Fics like Write That One: Self-Inserts, Canon, and the Futility of Proving a Story Inevitable

You wake up as Harry Potter with seven books of foreknowledge and one obvious plan: tell Dumbledore everything. There is only one problem. Which Dumbledore? Canon tells us what happened once. It does not tell us what every character would do when given a future that has already changed, or which butterfly will matter three years later. A self-insert cannot calculate that. Neither can the author. An extended argument about self-inserts, canon, Dumbledore, the butterfly effect, and why writers should stop trying to prove their story was inevitable and write the one they actually wanted.

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