soldier Serum]] by creating the Winter Soldier, while the Sovereign created ComicBook/AdamWarlock to defeat the Guardians]].

* A tad obvious but Peter receives his mixtape and tape deck from his mom, right before her death, to keep her spirit alive. [[spoiler: And now with the Zune, his "daddy" Yondu has given him Awesome Mix Vol. 3]].

** When Peter turns on the [[spoiler: Zune, "Father and Son" is immediately queued up. It's likely Yondu intentionally left that song on so it'll be the first thing Peter will hear.]] Even better, perhaps, is the possibility that [[spoiler: that was the track Yondu had been listening to when he decided to make his heroic sacrifice.]] [[spoiler: there's always the possibility that he foresaw something like this coming.]]
** Kraglin specifically mentions that [[spoiler: the Zune was purchased after the events of the first movie, intended to be a gift for when Peter inevitably came back to them. It was probably queued up well before the events of the movie, as Yondu's response to Peter's actions in ''the first movie''. It's a song about a son wanting to strike out on his own and a father trying to stop him, which is a perfect description of their relationship in the first film.]]

* Ego and his [[spoiler:psychosis make perfect sense. To paraphrase Creator/GarthEnnis' ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'': He's a being with reality-warping powers who grew up in total solitude and thus developed what could be considered a narcissistic personality disorder as well as any number of related mental problems. His demise even matches up with that work: he creates a being of even greater power than himself, and ends up dying at the hands of an opponent he could have easily defeated otherwise if he hadn't been so completely distracted trying to use that being for his own ends]].

* Related to the above is a kind of "Fridge Tragic"; [[spoiler:Ego is so inherently ''damaged'' by his lack of social interaction that he never ''realized'' that falling in love with Meredith Quill brought him more fulfillment than his "eat the universe" plan. All he understood was that Meredith was keeping him from carrying that plan out. He was so lonely ''he didn't know what happiness was'']].
** More "Fridge Tragic": [[spoiler: a big part of Ego's character was that he was isolated and lonely for millennia before ever meeting another sentient being. When he finally met them after all that time he ended up disappointed because they weren't as "advanced" and long-lived as him, which is why he tried to make more of himself. The irony is, he was never alone. There are other Celestials and long-lived beings out there in the galaxy that could have related to him, if he had been more patient with his other children they might have been able to eventually harness his powers as well and become immortal, and even if they couldn't the fact that he fell in love with Meredith proves that he could have meaningful relationships with "mortals". He could have had the family and connections he always longed for, if he hadn't been so obsessed with his plan and making everything like himself. To add onto that, even if he had succeeded in his assimilation plot it would have just created more of himself. ''He would have still been alone.'']]
*** [[spoiler:He actually ''states'' -- '''repeatedly''' -- that his yearning for companionship is his true motivation. He's just too batshit insane to realize that he is [[IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance Ignorant of His Own Ignorance]] even as he's '''''screaming it at the top of his lungs!''''']]
--->[[spoiler:First thing I remember is flickering… adrift in the cosmos, utterly… and entirely alone.\\

''(after successfully infusing Peter with Celestial energy)'' For the first time in my existence… '''I am truly not alone!''']]

* And related to the above is the question of why Peter was [[spoiler:the only child to inherit Celestial powers]]. It wasn't some quirk of human genetics, it was because Ego loved Meredith [[spoiler:and none of the other women who bore his children. That little difference could be all it took]].

* Up until the point Ego admitted [[spoiler: he killed Peter's mom]], Ego had Peter fully on his side and willing to work with him to (almost) any end. Heck, the other Guardians had short enough lifespans compared to a Celestial. He could have simply waited it out for Peter's friends to pass on and never admitted to [[spoiler: planting the brain tumor]]. But the brilliance? A big Ego is neither patient or capable of keeping his big mouth shut.

* Groot is given the task by Rocket to kill [[spoiler: Ego]] by planting the battery-bomb in [[spoiler: Ego's core]]. Now, there are two buttons on the bomb: the one on the left would set the bomb to explode in 5 minutes, the right button would detonate the bomb immediately; HilarityEnsues with Rocket trying to get Groot to learn which button to press. Eventually, Groot presses the right (by which we mean "left") button when the moment comes, however, it's not because he remembered which button to press, the wrong button had a crack from when [[spoiler: Ego]] tried to crush Groot and Groot thought it was broken so he pressed the other one. This also means that [[spoiler: Ego pulled an inverted example of NiceJobFixingItVillain.]]

* When Star-Lord fights [[spoiler: Ego]], he uses his Celestial abilities to use the rocks around him [[spoiler: to turn into Pac-Man]]. This makes sense considering that he's still mastering his abilities, so he decided to turn into something that he's familiar with and is simple in shape, [[spoiler: Pac-Man.]]

* How does Peter know what [[spoiler: a true Ravager funeral looks like? It's likely reserved for higher ranking crew and Yondu was exiled before Peter was even around. Maybe, in spite of his exile, Yondu made a point to attend any Ravager funeral he could.]]
** [[spoiler: Or maybe Yondu's own faction of Ravagers held a mass funeral for the ones who'd died defending Xandar from Ronan a few months back. But this one would've been the first ''really big'' and individual Ravager funeral Peter's attended, so Quill's still very much impressed.]]

* Ego's name is no accident: he's a pure personification of narcissism. [[spoiler:He finds other lifeforms "disappointing" because they don't measure up to his high opinion of himself. He wants to spread an image of himself across the known universe, putting it everywhere, front and center. He desires children as a way of propagating himself, but demands they be a perfect mirror of him and rejects them if they're not. And no matter how much he professes otherwise, he only truly cares about himself, to the point of committing infanticide on a massive scale.]] Ego also makes a great {{foil}} to the Guardians, a family who are being torn apart by their own selfish impulses.

* Ego considers the song "Brandy" by Looking Glass to be a metaphor for his time on Earth with Peter Quill's mother and "one of Earth's greatest musical compositions, perhaps the greatest." [[spoiler: Of course he does; it's the one ''most inherently relevant'' to the narcissistic demigod]]. It's also a clue about his personality. [[spoiler: Ego talks about how he relates to the unnamed sailor in the song, forgetting (or just not caring) that the song is actually about, you know, ''Brandy'', and how she deals with her heartbreak over that sailor.]]

* [[http://empireonline.media/jpg/70/0/0/1280/960/aspectfit/0/0/0/0/0/0/c/articles/58b62c8977448e200dc71024/gotgv2-poster.jpg The film's main poster]] shows Peter Quill holding what appears to be the film's MacGuffin in his hand, with a LensFlare to emphasize it. On closer inspection, it's actually his Walkman holding the [[TitleDrop Vol. 2 cassette]] he found at the end of the first movie. The [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7ia3QpVMAAd5mp.jpg:orig second poster]] actually has Baby Groot ''holding it over his head'' with the "Vol. 2" label clearly visible. However, a song on the Vol. 2 cassette ("Brandy" by Looking Glass) [[RewatchBonus turns out to be]] the reason [[spoiler: his father murdered his mother, and the guy is so self-centered that hearing it makes him ''admit'' to it. This causes Peter to rebel against his plan to, well, eat the universe. So it ''could'' be [[MetaphoricallyTrue considered]] the element that advanced the plot. Especially since when Ego destroys it, it's the moment when Peter realizes that his father has to die]].

* Meredith and Ego [[spoiler: die in similar ways. Both are killed by something being placed in their brain (tumor/bomb) by someone they love (Ego/Peter). They both are helpless at the end, unable to stop what is happening. And both, right before they die, reach out to Peter... who rejects them (one out of fear, the other hatred) before he is taken off planet by Yondu. Poetic that Ego's death so mirrors the fate he forced on the woman he loved]].

* Ego letting it slip that [[spoiler:he murdered Meredith]] makes sense when one realizes that [[spoiler:his only true experience with love ended with him murdering his lover when he realized it'd get in the way of his plan. Peter, from Ego's perspective, understands and looks game for his plan, so of course Ego couldn't understand why that knowledge would cause Peter to turn on him.]]

* A bit of Fridge Brilliance in [[spoiler:the horror of The Expansion: it took place in a matter of minutes, maybe an hour, Earth-side. They'd barely managed to blockade the blob before it grew again, and Ego died not long after the second wave of the expansion. However, consider Ego's fate: His avatar dissolves, and his planet shrinks to a singularity and then disappears. It can thus be assumed that each blob on the other planets likewise shrunk and disappeared entirely. Admittedly, this leaves a lot of damage in its wake, but it all happens so fast that very little actual study can be on it (and, what few samples were taken would also disappear). Some clever MIB magic about gas pockets and weather balloons could explain the event, and while a file may be made in the Avengers database, it'd be neglected pretty quickly without a recurrence or anything to study. At the very least, it explains how no one in the post-''Vol 2. MCU'' acknowledges the Expansion, because, relatively speaking, it's a tiny isolated event with no evidence.]]

* How did Kraglin find Groot at the right time and know what he was looking for? [[spoiler: Because he was going to steal the fin himself to give to Yondu.]] Even further than that; [[spoiler: when Kraglin is giving Nebula her ship, he mentions Ego's planet by name, indicating that she's already told him where she intends to go. He knows Yondu will want the fin when he finds out about Ego, so instead of just breaking them out, he goes to steal it first thing.]]

* After Taserface's mutiny, he throws all of the crew who remained loyal to Yondu out of the airlock. In the end, [[spoiler: he posthumously finishes the job when Yondu also winds up getting spaced as an indirect result of his actions.]]

** As a side note, the lyrics of the chorus are pretty much a warning, especially when it plays during Peter's big fight with Ego; "''And if you don't love me now/then you'll never love me again''" is directed from Ego to Peter-- Peter will never get the chance to love Ego again [[spoiler:because his trust and respect for Ego is so far gone that he's willing to kill him]], while on Ego's side, if he doesn't love Peter like the dad he wanted (which he gave up when he [[spoiler:dishonored Meredith and her gift to Peter]]), then he'll never be able to love him again.

* Why did all the Ravager factions show up [[spoiler: at Yondu's funeral]]? What got him exiled was because he broke the rule of "don't traffic in kids," but [[spoiler: finding out that his rule-breaking with Peter not only saved the kid's life, but possibly the entire universe? ''And'' raised him as an adopted son within the Ravager code, making the Guardians a kinda-sorta 101st faction?]] Yeah, that probably went a ''long'' way towards redeeming his reputation.

* As pointed out on the Heartwarming page, there was no way that the 300 songs that's on the Zune could fit on two cassettes. Yondu probably went and found a bunch of music that either Peter would like or that reminded him of Peter. [[spoiler: And that Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" song? Well, Yondu's too gruff to actually ''admit'' being that fond of Peter, so it was probably intended as "only play this after I'm dead" message to let Peter know that Yondu did consider him a son.]]

* "Sometimes the thing your looking for is right there beside you the whole time." Quill says this to Gamora as part of his ongoing wooing, but Drax takes this up as his search for a FamilyOfChoice. However, [[spoiler:it also applies to Ego; The universe kept giving Ego chances to not be alone. And really that was what he was after in the first place. The tragedy is he didn't realize he could be happy. He knew he loved Meredith Quill. He knew if he visited her again he wouldn't be pursuing his plan. What he didn't realize is that he'd be doing that because he'd no longer need to in order to not be alone. He'd have fulfilled his original goal]].

* A cross of horror and brilliance. Of course, Meredith was the "one great love" of Ego's life [[spoiler: For the same damn reason [[UsefulNotes/JaneSeymourRoyalty Queen Jane]] was UsefulNotes/HenryVIII's favorite wife - she had the good fortune to bear the son he ''wanted'' and the good sense to die shortly afterward.]]

* The [[MemeticMutation memetically notorious]] opening credits sequence is set to "Mr. Blue Sky" by the Electric Light Orchestra. At first it seems like serious SoundtrackDissonance due to the upbeat nature of the song juxtaposed against the fight with the Abilisk, but it's also {{Foreshadowing}} the movie's plot. The "Mr. Blue Sky" in the song could easily be referring to Ego himself, with Peter questioning why he had to "hide away for so long." The lyrics "Hey you with the pretty face / welcome to the human race!" could refer to Ego taking AFormYouAreComfortableWith as well as his [[spoiler: [[IgnoredEpiphany abortive]] encounter with empathy and true love]]. And of course, the arrival of "Mr. Night" could be a metaphor for [[AssimilationPlot The Expansion]] and Ego's darker nature.

* When Peter finally takes the fight to [[spoiler:his father, his PreAssKickingOneLiner is, "You shouldn't have killed my mom and squished my Walkman." While this can be read as an ArsonMurderAndJaywalking gag, it should also be kept in mind that the Walkman and the mixtapes are literally ''everything'' Peter has of his mother. ''The Walkman is his biological family,'' and by destroying it Ego has essentially murdered Meredith ''twice''. Of course Peter's equally pissed about it]].

* Fridge Heartwarming. It is implied during Yondu and Stakar's argument that [[spoiler:learning about what happened to Ego's children is what convinced Yondu to keep Peter from him. There's a good chance Yondu found out about Ego's true intentions ''before'' meeting Peter. If Yondu had simply decided not to collect any more of Ego's children, Ego probably wouldn't think twice about getting someone else to do it instead. Yondu wasn't ''collecting'' Peter when he took him away. He was ''rescuing'' him.]]

* As pointed out by ''WebVideo/CinemaWins'', Ego's human avatar seems to have the ability to see and hear things across the entire area where he is. He's most likely listening to Peter and Gamora's talk on Berhert, which prompts him to not only play catch with Peter later in the film, [[spoiler: but take the form of David Hasselhoff]] later. He's [[spoiler: trying to find [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith things that Peter likes]] to try and manipulate him to his side]].

* Mantis seems very timid and silent when walking with the group on Ego's planet, especially when Ego is showing his presentation. [[spoiler: She's not being shy, she's ashamed of having to listen to Ego's lies for the 1000th time]].

** After putting a bounty on Quill on Morag, one of his Ravagers points out that they should have given Quill to Ego, and accuses Yondu of favouritism. Yondu is able to threaten him with the arrow because he angered him by both threatening his captaincy and [[spoiler: his adopted son]]. [[spoiler: It's also likely that suggesting giving Quill to Ego reminded Yondu of breaking the code]].
** Threatening the Broker came after the Broker had repeatedly refused to give him information regarding the Orb, [[spoiler: which Peter had and he knew that people would kill for the Orb.]] He was probably also irritated by the Broker's stubbornness.

** The Sakaarans (who worked for the Kree) ordering him to turn on the Nova Corps probably hit a BerserkButton regarding his DarkAndTroubledPast as [[spoiler: a Kree slave]], allowing him to wipe out all of them.

** [[spoiler: His NoHoldsBarredBeatdown on all the mutinous Ravagers was vengeance for the murder of his loyal crewmembers, and he's also motivated to escape by saving Peter]].
** [[spoiler: Any time he uses the arrow on Ego's planet, [[PapaWolf he's doing it to protect his son]]]].

* When Gamora has gone off on Ego's planet to sit and think, she gets annoyed with two rattling plant stalks and slices them off [[spoiler: before Nebula shows up to kill her. Again]]. Afterward, the [[spoiler: bodies of Ego's children are found]], yet Ego doesn't react to any of this. Why not? ''Because he was using the plant stalks as a method to track Gamora'', and with them cut, he didn't know where she'd ended up, or where to start looking!

* Why was Mantis willing to reveal [[spoiler:Ego's true plans]] to Drax but shut up like a clam as soon as Gamora showed up? Think back to their interaction on Ego's ship. Drax (and to a lesser extent, Peter) immediately established themselves as friends, and Mantis assumed that it would be the same with Gamora... only to be ''threatened'' pretty harshly. No wonder she didn't trust Gamora.

* When Peter interrogates Ego on why he didn't return for him and his mother, Ego responds that he didn't want to be on an Earth without her. Its an early signal that something is off about him, as Peter doesn't say anything about his mother dying before then, implying Ego had accurate information of when Meredith died [[spoiler: because he killed her]].

* It seems like a huge coincidence in the first movie when Yondu's ship appears within minutes of Peter's mother dying, but [[spoiler: Ego knew exactly when she would die when he sent Yondu to pick him up, because it was his tumor that would kill her.]]

* During the climax [[spoiler:in Missouri when Ego's seed sprouts for his Expansion, think of what the overall reaction was and who could have died in it. People would want to know what had happened or why it stopped, this time unlike Thor in London and the Battle of New York they don't have the comfort of knowing that their heroes stopped it. They don't know it was part of a plan by a Living Planet stopped by the Galactic equivalent of the Avengers. The public and government would want to know what had happened and there might be government agents who would be investigating the site for who knows how long trying to find some sort of answer. Plus since the movie takes place just a few months after the first ''Guardians'' movie all the way back before the ''Age of Ultron'', who knows what the end result of the investigation turned out to be, especially since there had been no mention of it in Agents of SHIELD...]]

* Yondu tells Peter that the whole "they wanted to eat you" was only a joke. However, since he knew [[spoiler: what Ego did to his children]], it's possible that it actually wasn't, and Yondu was constantly reminding himself [[spoiler: of Ego's real plans]].

** [[spoiler: The whole concept of Yondu bringing Ego's children to him. If their mothers agreed (unlikely, since that would probably mean Ego revealing his true nature) then they never saw their children again, or learned what happened to them. And it's far more likely that Yondu kidnapped all of Ego's children that he was sent to collect, which has horrifying possibilities if the kids' families tried to protect them from being taken...]]
** [[spoiler: Also, that is a ''LOT'' of skeletons. Just how many children did Yondu hand over to be used and disposed of before he either discovered the truth, or got cold feet? Ego specifies Yondu only brought "some" but just how many counts as that to someone like Ego? Worse, was Yondu the only person Ego ever hired to do it? Given how long he's been around and how many skeletons there were, Ego may have hired others in the past. He may have kept doing it even after Yondu bowed out by hiring someone else...]]
** [[spoiler: And, did Ego plant a tumor (or equivalent) in the brains of those other females that he tried having children with? Granted, he's an UnreliableNarrator, but Ego says Yondu was instructed to wait until Meredith died to take Peter, so he might've done the same thing with his other children -- waited until their mothers died. If they didn't have extended families like Peter did, it would make less of an impact.]]

* Ego is [[spoiler:a Celestial; the last Celestial we saw destroyed a planet.]] The implications of a whole race of beings like Ego is terrifying in and of itself.

* Kurt Russell happens to be a big 80s star, which means that much of the movie's target audience -- that is, adults right around Peter's age -- might feel kindly disposed to Ego, out of sheer nostalgia. [[spoiler:So it hurts more when he's the bad guy.]]

* One of Mantis's stated powers is the ability to alter the emotional states of others: she can make someone happy and relieved if they felt sad or tense. Ego would want someone like Mantis around for very sinister reasons, more so than just to help him sleep. [[spoiler: Most of the his children were probably like Peter Quill, sad and terrified little kids taken from their families by a bunch of nasty space pirates after suffering a horrible tragedy. Mantis probably alleviated some of those kids' fears and concerns after they were dropped off. As she grew up in isolation on Ego's planet, those kids would have been Mantis's only other friends. She probably played with them and helped them adjust to their new "lives" as Ego's kids, only to see him take them away after they were deemed "unworthy" and be left alone again. An even more disturbing and disgusting possibility is that Ego kept her to groom her via WifeHusbandry so as to see if she could eventually host him a Celestial offspring, just in case he didn't find Star-Lord.]]
** There's another sinister application of Mantis's powers, which she alludes to when she says she can make people more compliant, meaning [[spoiler: the reason Ego probably brought her along to chase down Peter was to make his son docile if Peter decided not to go with them willingly]].

* Ironically, Yondu himself is indirectly responsible for [[spoiler: his own death. If he had just used his arrow to kill Taserface outright without blowing up the entire ship, Taserface wouldn't have had time to send Yondu's ship's coordinates to the Sovereigns, which leads to them arriving at Ego's planet and distracting the Guardians from destroying Ego's brain. Had the Sovereigns not arrived, the Guardians would've destroyed Ego's brain earlier and they could've all escaped the planet without having to leave anyone behind. Also, taking this into account, Taserface is actually successful in taking revenge on Yondu, [[TakingYouWithMe even after his death.]]]]
** It's even worse than that. [[spoiler: Had the Guardians been successful in their initial attempt to destroy Ego's brain, Ego likely wouldn't have gotten a hold of Peter again, so the second growth of the Expansion wouldn't have occured, either. In other words, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Yondu is indirectly responsible for the death of thousands]].]]

* Ego, used to thinking in terms of aeons, probably thought that [[spoiler:spending a thousand years as a "battery" would be a bit of a slap on the wrist for Peter. But it would be his first thousand years, which would be an eternity in a punishing situation for someone who up until that point thought he was a mortal and as such, had a mortal's sense of the passage of time.]]

* Ego's seemingly-gentle reassurance to Peter, "I've made a million mistakes; you aren't one of them," is horrifying in hindsight. [[spoiler: He's talking about the million other children he fathered and killed when they weren't able to manifest his Celestial genes!]]

** Their siblings could be even more bloodthirsty than Nebula was, and even more eager to please their father's wishes. [[spoiler: The reason Nebula liked Gamora could that she did not care about being Thanos's favorite: all she cared about was surviving. At the same time, it must have irked Nebula that Gamora could gain so much of their father's favor without really trying.]]

* In the climax, when we see [[spoiler: the Ego spores]] destroying whole swaths of planets, the destruction we see on Xandar is deep within the heart of the city, in what appears to be a museum complex of some sort. This means that someone found where he had hidden the alien "plant" and put it in the museum. Now imagine how much worse it could have been if the same thing had happened on Earth, if the plant had been moved to, say, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., instead of still behind that Dairy Queen in a small Missouri town.

* Had Ayesha knew about Peter's heritage and Ego's [[spoiler: Expansion plot]], she would have outright allied herself with Ego seeing themselves as the perfect race in the galaxy and being bioengineered clones do not care much about anything except their own personal survival.
** Note that the Sovereign race is one of the few which Ego [[spoiler: ''couldn't'' have tried to hybridize himself with. Their reproductive process is wholly artificial and tightly regulated, meaning Ego couldn't seduce his way into their gene pool. Even if he tampered with a clone to insert Celestial genetic traits into it, the resulting crossbreed would fail their "purity" standards and be aborted from its birthing module]].

* One that extends into ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' [[spoiler: Peter killing Ego [[BroughtDownToBadass had the side effect of making him mortal]] . Peter didn't really care because of the stunts Ego had pulled up to that point, but come Thanos getting those Stones, Peter becomes one of the first to go down - probably because, mortal or not, he's still a potential SpannerInTheWorks that Thanos would want destroyed ASAP.]]

* [[http://empireonline.media/jpg/70/0/0/1280/960/aspectfit/0/0/0/0/0/0/c/articles/58b62c8977448e200dc71024/gotgv2-poster.jpg The film's main poster]] shows Peter Quill holding what appears to be the film's MacGuffin in his hand, with a LensFlare to emphasize it. On closer inspection, it's actually his Walkman holding the [[TitleDrop Vol. 2 cassette]] he found at the end of the first movie. The [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7ia3QpVMAAd5mp.jpg:orig second poster]] actually has Baby Groot ''holding it over his head'' with the "Vol. 2" label clearly visible. However, a song on the Vol. 2 cassette ("Brandy" by Looking Glass) [[RewatchBonus turns out to be]] the reason [[spoiler:
his father murdered his mother, and the guy is so self-centered that hearing it makes him ''admit'' to it. This causes Peter to rebel against his plan to, well, eat the universe. So it ''could'' be [[MetaphoricallyTrue considered]] the element that advanced the plot. Especially since when Ego destroys it, it's the moment when Peter realizes that his father has to die]].

** Note that the Sovereign race is one of the few which Ego ''couldn't'' have tried to hybridize himself with. Their reproductive process is wholly artificial and tightly regulated, meaning Ego couldn't seduce his way into their gene pool. Even if he tampered with a clone to insert Celestial genetic traits into it, the resulting crossbreed would fail their "purity" standards and be aborted from its birthing module.

** Threatening the Broker came after the Broker had repeatedly refused to give him information regarding the orb, [[spoiler:which Peter had and he knew that people would kill for the orb.]] He was probably also irritated by the Broker's stubbornness.

** There's another sinister application of Mantis's powers, which she alludes to when she says she can make people more compliant, meaning [[spoiler:the reason Ego probably brought her along to chase down Peter was to make his son docile if Peter decided not to go with them willingly]]

* Ironically, Yondu himself is indirectly responsible for [[spoiler:his own death. If he had just used his arrow to kill Taserface outright without blowing up the entire ship, Taserface wouldn't have had time to send Yondu's ship's coordinates to the Sovereigns, which leads to them arriving at Ego's planet and distracting the Guardians from destroying Ego's brain. Had the Sovereigns not arrived, the Guardians would've destroyed Ego's brain earlier and they could've all escaped the planet without having to leave anyone behind. Also, taking this into account, Taserface is actually successful in taking revenge on Yondu, [[TakingYouWithMe even after his death.]]]]
** It's even worse than that. [[spoiler:Had the Guardians been successful in their initial attempt to destroy Ego's brain, Ego likely wouldn't have gotten a hold of Peter again, so the second growth of the Expansion wouldn't have occured, either. In other words, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Yondu is indirectly responsible for the death of thousands]].]]

** Also a possible call back to Rocket's breakdown in the first movie. A contributing factor to this "glitch" may be that he was taken apart and put back together so many times, and with no regard to which eye\nerves goes into which socket, that he still has trouble keeping straight which one is which without the help of a mirror.

** [[spoiler: Indeed, the first sapient being which Ego ever encountered was a small child with a doll: an object she interacted with ''as if'' it were another person. Could Ego's developing personality have developed the way it did - as a narcissist who equated other sapients with tools or pets to be manipulated - because its first glimpse of "social interaction" was a faux-relationship between an immature mind and the object it employed as a social proxy?]]

* Ego considers the song "Brandy" by Looking Glass to be a metaphor for his time on earth with Peter Quill's mother and "one of Earth's greatest musical compositions, perhaps the greatest." [[spoiler:Of course he does; it's the one ''most inherently relevant'' to the narcissistic demigod]]. It's also a clue about his personality. [[spoiler:Ego talks about how he relates to the unnamed sailor in the song, forgetting (or just not caring) that the song is actually about, you know, ''Brandy'', and how she deals with her heartbreak over that sailor.]]

* [[http://empireonline.media/jpg/70/0/0/1280/960/aspectfit/0/0/0/0/0/0/c/articles/58b62c8977448e200dc71024/gotgv2-poster.jpg The film's main poster]] shows Peter Quill holding what appears to be the film's MacGuffin in his hand, with a LensFlare to emphasize it. On closer inspection, it's actually his Walkman holding the [[TitleDrop Vol. 2 cassette]] he found at the end of the first movie. The [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7ia3QpVMAAd5mp.jpg:orig second poster]] actually has Baby Groot ''holding it over his head'' with the "Vol. 2" label clearly visible. However, a song on the Vol. 2 cassette ("Brandy" by Looking Glass) [[RewatchBonus turns out to be]] the reason [[spoiler:his father murdered his mother, and the guy is so self-centered that hearing it makes him ''admit'' to it. This causes Peter to rebel against his plan to, well, eat the universe. So it ''could'' be [[MetaphoricallyTrue considered]] the element that advanced the plot. Especially since when Ego destroys it, it's the moment when Peter realizes that his father has to die]].

* A cross of horror and brilliance. Of course, Meredith was the "one great love" of Ego's life [[spoiler: For the same damn reason [[UsefulNotes/JaneSeymourRoyalty Queen Jane]] was UsefulNotes/HenryVIII's favorite wife - she had the good fortune to bear the son he ''wanted'' and the good sense to die shortly afterward]]

** Mantis parallels Scarlet Witch. Mantis is childlike and innocent an an orphan, while Wanda is jaded, traumatized, and has her brother. Wanda is a versatile telepath and telekinetic, with a wide variety of tricks, while Mantis is an contact empath with a small number of very specific abilities. Mantis usually wears green, and Scarlet, as the name indicates, usually wears red.

** Also Fridge Tragic as the fact that Nebula was a bad liar probably made her optimal to report information back to Thanos, and that was likely the only reason he kept her around rather than killing her.,

*** Alternately, think about how alike Yondu and Peter act. That could be what Drax based his statement on. They are incredibly alike, in both personality and actions.

** Alternately, think about how alike Yondu and Peter act. That could be what Drax based his statement on. They are incredibly alike, in both personality and actions.