But the conflict is still there. They are in Chicago, looking for the Word and being rather dangerous to normal citizens. Dresden still needs to deal with them.

 

Ditto with Aurora. It was a pretty unique convergence of circumstances that led to Dresden foiling Aurora. If he did things even slightly differently, who knows how it would have went down? Even post Cold Days Dresden would have extreme difficulty taking out Aurora in anything like a direct fight, especially without the Winter Knight mantle.

The fact that Harry knows his enemy's plans doesn't really remove the fact that most of them could squash him like a bug in a direct fight, and that he only got through the first time round through extremely fortuitous circumstances. Maybe if he acts on his knowledge and makes their lives more difficult, they just decide he's a greater threat than they thought and proceed directly to squashing.

 

And then the butterfly effect from that.

Since every incident has pretty much been Nemesis, if something drastically goes wrong, like say Sells is caught before he can spread Third Eye, then it's going to call attention.

Remember, three times is enemy action. Is Dresden does back to Storm Front, by the third book (Earlier if he actively looks for it), then Nemesis is going to start his own hunt.

It doesn't matter if the mystery is predictable. It's only going to stay predictable once since all the subsequent actions are linked to something that will react to any disruption.

 

I guess if you don't follow the typical Peggy Sue stereotype of redoing each event with foreknowledge and more power, then it could work. A completely different storyline from the start.

Straight away it could focus on Dresden dealing with Nemesis and rather than seeing Dresden deal with each arc seperately. Dresden cuts contact with anyone who he is close to or will be close to, and help them from a distance. It'd be something he'd do. Then he would become the lone guy trying to work against Nemesis (and naturally, his friends would still get involved). It'd be a lot more interesting than him just going back, making peace with every individual and organisation to ally them against the Outsiders. So this would mean straight away, he'd quit being Chicago's resident Wizard.

I can even imagine him trying to very quickly establish an alliance with Mab from the start. As much as he hates being the Winter Knight, she would be someone who would be his best ally against Nemesis and it would be kinda awesomely ironic for him to end up working with the person who basically enslaved him in the future.

So rather than dealing with Victor Sells, the FBI Hexenwolves, etc in order, he skips straight to the big stuff. Takes out Victor Sells, and prevents the FBI guys from ever getting those belts.

 

I imagine he'd take Molly under his wing before she ever began mind-raping people, too.

 

You guys sometimes I think forget how intelligent Dresden the character is portrayed. If you can figure out that luck and certain circumstances led Dresden to managing said problems, he likely can also.

The only plausible Peggy Sue that wouldn't hamper Dresden's ability to detect and the fun in it is doing it with the much later books/almost strictly Black Council ones. Because then he would have to plan out how to reveal the man behind the curtain earlier and earlier.

And I agree about it not working with the Word. Current Dresden could literally stand up with the Word and announce his challenge to all the necromancers in town and do something ridiculous. Such as unleashing the hunt on them. Or bring the Grey Council down on their asses early. Before Halloween. One at a time when he knows they're going to be there. Or one hundred other dirty tricks he could play to stomp down even Cowl.

Winter Knight Dresden is powerful. But that's not his greatest weapon. Give Dresden time to figure out a plan and he will fight dirty and unfair. In fact I'd take Storm Front Dresden versus Winter Knight Dresden in a fight if you gave Storm Front's Dresden foreknowledge of the fight.


Peggy Sue is just too much of a weapon for a character as intelligent/resourceful as Dresden. It fit so well for Harry Potter because of the exact opposite reason. There would have to be many constraints on him for this to even have plausible conflict for Dresden minus convenient unforeseen errors that would feel like a plot device.

 

The Hunt? Why would Erlking let him do that without Santa involved? And what Grey Council? It doesn't exist yet.

And sure, you give Dresden enough time and he could figure out something, but when we are talking about sending him back in time to any book, it means that he starts at the beginning of it, not weeks before. Which in this case means that they are already in Chicago and trying to find the Word. No time for special plans.

Also, about the butterfly effect. If we use the canon where the history doesn't want to be changed, it gives us a whole different story with Harry doing things different, but ultimately having the same results as in the original timeline.

A classic fight against fate with the main character mostly failing with possible exception of the ending.

 

You're still losing the whole detective bit about Dresden fun. And the Grey Council exists in so much as its members can be trusted thus can be called upon to help if given legitimate reason (Kemmler's flunkies being a pretty damn good one). As far as the Hunt. It appeared in that book. Do you not think the Erlking would enjoy hunting dangerous prey, as he clearly enjoyed most recently? Again though that is just one example of many dirty tricks Dresden could employ to shut down the necromancers before they ever do serious damage... you know, right at the beginning of the book before he first meets one seriously.

It's a semantics argument at this point. But the core argument, it giving Dresden too much advantage, is a legitimate worry with a Peggy Sue. You'd almost have to employ the "history doesn't like to be changed" strategy of time travel to offer any conflict and you still wouldn't see Harry detecting and attempting to figure things out quite like in the books. And again that's half the fun for me.

 

But Harry even now knows only two members of it - Eb and Odin. He can't call the first one, because they don't know each other at the moment and I think his grandfather was busy with Reds at the time, though I'm not sure.

And why exactly Erlking would stop to listen to some unknown mortal about who should he hunt?

Beside, I think that you are forgetting how dangerous someone like Cowl is, even to current Dresden. Dirty tricks and an element of surprise may help Harry, but they will not automatically win this fight for him.

 

Listens-To-Winds... who chased off a Naagloshi... and the Erlking wouldn't have to be told what to do. You don't tell a hunter how to hunt. You show him good prey and it makes him want to hunt.

And we're still veering off the primary point and focusing on examples of what could be.

I'm pretty shocked you'd think Cowl would still have a chance though. Dresden would have surprise, an extremely high level of skill compared to what Cowl would believe, soulfire or hellfire, a possible mantle, etc etc all at his disposal and Cowl would have no clue.

That's not to mention any reinforcements Harry could bring. Luccio and Morgan come to mind (again, shout the name Kemmler and they come running to help, as Luccio did in the book). Oh, there's Michael and the swords at the time, having his knowledge of necromancy ready (What, his t-rex is waiting to jump Cowl day one when they meet?). Seriously. Throw a stone and you find someone Dresden could call to help him fight Cowl. And a number of those stones would hit very powerful people. Nearly on Cowl's level, if not on it.

All that is hypothetical and still doesn't regard the primary point: No detective work = not nearly as entertaining a foray into Dresdenverse.

 

I don't see Dresden having the mantle, frankly. Maybe if he brought Luccio or Morgan into it, but then he'd have to explain how he knows who they are and why they're here. Michael would be willing to follow him, sure. Still, though, I can't imagine Cowl would have all that much trouble, especially since he's probably at least hardy enough to flee and regroup, at which point Dresden's lost the element of surprise. And no matter how much more skilled he is than in the past, I doubt Dresden could seriously threaten Cowl all that much.

That said, I agree on the detecting aspect. If a Dresden Files Peggy Sue must be done, it should be along the lines of him tackling the problem at its source i.e. going after Nemesis, thus averting the plots of the first few books (or at least diverting them, which could have interesting repercussions). The detection could then be about figuring out who is infected and who he can trust in this time. Not to mention figuring out ways to take on old enemies like the Red Court that he got rid of last time through, as said above, serendipity.

 

The problem with anything remotely like this, in every possible permutation here, is that, depending on where the re-entry point is, odds are very good that Dresden will lose all of his useful allies.

And that means Dresden is going to be dead. He simply can't stack up against most of what he squares off against. He wins through a combination of good planning, teamwork, and a large heaping of luck. Take out his allies and he's going to lose almost every time.

 

That's why I was suggesting Mab would end up being his best possible ally.

Most of his friends from Chicago probably wouldn't believe him. The White Council would try to kill him.

Rashid and Mab though are quite aware of Nemesis and would probably happily ally with him if he said "I'm a time traveller from the future, and I know what the Nemesis is and what it plans to do over the next few years."

Them and Michael. But I think he feels guilty enough that he put Michael out of the game once, he may try to avoid bringing Michael into something even worse intentionally.

 

Actually most of his allies wouldn´t be alive/the same if he acts differently.

But at least at the beginning it wouldn´t be that important. He is a wizard and given enough time they are pretty unstoppable no matter who is their enemy. For example insert him before grave Peril and he should be able to easily stop Cow..He says it often enough.. given enough time a wizard is deadly.

 

That was my point. Everyone he relies on would either be dead or have no reason to trust him; thus leaving him with no support and therefore dead.

Maybe, if he got clever enough. The problem is that as soon as he starts moving, the people he's moving against are going to notice. Unless he does something extreme, on par with the Red-Court-Murdering ritual, to wipe out all of his enemies at once, he's going to paint a big ol' target on his ass, and someone (probably multiple someones) would be chomping at the bit to shoot it.

And he wouldn't have the support he'd need to survive the retaliation.