A Geek History of Time - Episode 352 - Ed Loves a Trope, MacGuffin Edition

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because obvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the pale... That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because, you know, who's the boss? You know what? I'm going to keep my head down and be as inoffensive as I can to many. to everybody possible.

And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California.

and my parents were originally going to be visiting us this weekend. And they wound up getting in their car and driving. They usually take the trip because they're coming up from San Diego. They usually break their trip up into kind of two days or a day to half. And on the day they started their trip up, I got a call for my son's school. I had to leave work early and go pick him up. And he was complaining of a headache and just not feeling good.

He developed a fever that evening. And when I went in the morning to wake him up, when I went into his room, he sounded like he was snoring, like heavily snoring. And I went into his room and I kind of, you know, patting him on the back. I said, hey, buddy, got to get up. because we were going to test him for COVID, which we'd already done once and he tested negative,

but we were going to do it again just to be, you know, the safe side. And he sat up and his eyes opened and he inhaled and it still sounded like he was snoring. And so, yeah, we called off my parents' visit, unfortunately. And he has been recovering ever since. And he's seven years old and he still gets croup. and the poor kid

he's on the end now but it's been a rough couple of days and let me tell you that that moment where he sat up and I heard what sounded like his chest just rumbling

just that's that's one of the worst feelings I have as a parent because there's nothing I can do about it. Nope. And it's clear that it really sucks for him.

So yeah, we've, we've had that going on. Fortunately, like I said, he is, he is on the end. His voice is still kind of shot. He sounds like, you know, imagine if a seven-year-old had like a 20-year-old, two-pack-a-day smoking habit is the only way I can describe what his voice sounds like today. But that's better than it was. and so we'll take it. So how about you?

Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a U.S. history and economics teacher here in Northern California. Okay, so set the way back machine to November of 2017, and that was my kids' first time playing D&D with me. Okay. Okay. So it has been a while since then, and to the point where after about four, or five months, I think they wanted to switch into different characters, which is fine. I kept all their character sheets from the previous, kept, you know, the file that I put their

adventures in and so on and so forth. All that to say, they asked if we could go back to the continuing adventures of Mel and Leo. And I said, absolutely. I already know what the next steps are going to be. So last week, we played the continuing adventures of Mel and Leo. We updated them for the 2025 D&D from five. iteration. Yeah. And my gosh, they had fun. Oh, boy. That's great.

It's really interesting to see them play the characters that they started with. And because one was a rogue and one was a barbarian, it's very much Subatai and Conan going through the world. So nobody can defend against magic at all.

So I have to be very careful. And you know, it's funny. You thought Subatine and Conan, I immediately went to Faford and the Grey Mouser. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, but yeah, it's still same problem. Johan and Piewit. Like, you know.

So, yeah. So anyway, it was a lot of fun. And I will tell you this. I have repurposed the plot of the movie, The Thing. Oh shit. Or then to fight against. Oh. All right.

Nice. Yeah. So that should be fun once we get there. So anyway. Have they seen any part of the thing? Oh, wow. All right. You're going to.

Oh, so what you're saying is you're going to pre-scar them before they see this film. So I have a history of doing this. You yourself. Yeah. Like you remember in a different game where, or my daughter donkey punched a black dragon

into oblivion because she kept rolling or I kept rolling poorly on the stun and then William like my son just well it's stunned I guess I'm going to use an empowered fireball again

and they just tag team the shit out of a black dragon to death in that adventure if you remember I ripped off Conan the Destroyer as a plot And now they're old enough that I've shown them Conan the Destroyer to which I got this look where they When they're fighting thawthonon really yeah and it's just like yeah yeah I rip off everything yeah

I did that that's half the fun I am really for me so yeah I can understand that yeah um and it's funny that you should that you should bring that up at the beginning of this episode this yeah um because one of the one of the things that's involved in their recognition of that like how long did it take him how long into Conan the Destroyer did it take them to

to twig to the fact that hey wait a minute we've been run through this module before when they swam under a castle the kids were like wait a second and and when it was take the princess back to a place the thing is I'd ripped off the

Jason Mamoa version of Conan the barbarian for that part. Right. But I haven't gotten to show them that because I'm cheap and it disappeared from free streaming. So then when they fought a Cyclops in a room filled with mirrors and the only damage, that that was what the fuck, Dad. They, okay, okay. So because the thing is, when you took those story elements and re-skinned them. Yes.

you were recycling tropes. Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously, because you were ripping off, you know, basically the whole sequence of the narrative. Yes. But in the process of doing that, all of those tropes got picked up and wholesale just, you know, painted over.

Oh, yeah. And transferred. And tropes are what I'm going to be talking about. Wonderful. This is, this is, I intended this to be, like I did, you know, last time, this is another of my, you know, one in what I intend to be a continuing series.

Mm-hmm. Only this one I'm calling trobe-a-rama. Okay. Okay. And, um, yeah. So over the course of the last, when did we start doing this podcast? Uh-huh.

Let me check my arm. Check your tattoo. April of 19 was the first episode released. Okay. So over the last six years plus of doing this podcast, there have been dozens, I'm sure, of times that I have referenced TV tropes, also known as the website that destroyed my life. Yes. Because you start reading it, and it's like Wikipedia only if you're a narrative nerd, it's weapons grade.

You just click from like, oh, hey, I recognize that trope. Oh, and here's a whole bunch of places where it's been used. hadn't realized that was that. And, oh, hey, here's another trope from that story. And you just wind up, you know, oh, shit, it's three in the morning. And I've been on TV tropes since, you know, five in the afternoon. I've got to get up for work in two and a half hours. Holy shit.

And so in this series, I want to be looking at specific tropes and how they get used, how they get subverted sometimes, how they get deconstructed, and just played with in genre fiction. And a little bit of kind of, here is a rough kind of sketch history of this trope. Okay. So to start with,

for anybody who's listening to this and is like, you're an English teacher, and Damien's just, you know, a turbo nerd. Like, for those of us who don't understand what the fuck tropes are, what is what's a trope so there are two accepted definitions of what a trope is the first which is much older is any kind of turn of phrase or poetical language that definition dates back to the

greeks from tropos or turning literally the root of where we get the phrase turn of phrase now the meaning that i'm referring to here though is first attested in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1975. It's literally as old as I am, which you love to compare to Methuselah or geological epoch. Yes. But it's, but historically, it's a remarkably small span of time. It predates the bicentennial. I would just like to point out.

Yeah, all right. Fair. But looking at the tracking of the use of the term across literature, when we look at Google books, the frequency. with which trope appears has skyrocketed since 1980. This modern meaning is a meta-literary term, meaning it's a term about literature. Sure. Okay.

That refers to a story device, a motif, or a convention. Before something can be entered into the lexicon of TV tropes, it goes through a period of development that is Y-T-W or Y-K-T-W, you know that thing where. Okay. And so there's a whole discussion board where people will say, okay, you know that thing where, you know, the dad in a sitcom, you know, has this particular situation going on. Sure. And there's, you know, this argument or whatever.

And, you know, we see this appear all the time and, you know, and here are the examples I can think of. And then the turbo nerds on TV trope, the community will say, oh, yeah, and here's another example, and here's another example. And then they will obsessively analyze it to try to figure out, okay, does it fall under the umbrella of some other trope? Is there something else we've already defined, right? And then if it isn't something they've already defined, a term for it will be coined and hereafter, that is that trope, that we have now codified that trope. Okay. And then, you know, the community on TV tropes will then say, okay, well, you know, we know that this first showed up here.

You know, this particular sitcom on the radio is the first time that we see this. So this is older than television. But the first time it's really, you know, codified the real, the characters that really ran with it and made it a thing were here. So it's older than color, you know. Right. And older than radio or older than television or older than industry are tropes themselves. When you're talking about something that is an ancient kind of trope, you talk about it as being that thing. Okay.

Okay. So there are tropes and then there are meta tropes and, you know, they come in all kinds of different categories. So, you know, as a society, we have become much more meta-focused. We have become more aware of meta-narrative and narrative structure. And we have more conversations about, you know, how different ideas get played with. You know, and part of the reason, you know, there are a number of reasons why. but we live in a much more heavily saturated media landscape. And so in earlier eras of human history,

tropes were shorthand that bards would use so that the audience would be able to kind of understand where a story was coming from or what kind of story it was going to be, right? And we now, there is a large enough body of literature and media that anybody who wants to be this kind of geek can can you know look at these things and analyze them and turn it into its own kind of meta thing. So, you know, for example, a trope, not the one I'm going to talk about in detail tonight, but the damsel in distress, okay, is a trope. Yeah.

And the damsel in distress is a character, traditionally a young woman, thus damsel, in a situation who needs to be rescued by the protagonist of the story. Mm-hmm. And so that's the basic trope. We have usually female character who is in peril, and Dudley do right of the Mounties needs to ride off to, you know, get her off the train tracks or what was the knight's name in Dragon Slayer, the video game? Oh, Dirk? Dirk. Dirk has to go save Princess Fiona, I think it was. Yeah.

Or Lancelot needs to save Gwynnevere. Yes, Lancelot needs to ride in and pull Gwynnevere down off of the stake because, you know, she's going to be executed for sleeping with Arthur, which touches on a whole bunch of other tropes at the same time. Sure. But, yeah, you get the idea. Now, when we have a male character who winds up. in distress. He becomes the damsel in distress. And he has to be,

he has to be rescued. Um, and this is a, this is playing with the trope. Okay. If we have a situation where a character appears to be in terrible peril. And then, um, all of a sudden,

uh, something happens and that character, uh, rescues themselves or it turns out, no, this was all a trap for whoever the mooks are that are threatening them. Okay. Then that's a subversion of the trope. Okay.

So like if we look at the book, the paperbag princess, that's a total subversion of the trope because she gets her everything burned down. She wears a paper bag. And she goes to rescue Ronald the prince who the dragon has stolen. Right. And then, of course, he's like, well, I wouldn't be rescued by someone dressed so dirty. and she's like, you know, fuck you, I don't need you. Like, that's, that's like a double subversion of the trope. Yeah.

Yeah. In a way, yes. Him being male is a form of subversion, kind of more playing with it. But her, you know, her going, all right, well, yeah, fuck this. I'm out. Right. Is a subversion. The example I think of for subverting damsel in distress is the opening to the Avengers

where Black Widow is tied to a chair. and it looks like everything, like it looks like she's, you know, really in trouble. Right. And getting her ass kicked. She's held over an ugliette. Yeah. And then her phone rings and it's like,

you're, you're, you're, I'm working here. Literally, yeah, I'm working here. Yeah. And then she just,

you know, handily smashes the chair and, you know, breaks to shit out of, you know, half a dozen goons. Right. You know,

um, and she was never in distress at all. That's, that's a subversion. of that trope. Sure. So, and there are some tropes that it's easier to subvert than others.

The one I'm going to be talking about tonight is, by its nature, it's kind of hard to subvert. And we'll kind of see why. Okay. And so, but another trope that we commonly see in, like, westerns and in crime stories, not just another example,

is a situation rather than a character. situation, the Mexican standoff, a three or more way confrontation where everybody has a weapon drawn on everyone, attention is high, who's going to break the stalemate, who's going to shoot first, how is it going to turn out, right? That situation is itself a trope. Right. A Canadian standoff, two people on opposite sides of a hallway, holding doors open for each other. Yeah, yeah, no, you go first, yeah. No, sorry, sorry, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. I love how you're so good on that Canadian O. That's really, I'm impressed.

That's very good, off the cuff. Very well done. So, you know, tropes can be situations. They can be characters. Sure. And the one I'm going to talk about tonight is usually an object. And what I'm talking about tonight is the MacGuffin. Oh.

Yes, please. And so the McGuffin, for anybody who's not familiar with Hitchcock, Hitchcock is the individual who gave this trope its name. So he could be considered the codifier. I believe Angus McPhail actually gave it to Hitchcock. Oh. Yeah. All right. So, but yeah, Hitchcock took it and codified it, if you will.

Yeah. He's the trope codifier. Yeah, he is the trope codifier. He is the one to whom it is usually attributed. put it down way. And so the McGuffin is an object sometimes it's a person

that sets the plot in motion for a a mcuffin to truly in fact be a mcuffin it needs to be motivating the plot without actually doing anything if the characters

Maltese falcon right yes a classic example is the monkey's falcon. Sorry if I jumped your gun there. No, no. It's perfect that you brought it up. So if the characters need

the magic or super science object in order to use its powers, it's not a MacGuffin. If we need to get the magic sword in order to slay the dragon because it's the only weapon that can do it, that's not a MacGuffin. Excalibur is not a MacGuffin.

Excalibur, it depends on which story out of the Arthurian cycle you're talking about. The sword in the stone is kind of a MacGuffin. Okay. It is something every other knight in England wants to get.

Right. But Arthur is the only one who can get it. But it, although it is, it is a puissant magic weapon, it could be any other magic sword. that's just, you know, it's, it's, it's the one that, that, you know, the prophecy points to. Sure, sure. So, you know, in other, in other stories in the cycle, and there's a little bit of, of bleed over as to whether the sword in the stone is X-Calibur or if X-Calibur is a separate sword. Okay.

And so you could say the sword and the stone is almost certainly a mcuffin. Excalibur given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake is less of a mcuffin because it is, the scabbard is critically important because it protects Arthur from any kind of bleeding wound. Okay. And it's theft by Morgan Le Fay in one of the cycles sets in motion the series of events that lead to Arthur's death. Okay. So, yeah.

So, you know, you can kind of argue different ways about different objects. If the item is necessary in order to solve a puzzle, it's not a McGuffin. Right. To be a McGuffin, it has to be interchangeable. You know, any valuable object will do like in a heist movie.

Whatever it is they're trying to steal, it's almost always a MacGuffin. Right. The Pink Panther is a MacGuffin. Right. Every episode of Ducktails practically has a MacGuffin. Yes, yes, very much so. Any special characteristics it has...

Including one called the Maltese MacGuffin. There was an episode with the Maltese MacGuffin. Yes. Because the writers were having way too much fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so if the item has any kind of magical characteristics or special, you know, woo-woo attached to it,

that has to be effectively irrelevant to the plot. Right. Okay. Now, I love, I absolutely love McGuffins. Yeah. And like, as an example, all of the Indiana Jones movies. Yes. All three of the Indiana Jones movies are driven by McGuffins.

Yeah. Again, supernatural things, but not the thing that solves the plot. No. No, the plot is all about getting. to the thing. Right. Although I guess I would say melting Nazis

kind of solved the plot. I mean, that's a, that's a lovely side effect. But like while they were hunting for it, nobody knew it was going to do that. That's a good point. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Okay. So in Raiders, that's my first example, you know, chronologically, the Ark of the Covenant is a thousand percent of Mcuffin. Yes. The Nazis want it,

but like they don't, they don't want it to do anything with it. They want to have it. in order to have it because they're obsessed with artifacts of power. Let me, let me, I'd like to see if we could slice this potato a little bit here. Okay. Because a corollary to the McGuffin, I would imagine, is the pointer scene. Okay.

Where like the pointer scene is a trope where you literally exposition why it all matters. And he gets a pointer and he did, da, da, da, da. but he's pointing to the staff of Raw, and without that and its coolness, you can't find the McGuffin. So would you say that the staff of Raw, not a Mcuffin, because it actually matters to getting to the McGuffin?

A thousand percent. That's it. That's, we're on the same brainwave. Okay. Because that's exactly what I was going to say. Oh, shit. I'm so sorry. No, no.

No, it's making my point for me. Yeah, yeah. And bringing up another trope in the process. The pointer scene, yeah. You know, download pointer scene. Yes. You know, the amulet is not a Mcuffin because it helps solve the puzzle of where we need to be digging in order to get the arc. Right.

Okay. And the whole bit with their digging in the wrong place, you know, just by itself, that proves not a Mcuffin. Right, right. It's not one. the arc 100% of McGuffin after they find it and it gets taken by the Nazis and they get taken prisoner

because it's an Indiana Jones movie you know the plot still continues and the arc isn't being used to do anything like the Nazis aren't going to try to unleash it on anybody right it's just we can't let them have it

because of its historical importance and whatever right you know And then they find out that no, it literally contains the wrath of God. So, you know, probably a good idea to lock it up in a warehouse somewhere or not ever let anyone see it again. Yeah. You know, in Temple of Doom, the Lingam Stone. Yeah.

Is a Muguffin. Indy heads off to recover it along with the children of the village of Mayapur. The stone turns out to be part of Mullaharam's plot to gain superdineine. natural power, but in and of themselves, the stones have no other role in the story. And it could have been any other mystical artifact. They glow and burn through leather. Yeah. That's all I was able to figure out.

Because, like, he had all these other powers that did not seem to require the stones glowing and burning through leather even. Like, in my own head, I have, I have like a head cannon for that, for the whole backstory of that ties in with like it essentially Indiana Jones kind of being a a low key mage character and and and and like the stones the the the Lingham stones are basically quintessence batteries okay so like you know whoever has them is is is going to be able to supercharge whatever magical shit they want to do sure sure which makes sense but like yeah okay you know yeah but but within the context of the

actual movie as the text is read it's there's nothing there yeah and so you know finally in the last crusade the holy grail there was two other movies after that what the fuck are you talking about I don't know what you mean yeah Indiana Jones

and the Highlander too you're talking nonsense absolute gibberish those are all words but They make no sense together. All right. So you smell burnt toast because like, I'm concerned. Yeah.

All right. So last crusade. In the last crusade, the Holy Grail is, is only integral to the plot because the Nazis want it and we need to keep them from getting it. Yes. Like, okay, why do we need to keep them from getting it? Well, because it's a magical do-hicky, probably. and we can't let them, we can't let him have it.

You know, the industrialist, you know, Donovan, Donovan wants it because he thinks it'll make him live forever. Right.

But like, that's all. And, you know, it could have been, it could have been any other ancient artifact or not so ancient artifact, depending on how you want to talk about

timescales. Nobody is dying of any incurable disease. Like, there isn't, to plague ravaging Germany that the Nazis want to try to cure. Donovan doesn't have incurable cancer. He wants it because the plot demands that there's a twist. Yes.

Ultimately. Yes. And now some listeners are probably, probably saying, I can hear them saying, ha, ha, but Doc Jones Sr. gets shot and Indy has to get the grail to save him. Okay. Okay. But I see what you're saying, oh, troll. But the only reason Sean Conner gets wounded is to motivate Indy to go get the grail for Donovan because the Nazis are there.

Because the Nazis want it. Because the Nazis want it. Right. You know, otherwise, he was refusing to do it. So it was, okay, well, bang, now you need it. Right. Before then and after then. Again, it's just something everybody wants.

Yeah. And otherwise, it has no interaction to the rest of the plot. Yeah, it's true. So now the earliest example that I can find of a McGuffin is the golden fleece. That was my first go-to, at least in the Hellenic world. Yeah. I'm wondering if the disc that Shiva uses. counts earlier.

Oh, man. Or the bull of Humbaba even. No, because they're trying to stop it from destroying the Cedar Forest. Yeah, see. Yeah. I'd have to look at the timeline of when, is that the Bhagavad Gita? I believe so, yes. I'd have to look at the timeline of when the Bhagavad Gita was written.

It's entirely possible. And based on my understanding of the antiquity of Hindu, Hinduism, it's entirely likely that that could be any an earlier example. So well spotted. Thank you. But in the Western canon, in the Western canon, Golden Fleece is the earliest one I was able to find.

Because, you know, Jason goes on a very long, very arduous quest to find it. He drags a who's who of Greek heroes along. But like King Pellius could have told him to, They have to plot device Hercules away from the party because otherwise he becomes the solve for everything. Well, yeah. So he has to chase off after Hylas and then like, well, off he went. Because then they have to actually have to solve shit. Yeah, they can't just have him, you know, punch his way through every problem they encounter.

Yeah. And I mentioned him. He's the most notable character. But, you know, Orpheus. party Like okay It's the Laf Olympics Yeah we have we have a bard

Okay cool And at Atlanta Are notably also part of the team Yeah well you need an apple pie Well okay fair You know the story of the Argonauts Is a spiritual prequel to the Iliad Yes

Like it's it's an Avengers story for Greek heroes And so okay we have to have You know some quest for them to be on So The Golden Fleece Like Pellius could have told Jason to recover almost anything. Well, and the point of him telling Jason that, too, is like, you're going to die on this journey and then I can fuck your mom. Like, well, yeah.

You know, it's, I'm going to give you an impossible quest. And like you said, it could have been anything. So. Yeah. Yeah. So is this, correct me if I'm wrong. Jason and the Argonauts. is this

yeah this is a story with the dragon's teeth right yes okay yes so teeth of the hydra oh interesting okay different translations um yeah so yeah uh my my favorite story uh is is in case within this well maybe not my favorite favorite but like a story I enjoy immensely

is when they are running away from first off the practicality of carry a dove with you and because the the the Kolkides are going to crash into each other, right? These two stones are going to crash into each other. And like, send the bird through first. And it's straight up, it's video game shit. They're going to.

Which just proves that tropes are eternal. Yes. So, you know, they crash into each other and they take the bird's tail feathers off. And as they're opening, now let's row. Go, go, go, go, go. Like you've figured out the timing, right? and then of course they get up and through there

I think they're in like Georgia basically and and you got the teeth and you got Medea and all this and Medea is like all right bro I helped you you got to take me and my brother with you

and we got to get the fuck out of here and they're there within a javelin's throw away of being overtaken by oh God what's her dad's name I forget I'd have to look it up yeah

King Dickhead And which could describe most of the kings Yeah So like there are javelins throw away And then she's like all right She cuts up her brother and throws him in the water So that the king has to stop and collect his son's parts Because you can't not bury someone

Yeah And so Absirthus was the brother's name Yeah And he he played his parts well in a members only wake. Um, but, but I love that if you,

for him especially, I just love the idea of Jason being kind of dumb. And him, she's like, I've got it. Just keep sailing on. Don't worry. And then you just,

he turns around. He's like, oh my God, what are you doing? Uh, and then like, you know, row on.

But then like when they get to, um, uh, I forget where they get to, but she convinces the daughters of the other king of like, hey, you want your dad to live forever? Watch what I do to this ram, and she cuts it up and throws it in like a cauldron and does the special herbs. And it comes out and it's a young ram again and all this. And so then they're like, okay, they happily dismember their father and put them in a cauldron.

And then she doesn't put the herbs in and says the magic words. and nothing happens, which is my favorite scene because, like, you just know they're sitting there going and they're like, all right, dad's going to be so happy. Any minute now. Any minute now. Why is it taking it? No, don't worry, don't worry.

Humans are a lot more complex than a ram. It's going to at least have to talk each other into it. And then pretty soon the realization dawns on them. But I just love because Medea basically only had one trick. Cut things up and put them into water. That's it. That's it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah. And, and you know, you talk about Jason not being very bright. Yeah. Like, that should have been a red flag. Like, he didn't technically marry her. So I guess he paid attention to it. Well, yeah, but, like, yeah, there's there's a tightrope. You got to walk there. Yeah. Like, yeah, marrying her is not a great idea, but not marrying her also not a great idea. Right. Yeah. You got to tag her by a tail here. You have now managed to involve yourself with a singularly determined woman. You need to tread carefully, brother. Yes. This is, there is no good ending here. Yeah, boy, howdy.

This will not end well. No. I imagine, I imagine as crazy as she was, there were probably perks. Yeah, not the least of which, being able to escape from her father, uh access to a really cool paste that innervates your nerves yeah um yeah um yeah um yeah wow so yeah okay okay so anyway jason the argonauts jason went and found the golden fleece which by the way that was the other thing she could do was like make a potion because like she knocked out the dragon that was sleeping in front of the golden feasts which was otherwise unguarded completely it's

just hanging on a branch yeah because well why would you need more Yeah, why? It's a cannonball safe. Like, yeah. Yeah. What else do you need to have here? Right. Yeah.

Unless somebody shows up with, with the literal magic trick to deal with the otherwise unstoppable defense. Right. And what are the odds in that? What, how, come on. Also, this ties back to when I was talking about magic and, and mages and everything talking about, you know, Mage the Ascension. Mm-hmm.

And, you know, women and their particular association with those specific kinds of magic, as we discussed. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which are also their own set of very specific kinds of tropes. Oh, yeah. So now the chronology gets a little bit wonky from here. Okay. But another really strong example of mcuffins.

in the 1100s, we know that the Mabinogian was written down as a collection of Welsh legends. Okay. And one of these stories is the marriage of Kulhuk and Olwen. And in that story, we see something very similar to the golden fleece, but it's times three. Instead of one mcuffin, there are three. and the the hero Cool hook is a nephew

of Arthur King of the Gritons and he goes to he he witnesses the beauty of the maiden old one and is immediately

determined to make her and he talks to her and says you know you're gorgeous I love you I'm going to marry you and she said I would really love to do that

but my father is a terrible horrible giant and also on the day I marry he knows he's going to die. Oh. So he's not going

to give you his blessing. And of course it's the middle ages so like that's a thing. Yeah. And so Coolwick being you know a true you know hero type says well I'm I'm not going to be dissuaded

and he goes to the giant and he says, I want your daughter's hand in marriage. And the Giants says, well, in order to get my daughter's hand in marriage, you need to find me a pair.

If my daughter is going to get married, I need to be properly groomed for it. I have a tangled mass of hair and I have a beard that hangs all the way down to my knees. And so I'm going to need a comb. Mm-hmm. and a very specific comb.

And I'm going to need a pair of shears. And I'm going to need a razor. And each of these three items is obviously a supernatural object. Right. The comb, if I'm remembering correctly, the comb is on the spine of a giant bore. Oh, mythical, supernatural giant bore. and you know the shears are you know across the forehead of another giant and and all this kind of stuff and so coolwick is like all right um it's a bet sure and he goes to his uncle king arthur and he says

i need to get married i'm your sister's son and in uh britonic celtic culture that was a big deal. Okay. That was that was a particular kind of mentor relationship, because within, within Irish culture and Britonic, Celtic culture, kind of more generally, the line was often traced matrilineally. So, you know, your father is this guy, but your mother's brother has, has this role of he's going to be the one you you're going to get sent off to him okay to learn how to perform your

role as a noble in society this yeah it's it's like being esquired but it's it's a foster kind of system gotcha and so anyway he shows up and he says i'm your sister's i'm your sister's kid hey and i want to get married and so you're king of the britons i need your help and so a whole bunch of figures out of proto arthurian legend at this point uh go off with Cool hook on these quests. Okay. And so we have Gualcmae, who in later centuries becomes Gawain. Okay.

And we have K, at this point, often spelled C-E-I. Okay. And, you know, many of the other figures who we come to know within Arthrian legend, and they all go off, and they have to defeat the boar, and they have to get, you know, the scissors, the shears, they have to get the razor. Right. And then on the wedding day, true to his word, because this is Celtic myth, and he has, the giant has promised that he would do this. So if he doesn't keep his word, there's going to be a different supernatural doom is going to fall on him.

Sure. And so he, you know, trims his beard and he combs his hair and he cuts his hair. And he decides that, you know, he's going to try to fight his fate. and he turns to, you know, try to kill Coolwick and, you know, Coolwick and the other knights turn and cut his head off. Okay. And so the comb and the shears and the razor, again...

They just moved the plot. They just moved the plot forward. It's just a reason for Arthur and this group of his warriors at this point, because knighthood is barely becoming a thing in the culture, but him and his noble, you know, comitatus are heading off to get these things. It's a heroic thing to do, right? And that's basically it. Right.

Later on, when the Grail quest becomes a thing, the Grail shows up. Arthur and his knights are gifted a vision. of the Grail. And Arthur immediately stands up after it's over and says, all right, in order to prove that we are the greatest knights that were, have been, or ever will be,

we're going to go find it. There's not a plague ravaging the land. Right. It's not meant to save anything. It's just for the sake of going and getting it. Yeah. In the movie, interestingly, in the movie Excalibur from 1981,

if I'm remembering my chronology, right? The Grail actually does have a purpose in the plot because Arthur gets critically wounded and is ill and the land is dying. And so Percival goes off on the quest. I think it's Percival. I think they go with Percival in Excalibur rather than Galahad. But he recovers the Grail, figures it out,

and in a weird, trippy, dreamlike sequence, He uses the grail to heal Arthur. And there's this idea that the grail and Arthur are spiritually kind of one because Arthur is the king and as the king, he is the land and the grail and like, you know. Everything blooms as they, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, that's and that is a one of the cases where the trope kind of gets subverted because something that was originally just this object to give the knights something you go looking for. Now there's a plot reason why don't we actually need it.

Right. You know, we need to heal Arthur because we need to heal the rest of the kingdom. And so, you know, that's that's the Holy Grail. The magic lamp in the tale of Aladdin. From a thousand and one Arabian nights, everybody wants it. Right. The gin wants free of it. Possession of it gives control of the gin.

but the lamp itself doesn't really do anything. In the original story, there's even a second gin in a ring. So it doesn't even have to be a lamp. Gotcha, gotcha, okay. And, you know, so the objects are interchangeable. It just happens to be a lamp. Right.

And now I can see an argument for, well, you know, Okay, it gives control over the genie, and control over the genie is critical to other stuff within the plot. Right. But we kind of have this object that it's like, you know, Aladdin kind of stumbles on it, one way or another, depending on which version of the story we're talking about.

You know, the evil vizier wants it because he wants the genie. And, you know, there's not really any, The plot winds up getting driven by the discovery of it. But the lamp itself, again, doesn't really do anything. Yeah, I guess the lamp being a phylactory for magical power that will grant you all the things that you want. I could see it being gray-aried as a MacGuffin. Like, it's not as pure a MacGuffin as the Holy Grail was, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Which, again, in the movie, the movie kind of makes it closer to the lamp. in some ways. Yeah. But, but yeah, no, I, you know, I could certainly see it is not, there's a layer of it is not the power that you seek. You do not keep saying, I must have the power of the gin. It's, I must have the lamp. Yeah.

So I kind of get that. I get that. I think the term is metonymy, maybe. It's where you substitute the thing for the substance kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah.

And this one, I'm sure there are going to be listeners. I can think of names as I'm saying this. Who are, you know, going to want to argue with me about it. And I'm willing to have that conversation. But, you know, it's for me, it's another example of the trope. And there's one other example that comes up in discussions of McGuffin's all the time. Mm-hmm.

And it's not one. Um, and, and I will die on this hill. Um, actually, no, I won't die on it.

I will make a lot of other people die on it. I will kill on this hill. I will, I will kill a whole lot of people on this hill. The one ring. The one ring is an object. Yeah. It is a magical object.

And everybody wants it. Mm-hmm. And it is a huge object that drives the point. the plot of the Lord of the Rings forward. Right. The plot of the Lord of the Rings is the ring. Yes. Yeah.

However, the reason Frodo is on the quest with the ring is specifically to destroy it in order to defeat Sauron. Right. The ring is Sauron's soul jar. Yeah. It's his phylactory for his. his soul. Yeah. I want to avoid using the term philactory because that's a real world religious term for for Judaism. Okay. Yeah. And that's and that's a legacy within Gary Gygax being the author of Dungeons of Dragons. That is, you know, unfortunate. Okay. I will start using Souljar. I like that.

Yeah. It is, it is sour. I just, I just got a flash of Soul Jar Boy. It's going to throw the ring to Mount Doom. Okay, well, those are lyrics I'm going to make up and piss off my child with tomorrow. Oh, yeah. Excellent. Wonderful. So, but the ring, the ring needs to be taken to Mount Doom and needs to be kept out of the hands of Sauron's forces. Right.

because if he gets it you know tyranny and darkness over the land and you know the age of the orc and all of that right um and through its destruction the flip side is through its destruction uh magic

is going to depart the world right you know with its with its destruction the world is going to become a more mundane place yes and And, you know, whatever the fuck age. Yeah. And fourth. So, you know, so it is not a McGuffin.

It is a critically important object. Mm-hmm. And it is the driving. It is, it is the object that drives the plot. But it has a purpose. Right. Within the narrative. It drives a plot.

Here's the thing that I've always noticed with McGuffins. It drive, those drive the plot in inexplicable ways. It basically logic shadows down to, well, they want it. Why do they want it? Because it drives the plot. Why is it drive the plot? Because they want it. Like, it's Maltese falcon.

Like, that's the best example I can always come up with. Whereas this one is, well, they want it. Well, why do they want it? Because then Soron will rule the world with it because he can use it to focus his magic and do the cool thing with the stuff and the place and the thing. Yeah. Okay. That's different because that has a logical explanation all the way down.

Yeah. Whereas They just want it, okay? Yeah. Yeah. They just want it, all right? Yeah. We got to keep it from getting it.

It's a good story. Don't ask so many fucking questions. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like, just turn your brain off for half a second. Mm-hmm. It's a briefcase full of fucking money, okay?

Like. Even that, like there's, you know, like, like I'm thinking in Pulp Fiction, it's a briefcase that glows on the inside. No idea why or how, right? Yeah. Like, even in repo man, when that briefcase was opened, it had great power, but nobody wanted that great power for anything. Yeah. You know, whereas if it's a briefcase full of money, well, you could buy things with that.

Like, there's a logical understanding for that. But if, but if the goal of the story is we just want to get the money, because we just want to have the right, like we're not, we're not saying I want to have the money. Okay. So, Blues Brothers. Mm-hmm. There's a briefcase for money involved in. Yeah. Yeah.

They want to save an orphanage. Right. So the briefcase full of cash that they're carrying there, not a McGuffin. So are you saying that Percival is the spiritual ancestor of the Blues Brothers? Because they're both on a mission from God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I will find a way to defend that argument because you said that and it immediately all made sense. Yes. Yes, a thousand percent. There you go. And dry white toast, please. I'm 100% there I'm with it and so

I completely lost the rest of my trade of thought but I can look at my notes and figure it out the one ring the soldier yeah yeah thank you so the ring isn't one but in his other writings Tolkien did lean on a couple of

interesting McGuffins and interestingly they're gemstones in all cases so the Silmarillion is all about the creation

and struggle over the ownership of the three Silmarils priceless gemstones created by Phannor in the very misty beginnings

of the first age to capture the light of the two trees of Valenor. Right. One of which was used to push back Shalab. Sam had the little vial. What he... Yeah, it was, it was a later age, less powerful, kind of equivalent of that.

Right. But the Silmarils were something that Morgoth set in his iron crown, and in the process of touching them, their light and their purity burned him. Anyway, there's no reason anybody wants him other than Fainor is pissed that they got stolen. And he swears an oath

that dooms basically all of the elves that follow him into Middle Earth and causes all, you know, all kinds of horrible shit happening to, often very good people. And, you know, Finglefin died like a hero, but he shouldn't have had to.

And I can get emotional about that, so I'm going to stop talking about it. But by themselves, they don't really do anything. They are the things everybody wants. They're emblematic of things. They wind up becoming the lights that illuminate the moon and the sun in Middle Earth. after it's all over. Because one of them is lost forever, and the other two become,

one of them becomes the moon and one becomes the sun effectively to paint with a broad brush. And then the other one, the other McGuffin, the other major mineral McGuffin of Tolkien is the Arkinstone of Thrain

from the Hobbit. Okay. So, oh, yeah, the shiny thing that's in amongst, It's the share that Bilbo claims. Yes. Yeah. Yes, that it's like you can claim any other share you want, but not that.

Right. Yeah. Thorin wants it above all other things. Right. It is part of a massive hoard of treasure that may itself qualify as a McGuffin. But it and the gold, again, could be almost anything. It's this thing that the dwarves want to get back. Now, the dwarves want to get their homeland back.

The rest of the dwarves want to get their home back. They want to get Aribor. Right. Thorin also wants to get Aribor, but he's really monomaniacal about wanting the Arkinstone, specifically. And it becomes a lever within the plot when Bilbo, you know, carries it out and then doesn't say anything about having it and then delivers it to, the men and the elves on the eve of the battle of five armies

hoping that they might be able to use it to, you know, a strong arm Thorin into not fighting over everything. Right. Which fails. But again, like,

it wasn't something that was being sought in order to do that. It wasn't something that like, well, you know, we need the Arkinstone in order to open up some part of the

vault within, you know, and it didn't give Thorne, it didn't give Thorne legitimacy of any kind. He already had that. Yeah, he, yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't necessary for, for him to be ruler under, you know, king under the mountain. Right. So, you know, it's, it's, again, just literally a shiny thing that everybody wants. And so, I mean, there are all kinds of other places, you know, since then.

where we've seen, you know, if you think of almost any episode of any TV series, where, you know, in a sitcom where, you know, the characters manage to lose mom's pearl necklace. Sure. And oh, my God, we've got to figure out what we're going to do. Right. How are we going to get it? You know, we broke it. How we're going to get it fixed? How are we going to, you know, find something to replace it.

Somebody's engagement ring falls down a drain. It doesn't actually matter what fell down the drain. The plot is driven by your, you know, farcical need to open up the drain without so-and-so finding out. Yeah. Precisely. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, this is a little bit of a light episode in terms of length, but that's a muguffin. Here's one that I've got for you.

Yeah. An episode called Once Upon a Joe. It was in 1986. It was October of 86. Okay. Um, and essentially, there's, uh, this is, this is when you had strato vipers, right? So the guys with the, the gray and the red and the black, you know, so even cooler. They weren't flying rattlers. They were flying like black hawks. Right.

Um, they, they are trying to steal something called the McGuffin device. Uh, yes. And it burns down an orphanage. and so the Joes are rebuilding it, but the cobras haven't found the McGuffin device yet. And of course, Zartan goes hunting for it as well. And so the Joes have to like keep the cobra from getting it. And shipwreck's job is to distract the kids from what's going on so that he can keep them safe. And so he...

Great. Put the enlisted like E4. A. 5 sailor. Yeah. In charge of looking after all the kids. Yeah, great. So he's going to go so well. Because he's being shit on by like every Joe that's there like leather neck and, you know, the others.

Of course, leather neck's going to shit on him. Yeah. And he's a sailor. Right. But also. That's a natural relationship. That just happens. But I think, God, what was leathernecks rival buddy?

I think his name was just seal or some shit like that. But. Oh, yeah. Those two guys like, they're like, you know, we'll take. care of making this shit work you're you you keep fucking up and and that's what it is that shit break keeps fucking up building

or helping like he he grabs two boards and he turns and hits two guys in the head and turns again and hits two other guys you know that kind of shit they're like just go over there be harmless slapstick shit yeah yeah and so he's he's telling the the orphans a story about

uh you know dwarfed versions of of the GI Joe And like of course it's animated so like we all get to see the theater of the mine there And I think they're trying to find a hamburger mine Because kids And Zartan Disguises himself as Shipwreck

But then Shipwreck actually finds the MacGuffin device And it turns out the McGuffin device Does whatever your brain needs it to do And so it like basically calls forth all of these dwarven characters that that shipwreck has come up with and they thwart zartan to keep him from getting the mcuffin device and that's it like it turns the tide and it's it's the stories he told to the kids were what saved everyone from the mcguffin device and that was the whole episode yeah it's just the dumbest goddamn thing and like i said any any episode of of ducktails um is the mcguffman like they they they had a golden fleece episode. Oh, come to think of it,

so did G.I. Joe. Yeah. That's not surprising. Yeah. But, yeah, it's, what do you call it?

They had a golden fleece episode in, in, uh, duck tails. And it was, you know, keeping glom gold from finding it,

you know? Yeah. I think there was even a character who was like part pigeon or something, whose name was McGuffin in, in duck tails. Well, yeah. So.

because again the writers were having too much fun. Yeah. Like, yeah. So it is and the thing is, you know, when you point out in a story, well, I mean, it's a mcuffin. You know, it's important to note, like especially since this is the first episode of what I, you know, intend to make a continuing series. Troops aren't bad. No. There is, there is a kind of a knee-jerker reaction.

on the part of some people to think, well, you know, I mean, it's just so tropey. Well, okay, yeah,

that means that may be something, well, yeah, Hamlet, Hamlet, all of Shakespeare. Again, that's,

well, you remember my, my argument always when people like, well, wrestling's fake. I'm like, so is Hamlet. So is Hamlet.

You know that Laritiz is jobbing. Yeah, like a thousand percent. Yeah. A thousand percent. You know, and, and yeah,

and, show up all the time. Like, there are thousands of them in, that are specific to wrestling. When we talk about faces, when we talk about heels, those are wrestling tropes. Yeah. It means it is a thousand percent.

It is exactly a muguffin. Like, it doesn't hold up anybody's pants. It doesn't, it doesn't give anybody extra access. They never even wear it around their waist. Most of them don't. They're just going to draped over their shoulder. Most of them don't, yeah. Yeah.

But like, it, it, It doesn't do anything functional. It doesn't give you extra access to shit. It just makes people want to attack you and get it off of you so that they can then hold on to the belt. Like, I mean, it signifies that you're the best there is, but there have been plenty of times. Yeah. And the other thing is there have been plenty of times where the guy holding the belt was not the most interesting good guy or bad guy. tons of times where like the the plots for instance Cody Rhodes has held the belt off and on for the last year or so a little bit more than that the most compelling storylines had nothing to do with the belts they were CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre it's a personal issue and then it was CM Punk versus Seth Rollins personal issues that's way more exciting like AJ Lee coming back had nothing to do with that fucking

belt. So like it's not the belt that makes anything interesting. It should have added interest, absolutely, and people are fighting over it, and that's why they're fighting. It's an automatic storymaker, which is what a McGuffin is. Yeah. And, you know, Oceans 11, both the original and the remake are heist movies. And almost by their definition, heist movies focus on McGuffins. Yeah. You know, the money that you're stealing is, is the end goal. Yeah, in and of itself. Like, there might be some talk about how you're going to spend it? Yeah.

You know, if, if Juliet, Jake and Elwood had, you know, engaged in a heist to get the money to save the orphanage, then the money wouldn't have been a McGuffin. But most of the time in many heist movies, it's just, well, you know, we're going to get in there. We're going to get the money. Right. It's value is intrinsic. Like, we understand that. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, I mean, that doesn't mean that you can't have a really good, well-crafted story using a McGuffin as, as the motivation. The Indiana Jones movies are trope, trope central. So, you know. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world? Yeah. That a McGuffin? Yeah. Okay.

Because again, it's just money. It's just money. Everybody's trying to get, trying to get to the big W. Yeah. You know, and that's an amazing goddamn movie. What could possibly go wrong with an old-fashioned? Right off the cliff. And Jonathan Winters.

Oh, so good. Yeah. But, you know, they're, there are amazing, amazing stories that are built around this, specifically this plot device. The Silmarillion is an amazing, you know, series of, series of tales. The Lord of the Rings is one of the foundational texts of fantasy literature, you know,

and, well, it's not driven by a Mcuffin, but the Hobbit is, you know, or it involves one. And so, you know, just because there is one doesn't detract, you know, tropes are not bad. Right. And I want to make sure to include that note here when we're talking about it. Yeah. So what's your takeaway? What do you think at this point?

I actually have a couple of questions before I get to any kind of takeaway. What is your favorite MacGuffin? Out of all the McGuffins you've encountered. I mean, you might have already mentioned it, but what is your favorite McGuffin? And why? That's a really hard question. But I think I would probably have to go. I've mentioned it already, but like you said, but the Holy Grail.

There you go. Because of its flexibility and the way that it has reappeared so many times in so many different contexts, just within our Thurian legend there are there's the Vulgate cycle there's the Lancelot legends there's the Mortarthur you know there's there's multiple different series of the story and we can watch like if you're able to figure out how to piece the chronology together you can look at the evolution of like what the relationship of the grail to the rest of the story is and you can look at what the Grail represented and how

the characters of the different knights in different cycles are evolving over time you know there's a version of the story in which Gawain is the knight who gets closest to accomplishing the quest other than Percival because

he he he asks the question you know, what is the significance of the bleeding Lance? What does all of this mean? And that, that solves part of the puzzle. And he's granted, he's granted a partial answer and is able to go away, you know, with having achieved that level of spiritual kind of attainment. Sure.

Whereas in that particular story, Lance a lot shows up and, gets turned away because he's a fuck boy who's sleeping with his best friend's wife and you know I'm just going to say this as a record boy yeah so I'm just going to say this for the record fuck lancelot du lac if there is if there is only one person in the world who is a hater of lancelot du lac I am that person if there is only one person in the world who is a fan of gawain of orkney I am that person. I'm just saying. I'm declaring that now. But, you know, and so we have, we have the evolution of the grail over the course of those stories and the, and the story around it evolving over time. And then we have later, you know,

later, later, later writers, later storytellers getting a hold of it and, and taking the same McGuffin and telling, you know, different, different stories around it. It shows up briefly in one of my favorite of all-time pieces of poetry, Christmas Camelot Station. And right now I'm forgetting the name of the poet. But it doesn't really drive the plot at all, but it's there. And it winds up being part of Galaad's characterization in... in the poem.

And it's wonderful. And then you have Monty Python in the Holy Grail. Sure. Which, you know, uh, is a, I think, loving sendup of all of the Arthurian legend. Mm-hmm. And it very much reflects the attitudes of the times in which that movie was made. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, it's irreverent.

It's kind of anti-establishment. It's, you know, it's, you. you know, and it's still driven by the grail, which doesn't really do anything. Right. You know. It was in McGiver episodes. Oh, I had forgotten about that. Two-part series in McGiver.

And yeah, and he even had the line because his friend Zoe was trying to help him find, you know, she was like, yeah, she set his houseboat adrift and then came out and. met him and then she's like yeah I want you to help me find the holy grill and he's like Indiana Jones already did that oh and I can I can I can I can hear that yeah so I got a question for you then yeah um actually real quick before I get to this question what's your least favorite mcuffin hmm I don't know um every every one of them that I can think of like Any McGuffin I can remember and I can think of as, oh, hey, that's a McGuffin is, is generally one where I think it's, it's been done in a meaningful way. Sure. Or has somehow been done cleverly enough that it's, that it doesn't feel like lazy writing.

So I think, I think the answer to that is I don't know what my least favorite one is because the ones I don't like, I don't remember. Fair. Yeah. I'd say that'd probably do it. Let me ask this. Okay. Star Wars. Yeah.

All right. I don't know that there's a McGuffin. We'll go through in publication order instead of like chronological, right? Episode four, the thing driving the plot is the Death Star plans, absolutely important to the plot. Absolutely is important to the plot. Right? Yeah. Nope.

So that's the only thing that I think is McGuffin-esque and it's. and it's clearly not in episode four yeah I yeah and yeah episode five

um not a fucking thing I mean Luke's friends maybe but like even that that's you know pretty damn important to the plot so no

yeah um yeah no no there's not a mcuff in there episode six Han Solo's uh carbonite body but I don't think so

No, that's an important plot point because we need to get solo back on the board. Right. Yeah. Then episode one? Well, there's not an object involved in one. The hyperspace generator on the queen's ship. Remember, it's shot and they need a new part for a J-type, Nubian. But.

Nobian, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of anything. Somebody. Yeah. Speaking of problem. I don't think that's, I think that's important to the plot because it moves them on. Like it was a convenient thing to break down.

Literally. Yeah. It literally moves them on. Yeah, no, not a McGuffin. A plot advice, literally, certainly. But not a McGuffin. Episode two, the Camino Dartsaber? No, because that's a clue to a mystery as to who's trying to kill Amadala.

Yeah. So. Not a Mcuffin. It's a clue. Yeah, no, it leads. Right. And I'm trying to think if there's any other objects there. Yeah, not really.

Episode three. Um, no. No, no objects. Yeah. No, it's entirely, entirely character, character motivation. Seven? The only thing I can think of is maybe Luke's Lightaber. Luke Skywalker.

No, his lightsaber. He himself. No, Luke is the McGuffin. No, but he's supposed to help them to reset the balance, though. Like he is crucial to the plot because he's a force user. All right. Well, that is a lightsaber. Yeah, his lightsaber.

Getting it to him. Yeah. That seems as close to a Mcuffin as as I think. It's close to McGuffin, but you might, yeah. But it activates the Mcuffin. So I would say no. Well, and Luke's not a Mcuffin. Well, we can have it back and forth.

But there is a reason they want to find him. Right. The reason is kind of wiffly waffly, squishy, I think. Um, but that's, that may just be an issue of, of my, my interpretation of the writing rather than, uh, a strict, uh, narrative role. I would, I would, I would argue, if getting, if getting Han back on the board was reason enough in episode six, then getting Luke back on the board is reason enough in episode seven. Okay. The counter argument I would make relies on episode seven as a self-contained narrative rather than part of the larger meta-narrative. Okay. Within the narrative of episode seven itself, Luke is kind of a mcuffin because we get to him at the very end of the film.

Right. We see him and then, you know. credits within the larger arc right which we do was being written so well well i mean yeah but you know depending on where you want to where you want to draw definitions it becomes an argument semantics i am going to say that i think his lightsaber is a mcuffin simply because if you find him he's a jettie master like if he won't fucking matter if you show him his old sword you're

right yeah like like what is there's there's there's throws it away immediately anyway yeah the next film he immediately grabs it and like subverts the the whole the whole series of trips you're right okay his lightsaber is laying away um

so his lightsaber is a mcuffin yeah um interestingly that makes me think of a completely different story there is a uh series uh memory sorrow and thorn by tad williams

that you may or may not be at all familiar with. And in that story, one of the magical objects they're looking for is a sword named Thorne that feels like a mcuffin for at least a book and a half. But it winds up, the macuffinness of it winds up being. subverted when you know Luke sees his lightsaber and at the beginning of the very at the very beginning of the next movie flings it off a cliff and like why did why did you fucking bring this to me right in memory sorrow and Thorne the the legendary night figure kind of the Luke figure that they're that they're

trying to recruit to help them against you know evil he he has essentially succumbed to self-inflicted amnesia because he is he is a Lancelot figure who instead of retiring to a monastery just became a wild man in the wilderness and and has willfully forgotten how he, you know, betrayed his best friend and all this stuff, slept with his best friend's wife. But they present him with his sword and a the sword combined with a bunch of other. other things, brings back his memories. And he becomes one of the champions of their effort to try to overthrow, you know, the evil lich king figure. Right. And so it starts out as a Mcuffin and it turns into not being one.

Okay. So that's, that's an example of, again, a subversion of the trope, which with Mcuffins is not common. You know, you don't, you don't see McGuffin. McGuffins very frequently suddenly turn into, oh, hey, wait. That's actually, right. There was a whole point here. So, yeah. Okay.

That just occurred to me as part of that conversation. Episode seven, his, yeah, the closest that we got is his lightsaber. And I think that's a pretty good argument that is a McGuffin. Episode eight, I don't think there's a McGuffin in there because episode eight's so different. Yeah. Although, no, no, because that's needed to figure out how there be. being tracked. So no, that's absolutely crucial to the plot. Yeah. And then episode nine, even his Sith Holocron Wayfinder thing is needed to get him to go and be Palpatine's evil

lackey boy. So no, these are these are all means to an end, which is not the same as a MacGuff. It's not the same thing as McGuffin. Yeah. How interesting that Star Wars only had one McGuffin despite nine movies. I mean, you could certainly point to holocrons being Mcuffins for Ezra Bridger in rebels. Within all of the extended media, there's all kinds of cases of

McGuffins. You could say that Grogu's a McGuffin. Because he doesn't really have any intrinsic value other than the thing that the Mando has to protect and sometimes rescue. He drives a... certainly well i will i will say that in the first season he is definitely one yeah later on as he

develops as a character he has his own arc he has his own motivations he has his own stuff going on and so he he as a character he is still you know a tether uh for uh dinjaran but I don't think he he remains a McGuffin at that point in the first couple of episodes of the first season he's definitely a McGuffin right like you know

you need to go you need to go any of the people who are bounties are McGuffins it's just a reason for a bounty hunter character to go somewhere yeah and whatever happens on the way is what happens on the way

and that's the plot of the story you know um so Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, in the first season, he definitely is one, which is an example in Star Wars of that. But, yeah, as a, as a series, I think the narrative impetus that kind of the narrative threads and the other tropes that Star Wars tends to run on tend to not be, they tend to not not, not, uh, they tend to not, uh, synergize with McGuffins quite as much as

like a pulp series like Indiana Jones that's that's part of that subgenre that's how those stories worked right exactly exactly I mean the Star Wars series is mostly damsel in distress or subversions of that or yeah or or male

characters being you know slot it into that role. Yeah. Hi, Han. How you doing, buddy? But that's only after, like, even in rescuing him, Leia ended up needing rescue. And then she choked the motherfucker out.

But like, in every single episode of four, five, and six, Leah needed rescue. And in two out of three of them, she rescued herself. Yes. So the trope gets played, and then the trope gets subverted or inverted. Yeah.

So, and then same. thing with episode seven, Ray is saving herself when they finally get around to saving her episode eight. I don't think she needs rescue. No, she rescues herself from Kylo Ren. And in episode nine, actually she does get rescued there. Although she and Kylo worked together rescue, but there is a, she would not have gotten out of it without him.

Yeah. So, yeah. But yeah. Actually, she wouldn't have gotten out of it in episode eight without him, too, because shoes Kylo Renner to kill Snoke yeah

so all right so I'm just trying to think if there's now I'm trying to think of Star Trek episodes we could reference

um oh god Tin Man McGuffin um like I'm thinking of next generation episodes yeah yeah um what was what was the

two-parter uh where we're Picard was undercover trying to find a... Oh, yeah, where he's... His name is Galen. He takes... Yeah, he's going after the Vulcan artifact

that, you know, basically you think aggressive thoughts, you're going to die. You know, that's pretty MacGuffany. Yeah. Yeah. Fun thing in that one, he took on his mentor's name. Galen, who had previously been his mentor. Which that one was a MacGuffin, too.

where it was where the beings had seeded themselves all around. So everybody did look Cardassian and Romulan and on and on. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was McGuffin heavy.

Very. Yeah. No, Star Trek's, Star Trek makes sense for McGuffins, especially in Next Generation and the original series because they were bottle episodes. Yeah. And a McGuffin is, yeah,

a convenient way to motivate a plot without having to tie it into a larger arc. Right. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. Okay. Well, what do, well, I guess my takeaway here is McGuffin's work for the same reason that pro wrestling is the highest form of art. And that we are simple creatures in need of simple tales retold over and over again. Yeah.

I don't go with that. And that is, I think that that is actually tremendous value added. So, yeah, I've always liked McGuffin stories. I really have. It's fun to be able to point them out. Yeah. You know, which there's that, you know, that's satisfying, you know, like there's a whole bunch of videos now that are things that are strangely satisfying. You know, it's like just a piston slipping into its, you know, its gasket just perfectly, you know, that kind of stuff.

It's like you've completed the form. Yeah. And that's very satisfying. And I think McGoverns are a good way to get there because, you know, we are storytellers. Humans are storytelling creatures, right? Yeah. And so having a convenient and predictable way of telling a story

is incredibly valuable to our psychology and to us as a community. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Well, what are you going to recommend to folks? I am going to recommend that folks go out and find themselves any edition, really any translation of the Mabinogian, because it is a wonderful collection of stories that are going to feel, to any modern reader, they're going to feel like, well, I mean, I've seen this a thousand

times before, but what you're reading is the beginning of that. There are elements in the Mabinozian that show up later all over medieval and Renaissance British storytelling from the Arthurian legends to Shakespeare. And they are wonderfully Celtic in a very Welsh kind of way. There is a kind of dream logic involved in the way that magic works and the stories. And yeah, some of them, some of them are just haunting, wonderful to read. So find yourself a copy of the Mabinogian, do yourself a favor and read it. And what about you? I'm going to recommend people find any copy of Jason and the Argonauts

or any telling of that story. So whether it's G.I. Joe and the Golden Fleece, the Ducktails Version of the Golden Fleece, Um, the, the, you know, Ocean's 11, uh, which is basically the same thing. You, you've got one guy who gathered a bunch of people together to go get the thing from the place. Yeah. Um, but, uh, that's great. I've never been to Belize.

Yeah. Um, but, uh, I think, uh, yeah, any version of, of Jason and the Argonauts, I think will get you your McGuffin satisfaction. Yeah. Um, yeah, so. Definitely. All right. Uh, where can we be found? We collectively can be found on our website at wauba, wauba, wauva,

wauva, dot geekhistime.com. We can also be found on the Apple Podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app, and on Spotify. And wherever it is that you have found us, please take the time to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And where can you be found, sir? Let's see, January 2nd, February 6, March 6,

you can find me at the Sacramento Comedy Spot, Sling and Puns with Capital Pound. punishment for our third year in a row at that site, which would mean that that would be our 10th year? Yeah, that's about right. Sling and puns, go to satcomedyspot.com and come the event from the calendar. Get your tickets in advance so you have a seat guaranteed, and then you can save up some money to get some merch and come out and support local comedy. I really strongly recommend it, especially our show because there ain't nothing like it.

So, yeah. There you go. All right. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.