Circularity in Storytelling — with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022)
Spoiler alert: this article contains spoilers of Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022).
Circular storytelling is easy to understand: the story ends where it begins.
Circular storytelling means that some elements from the beginning of the story (re-)appear at the end of the story. Elements (re-)appearing at the end of the story are usually in stark contrast to the elements at the beginning of the story.
Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022) is a heart-warming story that emanates a feeling of wholeness thanks to director and writer James Gunn applying a circular storytelling structure to the film’s narrative.
The following three elements in the film unfold in circularly and are great examples of how circularity can add a feeling of completeness to a story.
Element 1: A Human Gift
At the beginning of the film, Mantis decides to do something special this Christmas for Peter Quill after she discovers that she is the daughter of Ego, and thus Peter’s sister. That moment and her conversation with Drax during which they try to come up with a suitable gift for Peter trigger the film’s plot with the pair concluding that it would be best to give Peter a human gift: Kevin Bacon, Peter’s childhood hero.
At the end of the film, we see Mantis and Peter in a scene reminiscent of her conversation with Drax where she confesses to Peter that she is his sister. The moment is amplified by Peter’s reaction to Mantis’ revelation: he couldn’t have wished for a better gift than discovering that he has a sister. And while he didn’t want to keep Kevin Bacon as a gift, he still got a human gift just as Drax and Mantis planned — a sister.
Element 2: The Alien Band
The film starts with an alien band playing a catchy Christmas song. After Kevin Bacon hears Peter’s story, he decides to stay a little longer in space (despite being kidnaped by Mantis and Drax) to make Christmas for Peter a truly memorable one. At the end of the film, the alien band is back with Kevin Bacon as one of their vocals.
Element 3: The “Funny Little Man”
When Drax and Mantis break into Kevin Bacon’s house, they find it completely decorated for Christmas. Mantis steals one of the giant Candy Cane’s in Bacon’s garden and Drax steals a blow-up elf-doll which he calls the “funny little man.”
Drax looses the doll while he and Mantis are chasing Kevin Bacon, but eventually reunites with the “funny little man” when he opens Mantis’ gift and finds the blow-up elf-doll in the box.
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Circular storytelling is a great technique to add structure and cohesion to a story by showing the contrasting states in which characters, environments, or other elements of the story-world find themselves in at the beginning and end of a story.
Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special uses it to accentuate the changing relationships between the story’s characters and developments in the film. In doing so, Gunn creates a touching story with a perfectly wrapped-up ending.
