two fathers and a daddy

Last night, I took myself out to see "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales", one more time.
This viewing was free, too, thanks to the Regal Crown Rewards program... and my frequent attendance at movies.
(smile)

So, while I'm watching the action, it occurs to me that there was a link to be explored between "POTC: DMTNT" and my much-loved (and much-viewed) "GOTG:V2".
Then again, maybe I was influenced by the timing of latter's fourth viewing on the recent Fathers Day.
Hmm... hold up a moment... I just realized that I could include good King Uther in this discussion... but I shall not.
I already have my sights set on Yondu, Ego, and Hector.

First, perhaps a discussion distinguishing daddy from father should occur.
Yondu said, "He may have been your father, but he wasn't your daddy."
Isn't one term synonymous with the other?
Well, they can be... but, like many words in the English language, they have distinctive overtones of meaning.
Let's see what the dictionary has to offer.

Father is defined as "a (generally human) male who begets a child".
In the world of broken homes, that parlays to "sperm donor".

Daddy is defined as "(usually childish) father".
That might seem to confuse the issue, but look closer.
That word "childish" is the clue to the distinction. "Daddy", then, is something a child calls the male parent who is raising it.

So, let's consider our contenders, shall we?
Ego was the biggest father of them all, begetting progeny all over a multitude of universes.
Did he raise any of them?
Nope.
Not a single one.
In fact, every child created by his sperm was killed by his hand when they were brought to his home.
So, he was never a daddy.
Sure, when Peter Quill, half-Ego and half-human, came to Ego's land, Peter was allowed to live. That's because Ego found this son actually had the ability to harness the "divine spark", like his father could.
(It does raise the question of whether Ego simply needed to be more patient with his other offspring. Perhaps if they had been allowed to grow into adulthood, they might have also developed the celestial quality. We can never know.)
Even so, Ego tried to kill Quill when the Star Lord refused to go along with his father's maniacal plan to take over every world in every galaxy.
Was that because Peter was a Guardian of the Galaxy?
Not really... but you should see the movie.
(smile)
Nah, let me go ahead and tell you, since I'm going to be spoiling endings anyway.
Peter lost all enchantment with his long-lost father when he learned the "little-g" god had deliberately given Peter's beloved mom the brain cancer that took her life.
(Moral of the story: mother-f*er, don't be a mother-killer.)

Yondu, as far as we know, had no children.
We saw that he used pleasure-bots for sex, so that eliminated both the need for condoms and paternity suits.
We learn that his men were jealous of the attention and special care he gave to the boy he kidnapped from Earth many years earlier... but that may have been because of the music Peter brought... right?
Surely the big blue alien didn't regard Quill as his son... right?
Then again... there's that thing with the boy being named Quill...
and the flying arrow of death that Udonta controlled with a whistle...
you have to wonder which came first, the Quill or the quill?
(smile)
Any who... near the end of the movie, when the planet - and embodiment - of Ego are both deconstructing, Yondu grabs Peter and uses the quill to get them into space. Then he puts the one life-saving spacesuit onto the person he had raised from a boy... and dies.
But not before uttering the line above.
And not before telling Peter how proud he was to have called him his boy...
and not before Peter has realized who his daddy has been the past two decades or so.
Very touching moment, I tell you.
(I have cried every time I've seen it, even knowing it was coming these last three times.)

So what about Hector Barbossa?
How does he fit in here?
Well, he and his love, Margaret Smith, had a daughter, Carina...
so that made him a father...
but the woman died and he left the baby at an orphanage, with a ruby-encrusted journal stolen from an Italian astronomer...
so he was certainly not a daddy.
Fast forward a couple of decades (there's that time lag again).
The daughter is all grown up and an astronomer and horologist (which easy for pirates to mistake for a sound-alike profession), thinking she was following in her father's footsteps. She was using the Italian journal to find the Trident of Poseidon... which, as it turns out, the pirates - including Hector - wanted to locate to remove the curses that beset them.
He realizes, as soon as he hears her name, that she might be his long-lost daughter.
What cinches the matter for him is seeing the ruby-bedecked journal in her hands.
Should he reveal himself as her father?
No way! He was a pirate and she was an educated woman, why would she want any dealings with his ilk?
Then, they are racing to return to the ship, chased by the Butcher of the Seas. Hector is above her on the chain when the hoist gives way. He must make a decision: let go the chain and save her, or risk her death to save himself.
He lets go the chain...
but she has seen the constellation on his arm...
the same star configuration on her journal...
and recognizes the love in his face as he does what a daddy would do...
he sacrifices his life to destroy the Spaniard and save Carina...
whom he had named for the brightest star over southern waters.
Magnificent!

(Thanks to Astronomy Picture of the Day for the photo.
Carina, or Eta Carinae, illuminates the center of this photo.
See the left-facing wide, dark "<", with the smoky red squiggle known as the Keyhole Nebula? That bright star by the squiggle is Carina, part of the False Cross, below the Southern Cross.) So, what do you think? I'd really be interested. I wish I had Grandpa around to discuss this. What a debate we would have had! (smile)