Misunderstood Misfits

How Guardians of the Galaxy uses language and culture to comedic effect.

Warning: Spoilers for Guardians 1&2. Also, this might get quite long...

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Hello there, Marvel Amino :)

Even though I have technicality been on this Amino for ages, it has always lurked in the background and I haven’t been on here at all. I’m not an Amino newbie, the last few years have just been very much consumed by Game of Thrones :D (I’ve written loads of blogs there).

But since quarantine suddenly has me rewatching the entire Marvel filmography, I’ve noticed some really cool stuff that I want to share here.

So welcome to my first blog :)

It’s safe to say that, to many Marvel fans, the Guardians movies are some of the most fun to watch in the entire MCU. The way they achieve this is both through being crassly funny in a way unlike most other Marvel films, while at the same time being wholesome and emotional.

A major theme in GOTG 1&2 is the importance of family. YouTuber Lindsay Ellis has a fantastic video essay on this that actually led me to rewatch the movies in the first place.

And when a guy from earth, a green-skinned girl, a boastful warrior, what MIGHT be a raccoon, and a tree from across the galaxy get together to form an unlikely new family, it just HAS to be good.

So get ready for an over-analysis of language and culture, the element that I think makes the Guardians movies so interesting and funny.

Do they speak English?

Well, yes and no.

The characters in the movie speak what us earthling viewers, as well as Peter Quill, would characterize as English. But because it is safe to say that other worlds in the galaxy did not descend from Earth, we can’t say that what our heroes speak to communicate among each other is English per se. It is a shared language, the origin of which in the MCU is probably unknown. It’s been pointed out that Peter has a universal translator to understand other languages in the galaxy. However, we see the characters’ mouths moving in a language that is the same, at least on the most basic level. Where it gets interesting is when the nuances come in:

”It’s metaphorical!!”

Drax not understanding metaphors is one of the major funny plot points of the movies. Rocket points this out in one of the first scenes:

One of the most hilarious moments occurs when Quill shows Drax what he will be able to do to Ronan once he meets him (from min 0:45):

This pays off in an incredible way towards the end of the movie, when Drax is out of knives and kills Korath with nothing but his fingers.

”Finger to the throat means death. Metaphor.”

It seems like Drax completely misunderstood Peter and now thinks that the word “metaphor” describes the action of killing someone with just your fingers. It’s both gruesome and a hilarious misunderstanding.

Another misuse of ‘metaphor’ is in GOTG2:

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“I’m sorry. Your name is... it’s

‘Taserface’?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you... shoot tasers out of your

face?”

“It’s metaphorical!”

“For what?”

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Taserface (hehe) understands that something like a metaphor exists, but doesn’t grasp the concept. Metaphors have to stand FOR something. ‘Starlord’, for instance, describes a person who is of high importance in the galaxy, someone Peter clearly sees himself as. This of course does not mean that he is a literal lord (or even prince) that reigns over stars or people. Let’s hope Taserface wasn’t given that name by his parents...

While Drax is the definitely the most obvious character to talk about when it comes to not understanding language (to the annoyance of everyone else on the ship), Gamora also doesn’t seem to be aware of every bit of nuance in Peter’s human language:

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“On my planet, there's a legend about people like you. It's called Footloose. And in it, a great hero named Kevin Bacon, teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that dancing, well... It's the greatest thing there is.”

”Who put the sticks up their butts?”

What? No, that's just a...

“That is cruel.”

“It's just a phrase people use.”

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These non-literal or metaphorical phrases are called idioms and can be very specific to individual languages and cultures. So while some British people might use the expression “it’s raining cats and dogs” to describe pouring rain, someone speaking German, my mother tongue, might say what would be literally translated to “it’s raining string(s)”.

But while Drax’s origin culture might not have any non-literal spoken expressions like Peter’s, this doesn’t mean that it is without its own customs and cultural meanings:

More specific cultural meanings

We don’t learn a whole lot about Drax’s origin from the Guardians movies, but what we do get is both funny and really profound.

In a nice callback to the scene I just mentioned, Drax says this to Quill in GOTG2:

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”There are two types of beings in the universe. Those who dance, and those who do not”

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While this sounds ridiculous and obviously can’t be applied universally (pun intended), it might give us a hint about the social categories that might be important in Drax’s culture.

The second big thing we learn about him is of course the way he talks about sex and his parents conceiving him, something that makes everyone apart from Drax uncomfortable.

Something that is consistent throughout both movies is the sense of nostalgia we feel through all kinds cultural references like TV or music. ‘Awesome Mix’ Vol. 1&2 is not just part of the soundtrack of the movies, it is also the music Peter (and other people) listens to in the movies themselves. This makes many of us earthly viewers identify with Peter as a central character more so than the other ones.

Peter makes references like that all the time and apparently doesn’t care that nobody in space understands what he is talking about.

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“You’re having a conversation with yourself! I don’t know what Cheers is!”

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”What was that story you told me about Zardu Hasselfrau?”

“Who?”

“The wonderful television-singer man. He had a magic boat.”

______________________________________________

Gamora of course has no idea who David Hasselhoff is. She also isn’t aware of the concept of a car and is only familiar with boats/ships as modes of transport. This is is just another thing that shows the culture divide between the Guardians.

Rocket: Raccoon?

Rocket is a badass. He knows how to use weapons, fly planes and has loads of snark.

But is he a raccoon?

Well, apart from the fact that we know he is a cyborg, he definitely looks like a raccoon and Peter calls him one too. Rocket vehemently disagrees. But we really can’t say for sure. Just what kind of animal he is is a question of semantics and we earthlings are once again limited in of perspective.

Our heroes hail from many different places that are extremely far apart. Xandar alone, where they are held prisoner, is home to a huge amount of species. So it would be no wonder if these different worlds had their own unique ecosystems. And a huge variety of life forms calls some kind of categorization.

If we had to explain Rocket’s appearance we might say something like this: furry animal with four legs and fairly small. That limits the selection somewhat, but still describes a HUGE amount of different species. In fact, all of Rocket’s (wrong?) identifications could fit that description:

Raccoon/Trash Panda (Peter)

Fox (Nebula)

Triangle-faced monkey (Ego)

Puppy (Mantis)

Rat (Yondu)

Rabbit (Thor)

Hamster (That Xandarian)

Here on earth, these are considered very different kinds of animals. But now imagine planets that have species that we couldn’t even dream of, many of which might be huge and slimy. Small and hairy animals might be a tiny, tiny subsection there and will therefore be thrown into one category with the label “rabbit” or “rat”.

So no, we can’t just say that Rocket is a Raccoon. Even if he has the exact physiology of one, labels in other places still matter just as much. Until we know more about him, we should just call him Rocket.

(If you have more information on him, please tell me in the comments. I’m eager to learn more :))

Theory Time: Harbulary Batteries

Okay, first off: the film makers might just be messing with us. In fact, that is probably the most likely explanation for this ridiculous moment (and possibly others as well):

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Quill: “More like because he stole Anulax batteries!”

DRAX: “They’re called Harbulary batteries.”

QUILL: "No, they’re not!”

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What makes this one of the funniest moments in the movies, in my opinion, is that ‘harbulary’ is not an English word (believe me, I checked multiple times) but it totally could be from the sound of it. And it even sounds sophisticated!

So that begs the question: if Drax uses such a fancy-sounding word, is that because he doesn’t know the real name of the batteries. Or is it the opposite and he knows a synonym that is actually common in the universe of Guardians and Peter just doesn’t know it?

We might never know the real secret behind the nature of communication between the Guardians but here are a few possible explanations:

1. All of them speak different languages and we just see translations on screen, as generated by translators that the characters are using. (I find this to be unlikely)

2. They speak different dialects of the same language, so they understand each other most of the time but not always. This might explain the lack of non-literal language concepts in Drax’s speech or separate vocabulary like ‘harbulary’.

3. Each character has a different mother tongue in the world they are from. They use the language (for Quill it is English) as a standard to communicate with other cultures whose language tongue they don’t speak (this concept is called lingua franca). We know that there are many, many foreign languages in this universe and we encounter some of them in individual sentences or more prominently (like the language of the Dark Elves in Thor: The Dark World). I find this the most likely explanation.

Am I overthinking this? :D

I want to know your speculations (or facts I missed?), so write them in the comments if you have any :)

Conclusion: We Are Groot.

There is still one character I haven’t yet talked about at all: it’s fan favorite Groot.

He has his very own language that is limited to three words and only very few others understand. At the beginning it is just Rocket, who was his friend from the beginning. But by the end, right before the Guardians go to fight Ronan, everyone in the group knows what Groot means by standing up and solemnly saying “I am Groot”. Director James Gunn has said that people learn Groot’s language by bonding with him and developing a deeper understanding. So there might not even be any trick to understand ‘Groot’ that can be learned without interacting with the individual themself. In this way, Groot is actually a fantastic metaphor (!) for the way that this group of misfits comes together and to a deeper understanding of their purpose. Only by spending time together and experiencing their adventures can they reach a TRUE kind of understanding.

Because by the time GOTG 2 comes around, all the of the group have developed a deep connection to Groot and have found a collective responsibility to care for him.

These very unlikely companions are now a family.

Thanks for reading!

This one was a lot of fun for me and I hope you had fun reading it :) of course I welcome any discussion about the topic!

Sources: Scripts of GOTG 1&2

GOTG1

GOTG2