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Peggy Sue and all the bad side effects of it

Discussion in 'Fanfic Discussion' started by Andrela, Feb 11, 2017.

  1. Andrela

    Andrela Plot Bunny DLP Supporter

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    Like it or not, mental time travel or Peggy Sue as we call it is a very large part of the Harry Potter fanfiction community.

    While most of the time stories focus an all the ways a time travel like this can be used to fix things and change history for the better, in this thread I'd like to discuss all that can go wrong.

    A show I follow recently had an episode during which a 14 year old boy was stuck in another dimension for 16 years fighting monsters, dealing with dangerous magic and having lots of adventures.

    But when he came back to Earth it turned out that only 8 minutes passed while he was gone and that upon coming back his physical body reverted back to 14 while his mind remained at 30. He was shown as having difficulties living like this. He forgot many of the details of his life on Earth, such as a password on his computer, etc.

    And it makes sense, he lived longer in that other dimension than on Earth.

    Now, imagine a 50+ Harry Potter going back to his 11-year old body.

    There is absolutely no possible way that Harry would remember so many things he does in Peggy Sue stories.

    There is no way he'd be able to relate or normally talk with other Hogwarts students from his year. None. At your age, are you friends with many tweens?

    And things like romance touch such dangerous territory that it is best to completely avoid it. The idea that a 50 year old Harry would be interested in an 11 year old girl is frightening.

    What other bad effects of Peggy Sue can you people think of? Let's discuss it.
     
  2. Sorrows

    Sorrows Queen of the Flamingos Moderator

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    It always seemed to me nobody mentions the massive ethical dilemma of essentially unmaking a huge portion of the people alive in the future. Barring those fics where Harry is one of the few people left alive he is essentially denying a huge amount of people the right to exist. Considering what a lottory getting born is it's pretty unlikely the same people would be born twice considering the extent of the changes he means to make most of the time.

    Never seen a fic where Harry wonders if any of them want a say in the whole 'fixing' things.
     
  3. Thaumologist

    Thaumologist Fifth Year ~ Prestige ~

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    You'd use all the wrong slang, and quite possibly idioms too. When it's a case of an adult being shunted back to childhood, or multiple years in a different dimension. It's set you apart, but might not be a massive problem.

    If you came back from the future, it might seem like you suddenly start acting like a massive dick to certain people. Because remember when Easy McSleasy got drunk, and told everyone how he got into shape so he could fuck all the girls who ever denied him ... Passing on his WSTD. It hasn't happened yet, but it has to you. Or you randomly attack Ron's pet rat, because you remember it's actually a man, but you don't catch it, so you just look mad.

    All the "modern day" conveniences would go. Speaking from a modern muggle, I love the internet. I also love broadband... Going back to dial-up and floppy disks would be hell. I'd be able to play my old favourites, or earlier ones in a sequel to any games I liked, but I already know the plot of any major books, films, or games that interested me the first time.

    If you go back to childhood, your friendships are gone. It's not going to be quite as funny to sit around up until 0300, trying to sneak a peak at the pixelated boobs on Channel4, or the old in-jokes. Remember planking? Or ninjaing bags? That's the height of hilarity to your friends.

    It's also quite possible that you'd end up with parents arrested for child abuse. Apparently (not speaking from any real knowledge, just what I've heard from teachers) a child that displays too much knowledge about sex has a higher potential to have been abused. Depending how old you get sent back to, this might not be a problem.

    Boredom is going to be massive. You'll know EVERYTHING that's taught in class, and likely to a higher level. But you'd do shit on the exam, because you can't regurgitate the exact wording, so you'll still have to pay attention (some of it might even be wrong).

    The moral quandary of when to interfere.
    You have future knowledge... As long as it doesn't go too differently.
    I'm pretty certain that my actions wouldn't impact (for example) 9/11, especially as I'd be a British primary school kid.
    But if I DID stop that, then there'd be a big impact, and my knowledge about the 7/7 bombings, Boston Marathon, and the Paris attacks would also all be mostly useless.

    the loneliness.
    You can either go for the same partner, or not. Once you get past any mental blocks about their age, you then have the issue that you're going to know more about them than they do you, which might well be creepy, if they realise. Do you tell them? Ever? Or do you attempt a different relationship with someone else, to make it a bit more fair (do you ever explain you're effectively a widow/er).

    EDIT
    Also, as Sorrows says, the issue of "unmaking" the people from the future is a big one, and rarely touched on. but if the MC doesn't choose to come back, it's less of an issue.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2017
  4. Perspicacity

    Perspicacity Destroyer of Worlds ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Chapter 5 of this story has Hermione lay into a time-traveling Harry for being a mass murderer a thousand times worse than Hitler.
     
  5. Celestin

    Celestin Dimensional Trunk

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    Generally, if you would get back in time, you should probably assume it's not a time travel, even if it is. Instead you're in a different world where there are copies of people from your world, but independent from them. It's a psychological trick to free you from assuming too much or having moral problems that you'll never be able to solve.

    As for using events from the original future, you're no butterfly. Rather you're a hurricane of different actions and there is a strong possibility that many will not happen or will change in details.
     
  6. Nuit

    Nuit Dark Lord

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    Yeah, I subscribe to theory that traveling forward/backwards through time branches off into a different one.
     
  7. Atram Noctem

    Atram Noctem Auror

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    Well, there was one fanfic where time-travel saved Cedric's life and he became a Death Eater and somehow that made Voldemort win. So there's always that danger.
     
  8. FriedIce

    FriedIce Seventh Year

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    'Did I just kill my past self?'

    I imagine that'd be a particularly hard pill for Harry to swallow
     
  9. Andrela

    Andrela Plot Bunny DLP Supporter

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    Oh, he definitely did kill his younger self by taking over his body.
     
  10. Celestin

    Celestin Dimensional Trunk

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    But did he do that? Because unless it is specifically stated to be something different, like soul exchange or something, from a different perspective all he did was give his younger self informations about the future in form of his memories. No killing. Just a speed up experience of what would happen to him if there was no time travel involved.
     
  11. Andrela

    Andrela Plot Bunny DLP Supporter

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    Ah, but he didn't give him just memories, right? Memories are memories, but in most fics it's pretty clear that it is the future!Harry whose consciousness is controlling things.
     
  12. Blundo

    Blundo Second Year

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    Being popular would be easy enough. A genuine deep friendship though? Unlikely. It'd be real enough on their end, but on the time traveler's it'd probably feel somewhat fake and manipulative at best.

    Yeah, even if you pull a questionable "well actually it's an 11yr old with an older person's memories downloaded, not an older person in an 11 yr old's body" technicality it's gonna be pretty skeevy unless they're going back to age 16+ at the very minimum. Poor time travel Harry would probably have to wait until he's graduated and meets someone he didn't know from age 11 onward to have anything resembling a normal relationship without it being at least somewhat creepy.

    Not that this has ever stopped fanfic authors.

    It's not even a trick really, since the theory makes just as much if not more sense than going back along the same timeline.

    No use worrying about unmaking people either way, since the chances of the exact same sperm out of millions hitting the exact same egg at the exact same time and going through pregnancy in the exact same environment is absolutely tiny even if you do just about nothing different.
     
  13. Celestin

    Celestin Dimensional Trunk

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    But the question is what's the difference between the future Harry and the past Harry who got all of the future Harry's memories? They already are the same person in all other aspects, leaving the only difference in their experience.

    I'm assuming that the memories aren't edited or experienced in a way that set them apart from the rest.

    Though, I suppose, even if we assume that future Harry simply overwritten younger Harry by uploading his experience, he would be affected by much clearer recollection of recent, or from his point, past events. In a way, he wouldn't be strictly past or future Harry, but rather a third version.

    Or he would get a split personality which happened in some fics.
     
  14. Sorrows

    Sorrows Queen of the Flamingos Moderator

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    Of course, if you go by the split universe theory you have the issue that Harry or whoever essentially just abandoned all his friends, family and the wizarding world on his world to go play with younger copies. Especially in the versions where he is the only one able to defeat Voldemort, would kind of take the noble shine of the whole endeavour.

    But yeah having to go back to school would be boring as fuck. You wouldn't be the best at everything either, in fact for a lot of subjects you would probably be pretty bad since you haven't studied them in however many years. You might have a mature perspective and better writing skills or whatever and be good at whatever subject you used in your job, (if that knowledge can be applied to a classroom setting) but it probably wouldn't compensate for not studying the other subjects, you would have to do some serious catching up.
     
  15. Rhaegar I

    Rhaegar I Death Eater

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    Ok, that sounds pretty dumb. What kind of genius came up with that idea? :rolleyes:

    In all seriousness, I definitely think relationships are an extremely icky situation. There's one Peggy Sue (I forgot what it's called) where Harry, Ron, and Ginny are sent back. Harry and Ginny are a couple and since they were both sent back into their younger selves it isn't anything outright creepy, although even then they agree to avoid anything more than kissing until they're old enough. It's even a plot point about how Harry seems to be acting inappropriately towards her.

    On the other hand, that same Fic had Ron, who was from the future, start dating (and eventually had sex with) Hermione, who wasn't from the future. And even though she later knows the truth, it literally never comes up that what Ron is doing with Hermione might be in any way, shape, or form creepy.
     
  16. Andrela

    Andrela Plot Bunny DLP Supporter

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    Rhaegar I

    Was it Backwards with Purpose?
     
  17. Rhaegar I

    Rhaegar I Death Eater

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    Yep, that's it. Thanks.
     
  18. Jeram

    Jeram Elder of Zion ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Yeah, this is all gold! Great analysis to be considered.
     
  19. Steelbadger

    Steelbadger Death Eater

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    Lets be honest here, it's because the kind of sheltered writers who come up with these stories haven't really understood why that kind of thing is morally wrong. Look at Twilight. There seems to be an unspoken assumption that paedophilia is bad because 'eww saggy old people', rather than because of the inherent inequality (and thus power) when one person has so much more life experience than the other. As long as the old person is hot, it's a-okay!
     
  20. pbluekan

    pbluekan Chief Warlock DLP Supporter

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    Another part of it is, I'm sure, that said authors don't usually associate their characters with the children they really are. They see Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, or themselves as they are now. It's an easy thing to forget. Although that forgetting is what makes that kind of writing shitty.
     
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