Are there any books that have done this?

I'm wondering if there are any plots where the protagonist and antagonist are the same person. Obviously, this would probably have to do with something like cloning, time travel, or something similar. Are there other plot devices that would help this make sense? Any recommended readings would be appreciated. I already know about The Flash and Savitar, but looking for something that doesn't have to do with superheroes.

 

These are awesome examples, thank you. I'll look into them for inspiration.

The novel idea I've had (in as little detail as possible) has the protagonist and the antagonist as the same person but the protagonist and reader don't know that for most of the story. The antagonist and the rest of the world are granted the ability to manipulate the elements when he's near middle age. He masters these elements and discovers the power of void when he's much older. He can manipulate space and time. He's power hungry and decides to go back in time when his mother is pregnant with him and forces her a hundred years into the future so that he's born with these powers and the elements are well researched and practiced by many people at this point, except void. No one has mastered all the elements to learn void except him. His mother dies at birth and he, the protagonist now, is born in a remote place. The antagonist stays hidden but keeps a close watch on him. When the protagonist becomes an adult, the antagonist reveals himself, kills some people close to the protagonist, and this catapults the protagonist to master the elements he's already practiced with.

The issue is plot holes. At first, I tried to figure out how the protagonist would eventually beat the antagonist, as presumably, either the antagonist would always know what the protagonist is thinking and going to do, or at the very least would notice some type of change within himself every time the protagonist strays from becoming the antagonist. I thought maybe I could say that because they were born and grew up in two different timelines, that they were no longer the exact same person. But this would entail that the antagonist will not get more powerful just because the protagonist does. I could say that the antagonist doesn't know this since being able to know everything about the protagonist wouldn't be something he's used to if it was never possible in the first place. But it kind of seems like a cop out, or makes the whole reason for the story fall flat. Maybe I could come up with a different reason as to why he sends himself into the future or goes back in time to get himself, but that would be a lot of rethinking and rewriting around what I already have.

Edit: Also, the future is not set in stone. It has infinite possibilities, so the antagonist doesn't know the future.

 

Ah and this is why I posted here so thank you! I guess I hadn't really thought about it as memories, but in my head it made sense that the older self would know what the younger self is thinking when he thinks it and what he does when he does it since the the older self is presumably going through changes every moment of younger self's life no matter the timeline. So I was separating their progression from the timeline I guess. So when older self thrusts younger self into the future to be born there, that is now younger self's present. Older self still has memories from his timeline but they change as younger self goes through his present. I had figured that because the older self changed the younger self's setting/environment so much that the younger self could use this along with finding love, something the older self never had, to prevent himself from becoming older self. But.. maybe this doesn't make sense if older self can sense himself changing.. so I should make the timeline prevent him from doing that? It does now sound a little too broad of a plot device. Wouldn't I still have to show somehow that older self is changing though? I hadn't thought of making them merge, but it sounds like something to think about. I had thought that once younger self makes a final breakthrough to prevent himself from becoming older self, that older self would just cease to exist.

Edit: I think the issue is that I've been thinking of time as nonlinear, or a fluid overlapping thing. So by separating the characters from the timeline, what happens to older self in the future can be brought back to his present. Is that too big a stretch or just doesn't make sense? I kind of figured it could be explained away by him being able to manipulate time and space.

 

Everything I've watched or read that has to do with time travel has the plot and character turn out to be something that couldn't change in the end and I'm over here trying to change my character's destiny. *sigh Admittedly, I still haven't watched the lego movie or the Phineas and Ferb movie, but Looper and Angel Heart were great. I also watched Predestination and that might be one of my favorite movies now. I still haven't finished Code Geass or read Wizard of Earthsea.

 

I think what I may do is have older self go through his original plot so that I keep what was my prologue or backstory, but instead of him bringing younger self into the future, I'll have him travel further back into the past to set off events sooner than they originally happened in order for younger self to still be born with his elemental abilities, and then find his younger self without ever bringing him into the future. This would make the changes they go through make more sense in the timeline while at the same time still changing his life so that I can work around why older self can't predict everything younger self will think and do.

I don't think time travel, specifically, is what I'm having trouble with. It's more to do with my characters, whom are the same person, and how they affect each other because of time travel. I know it's a lot to think about, but any advice/opinions on my own plot would be appreciated.