Dickens not only reveals character through gesture, he makes hands a crucial element of the plot, a means of clarifying the structure of the novel by helping to define the hero's relations with all the major characters, and a device for ordering such diverse themes as guilt, pursuit, crime, greed, education, materialism, enslavement ( by both people and institutions ), friendship, romantic love, forgiveness, and redemption.

Douglas Adams's 1982 science fiction comedy novel Life, the Universe and Everything – the third part of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series – features the urn containing the Ashes, as a significant element of its plot.

The ansible itself is a major plot element, nearly a MacGuffin in Moon's Vatta's War series.

Déjà Vu is also a recurring plot element on Fringe.

Déjà Vu is also a plot element in the episode " Mystery Spot " of the television series Supernatural where Sam Winchester wakes up in the same day as a result of being trapped in a time loop.

While many cases an alien language is but an element of fictional reality, in a number of science fiction works the core of the plot are linguistic and psychological problems of communication between various alien races.

* In his short story The Harbor Master, by Robert W. Chambers, the discovery and attempted recovery of the last known pair of Great Auks is central to the plot ( which also involves a proto-Lovecraftian element of suspense ).

* Gene therapy is a crucial plot element in the video game Metal Gear Solid, where it has been used to illegally enhance the battle capabilities of soldiers within the US military, and their Next Generation Special Forces units.

For example, P. Schuyler Miller called Arthur C. Clarke's 1961 novel A Fall of Moondust hard SF, and the designation remains valid even though a crucial plot element, the existence of deep pockets of " moondust " in lunar craters, is now known to be incorrect.

When it was pointed out to Niven that the Ringworld was dynamically unstable, in that once the center of rotation drifted away from the central sun, gravity would pull the ring into contact with the star, he used this as a plot element in the sequel novel, The Ringworld Engineers.

The two timelines were implicitly joined by Niven in the story A Relic of the Empire, in which the background elements of the Slaver civilization ( introduced in World of Ptavvs, from the Belter series ) was used as a plot element of a story in the faster-than-light setting.

* Daedalus's Labyrinth served as a central plot element in Rick Riordan's 2008 novel, The Battle of the Labyrinth.

One plot element shared by the comic and the show is Lex Luthor's problematic relationship with his wealthy father, Lionel.

* Matrix of Leadership, a Transformers plot element

* Matrix, a Neuromancer plot element

At some point on the plot, another character elaborates: " We have lost the element of surprise and they do not fear us.

It appeared already in Heinlein's Red Planet and is a major plot element in Greg Bear's Moving Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, and S. C. Sykes ' books.

The film shares the plot element of android-hunting bounty hunters with the book, as well as a distinctive visual aesthetic said to be reminiscent of Blade Runner.

The Sampo is a pivotal element of the plot of the Finnish epic poem Kalevala, compiled in 1835 ( and expanded in 1849 ) by Elias Lönnrot based on earlier Finnish oral tradition.

This includes rules based on economic systems that force players to negotiate the details of the story, and solve conflicts based on the importance that they give to a given plot element and the resources they're willing to spend to make it into the story.

This plays itself out over a second plot element, a thriller style story concerning the shadowy ' Big Six ' organization.

The suggestive elements were removed, several of the male characters were given more bishōnen —" beautiful boy "— appearances, and the plot element around the tarot cards were added.

According to Michael Jeck's DVD commentary, Seven Samurai was among the first films to use the now-common plot element of the recruiting and gathering of heroes into a team to accomplish a specific goal, a device used in later films such as The Guns of Navarone, Ocean's Eleven, The Dirty Dozen, and the western remake The Magnificent Seven.

His assassination is an element of the novel Crabwalk by the German writer Günter Grass with the plot based on the fate of the ship Wilhelm Gustloff.

The theory professes to explain why a subset of action movie fans are willing to accept the idea that, for example: The good guy can get away with shooting guns in public places ( without getting in trouble with the local law-enforcement himself ), never running out of ammunition ( Rambo movies ), or that cars will explode with a well-placed shot to the gas tank ( numerous action movies use this cliché / plot element ).

Finally, after having escaped another plot by killing the assailant sent by the king, Moses fled to Arabia, where he married the daughter of Raguel, the ruler of the district.

This change was necessary to support the plot change in which the killing of Kimble's wife was not a senseless murder by a transient during a botched robbery attempt ( as in the original series ) but rather the result of a fiendish plot by an evil drug company executive.

Dillard, includes as a major plot point the aftermath of T ' Pol killing a person during a mission.

Viewer dissatisfaction with the ending of Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato prompted the production of a second Yamato TV season which retconned the film and presented a slightly different plot against Zōdah ( Prince Zordar in the Star Blazers dub ) and his Comet Empire, and ended without killing off the Yamato or its primary characters.

She and her sister, Procne, plot to get revenge, by killing Itys ( son of Tereus and Procne ) and serving him to his father for dinner.

" Working from a translation of the First Folio text by Wolf Graf von Baudissin, Dürrenmatt altered much of the dialogue and changed elements of the plot ; the fly killing scene ( 3. 2 ) and the interrogation of Aaron ( 5. 1 ) were removed ; Titus has Aaron cut off his hand, and after he realises he has been tricked, Marcus brings Lavinia to him rather than the other way around as in the original play.

Moreover, The Patriot does not depict the American character Benjamin Martin as innocent of atrocities ; a key plot point revolves around the character Benjamin Martin's guilt over acts he engaged in, such as torturing, killing, and mutilating prisoners during the French and Indian War.

Whedon worked predominantly on the dialogue, but also created a few significant plot points, like the killing of Harry Temple.

" The plot failed the morning of the dance when a bomb under construction exploded at the group's Greenwich Village, New York townhouse, killing three members of the group.

Breen and William Wyler suggested to the MPAA Production Code Committee that the code be amended to allow the killing of police officers if it was absolutely necessary for the plot.

* In the novel Patriot Games and the eponymous film, terrorist Sean Miller is tried in the Old Bailey for the attempted kidnapping of the Prince & Princess of Wales ( which killed two guards ), and sentenced to life in prison after Jack Ryan's testimony ( Ryan foiled the plot by disabling Miller and killing another terrorist with Miller's gun ).

The main plot line, involving fictional characters, takes place in the following eighteen months ; only gradually does the reader understand its connection with the killing of the de Witt brothers.

Similar plot elements include killing off a main character early on, switching points of view, and dream-like sequences.

Grant supposedly confessed to the crime, saying the murder was part of a larger plot to seek revenge for the killing of Lee Morrison, a black individual from Helena who had been hanged on September 27, 1868.

There was one controversial issue during the Biafra war, the killing of some members of the July 1966 alleged coup plot and Major Victor Banjo.

Accompanied by his half-wolf Diefenbaker ( who adopted Fraser after saving his life, and is deaf, but can read lips ), the investigation leads Fraser to uncover a plot by a company building a dam that is slowly killing the environment.

In the short documentary Dangerous Games ( included with the PC version ), the producers and some members of the cast explain that the plot of the game was to in fact prevent the trapping and killing of women.

A false protagonist is presented at the start of the fictional work as the main character, but then is eradicated, often by killing them ( usually for shock value or as a plot twist ) or changed in terms of their role in the story ( i. e. making them a lesser character, a character who leaves the story, or revealing them to actually be the antagonist ).

Together with Liz, he uncovers the Nestene plot, just as Channing activates Autons across Britain which start killing people.

They then hatch a plot to double-cross her, but she turns the tables by killing Clay herself.

The plot fails, and Batman recovers before killing Black Mask.