History BlessedWithSuck / Literature

* The BentleyLittle short story "Estoppel" (found in ''The Collection'') puts this spin on a variety of RealityWarping. The protagonist's ability is that anything he says out loud about himself becomes true. As a result, he has to be very very careful about what he says, lest he accidentally rewrite his (and the world's) history in disastrous ways or ModeLock himself into a form incapable of speech. And that's without even getting into the issue of talking in his sleep.

* Terry the tramp in ''[[LadyMyLifeAsABitch Lady: My Life As A Bitch]]'' has a ''wonderful'' case of this. If he gets angry at someone, then he'll accidentally [[BalefulPolymorph transform them into a dog]]. Due to this, Terry has never had any friends and [[spoiler:turned mother, father, sister, wife, and child into dogs]]. Oh, and did we mention [[spoiler:[[ModeLock It's permanent]]]]?

* The Struldbrugs in ''Gulliver'sTravels'' are born already with eternal life, but destined to grow old and never die.

* One of the later ''[[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]]'' books assures us that while you are in the land of Oz, you [[NeverSayDie can't die.]] This information comes ''after'' characters in the books have been chopped into pieces, beheaded, melted, and so forth and it's mentioned that you could be transformed into an inanimate object, turned into sand, and buried. Even so, you'd still be alive and presumably conscious. '''[[AndIMustScream Forever.]]''' Thankfully the series never goes in that direction.

* One of the later ''[[TheWizardOfOz Oz]]'' books assures us that while you are in the land of OZ, you [[NeverSayDie can't die.]] This information comes ''after'' characters in the books have been chopped into pieces, beheaded, melted, and so forth and it's mentioned that you could be transformed into an inanimate object, turned into sand, and buried. Even so, you'd still be alive and presumably conscious. '''[[AndIMustScream Forever.]]''' Thankfully the series never goes in that direction.

* In ''AFistfulOfSky'' by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Gypsum [=LaZelle=] finally comes into magical power...and she inherits the power of curses. She has to curse people, FREQUENTLY, or she dies. She manages to work out solutions to this pretty well, though.

* Terry the tramp in ''[[LadyMyLifeAsABitch Lady: My Life As A Bitch]]'' has a ''wonderful'' case of this. If he gets angry at someone, then he'll accidentally [[Balefulpolymorph transform them into a dog]]. Due to this, Terry has never had any friends and [[spoiler:turned mother, father, sister, wife, and child into dogs]]. Oh, and did we mention [[spoiler:[[ModeLock It's permanent]]]]?

** That last bit was actually averted in one of the BruceCoville story collections; after the main character and her friend test a forward-only time machine they find with a teddy bear, it never shows up. The lead decides to try it anyway, over the nerd's objections it's not safe. He has a CreekMoment on the staircase and rushes back to stop her, but it's too late and she's transported into space.

* In the ''CircleOfMagic'' series, Tris has power over all kinds of weather/forces of nature, like tides, lightning, earthquake, winds, rain, etc. She can hear things on the wind, and eventually learned how to scry on the wind as well, which very few mages can do, and most of the ones that try to learn end up going mad. However, outside of her teachers, foster family, and close friends, people either think she is exaggerating about the extent of her power, or are jealous of the fact that she has so much. Also, she can't make a good living as a weather mage, since she is too responsible to disrupt the weather patterns needlessly, and she refuses to use her powers as a battle mage. Not to mention that before her magic was discovered, her parents thought she was possessed or something similiar whenever her magic acted out, and passed her around from relative to relative before dumping her at Stone Circle Temple. That temple didn't want her either when her magic acted out, and she was sent to Winding Circle where finally she discovered her magic and got training in it.

**** What about [[Badass Hurin]] and his son [[Badass Turin]]? Plus men are physically stronger in general than elves while elves are more agile. Hence elves make regular orcs but it takes some men in em to make [[SuperSoldier Uruk-hai]]. And Hurin was described as stronger than any elf, and his sons gonna kill the second most powerful being ever. Plus men get closeness with the real divine(when they die) while elves get stuck with some demigods.

**** Sounds more like a hogwash since the First Born basically get everything from Super Awesome Skills, Magical Powers, Long Life, AND closeness with the Divine. All Men get is the "Gift of Death" since their the Second Born. Face it, Men Suck, Elves Rule.
***** Not to mention the only non-sucky race of men actually have elvish blood or was directly influenced by Elves. Tolkien must not like Men very much or something.

* ''The Last of the Just'' follows the thousand-year history of a family in which one man of every generation is ([[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane or maybe isn't]]) a "Just Man" ordained by God to relieve the world's suffering. Not even the Just Men themselves are entirely clear on what this means, but it's apparently necessary that in order to make other people suffer less ''they'' need to suffer more in equal proportion.

* Pazel Pathkendle in ''{{The Chathrand Voyages}}'' had a spell placed on him by his mother, so that he'll instantly comprehend any language he sees or hears a sample of. Unfortunately, she apparently wasn't very good at using magic, as there are only brief periods when he can use the ability which cannot be predicted, and which end in "mind fits" where he can't make any kind of intelligible speech.

** Prescience in Dune almost defines this. See ''{{Prescience is Predictable}}''

* Nails of [[http://thelonelywinds.com/library.php The Lonely Winds]]. After being [[spoiler: killed by his father and returning to the world as an angelic warrior]] he?s got [[SuperStrength super-strength]], [[SuperSpeed super-speed]], hefty durability and a bunch of other neat powers. So what?s the drawback? [[spoiler: It turns out that his ?body? is now his actual soul made physical, and while he is pretty powerful, if he is ever actually ?killed? it means complete and utter oblivion for him.]]

**** I don't know, being ImmuneToFate has distinct advantages. Elves can't ScrewDestiny or be the SpannerInTheWorks, but we can. I think the best way to describe men in Middle Earth, from everyone else's perspective, is 'weird'. We're weak, we die young... and we took over the world. And all our accomplishments are [[InspriationallyDisabled so much more impressive]] because we do all this without having hundreds of years to learn how to do everything.

* In Frank Herbert's ''{{Dune}}'', control of Arrakis is definitely this. Yes, you get to control the trade flow of the most valuable thing in human civilization. It also paints a big fat bullseye on you since ''everyone else'' will want to take it from you. It's even worse if you actually plan to ''live'' on Arrakis -- it's a miserable desert planet with huge sandworms, and everything tastes like cinnamon because of trace amounts of spice.

* ''TheWheelOfTime'' has quite a bit of this. For most of the series, male channelers have awesome powers, but were cursed to eventual insanity. Female channelers from Seanchan are enslaved and dehumanized. Ta'veren warp luck and chance so that the most improbable events happen, including highly unlikely deaths happening around them. Plus there's the fact that the pattern forces them to do what they're meant for, [[YouCantFightFate no matter what]]. Wolfbrothers can communicate with wolves, but if they're not careful, they'll forget they were ever human.

* The StarTrek: New Frontier feature it big style. There are legends of "The Great Bird Of Galaxy", and it settling down on a planet is considered a big blessing (for example by Hermats.) It turns out legends are true but the blessing has a '''massive''' suck factor: said bird will fill your planet with easily harvestable energy which also has the ability to make the planet super-fertile, but the energy is destined for the bird's embrio which uses the planet as egg, and when it hatches, the planet is destroyed. [[spoiler: This is what happened to Thallon.]]

* In an echo of the Midas myth, ''Discworld'' has a character who is cursed by a deity to have anything he touches turn into gold. Unfortunately, the aforesaid deity was dyslexic and cursed him with the ability to turn anything into ''glod'', which happens to be the name of a dwarf several thousand miles away.

* Terry the tramp in ''[[LadyMyLifeAsABitch Lady: My Life As A Bitch]]'' has a ''wonderful'' case of this. If he gets angry at someone, then he'll accidentally [[InvoluntaryShapeshifting turn them into a dog]]. Due to this, Terry has never had any friends and [[spoiler:turned mother, father, sister, wife, and child into dogs]]. Oh, and did we mention? '''''[[spoiler:It's permanent.]]'''''

* In TheDresdenFiles, when the wizard Harry Dresden looks into a person's eyes for the first time they both see each other's inner nature. This however is such a turbulent experience that for every day of his life, Harry has to avoid looking into the eyes of any person he talks to. He focuses on the nose instead.

*** Actually, it's much, much worse than that. In the first book, it's revealed that without periodic invasions from the outside world, humanity will grow more and more mutated by magical radiation (and the effects of love springs...) into subhuman forms. A rule in the early books is that a living thing can be inherantly magical, have a magical power, or be sentient: pick two at most. Chameleon, like Bink (supposedly) does not have a magical talent: she's an inherantly magical mutation. She has no talent: can't be BlessedWithSuck if you're not blessed. Since she marries Bink, who is also intensely magical [[FridgeLogic the kids would have been in danger]] of being stuck with her mutation or something even worse if it weren't for the series' ReverseCerebusSyndrome.