do you have a favourite portrayal of a character in the gotg game!! who is it and why <3

Oh I think they're all great honestly!!! Part of why I love the game so much is that genuinely, the whole team + supporting characters are written with such obvious love of the source material and equal attention between them all. When I see comments of people saying who their favorite character was from the game and the answer always being different from each person I'm like!! That's how it SHOULD be!!! They're the Guardians of the Galaxy (plural) the focus shouldn't all fall on a singular character like most other GotG media usually ends up as 😭

The two (sorry I can't pick just one) whom I think benefit the most from the game though are Drax and Gamora because they're almost always sidelined both in-and-out of universe by most of the various writers (especially as of late) and in turn the viewers/readers. I've been told plenty of times that they're the most boring members of the "main" team, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY! The amount of love the game versions get (by the few who've played it at least) proves that 🥺

I've never really liked 616 Drax shifting to being a complete clown during the 90s and such (and even less so when the MCU followed along 💀) So I appreciate the game taking a bit of his seriousness from the DnA run and just making him struggle with nuance and context clues in a less exaggerated way (autistic Drax I still believe in u) and I feel the focus put on him and how losing his original family + the aftermath deeply affected him hits pretty hard here because it's treated very seriously and shown in depth, especially with how his family (wife) gets actual focus. I cannot tell you anything about Yvette in comparison to Hovat, who actually seemed to have had a personality lol (AND she was on their village's council like omg imagine having more to you than just being The Housewife) Though I will say I flip and flop on my thoughts about Heather being disconnected from Drax's life in this universe... The TLDR is that I think his arc here specifically works stronger when he has to come to terms with losing his entire family and accepting the life he currently has with the Guardians. BUT!!! I very much appreciate that Heather is still confirmed to exist within this universe, even if that means her dad issues would have to be dealt with in a different context if we ever get to see her.

Also? Shoutout to the writers actually bringing up the intense paranoia that always kneecapped 616 Drax but having that be a turning point in his backstory here, with that conversation he has with Peter where he talks about how he was becoming so paranoid of everyone being a chitauri/Thanos conspirator to the point of literally turning into an obsessed maniac like Thanos, and realizing that he desperately needed to turn his life around, it's so ough.

Out of the already many great conversations throughout the game, I think the ones with him are the most poignant. My favorite scene in the whole game is Drax and Pete's little moment on Knowhere... makes me go wahhh

(l also love that out of everyone on the team, it's his headspace that we quite literally get to go into. You KNOW that if this was any other media it'd be going into Rocket or Groot's head and likely treated as a joke.)

And oh my god, Gamora...

I find it so extremely refreshing that her role in the plot doesn't revolve purely around the men in her life, and instead, it's nearly exclusively her connection with other women. Or in the most direct obstacle she has to deal with, being how she starts projecting to the millionth degree on Nikki's situation for reminding her of what happened to her and Nebula. I find that infinitely more fascinating as a reading of her character rather than just dating drama or her arc getting completely overtaken by a man's instead.

And especially in her friendship with Mantis, who, despite having all these futures she's constantly seeing and having to navigate, still makes time to do her best to help her 🥺 From saving her life and being the one who put her on the path to healing on Lamentis, to getting her to join the Guardians and still checking in on her when she's able 😭 Friendship between women can be so powerful... u love to see it (🏳️‍🌈)

I also find it nice that there's this emphasis on her recovering mentally, and the comparison between Thanos essentially teaching her to just Deal with the shit in her life through very simplistic meditation versus the priests of Pama actually teaching her something to help soothe the mind :^( and that she still has moments of relapsing essentially. I find that to be a realistic take on recovery because that's just part of the journey since healing is not linear... and I think it's very sweet that she finds comfort in collecting something ---girly--- like dolls. Love to see a person reclaim a part of their childhood that they weren't allowed to experience. And how she's allowed to make BAD JOKES?? Imagine a woman being written to have multiple dimensions, crazy and absolutely unthinkable, I know.

There's this extremely specific theme in relation to Gamora across media that's been rattling around in my brain since first playing the game. When near the end during the revisit to Knowhere, she's about to completely lose it when Peter tries talking -for- her on what she's so upset about before immediately shooting him down, and she explains what happened between her and Nebula and she starts crying. It really struck me right then that she's never given a moment to cry elsewhere (or in the 616's case, the quite literal inability to.) aside from her shedding a Single Manly Tear (Original Sin) or a single moment out of legit fear (MCU 💀) because she's a hashtag Strong Independant Woman who can't be vulnerable etc etc. But for her to cry in front of the people she's come to care about, It gives her a moment of true vulnerability that I don't think she's allowed ever in most other media.

That and all of the above hits hard and is what makes me genuinely believe that the writers cared about her in the narrative and tried to do right by her when every other bit of media really hasn't nor cared to the majority of the time since the 90s :'^/ Brings a tear to my eye that she's allowed to just... exist in the narrative on her own merits and not on what she can provide to someone else's story.

Hi! I know you've received tons of vol 3 comments but I noticed a few people confused about the film and Gamora's role. After watching it 3 times I think I figured out what's going on and thought it might help other people.

In vol 1 to IW Gamora is a leading character pretty equal to Peter and then you also have Rocket. You'll notice they are the only 3 guardians we get to see childhood backgrounds for. In vol 1 Gamora is particularly important because the information she has and her adherence to wanting to do the right thing once given the opportunity, help drive the story forward and lay the foundation for what's kind of the moral backbone of the team. In IW her relationship with Thanos is pivotal to the story being told and a lot of it is framed around her thoughts and feelings and even some of her choices. That is until she dies at which point everything changes. From then on the main focus for her character is the impact of her death on Peter and Nebula. They are the ones from here on out we get any major exploration of when it comes to her dying and what her life meant. This is particularly evident in EG with Nebula and Gamora's relationship being an important aspect of the time travel and how it's made clear their relationship needs to continue regardless of what happened with Thanos. Then in vol 3 we get a similar scenario with Peter having to deal with his grief while also forming a new understanding of who Gamora currently is. With Gamora having to find a way to understand him and what her future self had been a part of. What they meant and can still mean to eachother is important regardless of what happened with Thanos.

This direction isn't necessarily terrible but it's also not great, because what it does do is take Gamora out of the specific leading role she used to have and instead of shaping the story, she's now connected to it predominantly through her relationship to Peter and Nebula. This puts her emotionally more in the position of Yondu where he predominantly connected through the continuation of his relationship with Peter. This isn't a bad role but it is a downgrade of sorts and it doesn't allow for the full exploration of the aftermath of what was honestly a pretty terrible choice to kill her off in service of Thanos. It also means having a less consistent theme about abuse that's been imbeded in gotg from the start. Plus it left no room for any discussion of what happened after the snap, which I understand Gunn wanting a story that's independent from the wider mcu but reality is you can't have that when team up movies happen and canon intersects. It makes for weaker writing. I saw someone ask him if Rocket was still friends with Thor and he said no. It's funny but also points to the fact that there is no way 5 years led to no differences in relationships for Nebula and Rocket. I can't believe they don't have any other friends or interests. The aftermath of Endgame is also ignored which is really bad writing. The team wasn't going to pop back together problem free after all that turmoil

Basically with vol 3 we see the two most important relationships for Gamora highlighted, especially when it comes to Peter which is awesome. We see her come to understand the team and begin to have a bond. It's also wonderful she gets a moment with Groot at the end because she was like a mom to him. But outside of that not much else about IW and EG gets any closure. More for Gamora but ultimately everyone. So vol 3 is good but changes in story and character structure as well as ignoring important parts of canon leave some holes.

yeah, my stan blinders aside, sidelining gamora from the lead role she originally had makes the whole narrative a bit wonky in vol 3, which i think is part of the issue.