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{{quote|"''She could have been a briefcase and nothing would have changed in this movie.''"|'''Miles Antwiler''', discussing Rayne's role in ''Bloodrayne: The Third Reich''.}}
 
They say [[The Iliad|Helen of Troy]] had a face that could launch a thousand ships, well, the Living MacGuffin has a similar ability to launch [[The Hero's Journey|a thousand quests]] in search of them. The Living MacGuffin isn't an inanimate [[MacGuffin]] made flesh (that's [[MacGuffin Girl]]), or a kidnapped [[Damsel in Distress]] or [[The President's Daughter|President's Daughter]]; what the Living MacGuffin ''is'' is a character who is quite free, in little to no danger, desperately sought after and out of the hero's reach. She may be a [[The Dulcinea Effect|heart wrenchingly beautiful]] [[Everything's Better with Princesses|princess]] [[Engagement Challenge|whose hand can only be won with]] [[Impossible Task|miraculous feats]], a long lost (or [[Parental Abandonment|left]]) parent, [[Thicker Than Water|sibling]], [[True Companions|close friend]] or [[Love Interest]], or some variation of [[The Chosen One]] who is needed for some greater purpose. (But remember, if that person serves another purpose later in the story, they're [[Chekhov's Gunman]].)
 
In terms of traits, they are usually "desirable" or "questable" for any of a hundred reasons. Common ones include: [[World's Most Beautiful Woman|great beauty]], [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|great goodness]], kindness and [[Love Interest|loving or being loved by the hero]], [[Royal Blood|being royalty]], [[Ancient Keeper|knowing the answer to an urgent problem]], etc. Alternately, they may carry the negative trait of having [[Kick the Dog|kicked the hero's dog]] at one point, and so they want to find them (or a way close to them) for [[Revenge]].
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** Zelda ''again'' took her rightful place as [[MacGuffin]] in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword|The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]''.
* A variant occurs in ''[[Professor Layton and the Curious Village]]''. Layton knows that he needs to find the Golden Apple of Baron Reinhold. {{spoiler|What he ''doesn't'' know is that the Golden Apple is really Flora, the Baron's daughter.}}
* ''[[BioshockBioShock (series)]] 2'' is centered around the quest of the player, a Big Daddy bonded to a Little Sister, to find that Little Sister, who happens to be [[Big Bad]] Sophia Lamb's daughter and the messianic figure of the religion she founded. {{spoiler|Subverted near the end, when she becomes a Big Sister and helps you fight your way out of the city, and is incredibly powerful.}}
* Prince Alexander is a sucker for this one. In his [[King's Quest III|first game]], he spends half of it trying to find a way to off his [[Bad Boss]] before [[Bad Boss]] offs him. The second half of the game comes when the [[Ancient Keeper|Oracle]] tells him that he's got a twin sister that's soon to meet her end as a [[Human Sacrifice]]. In his [[King's Quest VI|second game]], he's trying to reach the Princess he's fallen for before the [[Grand Vizier]] pulls a scheme to marry her, kill her, and take the throne for himself. Runs in the family, as that's [[King's Quest II|how his dad went looking for his mom]]...
* Similar to the ''[[Tron: Legacy]]'' example above, ''[[Tron 2.0]]'' had this in the form of Ma3a, who carried the correction algorithims needed for Jet {{spoiler|and Alan}} to get back to the analog world. However, the terrible trio from [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|F-Con]] were ''also'' seeking those algorithims in order to digitize an army into [[Cyberspace]] and [[Take Over the World]].
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