In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.
In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.
I don’t really think so, the whole plotline revolves around magic and it’s use highly influences the story. “Evil wizard wants to rule the world” is ultimately the driving plot force in HP and he’s definitely not a macguffin since he leads a death cult overthrow of the government and murders people all over the place.
Like the other commenter referenced, think of the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Much of the action occurs as a direct result of people trying to get or keep the briefcase, but we never even find out what’s actually in it. The real story is about the characters and the things that happen to them. The climax of the movie isn’t someone getting whatever was in the briefcase out and using it just in time to stop the city blowing up or something, y’know?
I don’t think you’re wrong at all, but I would pick at it a little, because it’s more the definition of macguffin that’s problematic for me than the role of magic in HP. This is more a thought experiment to push at the boundaries of what a macguffin is.
AFAIK, JKR hasn’t explained how magic actually works in any way. It could be that aliens with super advanced technology came to earth thousands of years ago and mingled with the local population, thereby losing the knowledge of how their technology actually works. Today’s “wizards” are people with a sufficient proportion of alien heritage for the technology to recognize them, but because they have no real understanding of it, they call it magic.
I feel like this also applies to HP/*, because the whole plot revolves around magic, how to learn and use it, but we don’t actually know what it is. There’s even a concrete aspect of some magic use (flying, patronus casting, and unforgivable curses, for example) wherein the caster’s emotions, intentions, and beliefs are required for it to work. There’s also the choice between Harry and Neville that Voldemort makes, which is entirely internal to him, and drives the story forward because of Voldemorts own beliefs.
I do see how the characters literally do get things out of magic, but magic or certain types thereof (I’m thinking about Harry’s
Tap for spoiler
quasi death
in the final showdown, but I might be misremembering) is sometimes just the end goal in itself.
/*I swear I’m being earnest, but I feel guilty about not just accepting the answer that I can conceptualize and know is right. Normally I would just compartmentalize a little bit between my internal understanding of things and the accepted definition, but I also really enjoy this type of discussion and I already gave the autistic disclaimer, lol.
Honestly, I’m sure you’re right, like anything with art, it’s very subjective and situational. Comparing the magic system in HP with that of the Mistborn books for example, yeah the MB system is so thoroughly thought-out, explained, and justified, but it’s just kind of a given in the HP world and what rules governing its use that aren’t arbitrary are absent entirely.
Ultimately, like any creative meta-analysis, it’s easy to get bogged down in these broad, abstract terms and trying determine what they do and do not apply to, and this topic seems especially boggy. I’ve been on this wiki page recently doing this same thing and it’s easy (for me anyway) to start thinking everything is a macguffin. I try to bring it back to obvious examples like Pulp Fiction and the Maltese Falcon that make sense to me. As for magic in HP, I think it’s just too integrated into the universe to be really applicable, it’s practically more setting than plot. But I totally see your point.
I think a big part of a macguffin is the thing’s unimportance. Reading the definition again, it mentions events, which leads me to remember a buddy and I trying to explain Simpsons episode plots that the other hadn’t seen. Idk about now, I haven’t watched it in almost 20 years, but back then, it felt like more than half the episode was almost random events that all eventually lead to the real crux of the story. It’s like instead of subplots, they had pre-plots. But the initial events would be so far removed from the events of the main plot that it was almost hard to describe the storyline to someone without doubting your own memory of the show. I’d say those “pre-plots” were layers of macguffins to get to the juice of the episodes, which could then themselves potentially be macguffiny in their own right, lol. Idk, it’s one of those things that just gets harder to talk about the more I think about it haha.
And no guilt necessary friend! I’m also really enjoying the discussion, and what good is frivolous metaphorical jargon like this if you can’t have vague, confused “arguments” on online forums with strangers about it like these?
I’d say there are different classes of MacGuffin. Some are actually more important and notable in themselves, like the Holy Grail. The One Ring is not really a MacGuffin because it has character in itself. Mount Doom in some ways is the actual MacGuffin. In Mission Impossible 3 they are chasing this thing called the Rabbit’s Foot, but the movie never actually explains what it is (it’s classified)! In the newer movies they retcon it to be more important. The Infinity Stones are MacGuffins uniting multiple movies’ storylines together. The MacGuffin moniker can be pejorative, but it’s also part of the reductive aspect of storytelling. We only have so many ways to tell stories.