History Main / PeggySue

* This is a staple of several series from Tappytoons, a KoreanWebtoons publisher. "Doctor Elise" and "The Abandoned Empress" are two of the most popular examples. Another good one is "[[https://365manga.com/manga/lady-baby/ Lady Baby]]".

* In the title story of StrangeHighways, Joey returns to a crossroads where one of the roads, destroyed 20 years before, is there again. He realizes he's been sent back twenty years to try and 1) Prevent a serial killer from going on a rampage and 2) Grow a backbone and take responsibility for his life. At both of these, he soon excels.

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* Discussed in the song "I Know Now" from ''[[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} Snoopy!!! The Musical]]', which 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.

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* The Manhwa ''Manhwa/SkeletonSoldierCouldntProtectTheDungeon'' uses this trope as the foundation of its plot. The loop lasts until the skeleton dies and when he manages to get through certain events, things can be changed upon his return.

* ''WesternAnimation/CinderellaIIIATwistInTime'' 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, brainwashing the Prince into believing that he fell in love with Anastasia instead. [[spoiler:And she might have gotten away with it if it weren't for Anastasia pulling a HeelFaceTurn; Lady Tremaine and Drizella only wanted power and fortune, but Anastasia wanted true love, which not even magic could grant her]].

* ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'': Almost every episode ends with the heroes using the [[ResetButton Return To The Past program]] to erase the damage from [[BigBad XANA's]] latest scheme. They use it more sparingly after learning in Season 2's "A Great Day" that every reset makes XANA a little stronger. Played hilariously in that episode when XANA hijacks the program, so the kids live three different loops before they figure out how to regain control...meaning dedicated slacker Odd gets to look ''brilliant'' in front of his science class by remembering what was taught before.

** ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'' does this in the arc based on ''Gaim'', near the end of the show's first quarter. Sougo in the first loop ''did'' successfully beat the MonsterOfTheWeek, but he learned all the wrong moral lessons from the way he did it the first time, continuing his path to becoming the EvilOverlord of the future. Gaim uses his own power overtime to send Sougo back and push him to try again, kicking off the events of the entire rest of the series with the resulting butterfly effect.

* ''WesternAnimation/CinderellaIIIATwistInTime'' 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.

* A downplayed version at the end of ''Film/ThirteenGoingOnThirty'': [[spoiler: When Jenna returns to her 13-year-old body in 1987, after spending the movie in her 30-year-old body in 2004, she uses the knowledge to fix things with Matt and dump the [[AlphaBitch mean girls]] she once wanted to be friends with. A FlashForward back to 2004 shows she and Matt married in the new timeline created from these choices. Downplayed, because 13-year-old Jenna isn't fixing choices she consciously made, only [[FutureMeScaresMe ones she learned about after the fact]].]]
* ''Film/{{Jumanji}}'' when Alan reaches the centre of the Game Board and finishes the game. [[spoiler:Both he and Sarah are transported back to the night Alan was originally trapped within the game; while retaining all of their memories and allowing them to improve their own futures, their families futures and averting the deaths of Judy and Peter's Parents.]]

* A Downplayed version at the end of Film/ThirteenGoingOnThirty: [[spoiler: When Jenna returns to her 13-year-old body in 1987, after spending the movie in her 30-year-old body in 2004, she uses the knowledge to fix things with Matt and dump the [[AlphaBitch mean girls]] she once wanted to be friends with. A FlashForward back to 2004 shows she and Matt married in the new timeline.]]

* In ''[[Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical A Very Potter Sequel]]'', Lucius Malfoy and the Death Eaters use a Time Turner to go back to this universe's version of Harry Potter's first year, in order to kill him before he has the chance to kill Voldemort at the end of ''A Very Potter Musical''. This justifies the prequel nature of the story. [[spoiler: It later turns out the redeemed Draco Malfoy hitched a ride with his father and has been orchestrating events behind the scenes to stop his father's plan from succeeding, ending in a stable time loop.]]
** [[spoiler: He ''also'' takes the opportunity to try to derail Ron's relationship with Hermione before it can begin, and to confess his own feelings for her. However, Hermione turns him down, leading to the implication that she knew of Draco's feelings throughout the entirety of ''A Very Potter Musical'' and never acknowledged them]].

* In ''[[Film/TheSandlot The Sandlot: Heading Home]]'', a direct-to-video sequel of ''The Sandlot'', arrogant disloyal pro-baseball star Tommy Santorelli gets knocked out during a practice in 2007 and wakes up in 1976 as his 13-year-old self, playing with the ragtag Sandlot baseball team. He originally intends just to spend more time with his dying mother, but relearns humility and ThePowerOfFriendship from his childhood friends. Because of this, and him teaching some of his pro-baseball skills to the team, he helps lead them to victory against the rival little league team instead of switching sides, as he did in the original timeline.

* In ''[[Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical A Very Potter Sequel]]'', Lucius Malfoy and the Death Eaters use a Time Turner to go back to Harry Potter's first year in order to kill him before he has the chance to kill Voldemort at the end of ''A Very Potter Musical''. This justifies the prequel nature of the story. [[spoiler: It later turns out the redeemed Draco Malfoy hitched a ride with his father and has been orchestrating events behind the scenes to stop his father's plan from succeeding, ending in a stable time loop.]]

* In ''[[Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical A Very Potter Sequel]]'', Lucius Malfoy and the Death Eaters use a Time Turner to go back to Harry Potter's first year in order to kill him before he has the chance to kill Voldemort at the end of ''A Very Potter Musical''. This justifies the prequel nature of the story. [[spoiler: It later turns out the redeemed Draco Malfoy hitched a ride with his father and has been orchestrating events behind the scenes to stop his father's plan from succeeding, ending in a stable time loop]].

* The song "I Know Now" from ''[[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} 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.

* This is a fairly popular plot for sex fiction, as it dovetails easily with an {{escapist}} MarySue fantasy of a protagonist who can't get it wrong. However, the TropePopularizer within erotica, Al Steiner's "Doing It All Over Again," is anything but escapist, instead featuring an existential meditation on what happens if you go back to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong in a world where YouCantFightFate. (As is so often the case with a popular story archetype, FollowTheLeader writers [[IgnoredAesop Ignored The Aesop]].)

* The tomb of Ludo Kressh in the second ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' gives Jedi Exile visions of past events, but the shades openly lampshade the concept -- knowing what you do now, would you make the same choices? Can you live with the choices you made in the first place? The Light Side option is usually to say you regret them, which may be a BrokenAesop, although you can say that joining the Mandalorian Wars against the orders of the Jedi Council was the right call and unlike literally every other Jedi that went, the Exile actually returned without falling to the Dark Side as the Light Side options for both KOTOR games are canon for ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''. As such, after saying that joining the war was the right call, you can reject Force Vision!Malak to join him in becoming Sith just like the Exile actually did.

'''[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] MarySue'''(which is FlameBait), a Peggy Sue fic gives a character, usually at the end of a story or series, the chance to [[MentalTimeTravel go back and relive her/his life]] with the knowledge he gained from living through his story the first time. This sometimes uses a DeathFic-type setup as a starting point, where one of the things the character intends to do with his knowledge is [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong prevent the death of a loved one -- or themselves.]]

* In ''Anime/KonpekiNoKantai'', when Isoroku Yamamoto's plane is shot down in 1943 he wakes up in 1905 in on the cruiser Nisshin just after the Battle of Tsushima and he uses his knowledge to prevent Japan making the mistakes it made.

* The ''Manga/DragonBall'' spin-off ''Manga/DragonBallThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsYamcha'' combines this with an unintentional SelfInsertFic. An OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent from the real world falls down a set of stairs and wakes up in the body of Yamcha. At first he's excited at the prospect of dating Bulma, but when he remembers Yamcha's ignoble death during ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', he resolves to train and use his knowledge of ''Franchise/DragonBall'' canon to do things better than the original Yamcha[[note]]He also gives up on Bulma because he realizes how important Trunks is to the overall storyline[[/note]]. [[spoiler:He does well enough, but by the time Cell shows up he realizes that he won't be able to keep up any longer. In the end, the whole thing turns out to be a "reincarnation game" being played by Beerus and Champa (the latter who had another average guy reincarnated as Chiaotzu).]]

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': Homura's wish was to go back in time and be the one to protect Madoka as a MagicalGirl herself. Once she finds out the truth behind Magical Girls, her goal then becomes to prevent her from becoming one, and she re-lives the same loop countless times before realizing that doing so only puts another nail in Madoka's coffin each time.

* In one strip of ''ComicStrip/{{Nodwick}}'', Nodwick touches a strange artifact in a dungeon our heroes are exploring. After a bright flash of light Nodwick is now drastically altered in appearance now sporting combat scars, a hook for a hand and much more. He explains that after this event the party ends up battling against an apocalypse cult and that they repeatedly fail to stop said cult. The artifact he just touched is a sort of "save point" that brings him back to this exact moment every time they fail, and that he's repeated this quest so many times that he is now a high level fighter/mage/cleric even better at adventuring then his employers. Yeagar doesn't like the idea of Nodwick being better at their jobs than they are and Artax assures him that they'll erase Nodwick's memories as soon as they defeat the cult.

** The "history repeats itself" motif of this allows Marty to take advantage of it at the end of ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII''. Having got into confrontations with Biff Tannen in 1955, his grandson Griff in 2015 and Biff's ancestor Buford in 1885, Marty is able to resist the urge to prove he's not a chicken when confronted back in 1985... and his future will consequently be different from the one Jennifer saw when she was in 2015 in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII''.
* The movie ''[[http://img.ozap.com/00787288-photo-affiche-deuxieme-vie.jpg Deuxieme vie]]'' ("Second Life") is a inverted example of going forward instead of backward. In 1982, the 32-year-old ecologist Vincent Degan has a car accident on the soccer world cup night (after a France defeat). After the impact, he's suddenly on the world cup night of 1998 with everybody yelling "We won." And he's a 48-year-old heartless businessman. His fiancee from 1982 has left him, and his 1998 lover appears to be more interested in Vincent's best friend, Ronny. [[spoiler:The end plays the trope straight: a second accident brings Vincent back to 1982, where he uses what he learned in the future to marry his true love, and to convince Ronny that the "airbag" he just manufactured is not so silly an idea.]]

** In ''Literature/GoingPostal'' the Patrician tells Moist a parable about how occasionally, when someone has truly screwed their life up beyond repair, an Angel will appear to them and offer to take them back to the point where it all went wrong so they can try one more time. At that point this is just Vetinari trying to make a point in his usual fashion, but then at the end of the book Moist once again finds himself at a metaphorical fork in the road, and... (Around the middle of the book Moist also winds up using it as a rhetorical device to convince someone to do what he wants, or at least confuse them sufficiently to keep listening.)

** There is one jump of many years that leaves him effectively trapped physically in the past, decades before he was born. Once there, he can short range MentalTimeTravel at will.
* Creator/TedDekker's ''Green'', though it’s the last book in the ''Literature/TheCircleSeries'', implies that the previous three books (the wildly popular Circle Trilogy: ''Black'', ''Red'', and ''White'') are a Peggy Sue attachment to ''Green''. The implication is that the main character, unhappy with [[spoiler:his son’s betrayal and death]] at the end of ''Green'', is given the chance to “do it over”, which results in the events of ''Black'', ''Red'', and ''White''. When interpreted with some choice bits from the beginning of ''Black'', the reader must infer that he’s in a time loop (and thus seemingly doomed to failure one way or another). A lot of readers were so incredibly upset at this “ending” to the series (because [[spoiler: though the main character has a chance to redeem his son, he’s condemning thousands of others, including his wife and father-in-law, back to the same torment)]] that Dekker wrote an alternate ending—which, while less [[BittersweetEnding outright]] [[DownerEnding depressing]], comes across as [[MortonsFork somewhat anticlimactic by comparison]].

* The light novel ''I Am My Wife'' combines this with GenderBender - the hero travels back in time to his school-days and turns into, as the title suggests, his wife when she was a teenager (his former self still exists, however).

* Subverted in ''Series/{{Eureka}}'' -- after Carter receives his future self's memories to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, he intends to use his knowledge to reach his perfectly happy future with the girl he loves. But when little details turn out wrong and puts things off-track, he realizes he cannot rely on those "memories". [[spoiler:He eventually has them wiped from his mind to prevent the inevitable anguish.]]

** ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'' does this in the arc based on ''Gaim'', near the end of the show's first quarter. Sougo in the first loop ''did'' successfully beat the MonsterOfTheWeek, but he learned all the wrong moral lessons from the way he did it the first time, continuing his path to becoming the EvilOverlord of the future. Gaim uses his own power over time to send Sougo back and push him to try again, kicking off the events of the entire rest of the series with the resulting butterfly effect.

** The episode "Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville" has a business tycoon making a deal with Satan in order to relive his life again so he can use his knowledge of the future to build a bigger business empire than the one he has. Not surprisingly, it doesn't end well for him.

* The [=McReary=] Timereary spell in ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' creates a shorter term version of the trope, allowing the user to redo the last few seconds.
* The TV Series ''Do Over'' had this as its main conceit. It ends with Joel Larson [[spoiler: making a better past, but still on TheSlowPath to the future]].

* The song "I Know Now" from ''[[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} 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.

** Alpha Cody treats this pretty seriously, since he used [[FallenHero to be a hero.]] Alpha Guy, however, [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] and [[ShaggyDogStory mocks his trip down memory lane.]] [[spoiler:It's his new shoes!]]

* ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'' allows the player to do this constantly, with a special dagger that can turn back time. Only for a few seconds mind you, but it allows the player to correct mistakes they made during the combat and free running sequences. [[spoiler:The very end of the game is a straight example, with the twist that this unleashes [[ClockRoaches the Dahaka]].]]

** Similar to the ''VideoGame/AstroBoyOmegaFactor'' example, ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea|HourOfDarkness}}'' and its NewGamePlus system plays out like this, although with no meta elements: The normal ending, which you ''[[GuideDangIt will]]'' end up getting your first time through, has an incredible DownerEnding -- [[spoiler:Laharl confronts the head of the angels, he kills Flonne, and Laharl murders him in a rage. Then it's revealed it was all a failed BatmanGambit to teach Laharl the power of love, if the Angel leader was still alive he could revive Flonne, and that he was supposed to forgive the angels. Laharl kills himself in grief,]] and you get the "Start a New Game" menu choice. Of course, this time you're high enough level to beat the last boss, yet alone all the hard boss fights on the way, as well as make sure you achieve the canon ending -- [[spoiler: by not accidentally killing ''anyone'' in your party.]] Of course, since this is ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', later sequels have cameos from ''both'' endings ([[spoiler: In other words, Prinny Laharl and Normal Laharl]]) in them.
** Not if you did it for that InfinityPlusOneSword that you need to powerup to absurd levels. A lot of players only play up until they beat the game and once new game plus kicks in, they use that instead of continuing into NintendoHard territory so that they have more toys to make that Nintendo Hard into something much more passable. That and you can now pick and choose your characters more freely because you know what triggers who and who is actually good at fighting.

* Sort of played with in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. The game starts off at the climatic battle of the previous game, ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon Armageddon]]'', which [[KillEmAll is revealed to have killed off pretty much the entire cast]]. [[EvilOverlord Shao Kahn]] has attained ultimate power, and Raiden, having been defeated, sends visions of the events of the entire series to his ''Franchise/MortalKombat''-era self. [[spoiler: Things go horribly awry, because past Raiden's acting on incomplete information leads to the deaths of the vast majority of the heroes; leaving it an open question as to what will happen when the next BigBad, Shinnok, attempts to conquer the realms.]]

** ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'' reveals that ''the entire universe'' of ''Mortal Kombat'' has been playing by these rules thanks to [[spoiler:Kronika, the time Titan, who has been trying to create a universe in flawless balance between good and evil but is constantly undone by Raiden and Liu Kang. So she manipulates events to set them against each other while she tries to bend time to her will and have history play out as she wants, using timeline resets to learn what does and doesn't work. The events of the game happen at a time where she has finally figured out the right way to pull it off and is about to if not for Liu Kang merging with Raiden's godly power and finally putting an end to her once and for all]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bastion}}'' this is strongly hinted to be [[spoiler:how the Kid experiences a New Game Plus+ after having chosen the Restoration ending.]] When playing New Game Plus+, there are a load of subtle changes in Rucks' narration that indicate him getting a feeling of déjà vu from several game events.

* In ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' the world is repeatedly reset to a time before the Cotton Drifting festival. [[spoiler:Though only Rika remembers what happened in each world.]]

* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'': In the ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' parody "Torg Potter and the President from Arkansas", the Time Turner from the original is tweaked so that it rewinds the users in time, leaving them but no-one else with memories of what happened next. Instead of going back a few hours as the Hermione analogue intends, Torg uses it to return all the way to the beginning of the story, stomps on the bad guy in his animal form, and goes home, neatly avoiding any possible loose ends and negating the need for him to be involved in the affairs of that annoying school.

* In the ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' supplemental ''Othar's Twitter'', Othar retires from Heroing and lives for thirty-six years on a deserted island with his wife. Upon her death, he goes back to the mainland and [[spoiler:finds that human civilization has been destroyed. Tarvek, the last known human alive,]] sends his consciousness back to before he retired to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. Othar's Twitter is considered canon.

* In the episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' titled "Seconds", Francis Grey discovered he had a brief version of this power, which he would use to better commit crimes, win fights, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking improve his one-liners]]. At the end of the episode, he overloads this power, and has the chance to go back and not become a criminal at all, which he takes.

'''[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with MarySue]]'''(which is FlameBait), a Peggy Sue fic gives a character, usually at the end of a story or series, the chance to [[MentalTimeTravel go back and relive her/his life]] with the knowledge he gained from living through his story the first time. This sometimes uses a DeathFic-type setup as a starting point, where one of the things the character intends to do with his knowledge is [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong prevent the death of a loved one -- or themselves.]]

'''Not to be confused with MarySue''', a Peggy Sue fic gives a character, usually at the end of a story or series, the chance to [[MentalTimeTravel go back and relive her/his life]] with the knowledge he gained from living through his story the first time. This sometimes uses a DeathFic-type setup as a starting point, where one of the things the character intends to do with his knowledge is [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong prevent the death of a loved one -- or themselves.]]