History Main / PeggySue

* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8441755/1/NGE-Mitigation NGE: Mitigation]]'' by Fourth Impact shows Gendo is CrazyPrepared for everything... including possible time-travelers. However, when he is alerted someone has indeed come back from the future, and that person is beginning to influence his scenario, he has the identity of the traveler quite wrong.

* ''FanFic/DazedAndConfused'' by [=SeptimusMagisto=] takes this in a really interesting direction. Shinji gets a chance to go back in time to undo past mistakes, but finds himself in a world where everyone is acting different than what he remembers. Rei is friendly, sociable, and actually does things such as shop for clothes and decorate her room. His father still seems to have an agenda, but is also making great efforts to reach out and connect with him. Asuka, menwhile, seems to be even more messed up than she was in cannon. Oh, and the angels are acting different too. It gradually becomes more and more apparent that Shinji was not the only one who went back in time. [[spoiler: Actually, every freaking character with a name went back in time (yes, even minor ones). Where things get really interesting is when it's reveled that fic crosses over with AU's. Everyone is a time-traveler, but they're not from the same timelines! Shinji is from the Canon universe, but this Asuka came from a timeline where things went]] '''''[[spoiler: horribly]]''''' [[spoiler: wrong. In contrast, Rei came from a LighterAndSofter, almost shojo-like universe where things were much happier. Hikari is reviled to have been the First Child in her universe, while Touji and Kensuke came from similar universes where they both became Eva pilots. The key similarity in all these universes is that the Third Impact eventually happened (albet for different reasons; in Asuka's the Angels won the war; Rei's, Shinji triggered it unintentionally, similar to what happened at the end of Rebuild 2.0; Kensuke's TI was triggered by SEELE, etc.), and everyone expressed a wish to go back and gain a second chance. It also appears that the Angels were also subject to this time travel as well. OhCrap.]]

* In ''WapsiSquare,'' [[spoiler:Jin]] has already gone through the entire plot and failed [[spoiler:thousands of times]].

* The song "I Know Now" from ''Snoopy!!! The Musical'' features Lucy, Sally and Peppermint Patty singing about how much better their lives would be if they had grown up already knowing the things that they'd learned throughout childhood.

* [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/1377508/chapters/2882386 Vapors]] is a ''Self Insert'' Peggy Sue where a normal teenage girl is reincarnated into the body of Uzumaki Aiko, the twin sister of ''Naruto'' as a baby, complete with memories of the canon plot. Things slowly [[ButterflyEffect butterfly]] from there, with Aiko [[spoiler: becoming the apprentice of Hatake Kakashi and an eventual S-Class Ninja]]. Character and plot development are uniformly excellent amongst both the main and side characters, without overpowering anyone.

* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5422982/1/Time_Paradox Time Paradox]]'' is a FinalFantasy fic where Cloud, one he gets his life sorted out, gets sent back in time against his will and placed in an alternate reality where everyone else is either a Cloudcuckoolander, TheWonka, AxCrazy, AttentionDeficitOohShiny, CrazyAwesome, and... okay, summary: Cloud Strife is the OnlySaneMan and a Peggy Sue to a universe that he really isn't bothered about changing the fate of. HilarityEnsues.

[[AC:Anime & Manga]]
* ''[[http://Loopy777.deviantart.com/art/The-Chosen-183958450 The Chosen]]'' is an '''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' fanfic that features three twists on the basic Peggy Sue premise. First, it's [[BigBad Ozai]] who gets to go back in time following his defeat at the hands of Avatar Aang. Second, Ozai lives over his entire [[GroundhogDayLoop lifetime from age 15 onward multiple times]], totaling several hundred years ''at the least''. Third, the canon timeline is the last and final loop Ozai ever experiences.

* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3417335/1/Martian_Manhunter Martian Manhunter]]'' is a ''VeronicaMars''[=/=]''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' fusion in which a college-age Veronica is inserted into the Buffyverse as a high school student along with enough of her surroundings to make her past make sense. Only the ''VeronicaMars'' half of it is a Peggy Sue in the strict sense, but the ''Buffy'' half often functions in much the same way, as Veronica's a fan...

* In the ''StarWars'' fic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3054756/1/Shadows_of_the_Future Shadows of the Future]]'', Obi-Wan is killed by Anakin at [[RevengeOfTheSith Mustafar]]. The Force then [[MentalTimeTravel sends him back]] to when they first met during the [[StarWarsThePhantomMenace Naboo crisis]] 13 years earlier and works to connect with Anakin better this time, becoming more of a cool BigBrotherMentor rather than the cold and aloof one he was before. Well, after he's done spending the first few chapters thinking he's been captured by the enemy or has gone insane.

* Yet another straight up and well written example is ''Fanfic/Higher Learning'' by Strike Fiss, although the Peggy Sue is not immediately apparent. It has his own tropes page now.

* Yet another straight up and well written example is ''[[http://www.darkscribes.org/site/story.php?story=390 Higher Learning]]'' by Strike Fiss, although the Peggy Sue is not immediately apparent.

* The ''Series/TwilightZone'' episode ''Static'' ends with one. Throughout the episode a bitter, regretful, lonely old man deals with an old radio that seems to pick up broadcasts from twenty years in the past. At the end, the radio has somehow transported him back into his past self, giving him a chance to start over.

* Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''After the Fact'' has the main character taught to use his ''natural talent'' for this in a plan to secretly rescue AbrahamLincoln from his assassination. It comes in handy that, any time things go wrong, he can reset to a few minutes back and try again. The scene where he accidentally prevents the killing altogether becomes a CMOA for the president, who with a moment's warning singlehandedly clobbers John Wilkes Booth. Unfortunately, that has to be reset, too, since the idea is to rescue Lincoln while still having him ''appear'' to be assassinated.

* ''[[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/dazed-and-confused-nge-peggy-sue-fic.202374/ Dazed And Confused]]'' by [=SeptimusMagisto=] takes this in a really interesting direction. Shinji gets a chance to go back in time to undo past mistakes, but finds himself in a world where everyone is acting different than what he remembers. Rei is friendly, sociable, and actually does things such as shop for clothes and decorate her room. His father still seems to have an agenda, but is also making great efforts to reach out and connect with him. Asuka, menwhile, seems to be even more messed up than she was in cannon. Oh, and the angels are acting different too. It gradually becomes more and more apparent that Shinji was not the only one who went back in time. [[spoiler: Actually, every freaking character with a name went back in time (yes, even minor ones). Where things get really interesting is when it's reveled that fic crosses over with AU's. Everyone is a time-traveler, but they're not from the same timelines! Shinji is from the Canon universe, but this Asuka came from a timeline where things went]] '''''[[spoiler: horribly]]''''' [[spoiler: wrong. In contrast, Rei came from a LighterAndSofter, almost shojo-like universe where things were much happier. Hikari is reviled to have been the First Child in her universe, while Touji and Kensuke came from similar universes where they both became Eva pilots. The key similarity in all these universes is that the Third Impact eventually happened (albet for different reasons; in Asuka's the Angels won the war; Rei's, Shinji triggered it unintentionally, similar to what happened at the end of Rebuild 2.0; Kensuke's TI was triggered by SEELE, etc.), and everyone expressed a wish to go back and gain a second chance. It also appears that the Angels were also subject to this time travel as well. OhCrap.]]

* ''[[http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-30444/ChefJackButler+Vintage+Season.htm Vintage Season]]'' is one of the very few ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer''-based PeggySue stories to feature Dawn as the time traveler. She makes a deal with [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils D'Hoffryn]] as a means to seek vengeance against the [[EldritchAbomination First Evil]] by going back in time to prevent its schemes from coming to fruition.

* ''Film/LolaRennt'' has elements of this: the first time she runs through the day, she can't use a gun and doesn't know where the safety catch is. The second time, she flicks it off with practiced precision.
** Oddly for this sort of plot, it may extend to other characters. The security guard at the bank seems aware of the loop by the third iteration.
*** Which possibly makes sense if you consider the theory that he is the biological father of Lola, who is described as a "cuckoo's egg" (i.e., either adopted or the result of infidelity) earlier in the movie.

* ''TheButterflyEffect'' is a variation on the trope, which also deconstructs the hell out of the concept.
** Also suffers from serious FridgeLogic, due to the main character's GenreBlindness.

* Scott does this in ''ScottPilgrimVersusTheWorld'' [[spoiler:after Gideon kills him but it turns out Scott has an extra life. In the original comic, Scott just came back to life, but in the movie, he essentially started over at the beginning of the last level so he could use his prior knowledge of what happens in order to be generally awesome.]]

* This was the ending to ''MightyMax''. The finale reveals that the events of the entire series are part of a time loop, and the episode ends with Max waking up in bed [[HereWeGoAgain the day the adventure began]]... only ''this'' time, he has all the knowledge of the previous loop, and is determined to finish the BigBad for good.
* [[spoiler: Especially since, during the finale, he screwed up royally...]]

* ''{{Disney/Cinderella}} 3: A Twist in Time'' contains a rare evil example. Lady Tremaine, the evil stepmother, steals the {{Fairy Godmother}}'s magic wand and uses it to undo the last year of Cinderella's life.
* Almost every episode of CodeLyoko ends this way. At least until they find out that pushing the reset button makes the BigBad a little more powerful every time they do it.

* The pornographic film ''The Devil and Mrs. Jones''. [[{{Satan}} The Devil]] allows Mrs. Jones to go back and live life as a slut, no repercussions since she's dead already. She ends up in Purgatory, always on the verge of, but never able to, come.

Compare and contrast YetAnotherChristmasCarol, FreakyFridayFlip, OvernightAgeUp. May resolve as a CloseEnoughTimeline. Also, see AllJustADream, for which this trope is often played as a resolution.

* The ending of ''Hero in the Shadows'' (''Waylander'' sub-series) by DavidGemmell. [[spoiler:Shortly before dying Waylander goes back two decades before the first novel to prevent robbers from murdering his family. Which turned an ordinary military officer into an unstoppable AntiHero assassin in the first place.]]
* Subverted rather brutally in {{Kurt Vonnegut}}'s ''Timequake,'' in which the entire population of the Earth is suddenly thrown ten years into the past, with full knowledge of what would happen over that decade... But without any free will: People find that they have no choice but to replay past events exactly as they happened the first time around, with the full knowledge of each disastrous mistake they are committing.

* Has a [[FanficRecs/HarryPotterPeggySueFics FanficRecs page]].

* Has a [[FanficRecs/NeonGenesisEvangelionPeggySueFics FanficRecs page]].

* Done to death in the ''Evangelion'' fandom, to the point where it's become an [[EpilepticTrees Epileptic Tree]] for the ''Rebuild of Evangelion'' movies. Considering the original End of Eva basically tore a hole in the fabric of reality, the possibility of that happening is the least surprising.

Noting the above, it needs to be reiterated: this is ''not'' a sister trope to MarySue, despite the name (and yes, [[MarySueTropes the Sue index]] causes some confusion here, we know). In the hands of a ''poor'' writer, the character can gain MarySue-like traits (knowing exactly how everything will happen and thus managing to get a "perfect" result from every scenario, etc) but generally the two do not intersect -- if anything the experience is often unpleasant for the character in question. The original Peggy Sue was disoriented and frightened by her experience, for example. May result in a CloseEnoughTimeline.

Compare GroundhogDayLoop, in which the MentalTimeTravel is a repeating short-term loop; for loops which repeat but which are nevertheless on the same scale as a Peggy Sue, see GroundhogPeggySue. The video game equivalents are SaveScumming, where the player intentionally loads an earlier save after having gained the knowledge of what is going to happen in the future, and NewGamePlus, where the player's character itself retains stats and equipment from a previous playthrough. For characters unexpectedly facing a ''literal'' NewGamePlus, see SuddenGameInterface. Also, see AllJustADream, for which this trope is often played as a resolution. For fanfiction, this trope can follow TheStationsOfTheCanon.

Compare and contrast YetAnotherChristmasCarol, FreakyFridayFlip, OvernightAgeUp.

Noting the above, it needs to be reiterated: this is ''not'' a sister trope to MarySue, despite the name (and yes, [[MarySueTropes the Sue index]] causes some confusion here, we know). In the hands of a ''poor'' writer, the character can gain MarySue-like traits (knowing exactly how everything will happen and thus managing to get a "perfect" result from every scenario, etc) but generally the two do not intersect -- if anything the experience is often unpleasant for the character in question. The original Peggy Sue was disoriented and frightened by her experience, for example.

Compare GroundhogDayLoop, in which the MentalTimeTravel is a repeating short-term loop; for loops which repeat but which are nevertheless on the same scale as a Peggy Sue, see GroundhogPeggySue. The video game equivalents are SaveScumming, where the player intentionally loads an earlier save after having gained the knowledge of what is going to happen in the future, and NewGamePlus, where the player's character itself retains stats and equipment from a previous playthrough. For characters unexpectedly facing a ''literal'' NewGamePlus, see SuddenGameInterface. Also, see AllJustADream and CloseEnoughTimeline, for which this trope is often played as a resolution. For fanfiction, this trope can follow TheStationsOfTheCanon.

Compare GroundhogDayLoop, in which the MentalTimeTravel is a repeating short-term loop; for loops which repeat but which are nevertheless on the same scale as a Peggy Sue, see GroundhogPeggySue. The video game equivalents are SaveScumming, where the player intentionally loads an earlier save after having gained the knowledge of what is going to happen in the future, and NewGamePlus, where the player's character itself retains stats and equipment from a previous playthrough. For characters unexpectedly facing a ''literal'' NewGamePlus, see SuddenGameInterface. Also, see AllJustADream, for which this trope is often played as a resolution. For fanfiction, this trope can follow TheStationsOfTheCanon.