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The 10 Most Popular Types of MacGuffin

What's This?

What? You don't know what a MacGuffin is? Why, a MacGuffin is a thing that everyone needs

MacGuffin is a writerly term popularized by Alfred Hitchcock to refer to the thing that drives the plot of the story, does nothing else, and is is utterly interchangeable as an object. There are tons and tons of MacGuffins, in the geek world and elsewhere, and they tend to fall into categories, some of which are more popular than others. We've tried to determine the best of them and describe them herein.

This Power Grid was compiled with much help from the inestimable Zoe Chevat.

What’s better than a MacGuffin that you can sell, trade, or rule a world with? A MacGuffin that doubles as an edged weapon. Handy for when all the other people after your MacGuffin catch up... Read on...
Vespene Gas, Lumber, Sheep, Gold, Goretusk Livers , call it what you want… You need more of it . This trope is incredibly common in video games because it wouldn't be a game if it didn't... Read on...
You can hawk it, you can use it, you can incapacitate your enemies with it! An Inorganic Material MacGuffin is found at the bottom of the ocean/stolen from the natives/snatched from a museum, and... Read on...
So you're a scientist, and you're just minding your own business, getting along fine, when all of a sudden you invent something that everyone wants. Maybe it's a cheap and sustainable alternate... Read on...
Here's the category of all other categories, including some of the most commonly used and famous MacGuffins in the history of fiction. The Holy Grail, for example, is the MacGuffin of an Indiana... Read on...
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