Editing Plot device (section)

=== MacGuffin ===
{{main|MacGuffin}}
A MacGuffin is a term, popularized by [[film director]] [[Alfred Hitchcock]], referring to a plot device wherein a character pursues an object, though the object's actual nature is not important to the story. Another object would work just as well if the characters treated it with the same importance.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VP_DGfInVBcC&q=MacGuffin+definition&pg=PA367 | title = A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense | isbn = 9780810863897 | last1 = McDevitt | first1 = Jim | last2 = Juan | first2 = Eric San | date = 2009-04-01| publisher = Scarecrow Press }}</ref> Regarding the MacGuffin, Alfred Hitchcock stated, "In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is almost always the papers."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/MacGuffin
 |title=The Alfred Hitchcock Wiki
 |access-date=2018-06-10
}}</ref>  This contrasts with, for example, the One Ring from ''The Lord of the Rings'', whose very nature is essential to the entire story. Not all film directors or scholars agree with Hitchcock's understanding of a MacGuffin. According to George Lucas, "The audience should care about it [the MacGuffin] almost as much as the dueling heroes and villains on-screen".<ref>"Keys to the Kingdom". ''Vanity Fair''. February 2008. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2014.</ref> Thus MacGuffins, according to Lucas, are important to the characters and plot.

MacGuffins are sometimes referred to as ''plot coupons'', especially if multiple ones are required, as the protagonist only needs to "collect enough plot coupons and trade them in for a [[dénouement]]".<ref>{{cite book | last = Davies | first = Mark | edition = illustrated | year = 2007 | title = Designing character-based console games | page = [https://archive.org/details/designingcharact0000davi/page/69 69] | publisher = Charles River Media | isbn = 978-1584505211 | url = https://archive.org/details/designingcharact0000davi/page/69 }}</ref> The term was coined by [[Nick Lowe (classicist)|Nick Lowe]].<ref name=Lowe>{{cite web|author=Nick Lowe|author-link=Nick Lowe (classicist)|title=The Well-tempered Plot Device|url=http://news.ansible.co.uk/plotdev.html}}''In normal usage, when people talk of a plot device they mean something in the story that's just a little bit too obviously functional to be taken seriously.''</ref>