WARNING: This thread is not explicitly intended to discuss Cold Days, and the OP will have no spoilers, but I can't make promises for the rest of the thread. Spoilers may slip through. Read at your risk, if you haven't read Cold Days.

For TL;DR, see bottom.

So the Peggy Sue is a popular fanfic trope in Harry Potter, but there hasn't really been any in Dresden fanfic, that I know of.

For those unfamiliar, a Peggy Sue plot is one where the character's mind goes back in time to their past body with their knowledge of the future.

There's some Dresden time travel, but not really any Peggy Sue. The thing about Dresden time travel is that it's rarely contained to just Dresden - often half the universe and their dogs are also fucking around with time, and Dresden is far from alone in his knowledge of the future.

A Peggy Sue Dresden would have a Dresden who was the only person aware of what had occurred.

Generally a Peggy Sue is a guilty pleasure: it's a fix-it fic, having the character go through life situations that had turned out poorly (or not optimally) in the past, waltzing through them, besting enemies who were once their superiors. They also tend to be quite rehash heavy, with only minor changes to end results being made, rather than changes to how the whole thing goes down.

However, I think the Dresden story has the potential for a Peggy Sue to be more than this. The power and number of Dresden's enemies mean that even if he went back to Storm Front with his Cold Days knowledge, he wouldn't be able to suck punch them.

In fact, even trying to think of how Dresden could turn his future knowledge to his advantage is mind boggling, beyond the fact that his skill with magic would be increased, and his ability to avoid some of his greatest errors. After 14 books the Dresden world is so complex that trying to imagine the knock on effects of one change is quite difficult. Yet fun - thus this thread.

On top of that difficulty, there are some things Dresden wouldn't be able to take back in time with him: powers like Soul fire, or the Winter Knight Mantle, or Lash, and obviously his various improved tools like those kinetic rings and his shield bracelet mk.2.

Further, there are perhaps some situations which Dresden survived the first time around by luck, or sheer dumb courage, that a more thinking Dresden who tries to plan everything would be less capable of handling.

Not to mention potentially negative knock-on effects of his changes. Imagine if he started displaying knowledge he shouldn't possess around Storm Front, when the White Council still actively suspected him.

So those are some great sources of conflict for a Peggy Sue Dresden, without having to bring in other time travelers. Personally I think the types of conflict mentioned above are more interesting than flooding the universe with time travelers. Time travelling might lift Harry up into the next weight class - but he's still far from the top!

But at the same time, much of the guilty pleasure you get from Peggy Sues could still be derived: we would still get to see Harry curb stomping those who once caused him great difficulty (either through his suddenly improved magical abilities, or just because he knows their plans and abilities).

TL,DR: there are so many variations of a Dresden Peggy Sue that could be interesting. I thought it would be fun to discuss them. Some questions to help us along:

1. What point in time would you have Harry travel from?

2. What point in time would you have Harry arrive in his own past?

3. What fun things would you have Harry do with his future knowledge?

4. What serious things would you have Harry do with his future knowledge?

5. What would be the knock on effects, both positive and negative, of Harry's changes?

 

The hardest part will be to make sure that Dresden doesn't change so much that his future information no longer applies. So I think a lot of it would be Dresden setting up situations that will improve the outcome, but still result in his future knowledge remaining relevant.

I think the most important part will just be the general information about the inner machinations of many of the organizations. He knows what the Reds are planning to do. Perhaps he'll make sure to wear a rubber he's with Susan. He knows secrets about the faerie courts, the outer gates. He knows when and how some people are going to strike. And he finally knows how all the events are interconnected with the Big Bad, and a large part of the plot will probably be fighting against that.

I think the best part would be the ability to troll Murphy, especially in the beginning. The first two books are the worst, and Murphy is a large part of that I think. She's unbearable.

 

To be fair, between asking Uriel for help and signing up with Mab is a pretty damn solid place to put a "desperate gambit to go back in time". He's in a fucked up place and one could easily imagine time-travel being more appealing to Dresden than signing up with Mab. Maybe have Uriel drop a hint about doing it or something as the change point. In my head, Dresden tries it, and aims for about a year previous, but loses control/can't aim it and ends up somewhere in Storm Front or Fool Moon.

 

One really weird thing that could happen is that..... Harry travelled back in time and in fact..... he is Cowl.

1. Never reveals his face. In fact, not even his real voice.
2. Crazily powerful. And Crazy.
3. Thinks that the Council are a bunch of tools.
4. Works with the Outsiders (Harry is said to be able to exert his power over Outsiders).
5. Seems to know alot about the Council.
6. Never faces the Council overtly (time travelers need to have a light touch with their interference).
7. Called Kemmler a madman, and it was never explicitly mentioned that Cowl was indeed one of his students. And he went around burning copies of Kemmler's books; what was never explained was why. Would also explain why Cowl knew about Bob. Performing the Darkhallow because he is 'the right madman for the job'? Sounds like something Harry would do, if he went crazy enough.

8. Imagine the tribute paid to Star Wars when Cowl and Harry meet, and Cowl lowers his hood. "I am your father........ Nah. I'm you, you idiot."

Not to mention how incredibly Sands of Time it would be to be fighting an evil you knew nothing about, only to realise a few decades later that you were fighting yourself from the future. Also explains to date why Cowl never did kill Harry when he first met him (I'm pretty sure Cowl could've taken the werewolves and Harry at that point of time), and several other occasions. Sure, he appeared to try to kill Harry on several occasions (but there's a few niggling points, i.e. during the Darkhallow where Harry was knocked unconscious and Cowl was no where to be seen - we know that Cowl survived, so there was every possibility that he defended himself against the supernatural backlash and remained conscious and mobile enough to go off. How hard was it walk over to Dresden's unconscious form and cut his throat? But it didn't happen.)

 

Right, but that wouldn't be a Peggy Sue, as it wouldn't be his mind travelling back to his own younger body.

 

1. Travel from...
In terms of an opportunity for time travel to drop into the universe, I would think Changes would be a good time. When all seems lost Harry tries to literally fix all his mistakes.

But I'm also partial to the idea of Harry trying to step to the Never-never from Demonreach and the genius acting to save him by flicking him around in time. And whoever said the Never-never could only mess with the speed of time passing, and not the direction as well?

2. Arrive at...
No idea.

3. Fun things to do...
Harry has always had a mischievous streak, and he would love to play the enigmatic wizardly knowledge card, telling people their own secrets, that sort of thing.

I would also love it if Rashid was still more enigmatic than Harry.

4. Serious things to do...
See, the clearest motivation I can imagine for Harry time travelling is Susan and Maggie both dying at Chichen Itza. All gone to Hell, Harry sold himself for nothing, he has to fix it all. But if he travels back before Maggie was conceived he runs the risk of her never existing at all - and could he still date Susan, with the recent memory of cutting her throat?

A peggy sue would give Harry the jump on the Red Court, but he might not think it a war worth fighting. It only ended because of a fortunate combination of events (though I suspect many of them were planned by various people). And it left a gaping power vacuum which caused chaos all across the world. Maybe Harry instead tries to c-opt the Reds as reluctant allies against the Black Council - hilariously, they would be more likely to trust his evidence than the White Council.

5. Knock on effects...
Well, Molly might have a much less stressful life. It would probably work out about even, really - Harry might be much more effective in dealing with his enemies but would he be as motivated to find allies as he was the first time around? It was his connections with others that saw him through more than his own strength.

 

Well, I've already posted a first chapter of one in WBA. I've written a lot of it (more than 30,000 words), but I still need to edit into to something readable. For what it's worth, it's definitely not a fix-it fic.

 

1. What point in time would you have Harry travel from?

The Apocalypse Trilogy. After the good guys lost. So I can make up some of his knowledge.

2. What point in time would you have Harry arrive in his own past?

Somewhere before Changes or Turncoat. What I like about DF is Harry's relationships with other people and I don't really want some of them to start from the beginning. Especially when most often than not it was specific events that created them that probably wouldn't go the same way.

3. What fun things would you have Harry do with his future knowledge?

Definitely teasing Mab about taking the Winder Mantle. Or Eb about being "like grandfather" to him.

4. What serious things would you have Harry do with his future knowledge?

Prepare quick and precise attack on all his enemies when they are not expecting it.

5. What would be the knock on effects, both positive and negative, of Harry's changes?

Depending. If his attack is a success then most changes would be positive. If it's not then he would probably start the Apocalypse a little earlier.

 

I would like to see him to tell Murphy to get the fuck over herself in Storm Front or Fool Moon.

I'm not sure how well this kind of theme would work with the Dresden Files, though. Harry Potter has far few intricate plot things that you'd need to weave through.

You know that, in the end, Harry is going to be fighting Voldemort to the death. In Dresden, we don't even know who the hell the enemy is yet.

 

I tend to always come up with Peggy Sue ideas to most of the pieces of fiction I end up reading/watching as a guilty pleasure. But for some reason I never really did this much for Dresden Files.

I think it's partly because Dresden from the earlier books still manages to pull off badassery in any situation he is in. Sure, in most encounters he would bemoan how out of his league he was, but in the end he always manages to pull something out of his arse and win the day through skill and power. Dresden from latter books could definitely go through those situations a lot easier, skip all the detective work for each plotline and save a few more people, but I just can't seem to get excited over that.

Compare that to a story like Harry Potter, where you would love to see a badass future Harry deal with situations where he really was completely helpless and saved by dumb luck.

 

That's because Detective Dresden figuring shit out is almost as good as Badass Dresden mantling up to kill some fuckers.

 

Pretty much. I have a hard time seeing Peggy Sue's work for the Dresden Files because a lot of the best parts of the DF are it's mysteries--and it's the Nature of mysteries that they stop being ones after they're solved and, in this case, take pretty much all the conflict with them. Let's do a play-by-play.

Storm Front: The bad guy is Victor Sells. Harry would know this, have time to prep for it, and can take him easily with that prep, so he rolls down to Vic's location and smacks him around. The End.

Fool Moon: It's the Fucking Feds, man. He knows this, they don't know he knows this, he can deal with them/tell Murphy/tell Marcone, done.

Grave Peril: The Nightmare is Kravos, so Harry summons him up and destroys him. Bianca was behind it all, so Harry kills her.

Summer Knight: It was Aurora.

Repeat as needed. Conflict pretty much evaporates with Harry having foreknowledge.

 

The only way it would be doable is if Harry solves the issue, goes for a cup of coffee and a donut, only to realise that things have gone even more down the drain as a consequence of his meddling. Then you take it from there.

 

Hehe. Donut.


But seriously, knowledge is power, as we are often reminded. Half the fun of the series is that Harry never figures things out until it's too late, or just barely in time. If he was ahead of the curve, the books would be 50 pages long and dull as shit; it would be the Dresden Files equivalent of a bad overpowered!Harry story.

I agree with Zeelthor - there would have to be another source of conflict in the story if Harry did this sort of time-travel - he could easily fix the problem he was facing the first time around, but he'd have to be confronted with another problem, or else the story would simply be a fixfic and those suck.

 

A scooby doo reference would have to be made. Cold Days spoilers below.
------------------

God help me. I stood back in my old apartment. Soft rugs under my feet, Leia wrapped around Luke's leg on my old Starwars poster, and the most comfortable second hand couch inconsistent detective work could buy. I damn near shed a tear.

I was home.

Fifteen years in the past, but hey. Home is where the heart is.

Or should it be 'was'? I mean, being in the past and all. Sure. We'll go with that. Home is where the heart was.

I collapsed on the old couch and put my feet up. Sure enough, I had hardly kicked my considerably less worn dogs up before my two ton cat, Mister, canon balled onto my stomach where he began kneading with his razor sharp claws.

"Mouse!" I called.

He didn't come, which was odd.

I blinked. No duh Sherlock. Of course he didn't come. I'd traveled to a time before my power-pup. The apartment felt emptier than I remembered without him.

So maybe it wasn't quite home, but it was close and it was better than my digs in the Winter Court. Speaking of which...

I could not- would not, really, let Molly become the Winter Lady. I fought the corruption of the Knights mantle daily. Molly, with darkness already in her soul, wouldn't have a fighting chance against the nature of the Winter Lady. Maeve had shown herself to be a jealous and desperate creature in the end, and I feared there was more than enough of that in my padawan to make her Maeve 2.0.

But that's why I'd come to the past anyway. To fix my mistakes, to save the ones I loved and the ones that didn't deserve to die in the first place. I was told that events that have happened have a strong tendency to keep happening, but I'm Harry Dresden (Wizard for hire again, folks, back in the yellow pages!) and I have never played by the rules.

I was a one man Scooby Doo Detective Agency, and zoinks gang, I'm about to unmask every son of a bitch this side of reality.

 

There are few books where it doesn't happen though. Like Dead Beat. Doesn't matter that he knows what they want, he still needs to stop them. And the Kemmlerites make a good enemies even for more powerful and experienced Harry.

That said, you take Harry back in time and you need a new mystery for him. Maybe something that he would need many years to solve, doing a secret mission that no one else would know about. His friends would only know that he sometimes disappears for few days or weeks, but is always back when needed.

At the same time the old plots could work as amusing interruptions with Dresden effortlessly solving the problems to the surprise of his allies and enemies alike. No butterfly effect involved, so everything mostly happens as it did with some details changed.

 

Not really. He knows where the Word is, can fetch it easily, and put an end to everything that way as long as he remembers to hide Bob, which is also easy, since he can just put him in the Nevernever again. Also, he knows which book the thing about the Erlking are in, so he can just buy and burn them, or else summon Erl in a place that isn't right out in the open.