History Main / MacGuffinLocation

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Shinra's main motivation is to find the 'promised land'. It's also Sephiroth's main motivation, though while Shinra wants it for the "endless" source of Mako, Sephiroth wants it because [[spoiler: he knows Jenova is sealed there, and wants to release her. Later, he just wants the Mako as a limitless energy source instead.]]

* The Tower in the ''VideoGame/PanzerDragoon'' Series.

* While the Cintomani Stone is the item that Nate and his friends want in ''VideoGame/Uncharted2'', it's located in Shangri-La, which they spend most of the game looking for. [[spoiler: BigBad Lazarevic wants to find it as well, but because he knows of the life-restoring sap of the Tree of Life.]]
** [[VideoGame/Uncharted3 The sequel]] inverts this: Nate and his friends are looking for Irem of the Pillars, also known as the Atlantis of the Sands, for the place itself rather than anything within it. [[spoiler: And the BigBad wants to find it because it's the source of an incredibly powerful hallucinogen and mind-control agent.]]

[[folder:Web Original]]

* In the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}}'s modded [[WebVideo/YogscastMinecraftSeries Minecraft series]] ''[=MoonQuest=]'', the idea is that they start from scratch and have to collect the resources to build a facility, equipment, and a rocket ship to travel to the Moon, with a space race going on between Team J.A.F.F.A (LetsPlay/LewisBrindley, LetsPlay/SimonLane and LetsPlay/DuncanJones) and Sipsco (LetsPlay/{{Sips}} and LetsPlay/{{Sjin}}). After 45 episodes of distractions, setbacks, misadventures, and general shenanigans, Team J.A.F.F.A finally send Simon to the Moon [[spoiler:and then have to build another rocket to go there again after he crashes and is stranded there]].

* "Your Sanctuaries" in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', the locations where Earth's power is at its strongests and which hold the PlotCoupons in the form of the Eight Melodies.

** The personal goal of Sanji, one of the protagonists to find the mythical All Blue, a sea that supposedly has fish from all four of the world's seas.

* The ''true'' Clair Bible in ''{{LightNovel/Slayers}} NEXT'' turns out to be this, as it was previously assumed that the bible was a book.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}}'s modded ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' [[Machinima/YogscastMinecraftSeries series]] ''[=MoonQuest=]'', the idea is that they start from scratch and have to collect the resources to build a facility, equipment, and a rocket ship to travel to the Moon, with a space race going on between Team J.A.F.F.A (LetsPlay/LewisBrindley, LetsPlay/SimonLane and LetsPlay/DuncanJones) and Sipsco (LetsPlay/{{Sips}} and LetsPlay/{{Sjin}}). After 45 episodes of distractions, setbacks, misadventures, and general shenanigans, Team J.A.F.F.A finally send Simon to the Moon [[spoiler:and then have to build another rocket to go there again after he crashes and is stranded there]].

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'': The titular location is said to be a source of ultimate knowledge and power, and is thus sought after by various villains who seek to rule the universe using it. Muddying the waters initially is that several villains manage to assemble smaller copies of Kingdom Hearts, usually serving as TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon. The franchise initially makes no clear distinction between the copies and the real thing, but it's eventually established that the ones the characters have visited are inferior replicas of the true location.

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eldorado_4.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:All will be revealed at a golden shrine.]]

** In addition to housing the titular treasure, the actual island of Raftel is also sought after, mainly due to the Rio Poneglyphs.

Most commonly found in media centering around TheQuest (which, more often than not, contains another macguffin they desire. The other most common occurance is media that involves races -- it often doesn't matter whether the finish line is in UsefulNotes/{{Cairo}}, UsefulNotes/NewZealand, or [[FlyoverCountry Omaha]], just that they arrive first or on time.

* The races to reach the North and South Poles.
* Being the first to climb Mount Everest.

** In addition to housing the titular treasure, the actual island of Raftel in also sought after, mainly due to the Rio Poneglyphs.

* "Your Sanctuaries" in ''VideoGame/EarthBound''.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1492720838070697800
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* The ''true'' Clair Bible in ''{{LightNovel/Slayers}} NEXT'' turns out to be this, as it was previously assumed that the bible was a book.
* The land of fairies in ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' is reputed to be the only place safe from the demonic legions that want the protagonists dead as well as the location of the only one who might be able to cure Casca of her insanity.

* The titular castle in ''WesternAnimation/BarbieAndTheDiamondCastle''.

* Creator/JulesVerne's ''Literature/JourneyToTheCenterOfTheEarth'' and all of its adaptations.
* ''Literature/TreasureIsland'' has its titular island. So, too, does its RecycledInSpace counterpart ''WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet''.

* ''Literature/TheMalloreon'', by Creator/DavidEddings, features a MineralMacGuffin (the 'Sardion', a rock) and a MacGuffinLocation, "The Place Which Is No More".

* The Chamber of Secrets in ''Literature/HarryPotter''.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Shinra's main motivation is to find the 'promised land'. It's also Sephiroth's main motivation, though while Shinra wants it for the "endless" source of Mako, Sephiroth wants it because [[spoiler: he knows Jenova is sealed there, and wants to release her. Later, he just wants the Mako as a limitless energy source instead.]]
* Zanarkand from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''.

* The Vault in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}''. Somewhat unusual in that it's a string of such locations, with a different Vault being the focus of each game.
* A slightly odd example is Releeshahn in ''VideoGame/MystIIIExile''. Releeshahn is a book that is an access to a location, and you have to retrieve the book.
* The artificial island Paradise and the Cardinal Shaft in ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}''.
* Ilos in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', a planet only accessible via a lost mass relay only [[spoiler:the last Rachni Queen kept in captivity on Noveria]] knows the location of, and which [[PlayerCharacter Shepard]] and [[BigBad Saren]] are racing to get to first.
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' revolves entirely around the biggest landmark in Nevada, the Hoover Dam. It provides clean water and free electricity to the entire state. He who controls it controls the future of the entire Mojave desert, so it's actually a pretty damn good justification of this trope. It's not magical, it's not full of unobtanium, it just provides what you need to live.
** The [=DLC=] ''Dead Money'' features the infamous Sierra Madre casino, a perfectly preserved and wickedly deadly pre-war casino with an untouched vault full of goodies, attracting treasure hunters from all over the Mojave. Even getting into the casino itself takes roughly half of the [=DLC=], and reaching the vault itself takes most of the rest. And once the courier does reach the vault, [[spoiler:barring certain glitches and tricks, there's no way to get most of the most valuable loot - the thirty-seven gold bars that finance the casino - out of the vault. This is intentional; the running theme of the [=DLC=] is that the hardest part of the Sierra Madre is letting go of it.]]
* ''Videogame/Yakuza0'' has the Empty Lot, a small piece of land that is potentially interfering with a renovation deal backed by the Dojima clan, with the primary goal of the various factions being finding the deed to the property so they can take control of the deal. Much to-do is made over the tragedy of so many people dying and suffering over an empty plot of land the size of a small apartment.

* ''Webcomic/DarkWings'' has the fabled lost city of Eryl, home of scholars/demons/angels/mages/insert-exalted-group-here, where they had everything and knew everything and yada yada yada.

* The Crystal Empire in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''. It's explicitly said to be able to invoke FisherKingdom on the rest of the world, and it also appears to be the main source of obscure magic in the series. So is it any wonder why [[SorcerousOverlord King Sombra's]] so obsessed with controlling the place in Season 3?

* In addition to the location of the titular treasure, the actual island of Raftel in ''Manga/OnePiece'' is also sought after, mainly due to the Rio Poneglyphs.

* In the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}}'s modded ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' [[Machinima/YogscastMinecraftSeries series]] ''LetsPlay/{{MoonQuest}}'', the idea is that they start from scratch and have to collect the resources to build a facility, equipment, and a rocket ship to travel to the Moon, with a space race going on between Team J.A.F.F.A (LetsPlay/LewisBrindley, LetsPlay/SimonLane and LetsPlay/DuncanJones) and Sipsco (LetsPlay/{{Sips}} and LetsPlay/{{Sjin}}). After 45 episodes of distractions, setbacks, misadventures, and general shenanigans, Team J.A.F.F.A finally send Simon to the Moon [[spoiler:and then have to build another rocket to go there again after he crashes and is stranded there]].

* ''Literature/TreasureIsland'' has its titular island. So, too, does its RecycledInSpace counterpart ''Disney/TreasurePlanet''.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Shinra's main motivation is to find the 'promised land'.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Crimestrikers}}'' episode seed "In Search of Ancient Secrets" [[PlayingWithATrope plays with this trope]]. The Unthinkable Archive is [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything a secret storehouse for art, literature and artifacts]] that have been considered dangerous by oppressive governments over the centuries. Created by a BenevolentConspiracy of artists, scholars and freethinkers who wanted to preserve the knowledge, the Archive's ever-changing location was lost to history until just recently. The story has the Crimestrikers helping to explore the Archive--and protect it from those who still seek to destroy it.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* Shinzo in, well, ''Anime/{{Shinzo}}.'' It's the last human city several centuries into the future, and ChosenOne Yakumo must reach it. In the original Japanese version it's called "Mushrambo", after the main character's [[FusionDance fusion form]]. Well, in the first season, it turns out [[spoiler: Shinzo is long since destroyed, wiped out by the original, evil Mushrambo, and there are no humans left.]] In season two, it is again the destination, but it turns out that [[spoiler: Shinzo is long since ''abandoned,'' because in the new revised timeline (an encounter with a time-controlling villain gave us Good Mushrambo vs. Bad Mushrambo, with the bad Mushrambo getting taken down before he could go back and finish off the last humans) humans and Enterrans have made peace and there's no need for a 'last refuge of humanity.']] Either way, "Shinzo the city full of the last humans" is [[spoiler: not a thing at all]], but the search for it is what makes everything happen!

[[folder: Film -- Animated ]]

[[folder: Film -- Live-Action ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode's eponymous "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia Utopia]]", a mysterious place out in the stars where humanity can supposedly outlive the end of the universe. [[spoiler: [[SarcasmMode That turned out well, didn't it?]]]]
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E15TheTroubleWithTribbles The Trouble with Tribbles]]", the Federation and the Klingon Empire are disputing the right to colonize Sherman's Planet. That's why the Enterpise receives a Priority One distress call to protect grain storage.

[[folder: Music]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Crimestrikers}}'' episode seed "In Search of Ancient Secrets" [[PlayingWithATrope plays with this trope]]. The Unthinkable Archive is [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything a secret storehouse for art, literature and artifacts]] that have been considered dangerous by oppressive governments over the centuries. Created by a BenevolentConspiracy of artists, scholars and freethinkers who wanted to preserve the knowledge, the Archive's ever-changing location was lost to history until just recently. The story has the Crimestrikers helping to explore the Archive--and protect it from those who still seek to destroy it.

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Web Original ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Religion ]]
* {{Heaven}} for Christians.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Truth In Television ]]

* A major strand of Music:TheKLF's mythology was their supposed quest to discover "The White Room".

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Crimestrikers}}'' episode seed "In Search of Ancient Secrets" [[PlayingWithATrope plays with this trope]]. The Unthinkable Archive is [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything a secret storehouse for art, literature and artifacts]] that have been considered dangerous by oppressive governments over the centuries. Created by a BenevolentConspiracy of artists, scholars and freethinkers who wanted to preserve the knowledge, the Archive's ever-changing location was lost to history until just recently. The story has the Crimestrikers helping to explore the Archive--and protect it from those who still seek to destroy it.

* In ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', the Federation and the Klingon Empire are disputing the right to colonize Sherman's Planet. That's why the Enterpise receives a Priority one distress call to protect grain storage.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode's eponymous ''Utopia''. [[spoiler: That turned out well, didn't it?]]