this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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I’m autistic and things like this always reaffirm it for me, but isn’t everything only as important as people make it?
Like, Harry Potter could have been about aliens with very advanced technology and anachronistic style or communication with nanobots, it didn’t have to be magic, but somehow I don’t think that would fit as a macguffin.
I don't really think so, the whole plotline revolves around magic and it's use highly influences the story. "Evil wizard wants to rule the world" is ultimately the driving plot force in HP and he's definitely not a macguffin since he leads a death cult overthrow of the government and murders people all over the place.
Like the other commenter referenced, think of the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Much of the action occurs as a direct result of people trying to get or keep the briefcase, but we never even find out what's actually in it. The real story is about the characters and the things that happen to them. The climax of the movie isn't someone getting whatever was in the briefcase out and using it just in time to stop the city blowing up or something, y'know?
I'd say there are different classes of MacGuffin. Some are actually more important and notable in themselves, like the Holy Grail. The One Ring is not really a MacGuffin because it has character in itself. Mount Doom in some ways is the actual MacGuffin. In Mission Impossible 3 they are chasing this thing called the Rabbit's Foot, but the movie never actually explains what it is (it's classified)! In the newer movies they retcon it to be more important. The Infinity Stones are MacGuffins uniting multiple movies' storylines together. The MacGuffin moniker can be pejorative, but it's also part of the reductive aspect of storytelling. We only have so many ways to tell stories.