History Main / ImDyingPleaseTakeMyMacGuffin

* The story of AlexKiddInMiracleWorld starts out with Alex making his way back to his homeland after years of martial arts training. On his way he encounters a dying man, who informs him that his country is being invaded by [[BigBad Janken the Great]] and his minions, then hands him a map and a sunstone medallion before his last breath. The sunstone is eventually revealed to be one of two keys (the other being a moonstone) needed to obtain the magical crown which has the power to save the land.

* In the Horde campaign of ''VideoGame/WarcraftIIITheFrozenThrone'', a dying orc gives the player character, Rexxar, a report meant for the orc warchief, Thrall. This brings Rexxar to the orc capital of Orgrimmar, but otherwise has little to do with the overall plot of the campaign.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2''. [[spoiler: Arthur, realising that he is not going to survive, give his iconic hat and satchel to John Marston.]] While the hat never gets seen again after 2, the satchel goes on to star in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', providing John with a semi-plausible place to keep his mountain of items. [[spoiler: It gets re-MacGuffin'ed to Jack off screen in the epilogue, thus making it one of the few things to survive both games.]]

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': In The Frozen Throne expansion's Horde campaign, a dying orc gives the player character, Rexxar, a report meant for the orc warchief, Thrall. This brings Rexxar to the orc capital of Orgrimmar, but otherwise has little to do with the overall plot of the campaign.

* In ''Literature/TheOrphanTrainAdventures'', the main plot of the fifth book, "A Dangerous Promise" is a varient on this. Mike and his friend Todd join the Union army in the American Civil War, and Todd makes Mike promise that, in event of Todd's death, Mike will deliver Todd's watch to his sister. Todd is then killed in battle, the watch stolen and Mike injured; after he recovers, the rest of the book is about Mike finding and delivering the watch.

* In the 1981 movie ''Film/{{Diva}}'', a prostitute stashes a cassette implicating a high ranking official as a mob boss in a postman's bag just before being murdered.

* ''Film/TheFifthElement'': Four of the Elements needed to save the galaxy are held by [[spoiler:Diva Plavalaguna (inside her body!) who hands them over to Dallas as she is dying]].
** The key that one of the aliens gives the monk in the pre-WWII prologue also serves as one.

* Parodied multiple times in ''Creator/TakeshiKitano'''s ''Getting Any?'', where a dying gangster (it's the ''same gangster, dying multiple times'') comes up to the protagonist and gives him something (a gun, a car, etc.) and says "Guard this for me, will you?" HilarityEnsues.
* ''Film/TheGingerweedMan'': While [[TheProtagonist The Gingerweed Man]] is waiting for Hi to bring him some weed to sell, Professor Pythagorus crawls to him, bleeding out. He hands Gingy a briefcase and tells him to keep it out of the wrong hands. [[spoiler:The briefcase contains Buddy.]]

* The ''wuxia'' ''Film/HeroesOfSung'' have the heroine's father, moments before succumbing, reveal to his daughter the true hiding place of an all-important Imperial Seal, telling her to take it and deliver it to the capital city to warn of an impending Mongol invasion.
* Hitchcock would appear to have been fond of doing this:
** Both versions of ''Film/TheManWhoKnewTooMuch'' feature a spy who, in his dying moments, passes crucial information onto a vacationing family, only for enemy agents to blackmail them by kidnapping their child.
** In ''Film/The39Steps1935'', a female spy is killed and passes vital information onto a man she just met at the theater. Instead of being blackmailed, this time the character gets implicated in her death.

* ''Film/{{The Maltese Falcon|1941}}'' hits the viewer hard with this trope. Everyone is after the titular bird (which is insanely valuable PirateBooty but has been covered in enamel 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 BigBad 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:TheGhost]] 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 ImDyingPleaseTakeMyMacGuffin, PirateBooty, a possible ArtifactOfDoom, a sort of ArtifactOfAttraction (since the bird looks worthless), and a ClingyMacGuffin ([[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.]]
* In ''Film/MenInBlack,'' a dying alien tells the heroes that they must "protect the galaxy on Orion's belt." This confuses them, since Orion's Belt is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion%27s_Belt three random stars]], not a galaxy. [[spoiler:Orion is the alien's ''cat,'' and whose collar has a bauble with [[BabyPlanet a tiny galaxy]] inside]].

* Billy Bones does this to Jim in ''Film/MuppetTreasureIsland'' as well.
* In ''Film/{{The Net|1995}}'', 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.

* ''Film/RogueOne'': In the epilogue, [[spoiler: a few rebel troopers aboard Admiral Raddus' flagship manage to obtain the recently-transferred Death Star plans and attempt to board the ''Tantive IV'' and escape. However, they are prevented from boarding the ''Tantive IV'' due to a faulty blast door, and soon Darth Vader arrives and begins slaughtering said rebels, with one screaming for the rebels on the other side of the door to help them. Once the lone rebel realizes he will be killed, he passes the Death Star plans through the little space, telling the rebel on the other side to take them, before he is killed by Darth Vader]].

* ''Literature/TheThirtyNineSteps'' starts with a dead man leaving his little black notebook containing the cryptic title phrase to Richard Hannay.
** In the sequel, ''Literature/{{Greenmantle}}'', a dying man staggers into a Kashnir outpost carrying a bit of paper on which is scrawled, 'Kasredin', 'v. 1' and 'cancer'. Cue race against time to decipher same...

* ''Twice'', in quick succession, in Creator/AgathaChristie's 1959 novel ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons''. A prince who suspects (correctly) that he's about to be assassinated entrusts his faithful servant with one last mission: smuggle some hotly-contested jewels out of the country for him. The servant concludes (also correctly) that the jewels will also make ''him'' a target for assassination, so he hides them in his visiting sister's luggage.
** Also happens at the beginning of ''The Secret Adversary'', in which an agent on the ill-fated ''Lusitania'' passes a package to a female passenger in a lifeboat shortly before the ship sinks.
* ''[[TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}} The Cloakmaster Cycle]]'' started this way. Though the protagonist happened to be sensible enough and [[RefusalOfTheCall tried to get rid of the thing]] that brings overwhelming forces on his head, [[ClingyMacGuffin not that it was easy]].
* [[spoiler: Subverted]] in Dan Brown's ''Literature/DigitalFortress''. As he's dying, Ensei Tankado holds out his ring to a stranger, the chase of which drives the plot. [[spoiler: The trick is that the MacGuffin Tankado was actually trying to hold out was his gesture of three fingers -- the number 3 is the failsafe code for the titular virus.]]
* In ''Literature/EmpireStar'' by Creator/SamuelRDelany, Comet Jo is out wandering the hills near his home when he encounters a crashed ship and a dying man who hands him a strange crystal, and begs, with his last breath, for Jo to get the message to Empire Star.
* At the beginning of Creator/TomHolt's ''Literature/ExpectingSomeoneTaller'' 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.

* "Somebody Else's Magic", one of Creator/MarionZimmerBradley's ''Literature/{{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. (Lythande isn't very enthusiastic about this, but it [[ClingyMacGuffin won't leave her alone until she does]]...)

* In the short story "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Gaspar is dying but needs to find a new, trustworthy guardian for a magical watch. Said watch holds the last hour of the Universe, in which anything can happen, but when it completes, the end of everything. If he dies without passing it on, the watch will begin to tick.

* Parodied in ''[[Literature/DiamondBrothers South by Southeast]]'' by Creator/AnthonyHorowitz, which itself is one big ShoutOut to political conspiracy thrillers. The MacGuffin's name even is... well.
* In the Franchise/StarTrek novel ''Literature/StarTrekTheGenesisWave'', book three, an alien fleeing from the Romulans with a portable Genesis Device gives it to a Bajoran monk before dying. Using the Lomarian MindControl abilities, it convinces the monk it is actually Kai Opaka, and is bestowing upon him the "Orb of Life".
* In Robin Jarvis' ''Thomas'', a prequel to his ''Literature/DeptfordMice'' books, Woodget Pipple is given a mysterious broken piece of ornately carved jade by his dying friend, [[spoiler:Mulligan.]] He is told to swear that he will take it to Hara, "the city of the Holy One" in India, which he does. Along the way, he learns that it is part of an egg that needs to be kept from falling into enemy hands. Otherwise, the evil snake god Scarophion will be reborn.
* ''Literature/TheWayOfKings2010'' (first book of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''): King Gavilar gives Szeth, the man who killed him, a mysterious black orb as he's bleeding to death, only saying "They must not have it." Szeth believes very strongly in {{Last Request}}s, so he takes the orb and hides it despite having no idea what it actually is.

--> '''Magrat''' (shivering in the cold of the open moor): What is there to be afraid of out here?\\
'''Granny''' (with considerable satisfaction): Us.

* In ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' the Fisher King gives Merlin a vial of water from Avalon's lake just before he dies (this is important in the final episode) and a witch gives Arthur a horn that can bring back the dead just before ''she'' dies.

* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': In the [[Recap/RevolutionS1E1Pilot pilot episode]], knowing he is about to be captured, Ben Matheson gives his lanyard to Aaron. [[spoiler:Then is accidentally and fatally shot a few minutes later]].
* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "The Forge," Archer meets a Vulcan who then gets struck by sand lightning. Before dying, the Vulcan mind-melds with Archer -- transferring the ''katra'' of Surak.

* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'': Regent Jane (aka Pete's mom, aka [[Series/StarTrekVoyager 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.

* The somewhat-obscure Creator/MarvelComics hero The Torpedo (see ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight and ComicBook/NewWarriors) got his [[PowerArmor supercostume]] from the dying scientist who had made it for an evil organization but then changed his mind... while he was ''waiting for an elevator''. Then he just decided to ''[[TooDumbToLive put it on]]'' right then and there, which got him into a fight with Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}, who had been pursuing the scientist moments before!

* This tends to happen to [[Comicbook/UsagiYojimbo Usagi]] quite a bit. More often than not, it turns into a MacGuffinEscortMission.

* The plot of ''VisualNovel/SuperNova'' is kicked off when Templar dies in battle and passes his power armor (as a bracelet) to the nearby Nik, granting him the title.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Played with in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2''. [[spoiler: Arthur, realising that he is not going to survive, give his iconic hat and satchel to John Marston.]] Whilst the hat never gets seen again after 2, the satchel goes on to star in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', providing John with a semi-plausible place to keep his mountain of items. [[spoiler: It gets re-MacGuffin'ed to Jack off screen in the epilogue, thus making it one of the few things to survive both games.]]

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!