# Every true Scotsman uses the MACGUFFIN! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 13, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828 "2008-06-13T17:19:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mlerose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@mlerose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlerose)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/41 "2008-06-16T21:33:22Z")
Can a character be a MacGuffin? I’ve always thought Buttercup from the Princess Bride was vaguely MacGuffin-like, at least for the first part of the movie. She doesn’t have much of an actual character, but several different people are trying to posess her for various reasons, and it’s difficult to actually figure out why, because we never see anything remotely desireable about her, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/42 "2008-06-16T21:38:34Z")
The green sack in Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison. [Spoiler]The sack always having ahung in one spot in his Aunt Pilate’s house, Milkman Dead discovers via a conversation with his father that it might be filled with gold ingots from a cave where his father and aunt discovered it in their teens. When he finds out it only contains human bones, his quest for the gold leads him on a journey back to his roots. He (and his accomplice-then-potential-assassin, Guitar) discovers his family’s real name and heritage, reveals his aunt’s regret at not taking care of her murdered father’s remains was for naught (she had them all along but thought they were a white man her brother Macon killed in the cave) and sparks a reconcilation of sorts of his father, Macon, until then estranged from his sister because of the gold.[/Spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/43 "2008-06-16T22:23:00Z")
[QUOTE=mlerose] Can a character be a MacGuffin? [/QUOTE] Arguably, Rosario Dawson’s in _Men in Black II_. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/44 "2008-06-17T02:56:55Z")
Are we limited to _good_ movies? I’d name the tomb of Mary Magdelane in The Da Vinci Code. They never find it, and it seems that it will be at least several hundred more years before it’s ever found. So, as far as I could tell, it might as well have been anything else, possibly just some purported steamy love letter between Mary and Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/45 "2008-06-17T06:03:12Z")
In one of David Bischoff’s novels, either _Star Spring_ or \* Star Fall\*, the protagonist is drawn into interstellar affairs by acquiring an illegal artificial body that various people are seeking. The model name of this body is, of course, “MacGuffin”. It’s memorable to me because of the name, naturally. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/46 "2008-06-17T06:19:58Z")
The sword in _Crouching Tiger_, certainly. I recall it was about trying to get a sword, though damned if I can remember any more about it. Whatever the winner gets in the _Highlander_ franchise (and oh do I feel geeky for even mentioning that). I think that it could be said that ‘Miranda’ in _Serenity_ could be considered a Macguffin. And just because I think it’s wonderful, here’s a lovely little story that Hitchcock himself once told about the origin of the term: > [@](#): > > “It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says, ‘What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?’ And the other answers, ‘Oh that’s a McGuffin.’ The first one asks ‘What’s a McGuffin?’ ‘Well’ the other man says, ‘It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ The first man says, ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,’ and the other one answers ‘Well, then that’s no McGuffin!’ So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all.” ---
**Author:** ![BaneSidhe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c5a1d2/32.png) [@BaneSidhe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaneSidhe)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/47 "2008-06-17T14:46:19Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Do you know MacGuffin Man MacGuffin Man MacGuffin Man Do you know MacGuffin Man Who lives on Drury Lane? He’s chasing down a Maltese bird A shiny box A phoenix turd And every plot device that soothes A lazy writer’s brain! [/QUOTE] You have just made my day!!! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/48 "2008-06-17T16:17:48Z")
[QUOTE=mlerose] Can a character be a MacGuffin? I’ve always thought Buttercup from the Princess Bride was vaguely MacGuffin-like, at least for the first part of the movie. She doesn’t have much of an actual character, but several different people are trying to posess her for various reasons, and it’s difficult to actually figure out why, because we never see anything remotely desireable about her, IMHO. [/QUOTE] That’s more of an example of “Character as device”. A character who has no personality and merely exists to fill a function in the plot. Buttercup isn’t exactly a pure example of this, but she’s close…a princess who only exists in order to be rescued. The generic princesses in the genre fiction that “The Princess Bride” is spoofing are examples of this. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/49 "2008-06-17T16:43:44Z")
[QUOTE=NinjaChick] I think that it could be said that ‘Miranda’ in _Serenity_ could be considered a Macguffin. [/QUOTE] Hardly. Miranda is a long way from being generic: It’s the planet from which the Reavers were spawned, and knowledge of the Federal Government’s complicity in the Reavers creation (and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Miranda’s inhabitants) is (a) what is driving River crazy; (b) why the Feds want her captured so badly; and (c) what ultimately persuades Malcolm’s crew to go along with his quixotic plan; and (d) what causes the Operative to realize that he’s not a monster serving the side of the angels; he’s a pawn serving monsters. Deciding to no longer be either monster or pawn is what causes him to spare Malcolm & the crew. Nothing about Miranda could be changed without requiring major alterations to the plot and characterizations of _Serenity_. Even more than the One Ring, it’s the anti-MacGuffin. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/50 "2008-06-17T17:20:31Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] Hardly. Miranda is a long way from being generic: Nothing about Miranda could be changed without requiring major alterations to the plot and characterizations of _Serenity_. [/QUOTE] Exactly what I was coming in here to say, and in considerably fewer words. Actually, the television edition of _Firefly_ illustrates the exact difference between a MacGuffin and a Not-MacGuffin by showing us a moment where the former becomes the latter. In the first aired episode, “The Train Job,” Our Heroes - petty thieves by trade - are hired by a stereotypically horrible gangster to steal a shipment. For forty minutes of sixty, the exact nature of that shipment couldn’t be less relevant. The point of the show - thematically and in terms of character development - comes out of the ways the characters interact in pursuit of the shipment, even in their attitudes toward the theft itself. The contents of the shipment are entirely irrelevant. Then, the leader of Our Heroes learns what the shipment actually _is_. And suddenly, it becomes relevant. The specific nature of what is in the crates he has stolen helps redefine the characters we have been following, contributes to the story’s themes. Another character says this: “You were truthful back in town. These are tough times. A man can get a job, he might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours, well, then he has a choice.” So the job is a MacGuffin… until it’s not. I always thought that was pretty cool. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/51 "2008-06-17T17:21:37Z")
Remember folks, that the essence of MacGuffinhood is that no matter how much the characters care about the MacGuffin, the audience doesn’t care. If the author has an object that the audience DOES care about, it’s not a MacGuffin. An object that fulfils a plot point isn’t neccesarily a MacGuffin…the loaded gun on the mantlepiece in the first act isn’t a MacGuffin. The One Ring isn’t a MacGuffin, since the audience understands exactly what it is, and what it does, and why, and the One Ring is developed into a character in its own right. The MacGuffin is something that everyone is chasing after and fighting over, but nobody cares about. Stolen plans, diamonds, uranium, a nuclear bomb, if it doesn’t matter what the item is, then it’s a MacGuffin. Sure, there’s some “bad thing X will happen” if they don’t get the MacGuffin, but it doesn’t matter what the bad thing X is, because the movie isn’t about the bad thing X, and if it turns out that the movie really is about bad thing X then the object wasn’t a MacGuffin. The reason authors should be aware of the theory of the MacGuffin is so that they don’t waste the audience’s time developing and explaining and describing the desired object. If the point is the chase after the desired object, it doesn’t matter what the desired object is. Rather than spend the first half of the movie talking about how important the secret plans are, just cut to “What’s in the briefcase, the secret plans? Good, thought so. What do we do, chase after them? Good, thought so.” It’s a theory that allows creators to improve their work by cutting out lots of pointless exposition that the audience doesn’t and shouldn’t care about. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/52 "2008-06-17T18:15:43Z")
The Papers in Road To Rio. (paraphrased from memory) Hope: Stop- this wedding, I have _The Papers_. Somebody : Papers can’t stop a wedding. Hope : These Papers can. (Hope shows _The Papers_ to Somebody. The wedding is canceled) Crosby: What’s in those _Papers_? (Hope puts _The Papers_ in his pocket, looks directly at audience) Hope : The World must never know. ---
**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/53 "2008-06-17T19:41:54Z")
[QUOTE=NinjaChick] “It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says, ‘What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?’ And the other answers, ‘Oh that’s a McGuffin.’ The first one asks ‘What’s a McGuffin?’ ‘Well’ the other man says, ‘It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ The first man says, ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,’ and the other one answers ‘Well, then that’s no McGuffin!’ So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all.” [/QUOTE] Heh, it’s quote from interview Hitchcock/Truffaut. I love this book. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only person that read it. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/54 "2008-06-17T23:48:39Z")
[QUOTE=storyteller0910] Exactly what I was coming in here to say, and in considerably fewer words. Actually, the television edition of _Firefly_ illustrates the exact difference between a MacGuffin and a Not-MacGuffin by showing us a moment where the former becomes the latter. In the first aired episode, “The Train Job,” Our Heroes - petty thieves by trade - are hired by a stereotypically horrible gangster to steal a shipment. For forty minutes of sixty, the exact nature of that shipment couldn’t be less relevant. The point of the show - thematically and in terms of character development - comes out of the ways the characters interact in pursuit of the shipment, even in their attitudes toward the theft itself. The contents of the shipment are entirely irrelevant. Then, the leader of Our Heroes learns what the shipment actually _is_. And suddenly, it becomes relevant. The specific nature of what is in the crates he has stolen helps redefine the characters we have been following, contributes to the story’s themes. Another character says this: “You were truthful back in town. These are tough times. A man can get a job, he might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours, well, then he has a choice.” So the job is a MacGuffin… until it’s not. I always thought that was pretty cool. [/QUOTE] One of the things that hooked me on _Firefly_ (besides the scene that everyone else cites) is Mal’s response: “I don’t believe he does.” Sums up Mal’s character. Right is right. There is no “choice” involved. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/55 "2008-06-18T05:00:37Z")
Anybody mentioned the “galaxy” in _Men in Black_, yet? ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/56 "2008-06-18T06:21:48Z")
I can’t decide if Kathy Griffin’s comedy routine revolves around the Mac Guffin as a device? She offers up the quest of the celebrity, but it is usually all about her exploits and the often hilarious story. Every Macguffin is unique, but does it matter if it’s Ryan Seacrest or Lindsay Lohan for the development of her stand up? Is the Comedic use of the Macguffin different than the literary standard? ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828/57 "2008-06-18T06:25:49Z")
I’ll bet there is a story teller in the highlands or on the Islands name of McGuffin, that tells stories just like Kathy Griffin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-true-scotsman-uses-the-macguffin/452828.md?page=2)