History Main / PeggySue

* In ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire'', this is part of the premise of the game, in that the protagonist is reliving the same five-day sequence repeatedly to avoid dying. [[spoiler:It turns out that she's actually been doing this for well over a century, and having her memory wiped (by [[MindScrew another version of herself outside the loop but unable to 'escape' until she survives inside the time loop]]) every twenty-five days, except for the magical knowledge and grimoires she's acquired.]] By the time it's all resolved, Lillet is arguably the most powerful person alive and incredibly wily, [[spoiler:not to mention being one of the few people who've sold their sold to a devil and still have possession of it]].

* ''Film/{{Next}}'' is a film where a character effectively has this (or perhaps something more like SaveScumming) due to possessing pre-cognition as a power. [[spoiler:The ending]] though, is probably the film's best example of this trope.

This is [[ComicBook/XFactor Layla Miller's]] primary power. Notably it's not her mutant ability, it's a consequence of [[spoiler:a StableTimeLoop created by her future self downloading all her memories into her younger body, allowing her to relive her life knowing how everything is supposed to happen]]

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

* ''VisualNovel/MuvLuvUnlimited'' ends with [[spoiler:humanity abandoning Earth to the invading aliens]]. Its sequel, ''VisualNovel/MuvLuvAlternative'', starts with the main character back at the beginning of the original's plot, with all of his memories and physical training intact, determined to prevent [[spoiler:the aliens from winning]] this time around.

* In ''Webcomic/WapsiSquare'', [[spoiler:Jin]] has already gone through the entire plot and failed [[spoiler:thousands of times]].
* ''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.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Four months after John's death due to facing a ridiculously strong monster at low levels, Dave travels back in time, bringing ridiculously powerful weaponry and useful information for the past characters; this is the purpose of Heroes of Time in general, as a form of TrialAndErrorGameplay. Also, in a sense this is the purpose of [[ResetButton the Scratch]], albeit at a much, ''much'' larger and unpredictable scale.
** Dave's stunt does not go unpunished, however, as he [[spoiler:spends the rest of his life defending his premature self, almost not being brought along on the three-year journey to the Alpha session, and then presumably dying in the aftermath of [S] Game Over]]

* ''Solitary Lady'': Hillis Inoaden has relived her life seven times prior to the start of the story, returning each time to the moment when her stepsister Gabriella's pet monster escapes from its cage. In her prior lives, she has always behaved meekly and submissively to her abusive family, but after being sent back for the eighth time, she finally decides that enough is enough and sets out to change the grave destiny that awaits her.

* This was the ending to ''WesternAnimation/MightyMax''. During the finale finale, BigBad Skullmaster was in the process of altering time, and Max leaps in to stop him. As a result, time gets reset, 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 said finale, he screwed up royally...]]

* ''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 couldn't be forced even with magic]].

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' has a short-term version of this trope as the power of the Snake Miraculous. When the Snake Bearer activates his "Second Chance" power it starts a five-minute countdown, at the end of which the Bearer will de-transform. However, at any point during that countdown he can rewind time to the exact moment he first activated the power. This also resets the countdown, letting the Snake Hero use as many resets as necessary until he gets a timeline he likes.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Film/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.
* ''Film/{{Next}}'' is a film where a character effectively has this (or perhaps something more like SaveScumming) due to possessing pre-cognition as a power. [[spoiler:The ending]] though, is probably the film's best example of this trope.
* Biff has a pretty successful (albeit short-lived) run at this, through Physical Time Travel, by seeking out his younger self in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII''.
** 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 an 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.]]
* Scott does this in ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'' [[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.]]
* The pornographic film ''Film/TheDevilInMissJones''. [[{{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.
* The film ''Film/IfOnly'' has the main character being sent back to yesterday to try and save his girlfriend from being killed in a car accident.
* Tim does this deliberately and repeatedly to avoid embarrassment in ''Film/AboutTime''.

* ''Film/TheLastSharknadoItsAboutTime'' is about Fin Shepard travelling through time to stop the sharknadoes from devastating the world and save his friends and loved ones from their fates.
* When Captain America returns the Infinity Stones to the past at the end of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', he uses the opportunity to go back to 1948 in an AlternateTimeline and reconnect with his old love, Peggy Carter, as his freezing in the Arctic following his HeroicSacrifice at the end of ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'' separated them for over 66 years.
* ''Film/ThirteenGoingOnThirty'': A downplayed version at the end of the film. [[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}}'': At the climax of the film, when Alan reaches the centre of the Game Board and finishes the game, all of the disasters unleashed from the mystic jungle are sucked back into the game, and everything returns to the way it was when the game began...on the night that Alan and Sarah began to play the game. Both of them retain their memories of the future, and use the knowledge to create better lives for themselves and their families and prevent the deaths of Judy and Peter's parents.

* In the title story of ''Literature/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.
* The epilogue of Stephen King's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' Series, although it is not clear exactly how much of his knowledge he can take with him in this [[spoiler:do-over. At the very least, he has made some spiritual progress in each iteration.]]
* Literature/{{Discworld}}:
** The entirety of the novel ''Literature/{{Night Watch|Discworld}}'' could be considered to fall under this trope. The ''Night Watch'' slightly differs from most examples of the trope in that Vimes takes the place of his own ''mentor'' 30 years in the past (before returning to the present), rather than reliving his own life, and that he's more or less trying to make things happen the same way he remembers (though he's happy to try to "fix" things that he didn't personally experience).
** 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.)
** ''Literature/ThiefOfTime'' showed Lu-Tze using this as a trick picked up from the Yeti, who had evolved the ability to [[SaveScumming save up their lives and try again if something goes wrong]].
* In the ''Literature/VoidTrilogy'' by Creator/PeterFHamilton, [[spoiler:the Void itself]] gives people the power to do this, at the cost of ''[[spoiler:[[ArtifactOfDoom consuming the rest of the galaxy]]]]'' [[{{Deconstruction}} to provide the necessary energy.]]

* 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 ending of ''Hero in the Shadows'' (''Literature/{{Drenai}}'' / ''Waylander'' sub-series) by Creator/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 in Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Timequake,'' in which the 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.
* In the short story "Literature/TimeAndTimeAgain" by Creator/HBeamPiper, Allan Hartley, a 43-year-old captain attached to the Scientific Warfare division of the General Staff, is critically injured as a result of an explosion in the Battle of Buffalo during WorldWarThree in 1975. After being given a narcotic injection, he becomes "lost in a great darkness" and suddenly finds himself in his 13-year-old body in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on August 5, 1945, the day before the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Using his knowledge of the next 30 years, Allan plans to alter history and prevent the war from ever happening. Allan speculates that the mental transfer may have been caused by the bomb blast that injured him, the narcotic injection that he was given, something unforeseen in 1945 or a combination of all three.
* This is a subgenre within sex fiction, because the foundation of sex fiction is always an EscapistCharacter -- and what could be more escapist than a MarySue who gets a chance to FixFic their own past? However, the TropeCodifier within erotica, Al Steiner's "Doing It All Over Again," instead features 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]] in favor of the escapism.)

* ''Literature/HowARealistHeroRebuiltTheKingdom'': Volume 4 [[TheReveal reveals]] that the entire story up to then has been a Peggy Sue plot orchestrated by [[spoiler:former King Albert and Queen Elisha. Elisha's unique magic lets her send knowledge to her past self. Shortly before they summoned Souma to their world, a version of her from a BadFuture warned them of their missteps in originally having made Souma their prime minister instead of their HeirInLaw, and they set out to prevent those mistakes, up to and including arranging Duke Carmine's ZeroApprovalGambit that allowed Souma to purge the realm of its treacherous and corrupt nobility.]]

* ''Series/{{Being Erica}}'': it's the entire premise of the show.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': In "White Tulip," a scientist goes back in time to save his dead fiancee from a car accident. [[spoiler:[[YouCantFightFate After Walter tells the man of the consequences of his own tampering,]] [[HeroicSacrifice the scientist goes back in time to tell his fiancee that he loves her before dying with her.]]]]
* There was a Canadian show in the early-to-mid-'00's called ''Twice in a Lifetime'', about flawed people who'd messed up their lives and died miserably being given a "reprieve" by a heavenly judge and who were sent back to Earth along with a spiritual guide to the most pivotal time in their lives, with three days to change the course of events for the better. They went back with their contemporary bodies, though, and spoke to their own past selves often.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E14Tapestry Tapestry]]", Picard is about to die due to events that happened in his past, and [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Q]] sends him back in time to relive his Academy days. Picard reacts to the situation which led to his death in a manner that negates his later death. Changing his past however leads to a change in his personality, and Picard [[ItsAWonderfulPlot decides that he liked his life better the way it was before, even if he was about to die. Q, having made his point, brings Picard back to the present and saves his life.]] [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Unless it was]] AllJustADream.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E18CauseAndEffect Cause and Effect]]" involved the characters realizing they were trapped in a time loop that always concluded with the destruction of the ''Enterprise,'' and Data managing to ''cause'' a Peggy Sue by sending a message into the next iteration of the loop enabling them to escape.
* ''Series/QuantumLeap'':
** While Sam normally leapt back to fix other people's lives, he got to do this for his teenage self in "The Leap Home, Part 1". As the family problems he chooses to tackle aren't the things Al says he's supposed to change, his success isn't assured.
** In the second episode of the two-parter, he manages to save his brother, who was supposed to die in Vietnam. Unfortunately, this happens [[spoiler:at the cost of leaving young Al in a POW camp instead of changing the timeline to rescue him. Al doesn't warn him or try to change his mind and Sam doesn't realize he might have saved his friend instead until it's too late]].
* 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 put 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.]]

** Cruelly subverted in ''Series/KamenRiderRyuki''. Halfway through the show, the BigBad presses a ResetButton, which sends our hero back to the chronological start of the series. However, he is unable to make any lasting significant changes and said big bad has done this enough times to ensure [[YouCantFightFate a consistent loop that will reset until he wins.]]

* The ''Series/FearItself'' episode "The Circle" had the beginning of a loop as its twist ending.
* In its sixth season, ''Series/{{Lost}}'' portrayed flash-sideways of the main characters in a parallel universe, but in contrast to the emotional cripples they started out as in the prime timeline, all of them possess five seasons worth of character development, which allows them to come to terms with their severe psychological baggage. [[spoiler:It turns out it's an archetypal afterlife, crossing Christian purgatory with Vedic reincarnation, and this emotional maturity is what allows them to "move on"]].
* The 2015 series ''Series/{{Hindsight}}'' had this as the whole premise of the show. The main character, Becca, travels back in time and uses this opportunity to correct what she sees as personal and professional mistakes.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "Joyride", the aliens return the former UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} astronaut Theodore Harris to September 16, 1963, giving him the opportunity to relive the last 38 years of his life and avoid becoming a discredited laughing stock due to his claims of an encounter with aliens during his first trip into space.

--> "Just think of it, gee, how great it would be / If I can go back somehow / And have my life to live over / Knowing what I know now."

** [[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]].

** 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/AstroBoyOmegaFactor'' has this, combining the trope with NewGamePlus. After what looks like a massive, ''massive'' DownerEnding [[spoiler:in which the world is nearly ruined and Astro dies. The Phoenix revives Astro sending him back to the start of the game. You then need to play through the stages again, TimeTravel all around, in order to find the cause of the tragedies and fix everything. In a RunningGag, Astro makes no attempt to hide his knowledge of the future and thoroughly confuses everyone he meets by knowing what they're going to say before they say it.]]
* ''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]].]]
* While still keeping the mechanic from the previous game, ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaWarriorWithin'' has the [[spoiler:Sandwraith mask: put it on and you're sent back an undisclosed amount of time to fix a mistake you made in the past. The Prince uses it to undue killing Kailena and inadvertently releasing the sands of time.]]
* As noted above, any NewGamePlus is rather like a Peggy Sue story. You get to start your adventure over, but with all the equipment and skills you've gained along the way. This usually makes a ''huge'' difference at first and then less and less as the game goes on.
** 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, let 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 power up 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.
** Also note that if you manage to get BOTH the conditions for the bad/worst endings AND the good ending, you get the good ending.

* At the end of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' Link is sent back in time to his childhood so he can live out the seven years he lost while he was in his magic coma. Using his knowledge of the future, Link warns Zelda of Ganondorf's plans which prevents Ganondorf's rise to power. Also works as a PeggySue inverted as a Flash Forward considering he'd always spent the intervening years asleep...
* This is the entire premise behind ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''. Link arrives in an alternate world where the Moon is three days from crashing into the Earth. Every time the timer runs out, Link gets to go back in time to when he first arrived, and get going again, with the full memory of everything that happened last time.
* In ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire'', this is part of the premise of the game, in that the protagonist is reliving the same five-day sequence repeatedly to avoid dying. [[spoiler:It turns out that she's actually been doing this for well over a century, and having her memory wiped (by [[MindScrew another version of herself outside the loop but unable to 'escape' until she survives inside the time loop]]) every twenty-five days, except for the magical knowledge and grimoires she's acquired.]] By the time it's all resolved, Lillet is arguably the most powerful person alive and incredibly wily, [[spoiler:not to mention being one of the few people who've sold their sold to a devil and still have possession of it]].
* Sort of played with, in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. The game starts off at the climactic battle of the previous game, ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon Armageddon]]'', which [[AnyoneCanDie 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.]]
** [[spoiler:Should be noted that many of the events should ''not'' have been affected by what Raiden did, most notably Quan Chi being present so early in the story. This, along with the ending, has led to the theory that Shinnok ''also'' sent a message back in time, one more complete and leaving him with a better hand for the new version of ''Mortal Kombat 4''.]]
** ''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 a 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]].
* Happens at the beginning of ''VideoGame/RadiantHistoria'', where you go back in time to save your companions Marco and Raynie, and the messenger you were escorting as well.
* The tomb of Ludo Kressh in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' 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.
* Pretty much the entire point of ''VideoGame/GhostTrick''. Sissel uses his powers to manipulate objects and turn back time to rescue people before they die, thus changing the present as the characters know it. This all eventually leads up to the final puzzle [[spoiler:where the heroes go back in time ten years to prevent the game's BigBad from dying and ending up in the state that led to his FaceHeelTurn.]]

* Invoked in ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfWillyBeamish'', in the phrasing of its tagline: "What if you were 9 again, knowing what you know now?"
* 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 is a load of subtle changes in Rucks' narration that indicate him getting a feeling of Déjà Vu from several game events.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'' starts off with TheHero being defeated easily by Murdaw...and then waking up from their dream. Except that is exactly what happened to the Hero and his party [[spoiler:(their ''real'' world counterparts, that is)]], and the main objective of the game becomes acquiring the item that will keep Murdaw from doing that to you again. (Incidentally, there is a horse named Peggy Sue, but that's something different.)
* The entire point of ''VideoGame/EnterTheGungeon'' has you shooting through the Gungeon with a small cast of Playable Characters with an incredibly large plethora of guns to acquire [[McGuffin The Gun That Can Kill The Past]], and have your selected character SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.

* ''Anime/Persona4GoldenTheAnimation'' treats itself as a NewGamePlus of the original ''VideoGame/Persona4'' [[Anime/Persona4TheAnimation anime]]. The first episode [[HilarityEnsues milks the hell out of this]], with Yu reacting (or underreacting) to events leading up to the TV world in ways not possible in the game. He has all social stats maxed out, is more outgoing with his new friends, actively seeks out his Persona awakening, and annihilates hundreds of Shadows, along with everything within 500 feet of himself, upon regaining Izanagi. Of course, as ''Golden'' is an UpdatedRerelease, Yu ends up being caught off-guard by the existence of things that weren't present in the original game, such as Marie.

* ''Manga/EdensZero'': A variation occurs for its final arc. [[spoiler:The crew of the ''Edens Zero'' use Etherion to travel into [[MergedReality Universe Zero]] for a chance to prevent [[TheMaker Mother]]'s death and the subsequent extinction of humankind, but it also triggers a CosmicRetcon that forces them to relive their lives without their memories. Once they reach the events of Chapter 1, Shiki, Rebecca, and Happy all [[RegainedMemoriesSequence gain the memories of their future selves]], but also retain their memories and experiences of the new lives they've lived in Universe Zero; this also applies to the other crew members as Shiki comes across them. This allows them to take care of major events and loose earlier than they could have before, though they notice multiple alterations and discrepancies between universes, which keeps it from being a complete retread.]]

* ''Manga/ADistantNeighborhood'' is about a middle-aged {{Salaryman}} who finds himself sent back in time into his 14-year-old self. Hiroshi, much like the TropeNamer, [[spoiler:returns to his older body with a new book dedicated to him by someone he heavily interacted with him in the past]] waiting for him at home.
* 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/Persona4GoldenTheAnimation'' treats itself as a NewGamePlus of the original ''VideoGame/Persona4'' [[Anime/Persona4TheAnimation anime]]. The first episode [[HilarityEnsues milks the hell out of this]], with Yu reacting (or underreacting) to events leading up to the TV world in ways not possible in the game. He has all social stats maxed out, is more outgoing with his new friends, actively seeks out his Persona awakening, and annihilates hundreds of Shadows, along with everything within 500 feet of himself, upon regaining Izanagi. Of course, as ''Golden'' is an UpdatedRerelease, Yu ends up being caught off-guard by the existence of things that weren't present in the original game, such as Marie.
* The {{Hentai}} OVA ''Gaki ni Modotte Yarinoshi!!!'' is about a man who had his life wasted by all the women who bullied him in high school, including his stepsister, all of them recently married. Then one day he awakened as a kid in his old life with all his adult memories (and his ''member'') untouched, so he decided to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by standing up against her stepsister and all the girls made his life miserable, including his stepmother who always treated him as a child even when he was adult.
* ''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 [[spoiler:only puts another nail in Madoka's coffin each time.]]

* ''LightNovel/RedoOfHealer'': Keyaru, after four years of slavery, breaks free due to the drugs used to keep him under control no longer working. Then he goes four years back in time and prepares so that this time, they stop working much earlier.

* A story arc in the third season of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' has Church travelling physically back in time, and attempting to undo all the damage caused in the first two seasons. He winds up being the cause of all of it.

* ''Manga/ADistantNeighborhood'' is about a middle-aged {{Salaryman}} who finds himself sent back in time into his 14-year-old self. Hiroshi, much like the TropeNamer, [[spoiler: returns to his older body with a new book dedicated to him by someone he heavily interacted with him in the past]] waiting for him at home.

* ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' gives us the MentalTimeTravel AppliedPhlebotinum Omega 13 for an alleged [[spoiler: thirteen seconds]].

* ''Film/{{Next}}'' is a film where a character effectively has this (or perhaps something more like SaveScumming) due to possessing pre-cognition as a power. [[spoiler: The ending]] though, is probably the film's best example of this trope.

* ''Film/ThirteenGoingOnThirty'': A downplayed version at the end of the film. [[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]].

* 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 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]].

* In its sixth season, ''Series/{{Lost}}'' portrayed flash-sideways of the main characters in a parallel universe, but in contrast to the emotional cripples they started out as in the prime timeline, all of them possess five seasons worth of character development, which allows them to come to terms with their severe psychological baggage. [[spoiler: It turns out it's an archetypal afterlife, crossing Christian purgatory with Vedic reincarnation, and this emotional maturity is what allows them to "move on"]].

* 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]].

* This is pretty much the point of the interactive fiction game ''Tapestry''. A man who made some regrettable choices in his life gets to relive the three points where he felt he went most wrong. The three paths available in the game each take a different approach to the Peggy Sue -- he can do it the same and live with his guilt, change what happened, or do it the same but try to understand what happened better. [[spoiler: There's no correct ending. If he changes what he does, he feels better about his life, but the new choices cause just as much harm. If he reevaluates his life, he sees that his original decisions weren't as horrible as he believed them to be. Choosing guilt and self-hatred does seem to be the one bad ending, however.]]
** Actually, there's a subtle implication that [[spoiler: trying to change your past choices is a wrong path as well. Aside from the fact that the new choices cause harm in a different way, the figure who leads you down this path is called Morningstar... which is one of the Devil's names. In fact, there's an Easter Egg in the prologue if you address him as Lucifer.]]
* ''VideoGame/AstroBoyOmegaFactor'' has this, combining the trope with NewGamePlus. After what looks like a massive, ''massive'' DownerEnding [[spoiler: in which the world is nearly ruined and Astro dies. The Phoenix revives Astro sending him back to the start of the game. You then need to play through the stages again, TimeTravel all around, in order to find the cause of the tragedies and fix everything. In a RunningGag, Astro makes no attempt to hide his knowledge of the future and thoroughly confuses everyone he meets by knowing what they're going to say before they say it.]]

** 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, let 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.

* Being a TimeTravel game, it's not surprising this shows up in ''VideoGame/ShadowOfDestiny'' as the NewGamePlus GoodEnding. What ''is'' surprising is it results in invariably [[spoiler: in ''getting erased from existence!'']] And these are the best endings! On a more positive note, [[spoiler: thanks to IdenticalGrandson, the lead character may have lived on in a way.]]

* In ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire'', this is part of the premise of the game, in that the protagonist is reliving the same five-day sequence repeatedly to avoid dying. [[spoiler: It turns out that she's actually been doing this for well over a century, and having her memory wiped (by [[MindScrew another version of herself outside the loop but unable to 'escape' until she survives inside the time loop]]) every twenty-five days, except for the magical knowledge and grimoires she's acquired.]] By the time it's all resolved, Lillet is arguably the most powerful person alive and incredibly wily, [[spoiler: not to mention being one of the few people who've sold their sold to a devil and still have possession of it]].
* Sort of played with, in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. The game starts off at the climactic battle of the previous game, ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon Armageddon]]'', which [[AnyoneCanDie 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.]]
** [[spoiler: Should be noted that many of the events should ''not'' have been affected by what Raiden did, most notably Quan Chi being present so early in the story. This, along with the ending, has led to the theory that Shinnok ''also'' sent a message back in time, one more complete and leaving him with a better hand for the new version of ''Mortal Kombat 4''.]]

* Pretty much the entire point of ''VideoGame/GhostTrick''. Sissel uses his powers to manipulate objects and turn back time to rescue people before they die, thus changing the present as the characters know it. This all eventually leads up to the final puzzle [[spoiler: where the heroes go back in time ten years to prevent the game's BigBad from dying and ending up in the state that led to his FaceHeelTurn.]]

** Dave's stunt does not go unpunished, however, as he [[spoiler: spends the rest of his life defending his premature self, almost not being brought along on the three-year journey to the Alpha session, and then presumably dying in the aftermath of [S] Game Over]]

* This was the ending to ''WesternAnimation/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 said finale, he screwed up royally...]]

* In Literature/OmniscientReadersViewpoint, the character Yoo Jonghyuk, a Regressor from "Three Ways to Survive The Apocalypse", goes back in time to attempt to save his world from the apocalypse each time he dies. Part of the story follows him through different "runs" he's had, sometimes getting advice from what he's done in previous runs from the main character Kim Dojka, who knows how his story ends.

** This is played with ''Videogame/{{Undertale}}'', as every time the fallen child dies, they are revived at the last save point thanks to determination, and the game notices this in many ways (Particularly, if you, by any chance, kill Toriel by accident and then reload to spare her, Flowey will call you on this). However, this is painfully deconstructed in the KillThemAll route, where the game will not allow you to go back and regret what you have done, because "you think you are above consequences".

* Sort of played with, in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. The game starts off at the climactic 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.]]

'''[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] MarySue''' (which is FlameBait), a Peggy Sue fic (also known as a "Time Travel Fix It") gives a character, usually at the end of a story or series, the chance to [[MentalTimeTravel go back and relive their life]] with the knowledge they gained from living through their 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 their knowledge is [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong prevent the death of a loved one — or themselves]].

'''[[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 their life]] with the knowledge they gained from living through their 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 their knowledge is [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong prevent the death of a loved one — or themselves]].

'''[[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 their 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 some hands, this can turn into a FixFic, with the character going back in time to prevent some canon event that the author doesn’t like (such as the death of a beloved character).

While this might seem as a recipe for an overly powerful character, the Peggy Sue is not without its risks. Often the only way they made it through the first time was because of fate or luck giving them PlotArmor, a luxury that they will be unlikely to have a second time around, though they can try for TrickedOutTime. They may also have to deal with a weaker and less experienced body, mental baggage, gaps in their knowledge regarding past events, negative reactions by anyone who realizes that they know things they shouldn't, or worst of all, that another, less friendly, individual has also pulled the same stunt. Of course, the primary problem with such a scenario: as the character changes things, [[ForWantOfANail the new timeline becomes more and more different from the one he or she left behind]]... and thus he or she is less and less able to predict what's going to happen next. [[InSpiteOfANail Unless it doesn't]].

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.

'''Warning: Possible spoilers'''

->It’s nice, repeating conversations like this.
->Gloria never thought she’d get to have them again.

'''[[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.]]

* This is a subgenre for sex fiction, because the foundation of sex fiction is always an EscapistCharacter -- and what could be more escapist than a MarySue who gets a chance to FixFic their own past? However, the TropePopularizer within erotica, Al Steiner's "Doing It All Over Again," instead features 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]] in favor of the escapism.)

* This is a fairly popular plot for sex fiction, because the foundation of sex fiction is always an EscapistCharacter -- and what could be more escapist than a MarySue who literally knows the future and therefore can't screw up? However, the TropeMaker 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]].)

* ''Webcomic/ShadowQueen'': The main character, Elena, takes the place of her IdenticalStranger Princess Veronica, who died of fever. She marries the Crown Prince, becomes queen and gives birth to a son - only for everything to come crashing down when a very much alive Veronica reappears and has Elena murdered, but not before taking her son. Elena dies, but is somehow returned to her 16-year-old body and sets about directing the downfall of everyone who played a part in wronging her.
* ''Webcomic/TheTamingOfTheTyrant'': Charlize Ronan is chosen to be a "living sword" by the Emperor, a position she happily accepts in order to bring honour to her family...then learns that he meant she would be turned into a literal sword and used as a mere tool for the emperors. For over 400 years she is forced to torture and murder all who get in the way of her wielders and expand the empire, and for the entirety of those four centuries she prays for justice. One day, her wish is granted and she awakens in her former body, determined to tear down the empire by serving as tutor for the young prince and putting him on the throne as a tyrant.
* ''Webcomic/SolitaryLady'': Hillis Inoaden has relived her life seven times prior to the start of the story, returning each time to the moment when her stepsister Gabriella's pet monster escapes from its cage. In her prior lives, she has always behaved meekly and submissively to her abusive family, but after being sent back for the eighth time, she finally decides that enough is enough and sets out to change the grave destiny that awaits her.

* ''Webcomic/TheTamingOfTheTyrant'': Charlize Ronan is chosen to be a "living sword" by the Emperor, a position she happily accepts in order to bring honour to her family...then learns that he meant she would be turned into a literal sword and used as a mere tool for the emperors. For over 400 years she is forced to torture and murder all who get in the way of her wielders and expand the empire, and for the entirety of those four centuries she prays for justice. One day, her wish is granted and she awakens in her former body, determined to tear down the empire by serving as tutor for the young prince and putting him on the throne as a tyrant as a tyrant.

* ''Shadow Queen'': The main character, Elena, takes the place of her IdenticalStranger Princess Veronica, who died of fever. She marries the Crown Prince, becomes queen and gives birth to a son - only for everything to come crashing down when a very much alive Veronica reappears and has Elena murdered, but not before taking her son. Elena dies, but is somehow returned to her 16-year-old body and sets about directing the downfall of everyone who played a part in wronging her.

* ''Webcomic/ShadowQueen'': The main character, Elena, takes the place of her IdenticalStranger Princess Veronica, who died of fever. She marries the Crown Prince, becomes queen and gives birth to a son - only for everything to come crashing down when a very much alive Veronica reappears and has Elena murdered, but not before taking her son. Elena dies, but is somehow returned to her 16-year-old body and sets about directing the downfall of everyone who played a part in wronging her.