History Main / NoMacguffinNoWinner

This is often where the a side chooses to destroy the MacGuffin to prevent the enemy from getting his or her hands on it.

This is often where the hero chooses to destroy the MacGuffin to prevent the enemy from getting his or her hands on it.

* Heavily subverted in {{Grandeville}}. Near the end of the story, the voice recording that all the characters fought over is shattered before anyone can hear its contents. The subversion comes from LeBrock behaving as if the recording is still intact and he was privy to its contents. The threat of revealing the recording and use the few bits of information he has to back his bluff is enough to drive [[spoiler: The Prime Minister of Britain]] to suicide.

* In Roman Polanski film ''Frantic'' Harrison Ford ends up throwing the MacGuffin, a small electronic switch used in the detonators of nuclear devices, into the river, so neither the terrorists of the government get it.

->-- JamesBond, ''ForYourEyesOnly''

* It could be said that [[spoiler:the pilosopher's stone]] in the [[FullmetalAlchemist Fullmetal Alchemist]] manga and brotherhood turned out this way. Sort of. Although Ed could have used it if he really wanted to, once he found out the 'Truth Beyond the Truth' about it, he vowed to find a way to get their bodies back another way. [[spoiler: He found another way.]]

* Nest in ''Angel Fire East'' by TerryBrooks convinces the main villain that the unstable MacGuffin had self-destructed. [[spoiler:She is lying.]]

* Taken to its full cruelty potential in ThePaulStreetBoys, where two boy groups are fighting over the [[SeriousBusiness ownership of an empty building site that they use as a playground]]. The conflict gets completely out of hand, and in the climax a fever-stricken Ernő Nemecsek, the plucky underdog of his team, [[HeroicSacrifice shows up to protect the playground at the cost of his life]]. When the boys return to the site they learn that engineers have started building an apartment building on it.

* All three routes and [[spoiler:four of the]] endings of FateStayNight end without the Grail being used. [[spoiler:The one time it ''is'' used correctly, it... works. That's it. Then they close it. And nobody payed any attention afterwards to the ArtificialHuman who can now only survive through lots of sex.]] FateZero does the same thing when Emiya Kiritsugu ''could'' take it, but he realizes what it is and instead orders Saber to destroy it. When you look at the cast though, you'll notice that of all the Masters and Servants, only about four or five even really ''had'' a wish. By FSN, Kotomine just wants someone to use the Grail so he can learn about the nature of evil or something, and Zouken Matou wants the Grail to [[MotiveDecay grant him immortality so he can live long enough to see the Grail used.]]

* Also by Disney: [[http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+1047-C an Italian Mickey Mouse story]], not published in America, has an "Incan corkscrew", with a key inside that opens a doorway to a place where the "Sun sprouts". After opening the door, Mickey [[TheUnreveal closes it instead of entering]], and throws the key away, so the "secret remains with the Incans".

** [[FridgeLogic Bond's line here, of course, makes no sense.]] The British didn't need the ATAC. They built the thing. They not only have who knows how many others, they have the plans to make it. Bond's entire mission wasn't to retrieve it, but to make sure nobody else did. This is as much as stated at the beginning when it's pointed out that the water the ATAC sank in was "not deep enough". In short, it wasn't detente. It was "British rule, Ruskies drool".
*** The British were'nt worried that the Russians would copy it; they were worried that they would use them to fire British missles at British or other Western cities, or at least gain the power to do so. It is Detente` because the balance of power has been maintained, rather than tipped apocalyptically in the favour of the Soviets.

* One of the Demons' games in the ''Xanth'' series involved a prize which was in the end destroyed by the protangonist in order to prevent the other side from getting it.

* [[spoiler:[[MultipleEndings One of the possible endings]]]] in ''{{Dubloon}}''. Your crew compensates with "[[{{Nakama}} a bond]] [[ThePowerOfFriendship more valuable than the chest]]", however.

* ''[[TheMovie A Sitch in Time]]'' from ''KimPossible'' ended with the destruction of the Time Monkey Idol, thus causing a ResetButtonEnding to the entire movie.

* The resolution of the ''DuckTales'' episode ''Master of the Djinni''. Archenemies Scrooge and Glomgold discover a JackassGenie and compete for the rest of the episode over who is to be [[AGodAmI its master]]. Fortunately before things turn REALLY bad [[spoiler:Glomgold, who ends up winning the contest, accidentaly wishes that they had never found the lamp. Flashback to the beginning of the episode:]] Aladdin's cave crushes in before they find the lamp, leaving it lost under the rubble permanently.
* ''StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Slaver Weapon". Both the Starfleet personnel and the [[KnownSpace Kzinti]] renegades want to get the titular LostTechnology because of its awesome power: a beam that causes [[EarthShatteringKaboom total conversion of matter into energy]].

* The grand finale of DoctorWho featured a threat of this, where humanity attempted to [[GodzillaThreshold destroy the Earth rather than letting it fall into the wrong hands]].

Occasionally AnAesop: when two children are fighting over something in RealLife the parents will often punish them by not letting either of them have it. (If it is an item they will lock it away, sometimes even give it away; if it was an event to they will call it off.) This kind of punishment carries over to television where the futility of a fight is often demonstrated by having it to turn out to have been in vain, with the goal taken away the last minute or destroyed by the fighters themselves in the heat of the battle. In-universe this will often work amazingly well as a lesson where after a few moments of LyingInTheDirtTogether the two former enemies will be inviting each other for drinks with no longer having a reason to fight, the whole business now a shared memory to look back on and laugh at.

** All rather defeating the pleasingly-sceptical feel of that ending.

* The Elder Wand from {{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows}} cannot be beaten in direct combat, has power much greater than that of a standard wand, and will only work for whoever defeats its previous master. Many witches and wizards have killed for it, but as the wand places its owner in constant danger Harry chooses not to accept it. As a result the wand lays forgotten, probably until Harry's death.
** Which given that Harry won the wand by defeating its master while he was using a different wand is a stupid decision.
*** Not really a stupid decision since his intent was [[spoiler: to break the power of the Elder Wand and thus the ongoing chain of violence perpetuated in the pursuit of it, rather than simply to protect himself.]]

* The battle segment of ''TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly'' ends with Blondie and Tuco destroying the bridge (a [[TakeAThirdOption Third Option]] the general had suggested earlier) so that the armies will go elsewhere.

* The ghost of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paul_Street_Boys Erno Nemecsek]] weeps at the AuthorCrueltyPotential of this trope. (Two boy groups are fighting over the ownership of their playground, an empty building site. The titular character, the plucky underdog of his team ends up catching a cold and dies. When the boys return to the site they learn that engineers have started building an apartment building on it.)

* In one ''CityOfVillains'' mission, an Arbiter sends you to destroy a MacGuffin so that two [[NebulousEvilOrganization Arachnos]] factions will stop fighting over it. The souvenir you get from this mission is [[spoiler:the MacGuffin, which you kept for yourself.]]

* ''StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Slaver Weapon". Both the Starfleet personnel and the Kzinti renegades want to get the title device because of its awesome power: a beam that causes total conversion of matter into energy.

<<|NarrativeDevices|>>