Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 sure has a lot of heartwarming moments, but seeing Drax (Dave Bautista) become the dad of dozens of orphaned children is definitely at the top. Over the years, we all learned to love and appreciate the Guardians' big goofball and his attitude, and the new movie showed this "fatherly" side of his character that many of us had forgotten even existed. Looking at him, we see, well, the Destroyer, a skilled warrior and merciless killer who's never easily defeated, but it's always fun seeing how warm and fun he is underneath all that brawn.
Although Dave Bautista has already confirmed his plans of retiring from the MCU now that Vol. 3 is out, the new movie does bring another layer of development to Drax and reminds us of why he is the way he is. When he, Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) finally enter the High Evolutionary's (Chukwudi Iwuji) ship, they find themselves in a dungeon full of kids, who are trying to tell the three Guardians how to free them, but they don't speak the same language. Only later Drax takes the lead and reveals he knew how to talk to the kids all along, to everyone's surprise. Why didn't he say so earlier? "Because you didn't ask," he replies, a lesson in disguise for Nebula.
Drax Is an Actual Dad...
When he talks to the kids aboard the High Evolutionary's ship, he nails it. Everything, from the language they speak to the language they understand — which are not the same thing, mind you. Kids and adults don't speak the same language, that's why raising a child can be so difficult at times. Nebula would never get through to the kids and captivity speaking with urgency, but, when Drax steps in and performs little bits like a monkey (despite actually mimicking a robot, but go figure), he has their attention. Kids don't understand urgency as we do, but they can be made to act on it if talked to with proper care.
That's what Drax does, reminding everyone that he was once a dad to a little girl. Remember that? In the first Guardians of the Galaxy, that was his defining trait: an angry and bitter man who lost everything to Thanos (Josh Brolin) and Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) — and by "everything" we mean his wife Ovette and daughter Kamaria. His planet, Kylos, was subject to Thanos' usual modus operandi: randomly dividing the population into two sides, slaughtering one, and allowing the other to survive. No need to say who was left on the surviving side. That's what set him on his permanent rampage against the two warlords.
Before all that, however, he was a family man. Kylosians are naturally incapable of understanding figures of speech and have no social filter, so he told parts of his life story in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 — even some torrid parts. He recalled how he met Ovette, as well as the stories his father told of how he was conceived. As weird as that may seem (hey, he finds it beautiful, to each their own), it shows his true nature as a family man. He's a natural caretaker and only became the Destroyer when he had nothing left to care for.
Losing a child is unthinkable suffering and is against every law of nature, so we can understand why Drax turned out the way he did back in the first Guardians movie. Still when someone becomes a parent, this trait never really goes away, so it was easy for him to connect with the kids in Vol. 3.
… and He's Always Behaved Like One
Drax only started to soften again when he joined the Guardians, and, looking back, we can see he never really ceased being a dad at his core. Yes, Kylosians have their natural impediments when it comes to language, but some of his weird behavior can almost seem like regular dad behavior if we think about it. That invisibility joke on Avengers: Infinity War? I mean, does anyone really believe they can blend in the environment by staying really still? Yes, dads do. Not in truth, but for their kids' amusement.
So Drax basically became the team's dad. In the first Guardians, he consoles Rocket (Bradley Cooper) after Groot's (Vin Diesel) sacrifice. In Vol. 2, he becomes a surrogate father for Mantis. The whole scene in the dungeon with the kids in Vol. 3 even sounds like a lesson in disguise for Nebula, if we think about it. She had an outburst and yelled at him and Mantis, stating their supposed "incompetence." We understand Nebula was upset and frustrated, and Mantis protected him and wiped his memory about that, but it almost feels like she didn't, because Drax didn't step up to help even when he knew he could. After Nebula's angry outburst (and let's keep in mind her father never loved her and was a genocidal maniac), his attitude almost seems like a father telling a daughter to do things her way and call if she needs help. She needed help but didn't call, so he taught her to. How many times have we had lessons like that taught to us by our parents?
Another very fatherly bit was aboard Orgocorp when Mantis influences a security guard to fall in love with Drax. His approach to her joke was the "daddiest" possible as if allowing a child to pull the same prank for the millionth time because he knows it will amuse her. Imagine how many times Mantis has pulled this one for him to react like that. It also shows that his relationship with her was never a romantic one, but one of father and daughter. He's always worried about protecting her and is sad to see her leave at the end of the movie because, well, parents get sad when children leave the nest. Mantis is another Guardian who never had a real dad (remember, her father was literally a planet), so Drax naturally took that role.
In the last sequence of Vol. 3 Drax even dances with the kids on Knowhere during the "Dog Days Are Over" needle drop, showing he always knew how to. He stated his hatred for dancing in the first Guardians, yes, but let's remember who he was back then. He kept his position about it over the years, and it seems now like it could be the longest-running dad joke on the MCU because he knew how to dance all along. Now he has a new family, he carries his daughter and wife with him and has tons of new kids to take care of. He can dance a little.