Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,684
edits
I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: Difference between revisions
I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin (view source)
Revision as of 18:40, 24 October 2023
, 6 months agono edit summary
m (update links) |
No edit summary |
||
| (11 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
A [[Herald|minor character]] has a [[MacGuffin]] and [[Pursued Protagonist|is being pursued]] by some [[Mook
A good way to keep the true story a mystery (and to keep the audience interested) is to have the main character be an [[Unlikely Hero]] that has NO idea what's going on or who to trust.
The old bearer of [[MacGuffin]] may double as a [[Sacrificial Lamb]], and is quite often a [[Pursued Protagonist]].
Line 12:
[[Sub-Trope]] of [[Take Up My Sword]], itself a [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Herald]]. Compare [[The Chooser of the One]].
Note that this trope is ''not'' "somebody gives a character a MacGuffin". The person who's giving the MacGuffin has to die in the process.
{{examples}}▼
{{deathtrope}}
== Anime & Manga ==▼
▲{{examples}}
* The man with the data card in the first episode of ''[[Dirty Pair]] Flash''.
* In ''[[Saint Seiya]]'', a dying knight of Sagittarius handles baby Athena and the Golden Armor to Dr. Kido.
* Ralph Wednesday, the vanship courier with Alvis Hamilton in ''[[Last Exile]]''.
* The vaccine file in ''[[Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex]]''. Notably, the offer was rejected. To give some more context the file in question was a list of people who had received a vaccine for an otherwise incurable illness (the vaccine was rejected due to pressure from certain individuals and organizations who wanted to prevent their products from being rendered useless). {{spoiler|The current owner of the file tries to give it to Togusa after the building's attacked by [[The Dragon]] and his [[Mooks]]. Togusa tries to get him to escape with it instead (he's caught and shot, meaning the protagonists have to make do with a video of what Togusa saw).}}
* Happens from time to time on ''[[Ranma ½]],'' and usually it's Happosai who gets the [[MacGuffin]].
* Kakashi in ''[[Naruto]]'' gets his Sharingan this way.
Line 27 ⟶ 30:
* In the ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' episode Sympathy for the Devil, a dying bounty head gives Spike a ring and tell him that he's the only one who can save "him" now. Cue the crew spending the rest of the episode figuring out what the guy meant and what they're supposed to do with the ring.
** ''Gateway Shuffle'' starts off with this, with Faye finding a fatally wounded police officer drifting through space. He tells her to take a briefcase to the I.S.S.P, and tells her not to open it. She does neither, and the object in the briefcase is sought after by the antagonist of that episode. She manages to steal it back and pocket it, only for it to come back into play at the very end of the episode to ruin her plans.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'': It's revealed that Yusei's dying father gave the 3 Signer Dragon cards he had to Rex Godwin (a
* In ''[[Metal Armor Dragonar]]'', the [[Power Trio]] comes across a badly wounded man carrying the discs needed to activate the titular [[Humongous Mecha]]. In a subversion, he begs them to give the discs to [[The Empire|Giganos]], obviously not realizing that the boys are [[The Federation|Federation]] trainees.
* [[One Piece]] has a rather interesting variation of this. The former Pirate King Gold Roger, well aware of his impending death due to disease, turns himself in. He then challenges everyone to find his [[MacGuffin]] and proclaims that whoever finds it can have it. Made even more interesting by the fact that nobody knows for sure whether it really exists, much less what it actually might be.
**
== Comic Books ==
Line 38 ⟶ 40:
* This is how John DiFool got [[Metabarons Universe|The Incal]], via a dying Berg disguised as a mutant.
* The ''[[Green Lantern]]'' corps recruit new members by passing their ring on before they die.
== Film ==
Line 46 ⟶ 47:
** The key that one of the aliens gives the monk in the pre-WWII prologue also serves as one.
* In the 1981 movie ''[[Diva]]'', a prostitute stashes a cassette implicating a high ranking official as a mob boss in a postman's bag just before being murdered.
* Disney's [[Treasure Planet]]. Billy Bones is not a long-term lodger, but instead crashes his ship on the inn's doorstep and dies almost immediately on setting foot inside, with the pirates right behind. Before he dies, he opens the chest and shoves the treasure map into Jim's hands.
* Billy Bones does this to Jim in [[Muppet Treasure Island]] as well.
* ''[[Foul Play (film)|Foul Play]]'': A dying agent slips Goldie Hawn a microfilm cassette in a pack of cigarettes, unbeknownst to her. The bad guys try to kill her for the microfilm she doesn't know she has. The microfilm is eventually{{spoiler|destroyed in a fire before anyone can view it.}}
* All the adaptations (and most parodies) of John Buchan's ''[[The Thirty-Nine Steps]]''. The best known (1935) version was directed by Hitchcock.
* ''[[Enemy of the State]]'' involves a researcher with an incriminating videotape who dies soon after passing on the [[MacGuffin]].
* This is kinda-sorta the plot of ''[[Shoot'Em Up]]'', with the baby as the [[McGuffin]], handed off from the woman who's just given birth to it after she gets shot.
* In ''[[The Net]]'', Dale sends Angela a disk and later flies down in his Cessna to meet her. The bad guys mess with the radar, causing Dale to the crash his plane.
* In ''[[Casablanca]]'', Ugarte entrusts the letters of transit to Rick, only to be taken into custody and killed later that night.
* ''[[The Maltese Falcon]]'', which might be the [[Trope Codifier]], hits the viewer hard with this trope. Everyone is after the titular bird (which is insanely valuable [[Pirate Booty]] but has been covered in lead to hide the value). For the first half of the movie the police (who don't know about the bird) suspect the main character of unrelated murders ({{spoiler|which were actually committed by the [[Big Bad]] while looking for the bird}}). Then, about forty minutes into the film, the bird has only been discussed up until now and nobody knows where the thing actually is or who's hiding it. The body count is mounting and people start saying the bird might be cursed because of all of the people who get the bird die right afterward. Then {{spoiler|[[The Ghost]]}} suddenly bursts into the room, riddled with gunshots, carrying the bird, then dies at the protagonist's feet without any explanation. Now the main character not only has the statue that a bunch of violent people are after but also has ''yet another dead body'' to explain to the police, {{spoiler|this time of a guy he's been going around town asking people about}}. This plot is a weird case of [[I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin]], [[Pirate Booty]], a possible [[Artifact of Doom]], a sort of [[Artifact of Attraction]] (since the bird looks worthless), and a [[Clingy MacGuffin]] ({{spoiler|since he can't let anyone know about the bird}}) all at the same time. {{spoiler|The rest of the movie involves him trying to exonerate himself without letting anyone (especially the police, who would just decide he'd killed everyone with the bird as his motive) find out he has the statue.}}
* ''[[Men with Brooms]]'' has Donald Foley arranging to have his ashes placed in the last of the [[Mineral MacGuffin|Magellan Stones]], and his will is basically him [[Thanatos Gambit|guilt-tripping his old curling team]] into reuniting and trying to win the Golden Broom.
* In ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean|Pirates of the Caribbean At Worlds End]]'', while Elizabeth Swann is on Sao Feng's boat, they get attacked. Sao Feng gets stabbed by a giant piece of wood and [[It May Help You on Your Quest|hands over a seemingly useless trinket]] which later turns out to be one of the Pieces of Eight needed for the meeting, and for
* Hitchcock's second version of ''[[The Man Who Knew Too Much]].'' The man who knows too much doesn't exactly know just what it is he knows.
== Literature ==
Line 68:
* This trope is basically how ''[[Animorphs]]'' begins---Elfangor, an alien from the ([[Anti-Hero|more-or-less]]) good Andalite species, crash-lands on Earth in front of five kids, warning them that the ([[Anti-Villain|more-or-less]]) evil alien Yeerks are invading and giving them the morphing power to fight them. In this case, though the [[MacGuffin]] is just information/a power rather than an object. {{spoiler|But then, they manage to ''retrieve'' an object---the device that gives the morphing power---from David later...}}
* In ''[[Green Rider]]'', Karigan comes upon a mortally wounded Rider in the forest and is given a two-part MacGuffin: the message he was supposed to deliver, and his Rider brooch (which, as she later finds out, comes with magical powers).
* ''[[Harry Potter and
* One of [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]]'s Lythande stories begins with Lythande comforting a dying woman, and getting stuck with the task of returning a magical artifact to the woman's people. (She isn't very enthusiastic about this, but it [[Clingy MacGuffin|won't leave her alone until she does]]...)
* At the beginning of ''[[
{{quote|
'''Granny''' (with considerable satisfaction): "Us." }}
* In the first chapter of ''[[The Hobbit]]'', Gandalf explains that he got the map and key to the Lonely Mountain from Thorin's father, who he found languishing in the dungeons of the Necromancer (making [[The Dreaded|everyone at the party - including Bilbo - gasp]]). As he explains:
* At the beginning of [[Tom Holt|Tom Holt's]] ''Expecting Someone Taller'' Malcolm Fisher receives the Tarnhelm and the Ring of the Nibelungs from Ingolf, the last of the Frost Giants, cleverly disguised as a badger who he's just run over with his car. Not being educated in Norse mythology or even having seen the opera poor Malcolm has no clue what he's getting himself into.▼
{{quote|'''Gandalf:''' I tried to save your father, but it was too late. He was witless and wandering, and had forgotten almost everything except the map and the key.}}
▲* At the beginning of [[Tom Holt
{{quote|'''Ingolf''': "
'''Malcolm''': "I
'''Ingolf''': "But you'll be able to understand the language of the birds."
'''Malcolm''': "I don't particularly want to be able to understand the language of the birds."
'''Ingolf''': "You'll understand the language of the birds and like it, my lad!" }}
* In Josephine Tey's ''The Singing Sands,'' the [[MacGuffin]] is an unfinished sonnet, which the protagonist, who used to write sonnets in school, takes with him out of idle interest, then considers finishing it as a gesture to the dead person; as he studies it, he realizes it is a code.
* Alther Mella in ''[[Septimus Heap]]'' passes over the Akhu Amulet to Marcia Overstrand before dying.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''Alpha Squad Seven: The New Tek Jansen Adventures'', the [[Show Within a Show]] on ''[[The Colbert Report]]'', had the better part of a whole episode with someone dying (with a massive crater in his torso, no less) but taking about three minutes talking with Tek Jansen about directions to get to the place that the [[MacGuffin]] needed to go, and only ''finally'' expired after plenty of fumbling, putzing around, and being interrupted.
* Doyle passing on his visions to Cordelia in Angel
Line 92 ⟶ 93:
* The Colt in ''[[Supernatural]]'' is the focus of an entire season, and is handed to the main characters by its dying guardian.
* In ''[[Warehouse 13]],'' regent Jane (aka Pete's mom, [[Hey, It's That Guy!|aka]] [[Star Trek: Voyager|Captain Janeway]]) is given a bracelet by a fellow regent who was trapped by the rubble of the building they were trying to escape. It makes her "The Guardian" of Warehouse 13 and helps them "keep control" of it - details deliberately sketchy at this point.
== Theater ==
* Oswald in ''[[William Shakespeare|King Lear]]'', after being mortally wounded by Edgar:
{{quote|
If ever thou wilt thrive, [[Due to the Dead|bury my body]];
And give the letters which thou find'st about me
To Edmund earl of Gloucester; seek him out
Upon the British party: O, untimely death!
:: Of course Edgar doesn't give the letters to Edmund, his mortal enemy.
== Video Games ==
Line 109 ⟶ 108:
* Surviving a [[Zeppelins from Another World|Zeppelin]] crash in the intro cinematic of [[Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura|Arcanum]], you are given a ring by a dying gnome, and told to "Find the boy".
* If you didn't pick up the Arm Cannon Power up in ''[[Mega Man X]]'' when Zero Dies at the hands of Vile he gives X his Arm Cannon which then becomes the Arm Cannon Upgrade.
** A more fitting example would be at (nearly) the opposite end of the series, ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'' where the [[Mentor]] who had originally become [[My Hero Zero|Zero]] is mortally wounded by the [[Big Bad]] and his [[The Dragon|Dragons]]. His last action is to give Vent or Aile his Model Z, and ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|things get awesome.]]''
* [[Pursued Protagonist|Ted]] hands his [[Artifact of Doom|Soul Eater True Rune]] to [[The Hero|Tir]] in ''[[Suikoden]] I'', and the rest is history.
* Occurs in the tutorial of ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]: [[The Elder Scrolls Four|Oblivion]]''.
Line 115 ⟶ 114:
* In ''[[Jak and Daxter|Jak II]]'', {{spoiler|Baron Praxis}} gives you {{spoiler|the Precursor Stone}} after {{spoiler|Kor kills him}}.
** {{spoiler|and by "give", we mean he revealed the bomb containing the stone which would have destroyed the entire world if exploded. Dumb guy.}}
* Done in ''[[
** In the first game, ''[[MOTHER 1]]'', after {{spoiler|R7038xx destroys EVE, your protector robot,}} the seventh Melody is {{spoiler|found in its body.}}
** A rather interesting version in ''[[Mother 3]]'': taking a [[MacGuffin]] is what causes {{spoiler|its guardian Magypsy}} to die ( {{spoiler|or rather, disappear}}). I'm Not Dying, Please Take My [[MacGuffin]]?
* In ''[[ZHP]]: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman'', you are given the Unlosing Ranger's belt by its previous holder, Pirohiko Ichimonji, as he lays dying after being hit by a car. {{spoiler|This is also how Pirohiko himself received the belt, [[Legacy Immortality|as well as everyone to take on the "Unlosing Ranger" title before him]].}}
* If the dream of being a hero counts as a sort of McGuffin, then Zack and Cloud play this out in the ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' prequel ''[[Crisis Core]]''.
* ''[[Dark Souls]]'' starts this way. The player encounters a dying knight who gives the player the Estus Flask, the key out of the Undead Asylum and the quest to ring the twin Bells of Awakening.
==
* In ''[[The Noob]]'', Ohforf (the titular “noob”) looks all set up for this as a high-level player reminisces about his achievements and how he is now in his final hours of his playing the game (the speech is a spoof of the [[Famous Last Words]] from ''[[Blade Runner]]''). {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|But haha, no, that would just be too easy on the poor newbie]]. Besides, the reality of it being in an MMO would make it quite unlikely he could be anyone ''important''.}}
* This is how the power of The Tiger got passed along to its current holder in [[Spinnerette]].
== Western Animation ==
Line 135 ⟶ 133:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Death Tropes]]
[[Category:Transformation Causes]]
Line 140 ⟶ 139:
[[Category:Call to Adventure]]
[[Category:Herald]]
[[Category:
| |||