Mac Guffin Delivery Service - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Doctor Jones. Again we see there is nothing you can possess that I cannot take away."

—Dr. Rene Belloq, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Way To Go, Serge — It will eventually turn out that, for a minimum of the first sixty percent of the game, you were actually being manipulated by the forces of evil into doing their sinister bidding for them. In extreme cases this may go as high as 90%. The clear implication is that it would have been better to not get involved in the first place.

The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches, #168

The Adventurer Archaeologist has gone through all manner of Death Course hazards and exhausted himself narrowly escaping from certain death, but he has succeeded in retrieving the idol! ....except that he emerges to find his arch-nemesis aiming a gun point blank at him, casually ordering him to hand it over.

The Hero has collected a ragtag band of fellow survivors and enemies of the Evil Overlord, and even ventured deep into the very underbelly of the earth, fighting his way past killer trapped doors and all manner of random encounter beasts to get hold of an artifact of legendary power before the Big Bad gets to it, and thereby safeguard it from his Evil Plan.... but when the team comes struggling up out of the dungeon to return to the surface, half dead and gasping for a save point, there's the Big Bad, confronting them with overwhelming power fresh from an HP/MP restore! He seizes the artifact, and leaves them Only Mostly Dead, as his Evil Plan moves forward.

Sometimes you just have to wonder why the good guys never say to each other, "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't we hide out near the entrance of the dungeon, get a good night's sleep, and wait for him to go in and fetch the Mac Guffin for us, this time?!" Ah, the magic of Genre Blindness. (This could be justified in the event that the Big Bad only needs to get his hands on the MacGuffin for an instant in order to triumph; but of course, that's never the case in a story involving a Mac Guffin Delivery Service, since the plot would end rather abruptly if it were.)

This is one of the rare cases in good vs. evil where evil invariably triumphs, and its popularity is due to the fact that the audience wouldn't get to see the Evil Plan play out in full if the good guys win this scene. We want the good guys to win in the Grand Finale, where the Big Bad is as big and bad as possible while still being beatable. Otherwise it could get downright anticlimactic, if the guy who burned down your Doomed Hometown has to give up and go into hiding because he can't Take Over The World without the one Mac Guffin you managed to hang onto, preventing him from completing the set needed for his Evil Plan. Nobody likes a hero who hunts down and murders a villain that already threw in the towel.

Of course, that means that even if the hero does get ahold of it, expect it to leave his hands before they can use it, getting us back to the start of the trope. Likewise, the whole scenario can be masterminded by a Big Bad Friend or treacherous leader as part of a Xanatos Gambit to manipulate the heroes into willingly giving them the Mac Guffin. You can expect these villains to enjoy some Evil Gloating, asking "Did You Actually Believe all that tripe about 'The Power Of Friendship'?"

Contrast with the Xanatos Gambit, where the villain's goal is unknown to the heroes. In a Mac Guffin Delivery Service, the heroes know the villain wants the Mac Guffin, and preventing the villain from getting it is, ironically, the reason for the whole quest. Maybe not the only reason, but a major reason throughout the story arc.

Polar opposite of Keep Away. Compare You Cant Thwart Stage One. This is a very specific form of Nice Job Breaking It Hero.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

This happens so often in the Lupin III movies that it becomes a shock when Lupin doesn't have to fork over the treasure-of-the-film.

Comic Books

In the Legacy story arc in the Batman comics, Ra's al Ghul used Catwoman this way to get to an ancient wheel that was a recipe for plagues.
- The Riddler also tried it on Catwoman during the "When In Rome" storyline, using her to get a ring that makes the wearer the head of the Mafia. He ends up with a fake ring and a lungful of Scarecrow's fear gas, giving him visions of everyone around him on the plane as the Joker.

Film

Indiana Jones movies love this trope. They did it twice in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and did it again in the subsequent movies.
- As noted by The Editing Room, Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull takes this into Wall Banger territory where the villains invoke this trope to do the exact same thing the heroes want to do!
In the film Ocean's Thirteen, Linus Caldwell and his father are about to escape Banks' building with some obscenely valuable diamonds when they are confronted by Francois Toulour (the antagonist of the previous films), who takes the diamonds at gunpoint. Subverted, however, after Toulour leaves the protagonists reveal that the diamonds they gave to Toulour were fakes, and they escape with the real ones.
In The Fifth Element, Leeloo fights off a squad of Mangalores to retrieve a case of Applied Phlebotinum stones, only for Zorg to take it from her at gunpoint. Subverted when the case turns out to be empty.
In For Your Eyes Only, Bond and Melina salvage the ATAC after being attacked by some of Kristato's mooks, only to surface and find Kristatos and his other mooks, having killed their crew.
In Tomb Raider II: The Cradle of Life, Lara goes through all the trouble of locating the elusive Pandor's Box and finding it, for the Big Bad to show up at just the right moment to seize it.
Dungeons And Dragons, if it wasn't enough of a Cliche Storm already.

Literature

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Harry plans to get to the Stone before Snape (actually, Quirrel), but only helps him almost get it just by being there.
- In fact, Fridge Logic will reveal that if Harry had done absolutely nothing, the Stone would have been fine.
  - But he didn't know that, did he?
- Another example of where Harry fails by not doing absolutely nothing is in the fifth book, Order of the Phoenix - Harry breaks into the Ministry of Magic based on visions (from Voldemort) which everyone he tells about urge him to block in order to get the prophecy for Voldemort, as he's one of the few that can. This gets Sirius killed.
  - True, but since he came there as a result of visions sent by Voldemort and not wanting to get the prophecy, this is a Batman Gambit, not a Mac Guffin Delivery Service.
  - It still is a failed Mac Guffin Delivery Service, since only the people a prophecy is about can claim said prophecy, and Voldemort intended for his mooks to capture Harry and force him to hand it over.
The plot of the Deptford Mice sequel Thomas is basically one huge example of this trope. The difference being, the chessmasters behind the good guys actually intend the bad guys to get hold of the Mac Guffin, because they've left it hallowed and thus useless for resurrecting the Cosmic Horror.
In Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts novel First & Only, the villains originally try force and searching his room to find something in Gaunt's possession, but eventually decide to try this.
Tad Williams' trilogy Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn turns out to be a giant Kansas City Shuffle: the prophetic dreams many of the protagonists have are actually sent by the villain, in order to get them to bring the three titular swords together.

Live Action TV

The Doctor Who, the Key to Time Story Arc hangs a lampshade on this, with the heroes expecting the Big Bad to try and get every part of the Key. Eventually they discover that he simply got his his Dragon to look after the last part and wait for the others to come along, in order to save himself the trouble. "The Five Doctors" has a villainous Time Lord get the Doctor's five incarnations (and various of his companions) to retrieve the secret of (true) immortality for him.
The Librarian: Quest for the Spear. If the Sword of Destiny hasn't been found in all these years, why don't they assume it's safe where it is?
Subverted on Blakes Seven: The crew of a prison ship find an abandoned space ship in the middle of nowhere and decide to have a few of the convicts go on first to find booby traps. The convicts are the heroes and they take the ship as their own.

Video Games

In the original Tomb Raider, Lara inadvertently helps Natla reclaim her original Scion piece, and also the other two.
- Same in Tomb Raider 2, Tomb Raider 3, Tomb Raider Revelatio- Okay, this happens a lot. Pretty much the basic plot of every game is Lara beating the villain to the treasure of the game, then somehow losing it to the baddie anyway and having to tackle a supernatural final boss.
Sonic Adventure uses the Chaos Emeralds this way.
- So bad that this trooper's friend, who hadn't been paying that much attention to the plot, thought he was collecting the emeralds for Eggman.
  - Erazor Djinn actually plays a similar, more successful Xanatos Gambit against Sonic in Sonic and the Secret Rings. And he almost killed Sonic, too!
Final Fantasy IV sometimes does this with elemental crystals. Notably when after the final dark crystal in the sealed cave, and after fighting the incredibly annoying evil wall, Kain reaffirms his status of hypnosis and makes off with the crystal, bringing it back to Golbez. Keep in mind that the Sealed Cave is riddled with instant death dealing Trapdoors, powerful monsters, and That One Boss, so maybe Golbez and Zemus, who's controlling him had it in his best interest to let Cecil do the dirty work for him rather than pour in minions or do it himself.
- Hell, it's outright stated that Golbez can't get into the cave. You even leave him to try for the duration for an entire subquest, and Golbez still fails to get into the cave, because you need a special key to get in at all. You'd think after all that, Cecil and the gang would realize that the crystal was perfectly safe right where it was, but nooooOOOOoooo.
- Not only that, but in the DS remake, going to your inventory screen has whichever character is in front display a little thought balloon with what they, personally, think of the situation. On your way back up through the cave, Kain's reads: "This feeling...I've felt it before..." then, "No...no! Not again!" Mind telling us that out loud there, Kain?
- And Final Fantasy IV The After Years has you doing the exact same thing, except at least this time it's mentioned that the villains might be able to get through the seal using brute force.
Skies Of Arcadia, to the point where it's a surprise to keep a Moon Crystal.
This was used on the NES Ninja Gaiden game: Ryu Hayabusa gained one of the two Demon Statues that would awaken Jashin, only to have to give them up to Jaquio who was holding Irene Lew hostage. He was then promptly dropped down a pit for his trouble.
Baten Kaitos does this with the End Magnus.
- Except Geldoblame himself is being manipulated by Melodia, Fadroh, and Kalas.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door has a double example. When you fight The Dragon who has the last of the Plot Coupons, he tells you that he was just waiting for you to bring the rest to him. After you've collected them all and go up against the Big Bad, he tells you that he gave the final Plot Coupon to The Dragon knowing you'd defeat him, so that you'd bring all the Plot Coupons to the final area.
- And if, by chance, The Dragon managed to beat them, the Big Bad would also be able to get to the final area. It was set up so that whatever the outcome, he'd still win.
In The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, young Link collects all three Spiritual Stones and the Ocarina of Time. Then he goes to the Temple of Time and uses the Stones to open the Door of Time to the Sacred Realm — only to be frozen in time and leaving the door wide open for Ganondorf to get the Triforce. Irony.
Happens twice in Final Fantasy VII with the Black Materia.
Pulled off at the end of the Tex Murphy installment The Pandora Directive.
An interesting version of this trope occurs in the 2007 Ghost Rider game. The player travels to various locales to hunt down Blackheart's demons who threaten to open the gateway to Hell on Earth, only to find that the gate opens anyway, as the path the Rider took drew an evil symbol on the Earth in the flames left behind by the Rider's bike.
One of the side quests in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is based around this trope. (It's even called "Nothing You Can Possess," in reference to the quote at the top of the page.) A wealthy collector hires you to retrieve a particular carving from a ruin. Upon exiting the ruin, you're immediately accosted by a rival treasure hunter and his hired goons, demanding that you turn over the carving.
Also used in a side quest in Knights Of The Old Republic, on the planet Korriban. Subverted if you choose to simply kill the student trying to threaten you, or if you give him a fake and let Uthar do your dirty work for you.
There's a reason why the RPG cliche list calls this 'Way to Go, Serge'. The Xanatos Gambits in Chrono Cross get so mixed up at times, though, that fans dedicate whole documents on [GameFAQs] to just untangling and explaining them all.
This IS the plot of KOTOR II. If you're dark side, you're killing Jedi Masters. If you're light side, you're gathering Jedi Masters so that Kreia, the Manipulative Bastard Man Behind The Man Big Bad can kill them all. Either way, you end up with four dead Jedi Masters .
This happens to the titular protagonist of Shantae after obtaining the last Elemental Stone. That genie that looks suspiciously like the Big Bad who seemed to know everything about the Stones and would stop at nothing to help you get the last one? You shouldn't have been so surprised when you exited the dungeon only to be tackled and robbed by her.
Metal Gear Solid and its PAL key again. The bad guys were counting on you obtaining the keycard, but in the course of the game you defy the odds to get it back, find out how it works, and use it to activate the nuclear weapon.
Very much true in Fallout 3. Very galling as you know that the big bad is looking for the mcguffin, and although you should by rights be able to torch him, his two little helpers and half his army (and in fact do exactly that later in the game) you cannot stop him from stealing the G.E.C.K. in a cutscene.
- Well, technically you can. In the brief period that you have the G.E.C.K., you can try to activate it. It then warns you that it will destroy everything in a several-mile radius for raw materials. You can then confirm that you want to activate it...
In Terranigma you spend the majority of the game reviving the desolate planet Earth, with the last piece revived being Beruga who wants to wipe out the majority of what you just spent the first 75% of the game reviving and preserve the remainder as technologically-created zombies, according to the plans of Dark Gaia, for whom you've been unwittingly working the whole time. Oh, and did I mention that Beruga was the one responsible for wiping out all life on the surface world in the first place?
In The Force Unleashed, you spend the second act collecting the Rebel leaders and organizing the Rebellion for Vader. He then takes them all, revealing that he never intended to use the Rebellion as a distraction so you could kill the Emperor, but just wanted to round up and destroy all opposition to the Empire.
This happens in Okami - partly. Having retreived the Fox Rods from inside the Water Dragon, Amaterasu then proceeds to hand them over to Rao, who then turns out to be Ninetails in disguise.
this is the entire plotin Mortal Kombat Deception's Konquest mode.
In Drakes Fortune, Drake climbs onto a German U-boat to retrieve a map that leads to a treasure. As soon as he gets off, he is confronted by men that his friend, Sully, owed money to.
In Summoner, you spend the first third of the game gathering up the four Rings of Summoning so that you can turn yourself into an invincible warrior by using the Forge of Urath on your ringed hand. As it turns out, all that does is burn off your hand, release four demigodly demons trapped within the rings, and allow your traitorous girlfriend to sell you off to The Empire. All thanks to your mentor, who was possessed by the most powerful of the demons. Now you need to beg the Khosani for four new rings, and imprison all four demons again. Nice Job Breaking It Hero.
Happens right off the bat in Golden Sun, where Saturos and Menardi follow Isaac into Sol Sanctum to take the Elemental Stars as soon as you've retrieved them.
Oddly enough, shows up in Bomber Man 64. Altair is hyped up for the entire game to be the Big Bad, except if you've gotten all of the Gold Cards. If you do that, instead of fleeing after you've beaten him, Sirius, the guy who has been helping you out, showing up on almost every level and giving you hints, and dropping you the Remote Bomb powerup before every boss, flies in and kills him, then points out that the guys you've been fighting stole the superweapon from him, and you've been unwittingly helping him recover it. After that, all of the hint-givers in the previous levels tell you that you should die because it would be easier. They aren't lying. The hidden final world is WAY harder than anything and everything that came before it.
Not played straight in Gun. The protagonist retrieves something from a safe, but the bad guy who shows up to collect it doesn't bother to actually snatch the item before gloating about the situation. So the protagonist just tosses the thing back in the safe and slams the door.
In Klonoa 2, Klonoa has retrieved three Elements and hands them over to wise man Baguji. As it turns out, the villain, Leorina, was dressed as Baguji and can now proceed to cause The End Of The World As We Know It.
Final Fantasy IX makes you do this after your allies get grabbed. Not as jarring since it's basically an evil fetch quest.
Lampshaded in Unreal II, where your Little Miss Snarker second-in-command repeatedly points out the stupidity of gathering all the pieces of an Artifact Of Doom together in one place. Sadly, you fail to listen to her.
Eye Of The Beholder 3. A mysterious figure sends you off to kill a lich. Once you finally manage, it turns out to have been a good lich (despite the fact that he, you know, tried to kill you) and the mysterious figure teleports in, gets an unnamed Mac Guffin, reveals himself to be the evil dark god, and flees. The rest of the game is spent chasing him.
There is a Nancy Drew video game where you discover that the Aztec stone pillar is hollow and contains an important artifact. When you open it, the villain immediately appears, takes the artifact, and shuts you inside the pillar (from whence you have to escape). There's no option of, say, just telling people that the pillar opens.

Webcomics

Inverted in the webcomic Adventurers!, where the heroes were tasked with collecting the elemental artifacts. Their enemy, Rio the thief, was ordered to steal one of the elemental artifacts so that they couldn't, but in typical Rio incompetence, he stole the one artifact that had previously been successfully kept away from them. Shortly after, he confronted Drecker, who proceeded to steal it from him, resulting in the heroes' success.
- Played straight when the heroes finally reach the end of a dungeon, only to have Khirma show up and take the crystal they were trying to keep from him.
Subverted with lampshade in the webcomic Narbonic, the "Crystal of Marinia" story arc.

Web Original

In the KateModern episode "Seven Dials: 5pm - 23rd November 2007", Charlie emerges from a building carrying the software, with Terrence in pursuit, only to meet the Watcher, who beats up both of them and drives off with the software.

Western Animation

Happens often in Jackie Chan Adventures. In fact, all seasons end with the villain getting what they wanted, of course they still lose to the heroes. Both sides constainly run into each other throughout the series, even Valmont pointed out how it was sometimes easier to have Jackie do the work for him of getting the Mac Guffin.
Happens in an episode of Beast Wars. Rattrap, at great risk, dives to the sunken Axalon to retrieve the Sentinel control module - only for the Predacons to blast him and swipe it when he gets to the surface. It changes hands a couple more times before the episode ends, but the ending isn't happy.
In Kim Possible, "Monkey Fist Strikes" has Kim go through numerous death traps to retrieve a monkey idol in what may have been a Shout Out to Indiana Jones, but that night, a ninja creeps into the camp and stole it. Of course, the ninja did turn out to be the masquerading villain all along.
Subverted in Disney's Aladdin, Aladdin fetches the lamp and lo and behold, the Big Bad Jaffar is waiting at the entrance to the Cave of Wonders and snatches the lamp, double-crossing Aladdin and shoving him back into the collapsing cave. Later, it is shown that during the chaos, Aladdin's monkey stole the lamp back from Jaffar before they were shoved in. After this point, the Lamp ceases to be a Mac Guffin as its specific powers become central to the plot.
- The use of this trope is one of the things taken from the persian folktale the cartoon is based on.