Who's Cuter, Baby Groot or a Mandrake?

By now, it's not a spoiler that Groot was the secret star of Guardians of the Galaxy . Although he seems to only be capable of saying "I" and "am" and "Groot," exclusively in that order, we've all learned how expressive those three little words can be. When he switched to "We are Groot" at the end of the movie, I hope I wasn't the only person who cried. Groot stole the show, and when he came back as baby Groot, it may have been the most adorable Marvel moment since someone made Tony Stark and Bruce Banner into "lab bros."

Now, Groot may be the galaxy's cutest houseplant, but he comes from a long line of lovable, tough treelike beings, that began in Norse mythology and continues through comics, movies, and MORPGS. Some of these tree-people might even have the little guy beat in cuteness, strength, or ability to make a half-assed sequel interesting (obviously we'll have to wait for Guardians 2 to judge that last one).

Hellboy II's Forest Elemental

Groot definitely shows his chops as hired muscle throughout Guardians of the Galaxy. Nonetheless, his ability to lift Nathan Fillion by the nose will never compare to the raw energy of the forest elemental in Hellboy II. This gigantic creature terrorizes an entire city, yet I still felt crushed when Hellboy finally brought it down. The movie also took a distinctly boring turn from this point on, which only made me the forest elemental more.

The Winner: The forest elemental won this round. Sorry baby Groot.

Lord of the Rings' Treebeard

For the uninitiated, Treebeard can be an obnoxious addition to The Two Towers. Even if his long meetings and speeches about the death of the Ents bored you, his ability to rally the Ents to fight Saruman is more inspiring than most of Frodo's speeches combined. Groot rallies his team as well, but he uses physical bodily harm, which is beautiful and leads to baby Groot.

The Winner: We are Groot.

Pocahontas' Grandmother Willow

Pocahontas is a racist, problematic account of white settlers and the genocide of native peoples. And although Grandmother Willow is a part of that, she's still a wise, interesting character. And her singing voice is wonderful.

The Winner: If I was listening to my heart, it would be Grandmother Willow.

The Wizard of Oz's Talking Trees

Although these trees play a small role in The Wizard of Oz, they are probably the rudest contenders yet. We all know how the Guardians feel about rudeness, so that's not going to fly. Hopefully Groot can teach these guys a thing or two about making friends with cute and clueless humans

The Winner: I am Groot (because he's nice).

Harry Potter's Mandrake

This opponent is for baby Groot. Although we never get to hear baby Groot's tiny little voice, it is undoubtedly less annoying than a screaming mandrake. Even if you imagined mandrakes as cute while reading the books, the movie affirms that they're nowhere as adorable as dancing, regenerating Groot.

The Winner: Dancing baby Groot, every time.

Images: Marvel Studios; adrycoolwit/Tumblr