History Main / MacGuffinDeliveryService

* In Guardians of the Galaxy, Quill retrieves the Orb of Power at the start, then carries it around for half the movie, only to have it taken away from him by Ronan, the very villain that the heroes were trying to prevent from obtaining it. This happens as a result of Drax, one of the heroes who has a vendetta against Ronan, drunk-dialling Ronan to finally meet him in battle (he loses).

** In ''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. Only the people the prophecy refers to can take it, and Voldemort doesn't want the Ministry to stop conveniently denying his return. It's two tropes in one; a pretty case of a BatmanGambit by Voldemort that results in Harry almost serving as a MacGuffin Delivery Service

* In ''KimPossible'', "Monkey Fist Strikes" has Kim go through numerous death traps to retrieve a monkey idol in what may have been a ShoutOut 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.

-> ''"Way To Go, [[VideoGame/ChronoCross Serge]] -- It will eventually turn out that, for a minimum of the first sixty percent of the game you were manipulated by the forces of evil into doing their sinister bidding for the]. 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."''

-> ''"Way To Go, [[VideoGame/ChronoCross Serge]] -- It will eventually turn out that, for a minimum of the first sixty percent of the game you were [[UnwittingPawn 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."''

Polar opposite of KeepAway. Compare YouCantThwartStageOne. Subtrope of NiceJobBreakingItHero. A TreacherousAdvisor will often 'hold onto' the heroes {{plot coupon}}s for him. Not to be confused with MacGuffinEscortMission, where the good guys give the heroes a mission to deliver the item somewhere.

* ''DevilMayCry 2013'' actually [[InvertedTrope inverts]] this. When Kat gets kidnapped, Dante goes on a mission to kidnap Mundus's mistress (who is pregnant with his child.) Once that's overwith, they agree to a hostage exchange. In the middle of the exchange, Vergil shoots and kills the mistress and the child while saving Kat, and gets clean away with Dante's help. To top it off, the time that Kat spent kidnapped proves instrumental to finding Mundus's security systems and overriding them.

* The basic '''plot''' of '''all three''' ''{{Uncharted}}'' games.
** In ''Drake's Fortune'', the bad guys steal Drake's treasure map (which he spent his entire adult life searching for), but are too stupid to figure out anything else. Drake follows them to the island, where he eventually finds a more precise map - which they steal as well.
** In ''Among Thieves'', Drake wouldn't even be involved except the bad guys keep sending him to fetch stuff. Flynn "helps" Drake steal the first treasure map, waits for him to decipher it, then strands him for the cops. He spends ''three months'' in a Turkish prison for his trouble. When he gets out, he goes chasing after the bad guys to steal back the treasure. The bad guys are so stupid that he finds another map in less than three minutes - and the bad guys take it from him and try to kill him. He escapes and finds a ''third'' map - and they try to kill him '''again'''. When they catch him again after he finds another clue, they've figured out that they need him to finally get to the MacGuffin, and offer him a SadisticChoice - and try to kill him again once he helps them again.

** In ''Drake's Deception'', the bad guys don't even bother looking for anything. They just follow Drake around and steal his plot coupons. He eventually wises up and, upon finding a star-based map, ''doesn't'' write down in his journal to be stolen, instead relying on Sully's knowledge to find the location. Surprise, surprise: Sully gets kidnapped. At one point, Elena attempts to talk Drake out of his quest, pointing out that the bad guys wouldn't even have gotten this far if it not for him. He brushes it off.

* In ''TheForceUnleashed'', you spend the second act collecting [[spoiler: the Rebel leaders and organizing the Rebellion]] for [[ManipulativeBastard Vader]]. He then takes them all, revealing that [[spoiler: 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.]]

-> '''Way To Go, [[VideoGame/ChronoCross Serge]]''' -- ''It will eventually turn out that, for a minimum of the first sixty percent of the game you were [[UnwittingPawn 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.''

* ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' has the end-of-second-act plot twist where [[spoiler:Andrew Ryan shows that the player was being mind-controlled into doing Atlas' bidding through the whole game, and commits suicide-by-player (by ordering the player to kill him), after which he pilfers Ryan's body and delivers the Genetic Key to Atlas, who reveals himself as Frank Fontaine, Ryan's biggest rival]].

* ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' has the end-of-second-act plot twist where [[spoiler:Andrew Ryan shows that the player was being mind-controlled into doing Atlas' bidding through the whole game, and orders the player to kill himself, after which he pilfers Ryan's body and delivers the Genetic Key to Atlas, who reveals himself as Frank Fontaine, Ryan's biggest rival]].

*** This part has more UnfortunateImplications than all the {{Mooks}} Drake wastes ''combined'' - the mooks in each game belong to a different GangOfHats, so that's understandable. What's not so understandable is that they need Drake to find ''all'' the clues for them. "They are just uneducated thugs who need an American to work hard so they can steal from him."

* ''LegacyOfKain'' uses a variant of this, where [[spoiler:Raziel [[UnwittingPawn plays right into the Hylden's hands]] by resurrecting the ancient vampire Janos Audron for the Hylden Lord to use as a host, and even murders Kain, the Scion of Balance, in the process. Take your pick on which is the proper MacGuffin: The Heart of Darkness, which had been used to resurrect Kain, or Janos himself.]]

** And then in ''KirbysReturnToDreamland'', [[spoiler: Magolor pulls nearly the ''exact'' same scheme.]] Fool me once...

** As noted by ''TheEditingRoom'', the villains in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' invoke this trope ''to do the exact same thing the heroes want to do!''
* In the film ''OceansThirteen'', Linus Caldwell [[spoiler: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. [[spoiler:Subverted, however, after Toulour leaves the protagonists reveal that the diamonds they gave to Toulour were fakes, and they escape with the real ones.]]

* ''ShadowsAwakening'': Daolon Wong, in a moment of his newly acquired GenreSavvy, considers letting the heroes gather all the [[ArtifactOfDoom Dark Treasures]] and then stealing them all together from Section 13. [[spoiler: Ultimately, it's his partner [[OurGhostsAreDifferent The Phantom]] who does this.]]

** The Riddler also tried it on Catwoman during the "[[CatwomanWhenInRome When In Rome]]" storyline, using her to get a ring that makes the wearer the head of the Mafia. [[spoiler: 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.]]

* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot''

* In ''FanFic/QueenOfAllOni'', the only method Jade has for tracking the masks on her own is astral projection, which she doesn't trust. So, she has [[SinisterSurveillance bugs planted in Uncle's shop]], so that whenever Jackie and the others discover the location of a mask, she can simply follow them there. This is also what led her to the first tablet of [[TomeOfEldritchLore the Teachings of Eternal Shadow]], which set off the story's secondary PlotCoupon hunt.

--> Lampshaded in the second instance in ''Raiders'':
-->'''Belloq''': Again, Doctor Jones, what was briefly yours is now mine.

* In ''Videogame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'', the goal of the game is to gather Crystals for Cortex so he can shield the planet from a planetary alignment ([[spoiler:Cortex's actual plans for them, of course, aren't as heroic as Crash's: Instead he wants to use the crystals to power a massive mind control device]]).

*** And subverted by the fact that Crash wins those battles. It's even more grandiose in the HundredPercentCompletion boss fight, where Uka Uka gloats that he'll be able to achieve ''ultimate power'' with both the crystals and the gems.
---->'''Uka Uka''': Yes, it is true! The bandicoot has brought all of the crystals, and all of the gems. Ultimate power is mine! The world as we know it is about to end.

--> In any race for hidden treasure, it is always the protagonists who sweat and bleed and die to overcome the many challenges inherent in finding it - only for the antagonists to seize it from them at the last minute.

** 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 too in ''Sonic and the Secret Rings''. And he almost killed Sonic, too!

* ''DeadIsland'' has you doing this for a whopping 96% of the game (as noted by the fact that when you get betrayed by [[spoiler: the mysterious voice]], your main plot progress is at 96%.) Since you're immune from zombification for some reason, [[spoiler: the voice]] guides you to all sorts of venues before finally guiding you to a lab where scientists are working on a zombie antidote. When it's complete, [[spoiler: the voice]] tells you to meet him on a prison island where you have to do some favors for prisoners before getting access to him. Once you finally meet [[spoiler: he hits you with sleeping gas, steals the antidote, and calls in an order to nuke the island.]]