What does macguffin mean

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All of those details are inconsequential to the story. It merely exists to set the events in motion. However, the characters care about it immensely. It meets the classic MacGuffin definition. It sets the plot in motion because Jules and Vincent have to go on a mission to retrieve it.

This has led to people speculating all sorts of things about what could possibly be inside. The fact that the contents are never addressed is the entire point of the MacGuffin and why the briefcase works so well.

What is a MacGuffin in Star Wars? The Star Wars franchise is filled with a bunch of sort-of MacGuffins. George Lucas believed in a different MacGuffin definition than Hitchcock.

George Lucas thought that the audience should care about the MacGuffin as much as the characters. Some stick true to the Hitchcockian definition while others add a little more weight to the object or person than they classically would. The Death Star plans come close to attaining that classic definition. However, they do factor heavily into the third act. MacGuffins take on various shapes and forms.

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This post may contain affiliate links. Hope's Dagger, a weapon forged at the dawn of time, which is the only thing capable of harming the First. Fairy Tales. In Catherine and Her Fate , the skein of silk that Catherine's Fate gives her is so apparently worthless that she nearly throws it out. It has, it turns out, two properties: it is exactly the color needed to sew the king's wedding garments, inspiring him to say that she shall have its weight in gold, and it outweighs his entire treasury, thereby inspiring him to demand her story.

Professional Wrestling. While the NWA forbid its member promotions from crowning their own World Heavyweight Champion, they were free to create "World" champions in other weight classes and divisions. Thus, most NWA promotions had a World Tag Team Championship that was just a glorified regional title never defended outside of the territory.

It also made the promotion look better to fans, who thought they were being treated to World Championship caliber matches even when the World Heavyweight Champion wasn't in town. Of course, most local fans had no idea that other World Tag Team Championships existed; unless they read the Apter wrestling magazines.

Tabletop Games. The title Black Box. What it does is eventually revealed, in some versions of the adventure, but it's unlikely your player characters will live long enough to discover it.

The High Programmers variation also recommends throwing in some "Cow Creamers" , side goals for the Ultraviolets to fight over so they can trade them to a NPC. Taking it turns one of the items in your character's possession into a future MacGuffin. Referenced in Mistborn Adventure Game , where the book uses the term "Macguffin" to describe a Secret that has no function other than to be the thing everyone wants.

For example, a vast hoard of precious metal that may or may not exist, and which is of little use anyway, because the world is coming to an end and there's nothing to buy with that wealth.

STCs were machines from the Dark Age of Technology containing the sum total of human technological knowledge, plus the capability to build any device. No working STCs exist anywhere in the 41st Millennium, but a printout from the STC's library can be worth entire solar systems, so the Imperium will use every means at their disposal to grab one. There is a coda where the Stone points the way to a dragon hoard, at which point the dragon reveals itself to be the Big Good and makes the "final battle" a doddle , but the real story is already over by then.

In Philoctetes , while much is made of Philoctetes' special bow received from Herakles himself the plot itself is not really concerned with its purpose as much as the choices the characters make because of and in spite of its importance.