Allow James Gunn to shatter your heart: The original Groot is "dead"

It’s an undebatable fact that Groot is the purest part of Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s sweet, innocent and loving. He may not be the smartest root in the garden but he more than makes up for that with his heart, as wooden as it may be. So when Groot sacrificed himself to save the rest of the Guardians in the first movie, our hearts collectively shattered into a million pieces. And then the moment when Baby Groot shows up was like the defibrillator shock bringing us back to life along with him. Not only did he survive, he came back even cuter and more adorable than ever before. All was okay! But now James Gunn is here to ruin our day, spit in our coffee, knock our books to the ground like a high school bully and generally act like a Marvel villain.

Because the Guardians of the Galaxy director just revealed that Baby Groot is not the same as Original Groot…because Original Groot is *dead.* What what what whaaaaat?! This is so not okay.

Gunn just casually dropped that truth bomb on Twitter this afternoon during a conversation about Porgs vs. Baby Groot. At first things seemed like a friendly conversation between two sci-fi loving people, but then Gunn just had to ruin everyone’s day by confirming a long-rumored theory.

And here we all have been assuming that Baby Groot was just Original Groot brought back down to level one, but it’s actually been his SON this whole time? We don’t know how to process this. And the truth bombs didn’t stop there.

This explains why Baby Groot is so bad at taking directions. He’s actually a baby! He doesn’t remember anyone! He’s making new memories in every scene we see him in during Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2!

In case you were hoping you could still cling to your original thinking that Original Groot didn’t really die, Gunn also kills that possibility.

And again:

So thanks a lot, Gunn. We’re going to go cry in a corner now.