No one knows this about Star Lord

Be warned, there are Marvel Cinematic Universe spoilers ahead.

Avengers: Infinity War was easily one of the most anticipated films of the decade. Fans had been waiting for this ever since Thanos first appeared in the MCU during a mid-credit scene in The Avengers (2012), but the saga had been building towards this standoff since, arguably, Iron Man kicked the entire franchise off in 2008.

During the final minutes of Infinity War, audiences were stunned to see half of their heroes all fading to dust on the big screen, and Peter Quill, aka Star Lord, was among them. However, there was something about Quill’s dusting that stood out among the many others.

As Quill turned to dust before our eyes, keen observers may have noticed something unique about his disappearance. Peter Quill is the only victim of Thanos’ snap whose eyes turned red.

It happened within only a few frames, but it’s unmistakable. While everyone else simply faded to gray and vanished, Peter Quill’s eyes turned red. It’s easy to miss, but once you do see it, it’s blatantly obvious.

Look carefully. It’s incredibly subtle, so subtle that many fans have even disregarded the event as a simple mistake in editing. However, given the track record Marvel Studios and Kevin Fiege have for attention to detail, this explanation seems unlikely to some.

Some also say that the redness appears simply because of the lighting created by the alien planet he’s on during the snap; Titan. But several other Guardians of the Galaxy vanish within feet of Quill, as well as Dr Strange and Spider-Man, none of which have this same change of hue in their eyes. So can we rule out basic lighting?

There has been a lot of speculation about why Quill’s eyes are the only ones to have changed colour during the snap, but the official reason is so far unconfirmed. And as we all know, when Marvel fans are left to their own imaginations, they run with it.

Peter Quill has been established both in the MCU and Marvel Comics as being half human and half god (small ‘g’ of course). According to MCU canon, he’s the son of a sentient planet named Ego, who refers to himself as a Celestial. Celestials are a race of near-omnipotent cosmic beings of unfathomable power and influence within the universe. For all intent and purpose, they’re pretty much gods. So with this in mind, let’s remember that Quill’s father, Ego, explained that Peter was able to access Ego’s own powers as long as the planet survived. But is this the only source of power that Quill can access?

In Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 1, we see Quill holding the Power Stone in his bare hand. Unlike the Collector’s assistant/slave, he is not destroyed immediately. The revelation that Quill is half Celestial led people to believe that it was this fact alone that allowed him to hold the Power Stone without dying long enough for the other Guardians to touch him so that the power of the stone could be distributed amongst them and contained.

The assumption is that Quill was simply genetically predisposed to be able to wield an Infinity Stone better than any mere mortal. But what if it wasn’t this simple?

Earlier in the film, as the Collector explained the origin of the stone, we see a giant being with the stone embedded atop a staff, using its power to lay waste across entire worlds. This creature bears a striking resemblance to one of the Celestials from the comics: Eson.

What if Quill only survived touching the Power Stone thanks to his Celestial half making a connection to whatever energy Eson left on the stone, thereby activating Quill’s dormant powers as a defence mechanism?

If this is the case, then we can assume two things about Star Lord. The first being that he can access his powers by connecting to pretty much any Celestial, regardless of family lineage. The second is that since this occurred before Quill was aware of what he was, it’s possible that when his life is threatened by a powerful cosmic object, his powers instinctively connect with whatever Celestial power source it can find. Which means that Quill’s eyes could have been an indication that his Celestial heritage was taking action yet again to protect him from a cosmic death sentence. Obviously it was too late or not powerful enough to prevent the snap from dusting Quill out of existence, but that doesn’t negate the theory.

We saw in Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 that when Quill reached a state of equilibrium with Ego, his eyes changed colour. They became the blueish hue that Ego’s powers often displayed, especially when Ego became disembodied from his physical form. So if Quill takes on the properties of the Celestial he connects with, then his final moments after the snap may have been him connecting with a Celestial that possesses red eyes or is otherwise associated with the colour red. Colour coordination is very important in the MCU after all.

There are a few contenders that meet this description. The most notable being the Celestial Destructor.

Amid universe-wide annihilation, it would make sense that Quill’s dormant Celestial powers would reach out to this being to combat the threat. And if this theory is even close to accurate, then with the release of both upcoming chapters in phase 4, Eternals and Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3, we could get some interesting revelations about Mr Lord.

There is already a lot of fan speculation that Quill could reactivate his powers by tapping into the remaining brain matter of the decapitated Celestial head that is now called Knowhere. And if he can do this, then that further supports the notion that Quill doesn’t need Ego to access his abilities and could do so from other Celestial sources, alive or dead.