Cursed With Awesome - Television Tropes & Idioms

These people either want to marry Ranma or practice martial arts with him/her thanks to the "curse".

Buffy: But you're right. I mean, like...I guess everyone's alone, but...being a Slayer? There's a burden we can't share.
Faith: And no one else can feel it.... Thank God we're hot chicks with superpowers.
Buffy: That does take the edge off.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "End of Days"

A character has some "terrible" curse placed on him that is actually pretty awesome. Often, such characters will bemoan their fate and go to great lengths to be rid of the "curse" instead of taking advantage of whatever cool side effects the curse may have. Other times it's the "reward" for Heroic Willpower. Sometimes there's a subset of people who try to tell him this.

Immortality has been done to death under this heading, even garnering its own trope. While eternal life does have some understandable drawbacks, excessive emphasis on the negative side can push it straight into Cursed With Awesome territory. The Emergency Transformation of a character often crosses into this, as the condition is considered literally de-humanizing.

Vampire protagonists are always, always Cursed With Awesome.

This trope is a major source of Angst Dissonance — if not used carefully, then a character being Cursed With Awesome carries the risk of plummetting straight into Wangst or Deus Angst Machina territory, as nothing is guaranteed to piss an audience off more than a character complaining about having abilities that are, on the face of it, utterly fantastic and that the audience would kill to have. This is especially a risk if a balance between the awesomeness of the powers and the suckiness of the consequences of possessing them is not maintained; if the drawbacks are outweighed by the benefits, then the character just looks whiny.

Occasionally leads to a World Of Cardboard Speech whether or not the character is unhappy about the effects of their curse.

The Punishment is an extreme form of this and usually done to someone that actually deserves it. Also compare Plague Of Good Fortune.

Polar opposite to Blessed With Suck. May result in a Curse Is Foiled Again.

Examples

Anime

Ranma 1/2. Ranma spends the series trying to release himself from the curse of turning female; his justification for wanting to be rid of it is that it clashes badly with his uber-masculine self-image (not to mention he and his father are obligated to kill themselves if his mother ever found out). This is in contrast to the other local curse sufferers, who turn into much more inconvenient things, like animals. Slightly subverted in that after initially hating it entirely, he has gotten used to it and has taken advantage of it plenty of times.
"Guy gets cursed thanks to the bumbling actions of his father. He's a master of martial arts, has women throwing themselves at him, and can turn into a woman. Wait, I thought curses were supposed to be bad. Bah."''
- In fact, half of the Jusenkyo spring "curses" have some beneficial side effects. Pantyhose Taro, for example, fell in the "Spring of Drowned Yeti Holding An Eel And Crane While Riding An Ox", which turns him into a super-strong monster; he intentionally got cursed a second time to become even more powerful.
- This has actually been acknowledged within the story and was once a plot-point. When Ryoga had a Ki Attack that was powered by depression Ranma tried to copy it. But, as Ryoga pointed out, what Ranma goes through with his curse is nothing compared to his: a small piglet that people and animals are constantly trying to eat. Needless to say, Ranma couldn't outdo that.
Shiki of Tsukihime gains the power to "understand the concept of death" after a childhood accident, which allow him to destroy anything (well, almost) by cutting the lines, even concepts; at least one doujin grants him the power to destroy the universe, if he only had a spaceship. This, naturally, bypasses Nigh Invulnerability (even reincarnation) completely. Sure, it puts a huge strain on his brain (to the point that if he strains to avoid seeing the death of humans, the blood vessels around his brain have a good chance to explode) and supposedly would have driven him insane (seeing death all the time: not good for your health) had he not been given glasses that counteract this effect... but cost aside, there's just something amusing about being able to cure poison or recent vampirism by stabbing people. See also the Subtle Knife of His Dark Materials.
- Ciel, on the other hand, has Nigh Invulnerability so long as the vampire Roa remains alive due to his immortality, thanks to the world itself, which will not let her die because technically, Ciel = Roa = Alive. Despite how incredibly useful this is in her line of work, she is dedicated to destroying Roa. Of course, she does have her reasons...
- To emphasize the "curse" part: just several years after the main storyline, Shiki's eyes become too powerful for the glasses to override, so he actually resorts to rolling bandages over his eyes. Apparently, he's also very close to dying himself because of the constant use of this power.
Subverted beautifully in Kajika, where young Kajika appears to have an awesome curse which multiplies his speed, strength, and toughness while giving him many special powers. Despite this, he works endlessly hard to break this horrible curse. Why, you ask? Because it's a downgrade from his normal form, which is even more powerful.
In XXXholic, Watanuki constantly bemoans the fact that he is always stuck with Domeki Because Destiny Says So. Considering that Domeki has saved him from falling to his death (badly injuring his arm in the process), spent ten hours in the rain trying to pull him away from the brink of Hell, saved him from getting mauled by a possessed girl and her box cutter, gave his blood to save his life, and keeps him from being mauled by spirits on a daily basis just by being around him, you would think Watanuki would be a little more grateful — even if he does have to make Domeki lunch once in a while.
- This is a Justified Trope in that the The Heartless are apparently cursing Watanuki into being a bitch about it. That's kinda petty for The Forces Of Darkness™ but whatever.
Gundam SEED: Kira Yamato, a mostly pacifist young kid, is a Coordinator, allowing him exceptional mental abilities, reaction time, and such. It is these abilities that allow him to pilot the titular Gundam, but also draw him into a war between the genetically altered Coordinators and the Earth-born Naturals, both sides of which have friends of his fighting for them (which, naturally, he'll come into conflict with). For the first half of the series, he's well aware that he's one-half of all that's keeping his friends from being killed by ZAFT, to the point that he literally begins living in his cockpit so as to be ready at a moment's notice should they come under attack.
Played straight in The Slayers, with Zelgadis Greywords. His great-grandfather, under the influence of a fragment of the world's ultimate Big Bad, cursed him into becoming a chimera: one-third golem, one-third blow demon, one-third human. This gives him Nigh Invulnerability from attacks with physical weapons, gives him incredible magical power, and allows him to run faster than the eye can see. However, he also has blue skin, rocky protrusions extending from all over his body, and weighs more than some boulders. Despite all the awesome powers, though, he just wants to be human again.
- Even though Zelgadis spends most of the series trying to find a cure to his affliction, this doesn't stop him from taking advantage of his powers every chance he gets.
Tenchi Muyo GXP plays with this trope. Protagonist Seina Yamada is cursed to be a Weirdness Magnet, with his mere presence causing accidents to harm himself and anyone else in the general area. His curse seems to reach new heights when he gets shanghaied into the Galaxy Police, and attracts a horde of space Pirates almost as soon as he leaves orbit. But when he's rescued, it's brought to his attention that his curse led to one of the biggest blows against piracy in history — and he becomes determined to take the chance to have his luck serve a purpose for a change. Of course, the curse also leads to an Unwanted Harem... 'nuff said.
The "yaka" in Sola closely resemble vampires minus the need for blood: immortality, super strength and agility, regeneration, ability to resurrect people by turning them, and sometimes other awesome unique powers, with only the vampire-like extreme weakness to direct sunlight (and the 'curse' of immortality) as a drawback. Another character has a unique body that overcomes even that, but he spends all his time angsting over not being a real boy. The ending highlights how unappreciated these abilities are by those who have them.
Inu Yasha features Miroku, who is cursed by the series' Big Bad with the Wind Tunnel - essentially a gaping black hole in his hand that sucks in everything in front of it with phenomenal force. Eventually, we're told, it will rupture and draw himself in without warning, along with any friends or loved ones that might be nearby... except that he's capable of keeping it closed until necessary. And he's capable of repairing the slow expansion of the hole. Eventually at some point in time the Wind Tunnel will kill him, but until then, Miroku's nemesis has essentially handed him a superweapon.
- A superweapon Naraku swiftly learns to neutralize via poisonous insects that swarm Miroku, clogging the Wind Tunnel and stinging him painfully on the way in. (Making it more or less a Useless Useful Spell)
Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke gets cursed by a boar demon, which manifests itself in a gradually increasing nasty-looking scar which will eventually kill him, and turn him into a demon. (He comes pretty close to the deadline). The curse also grants him awesome powers, like shooting someone's head off with an arrow or having the strength of ten men - which comes in very handy among all the hostility he gets faced with.
- This troper doesn't believe it was ever stated that the curse gave him his archery ability or if he was a badass archer from the beginning. After all, he did kill the boar god with arrows.
- Dude, every time he does a 'killshot', he looks shocked and his arm fluxes.
  - It's presumably part of the extra strength — the arrows simply have an abnormal amount of force behind them. Lucky his bow can handle it...
Allen Walker from D Gray Man was born with a deformed left arm that made his parents abandon him. After his adopted father died, Allen unknowingly had the Millennium Earl turn him into an Akuma, who then cut Allen's left eye and cursed him. Allen's arm can turn into an incredible weapon for destroying Akuma, and his left eye can see the soul bound to them, making him the only person on the planet who can tell which "people" in a crowd are Akuma. A few other Exorcists are Cursed With Awesome too, particularly Krory (who was bitten by a plant and turned into a vampire that lives off of Akuma) and Miranda (a perpetual loser who can now stop time). Miranda started as full-fledged Blessed With Suck until she was able to control it, though.
- To be fair, when Allen's eye levelled up others for the first time could see what he saw and they were near traumatised in an instant.
Kamui of X 1999 is probably the most extreme example in said series. His powers as 'the one who represents the will of god", which is the meaning of his name, make him need to choose between two sides. Unsuprisingly, Kamui chooses the Dragons Of heaven, who are considered the 'Good Guys', which causes the Because Destiny Says So to come and make Fuuma into a Dragon of Earth (and probably the only one who does his job), undergo a dramatic personality change, kill Kotori, his own sister, and send Kamui into a bound of angst, with Subaru, who also is an example of both this and the Break The Cutie trope, the only one able to take him out and force Kamui to face the outside world, and both are still Angstfests. Yuzuriha also qualifies: She was the only one to see her best friend and puppy, Inuki, because of her powers as one of the Seven Seals.
Naruto; The "can" part of Sealed Evil In A Can essentially a walking jail cell for a beast that tried to destroy a city; he was rejected by everyone in his hometown except the Third Hokage, Iruka-sensei and the Ichirakus- these prople were enough, however, to turn him into Bart Simpson with ninjutsu at the start of the series, rather than the cold-blooded killer that Gaara was when first introduced.
In Blood Plus, becoming a chevalier is treated like such a horrible thing by the protagonists, but chevaliers have Immortality, eternal youth, nigh invulnerability, Super Strength, Super Speed, flight and they don't require food or sleep. In fact, some chevaliers have even exhibited other powers such as armor-like skin and energy blasts. The only real downside is that they have to ingest human blood, but they can get transfusions in lieu of actually feeding on humans.
- This might actually be justified, since most of what the protagonists find horrible about becoming a chevalier is the stuff that happens afterwards. Namely, mild-mannered Riku (and Haji, in some of the supplemental material) going into fits over the need for blood, and the both of them suffering incredible amounts of nigh-unbearable pain on a regular basis. The agonizing seizure-transformation probably doesn't help much, either.
Jun in Special A laments about his problem with girls, which explains why he stays away from relationships. When Sakura kisses him, he wakes up - Turns out his shameful secret is that he's got a Casanova Split Personality inside him. The split personality realizes how awesome this is, but the "outer" Jun fails to see this.
Negi in Mahou Sensei Negima. Most guys would kill to be the homeroom teacher of a class full of hot girls, many of whom hold crushes on him, as well as a few who attempted to use Marshmallow Hell to prove their affection. Of course, Negi is ten years old, so he doesn't understand how lucky he is, and his desire to protect his students and not be "improper" worries him to no end.
- The fact that the Marshmallow Hell nearly killed him probably didn't help.
What the Gorgon Sisters want their adoring Amazon subjects to believe they are in One Piece: their story is that they slew some monsters and were cursed with their powers and "Medusa Eyes" on their backs as punishment. That the Amazons don't know about Devil Fruit and that everyone the Gorgons fight turn to stone probably helps their story a bit.

Comic Books

Subverted with Juggernaut from the X Men. Those who are bestowed with the power of the god Cyttorak through his ruby gem are also compelled to do evil, regardless of their previous nature. However, Cain Marko is a natural sociopath, and doesn't need much prodding.
- Natural sociopaths don't often reform...more likely, he was just a jackass. And when he did his Heel Face Turn, the subversion un-subverted itself, as Cyttorak was none too pleased with the change in matters. On the other hand, he did get to sleep with (a) She-Hulk...
In its early history, the X-Men themselves tended to have attractive heroes who felt awkward about their powers, while villains who reveled in their powers were ugly. This trend was reduced with the introduction of the Morlocks, who were bizarre but kind, plus the general escalating public fear of mutants because they could look just like anyone else.
- The first X-Men movie in many ways reflected this; the heroes were all extremely gorgeous people with cool powers played by people like Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry and James Marsden, whilst the bad guys - with the notable exception of Ian McKellen - were all freaks. The later movies began to balance this out a bit more with the inclusion of characters such as Nightcrawler.
  - Hello, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mystique? Even with the blue skin, she's still the hottest actress in that movie.
- Also, some of the mutants who've wished to be cured over the years (and over the adaptations) have been mutants who looked human and didn't suffer from any lack of control.
Deadpool was cursed by Loki to have Tom Cruise's face until his father forgave him. Deadpool was not happy at all.
- Course, this was before Tom Cruise's name became a dirty word. Who knows? Mebbe Deadpool can see into the future too?
- The squeeing fangirls could make this bad in Real Life. Did the comic consider this?
- Deadpool gets this again, in a sort of subversion. In Deadpool #64, Thanos curses him with immortality. Where's the curse in that? Well, they both love Death, so Deadpool would actually be pretty happy being killable. Torn between Cursed With Awesome and Blessed With Suck - the curse only won out because that was Thanos's original intention.
Thor's foe the Flame believes he is horrendously ugly in addition to having superstrength, fire control abilities, indestructible armour and a BFS. Of course, he is horrendously ugly by fire demon standards which makes him extremely handsome by human (or Asgardian) standards, but the Flame refuses to believe this.
This is the premise behind the Golden Age DC superhero Mister Terrific. A child prodigy genius, self-made millionaire, and athletic champion winds up nearly commiting suicide because life holds no challenges. Luckily he finds a purpose at the last minute as a crimefighter.
The Thing in The Fantastic Four. Super-strong & nigh invulnerable. Sure he's not the best looking guy around, but despite this he's had several women attracted to him, Alicia Masters, Thundra, the second Miss Marvel, heck even Tigra seemed interested with him. Boo-hoo, poor Ben.
- The most irrational thing he complained about was how he thought the first of these women would flee him if she were not blind. Dude, she has a pretty good idea that you are not normal-looking because your skin feels more like an animate pile of rocks than anything outwardly human.
- His Wangstyness might have something to do with the fact that, while a few women have been attracted to him, most everyone outside of the superhero community sees him as a horrible freak and have been known to cross streets to get away from him. Though admittedly this doesn't happen nearly as much as it did in the old days.
  - And the reactions shifted rather early on from "OMG A MONSTER!" to "Oh, crap! Ben Grimm! Destructive battle imminent!"
  - Not to mention that his form rather limits the...non-crime-busting activities he can undertake with his female friends. I'd be pretty angsty too in those circumstances.
Thunderfoot, an homage to the character of Watership Down, is cursed in the Vertigo comic book series FABLES by a dark magician hare to change into a horrendous, disgusting form of a monster until he gets the love of a pretty hare. Actually Thunderfoot is the most awesome lad the readers may have seen. Ever. But his tries to convince a hare of his awesomeness are constantly defied by their fearful outcries of "MONSTER! Monster!"
Hell Boy:
- The title character is the son of a demon (or maybe a Cosmic Horror) with a stone glove permanently attached to his right arm, and is fated to basically end the world. Oh, and he's the hero-protagonist.
- Liz Sherman: her unstable pyrokinetic powers blew up her family and (according to the "Art of" book) an entire oil refinery. She's classified as a "Living Weapon of Mass Destruction" and part of the reason she likes Hellboy is because he's fireproof.
- Johann Strauss and his wife died during a bombing raid in WW 2; fortunately he was in the "Astral Plane" at the time. Now he's an effectively immortal cloud of mist, as long as he can find an empty "body" to inhabit. The Movie shows him pondering the difference between him and clockwork Implacable Man Kroenen.
- Abe Sapien was a human scientist who, while exploring an undersea ruin in the 1800s, became Touched by ~~Vorlons~~ Cosmic Horrors after finding a mysterious "egg" that turned him into a fishman. Subverted in that he doesn't feel cursed. Usually.
In the comic Timespirits, Our Heroes encounter a dinosaur-descended space pirate who has supernatural luck. She can never fail to do anything she tries. And when Our Heroes offer to remove the "Curse of Success" she jumps at the chance. Because, as she puts it, "I am so incredibly bored!". So she gets her luck extracted and has the ordinary chance of success and failure of anyone else - which she considers a blessing.
Northstar from Alpha Flight. On the upside he gained superspeed, flight, and met his long lost twin sister. On the downside he’d trained from a small boy to be the best downhill skier he could and dreamed of winning championships and medals and gaining superpowers made all those long years of effort worthless and forced him to give up the sport he loved.

Film

The 1999 version of The Mummy. Okay, Imhotep got eaten alive by scarabs and had to slumber for a few thousand years, but once released he became an immortal, invincible badass.
- And, the people who cursed him, and their descendants, were then forced to spend those thousands of years guarding his tomb, waging war on anyone who tried to open it, to prevent the badass from coming out. They thought the Egyptian afterlife was too good for him, but really, it would have been much easier to just kill him.
- On the other hand, the DVD reveals that Imhotep was apparently conscious the whole time, in eternal agony because the pain from having his flesh eaten by scarabs never went away. Ouch.
- This was averted in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. The Emperor already had superpowers while he was alive, the curse just turned him into a terracotta corpse.
The main character from Shallow Hal is hypnotized to see a person's inner self. While everyone around him is baffled that he starts hitting on unattractive women, they appear as supermodels to him.
- Actually, this troper remembers Hal bitching that the cursewas taken off. As I remember, his reasoning was along the lines of 'Dude! Who cares if they were really ugly? They were pretty to me, AND they were wonderful people!' Kinda a win-win.
The premise for Phenomenon is a pure version of this trope. John Travolta's character gains extraordinary mental powers as well as telekinesis all caused by a brain cancer that activates normally dormant regions of the brain. His first big problem is finding out why he got this power—since it scares the locals, it makes his personal life harder than it used to be (he's from a small town). Once he finds out, he takes it much better— yes, he takes a brain cancer that kills him in less than two years, and the inconveniences that go with treating such a cancer, much more peacefully than ostracism.
The two protagonists in Lost In Translation are living most people's dream of a free trip to Tokyo, staying in a 5 star hotel, with lots of money to spend and their every need catered to, and the entire city laying open for them to explore. So they spend the entire movie complaining about how alienated they feel and how much they're hating their visit.
In all three Spider Man movies, Spider Man is constantly whining about how "cursed" he is. In fact the only time he isn't whining about something is when he has the Symbiote suit, which enhanced his powers and made him far more badass, and therefore, cool. After he loses it he seems to be even more whiny and grating, to the point where this troper actually hoped Venom would win.
In the classic Disney film "Beauty and the Beast" the Beast is constantly whimpering about how ugly he is. This troper can come up with a million cool things that a 9 foot 700 pound bear with buffalo horns could do. Really, the only interesting fight was with the wolves, and even then he was making a huge fuss over the little scratch marks on his arm.

Literature

Vampirism is often an example of Cursed With Awesome, depending on how Your Vampires Are Different. Potential upsides: immortality, super-strength, shape shifting, hypnotic powers, or sometimes just open-ended Functional Magic. Potential downsides: parasitic dependency, social isolation, inability to endure daylight, addictive cravings and/or psychotic need to kill, various Kryptonite Factors, demonic or even decayed appearance, and loss of one's soul (whatever that may mean in your reality). Whether one is merely cursed or actually Cursed With Awesome depends on how much from column A you get relative to column B.
- The webcomic Sluggy Freelance spoofs this (and Anne Rice's vampires in specific) in this exchange◊.
- The movie comedy Love At First Bite also ends with Cindy Sondheim agreeing to become a vampire because it was pretty awesome. Also, she fell in love with Count Dracula.
- Interestingly, in Christopher Moore's You Suck, a woman loves being a vampire because she no longer has to be afraid of other people, whereas her boyfriend, whom she turns into one to be with her, realizes he hates having to suck blood and not being able to go out during the day.
The same thing could go for Werewolves, though again, your mileage may vary.
Quite a few characters inflicted with Animorphism will bemoan their fates so Wangstily when they are turned into things like swans, bears, or dragons, you wonder how they'd react if they were turned into worms.
Let us not forget the Animorphs themselves. Tobias flat out calls Morphing "the Andalite's Curse" and this is coming out of somebody who could have easily been Mode Locked as a flea or something. After a while it seems as though anyone who has a power is bound and determined never to enjoy it. Granted, they're in the middle of a war for most of the series, but even so, only Cassie seems to have any fun with her power at all.
- (Not true. Rachel went from a snarky gymnast to a battle goddess, whose one goal in life was to fight.)
- In fact, Tobias' life was an absolute shithole at the time he was trapped in morph, and the others sometimes wonder if he didn't trap himself intentionally.
  - May not have been a very well thought out move, as a red tailed hawk has a lifespan of about 20 years, and the bird he "acquired" was presumably already an adult to begin with, with who knows how much mileage. Then again, the characters had every reason to believe that the human race was doomed, so maybe long term lifestyle planning wasn't a priority.
In Greek Mythology, Scylla was a nymph cursed to become one of the most powerful and feared monsters in existence, making this Older Than Dirt. She also raised bemoaning her fate to an art form few since have matched, deciding that if she couldn't be beautiful anymore, she'd stay in the spot she was transformed for the rest of her life, devouring anyone who came near.
Norse Mythology has the story of Nornagest, a person who, as an infant, was going to be given blessings from the Norns (the Norse goddesses of Fate), but his parents angered one, who, instead of a blessing, gave him the "curse" that he would die when a specific candle finished burning. They manage to turn this "curse" into a blessing by putting out the candle so it would never "finish" burning... until he is forced to light it again three hundred years later.
In the Legend of the Five Rings fiction, Bayushi Tangen, lived his life in shame because of what he viewed as a curse. What was the curse you ask... he was so lucky, the Gods would smile on him and allow even the most poorly thought out, suicidal plan to work perfectly. At one point, he defeated an entire enemy army because a tower fell on their archers, and a bolt of lightning struck their general just as he was about to kill Tangen. There is a drawback - nothing he ever does will be "his accomplishment", because his luck does everything for him.
- This ability sort of gets passed on to his students, the Bitter Lies swordsmen, to the point that enemy armies are more afraid of facing a single Bitter Lies samurai than a Scorpion Clan army.
You would think that an item that made every woman in the world want to tear off your clothes and have you take them would be a blessing. Read the beginning of The Woad to Wuin, the second book in the Sir Apropos Of Nothing trilogy, and disavow yourself of that notion.
- That depends...can you turn it off? If not, that would be the Midas curse.
- A far better example is the main plot to the second half of the book, where Apropos gains a gem in his chest that makes him indestructible...and gives him delusions of grandeur that turns him from an Anti Hero to a full-blown Big Bad.
In George Macdonald's pretty fairy tale The Light Princess, a vengeful witch curses a baby, upon her baptism, to have no gravity — she is completely weightless, gets to pretty much levitate whenever she pleases, and, as a baby, causes many awkward explanations on the part of her parents. However, in an interesting twist, she thinks that the curse is a rollicking good joke — another aspect of the curse is that she also loses her mental gravity and is unable to take anything seriously. The very fact that she can't comprehend sadness, of course, makes her parents even more miserable.
In a Greco-Roman myth recorded by Ovid in Metamorphoses a man named Lycaeon is turned into a wolf as divine punishment for being a cannibal and serving human flesh to the gods. It's strongly implied that he was happier in this form than as a human.
In the book I Want To Go Home by Gordon Korman, Rudy is a kid who can do ANYTHING easily and perfectly. This makes him terminally bored with everything they make him do at summer camp.
The title character of A Nameless Witch is cursed to be beautiful, unaging (undead), and has magic powers. But since she's a witch, she goes around in disguise looking as ugly as she can manage. Bad side effect: she's so good looking because the curse makes her a literal man-eater...or at least, she desperately wants to eat anyone she loves.
In the Tamuli trilogy by David Eddings, the Delphae are cursed by their God with a horrifically gruesome death touch, and a glow that warns others not to touch them. Since both also come with an off-switch, and since the power eventually evolves into greater magical abilities, the Knights are a bit stumped as to why it's called a "curse", until the Behelliom explains that there's a literal difference between a blessing and a curse- a blessing's radiance makes those blessed easily detected by anyone who could sense magic, but curses are, by their very nature, concealing, and actually dampen the "sound" of magic near them. Since the Delphae are trying to hide from the rest of mankind a curse was the most suitable.
The main character of Tales Of MU, Mackenzie Blaise, is a half-demon and has superhuman strength, invulnerability to several types of damage and can engulf any part of herself with flames without hurting herself! Though, this might be justified, as anything with fingers can keep her back by crossing themselves. Even people who don't believe in that god.
Tuck Everlasting 's premise is about what a curse it is to be immortal. Granted, the family does seem pretty upset about it, but that's because they're not taking advantage of it.
Fiorenze in How To Ditch Your Fairy has all boys around her age like her, even the gay boys, as long as they are in her presence. This means that the school she attends has to have rules against stalking her, and she Does Not Like Men, to boot.
Nikki Reilly, in the Whateley Universe. She has merged with the soul of an ancient Sidhe queen, giving her immortality, incredible beauty, a Faerie glamour so she's even more irrestible to men, amazing magical abilities, blah blah blah. Why is this Cursed With Awesome? Well, before this merge, Nick Reilly was a normal boy.
People descended from the Meyerdahl Beta wave of genetic modification in the Honor Harringtonverse (including the titular protagonist) are faster, stronger and gain an intelligence boost, but anytime it comes up the heroine seems to fixate on her increased need for food (from the enhanced metabolism) and the fact that approximately a 3rd of them don't regenerate well (which is only an issue for the main character because she has a propensity towards getting mutilated in the line of duty). boo fricking hoo.
- She doesn't really fixate on her need to eat a lot that much. In fact it's clearly shown as having upsides too. But it is one of telltale signs of being a "genie" (genetically modified human) and being known as one isn't career-enhancing, even in Manticore (where all the monarchs were genies) because of certain events of the Final War.
- And it was a problem. When Harrington was captured by The Bad Guys, she was kept on ordinary rations. They didn't know of her special metabolism, so while she was imprisoned, she was slowly dying of malnutrition.

Live Action TV

At first glance, the Gypsy curse on Angel in Buffy The Vampire Slayer seems to fall under this; giving someone their soul back doesn't seem like it would fall under the heading of "curse". But it carries with it a few centuries of guilt for horrific murders, and he reverts to being a sadistic monster if he is ever truly happy.
- The visions Cordelia inherits come with whomping migraines, that caused brain damage and would've blown out the back of her head if she hadn't found a way around them.
- The Slayer tradition itself is often viewed by Buffy as being something of a curse, which prompts much complaining about it; however, the angst that comes with this example is a bit less excusable, given that it has resulted in her being, as Faith puts it, a "hot chick with superpowers". As a result, the hardship it brings to her life aside, Buffy can look pretty whiny about it at times.
Geordi La Forge from Star Trek The Next Generation is cursed with blindness... but gets superhuman vision in return. Despite this, he kvetches about how he wishes he could have regular people eyes because using the device causes chronic pain.
- It should be noted that A) Chronic pain really isn't fun, and B) he has supersight for science purposes, but he can't really 'see' in the same sense that we do. He looks at a painting and sees pigments textured onto canvass, not the picture. A sunset to him is just photons glancing off the atmosphere in a mildly interesting way. It may be a really handy plot device to have around, but it's really not that awesome for him personally.
- The bionic eyes he eventually has, with even more cool features and (if what we see when he zooms in on Cochrane is what he sees) regular vision as well, on the other hand... awesome.
- Except that in one episode he was offered cloned eyes to replace his own. He turned them down. So he really has no reason to complain.
  - Except the cloned eyes would only give him (IIRC) 70% of normal human sight - not enough to give up the visor.
  - Plus, it was an All Or Nothing gambit - it might not have worked, and if it didn't, he couldn't return to his VISOR.
  - And he certainly doesn't complain about it when he finally does gain fully-functional natural sight in Insurrection.
Expertly parodied on That Mitchell And Webb Look, in a sketch with a man tormented by the negative ramifications of the superpowers he has kept hidden from the world since his childhood. The powers? Levitating biscuits.
Heroes touches on this a lot. Chronologically, the first offender was Brian Davis, who wished he didn't have his powers. He gets his wish when Sylar kills him. Most other characters are somewhat angsty about the consequences of their powers, but quickly learn to make use of them.
- But some cry about it throughout the entire series. Such as Claire Bennet: her ability is regeneration, and she cries about it nearly all throughout season one, mourning how she's the freakshow of the cheerleaders, despite the fact that nobody except for a very select few friends and family knows about her ability, nor is her ability all that apparent unless she severely wounds herself in plain sight. Then in season two, it gets even worse, because she cries that she can't go around showing her ability and how restrained she feels. Nevermind the fact that the only way to show her ability to others is by injuring herself. Nevermind the fact that all she has to do in order to avoid suspiscion is lay off her masochistic tendencies. Then she cries the company might find her, because they'll run tests on her and stuff, poking and prodding her. She cries about this too, even though it seems that's all she wants to do to herself, seriously if you find an episode with Claire in it that doesn't involve a suicide attempt or self mutilation, you get a cookie.
  - To be fair, she seems to have an uncommon knack for getting accidentally injured, up to and including getting her head twisted 180 degrees in a simple school-playing-field fall. And it's not just major injuries - her blood literally springs back into the closing wound after her brother nails her with a stapler.
  - As if that weren't enough, in season 3 she discovers that she can't feel pain anymore — and is grief-stricken over it, as apparently it takes all the fun out of her self-mutilation hobbies. At one point she actually mentions this to Elle, whose Power Incontinence is causing her to suffer horrific agony, and is, needless to say, not pleased to hear it.
- Although, given what happened to Adam, perhaps Claire unknowingly had the right idea to begin with.
Clark Kent on Smallville, constantly whines and angsts about how terrible it is to be an alien "outsider" with such and awful secret. Yep, an outsider with: two unbelievably loving parents, some awesome best friends who are totally supportive when they eventually learn his secret (and one's a hottie that's totally in love with him to boot), an acceptable level of baseline popularity in school, gets to looks like Tom goddamn Welling so most chicks think he's hot-as... oh and the small matter of developing a wide array of earth-shattering superpowers that make him a virtually unkillable demigod. Yeah, boo-frikkety-hoo, Clark; cry me a river... If it weren't for kryptonite it would be win-win-win.
- Admittedly, his whining becomes slightly more justified in later seasons as some people he loves die or move away, his would-be OTP starts getting really screwy, and increasingly more dangerous and determined adversaries are pitted against him. Still, you wish you could just tell him that a few years down the track he'll get the hot chick, be the universally beloved protector of the planet, hang out with a bunch of super buddies etc... SO JUST PUT A SOCK IN IT!
Subverted in Reaper. At first it seems like the devil owning Sam's soul looks like the best thing that's ever happened to him: he gets a cool job as a hunter of escaped souls, powers specially designed for each soul so he shouldn't have too much trouble with them, and the big guy's inside advice on how to get laid. However, the devil also occasionally screws with Sam's life just for the hell of it, and he can't say anything about it to the girl he really loves since it would jeopardize her ownership of her own soul.
Averted in Stargate Atlantis. At first, Teyla is understandably freaked out when she learns her telepathic abilities stem from the fact she's part Wraith. However, being a no-nonsense Action Girl, she quickly comes to terms with her background and quickly sets out trying to figure how she can use it against the Wraith.
Present in Dead Like Me. The protagonists are given immortality, invincibility, evidence of a divine plan, and knowledge of the afterlife. They have the time to pursue every dream they ever had in life, and then will get to go off to an afterlife that looks pretty sweet. The only catches are that they lost their old lives (which they lost by dying), and that they have to keep a lot of appointments. Instead, most of the show is spent on whining.
- There's also the fact that, despite of being dead/immortal, the Reapers still need to eat, sleep, and beg, borrow, or steal (mostly steal) money and shelter somehow, and if they ever try to talk to/reassure someone who knew them when they were alive, compulsive Can Not Spit It Out kicks in. They cannot avoid their job: if they don't take their designated soul, it will A) rot away if the person is still alive or B) remain alive and conscious inside the rotting body. Oh, and they don't look like themselves to living people - as George put it, "It's like my inner child became a crack whore!" This troper fails to see much of the "Awesome" to this "Curse"...
To some extent, David Banner of The Incredible Hulk. Turning into a green raging behemoth whenever you get angry is pretty lousy, yes, but as played on the show it nearly always kicked in to save him or someone else from life-threatening danger.

Tabletop RPG

Point buy based systems tend to allow your character to gain extra points to buy powers if you take disadvantages. Some of the more munchkin-prone players enjoy picking "drawbacks" that may lack a certain sting. "Berserker" may turn you into a rage-driven killing machine that causes you to attempt to destroy anything that crosses your line of sight... but if you're a combat maniac, that just means there are so many more things you can kill!
- Besides, "Lunatic that kills everything in sight" is half the definition of adventurer in the first place. (The other half is taking their stuff afterwards)
  - Afterwards????
Some players have turned some 'cursed' items to their advantage embracing this trope. The greatest example was the classic D&D Sword -1 Cursed, a Clingy Mac Guffin which would, no matter what you did to get rid of it, would reappear in your hand when combat began. Many did not see a disadvantage of dealing with a -1 penalty for a weapon which was always available. This would eventually make an appearance in one of the Ravenloft novels in the hands of a villain.
Speaking of Ravenloft, each domain—a subsection of the plane—is ruled, at least in part, by a darklord, an incredibly evil indiviual, though not always an unsympathetic one. They get all sorts of shiny powers out of the deal, but in also earns them a curse-which, in and of itself, is personally tailored to the person so that, it wouldn't be so bad for anyone else, but the darklord's personality makes it so that it becomes unberable.

Video Games

In at least two of The Legend Of Zelda games, you wake a sleeping imp, who curses you for your impudence by halving your magic... although what he actually does is halve your magic cost, effectively doubling your magic. Thanks, buddy!
- That's just Link to the Past. Or does that happen in another one? Also, in Link's Awakening, a similar imp "curses" link with greater inventory room, and does this three times.
In The Legend Of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, Link also gets cursed by the Big Bad... with the ability to transform into a wolf at will, thus granting him supreme speed and agility, along with heightened senses and digging ability, all of which are needed to win. Granted, the curse was originally supposed to permanently transform him, but still...
- When Link later meets Zant, the guy who cursed him, Midna mocks him by telling him how the 'curse' actually helped Link get as far as he did.
- Don't forget Majora's Mask. Skull Kid cursed Link into a Deku kid, sealing his sword and shield. But this form was vital to follow him to Termina and to solve many puzzles, beginning with the Deku dungeon.
Lampshade Hanging in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: In order to receive certain (required) abilities, Mario must open locked chests containing demons that dramatically "curse" him with the ability to turn sideways, fold into a paper airplane, etc. By the fourth one, Mario can see where things are headed and tells the chest to get on with the cursing. The chest expresses disappointment at not being able to perform his big scene. These demons were originally the legendary heroes who sealed the true villain and fell to its curse. They're forced to be "dark", but found a loophole in how being "dark" is interpreted.
- And the one in the third chest comes out and says what the curse really is, in a sort of... pseudo-deception?
The Corrupt state in Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones would, in the short term, seem to fall under this heading, if nothing else because it grants the Prince frightfully powerful killing skills... but... Unfortunately, if you don't get your ass to some water soon or keep killing things, you die.
In Pokémon Gold and Silver (and later versions), as an extremely rare occurrence, Pokémon may be infected with Pokérus. This highly infectious disease cannot be cured, though the affected Pokémon will heal naturally in 24 hours of active duty. What does this horrible disease do, you ask? They make your Pokémon grow twice as fast than normal, even after the disease goes away. (It's actually a bit more complicated than that, but that's the upshot.) For this reason, players do well to make sure the disease keeps spreading among their Pokémon.
- On the subject of Pokemon, the hero in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon never seems to find being turned into a Pokemon really awesome (seeing all the cool powers and stuff they have). However, the hero also rarely ever mentions a desire to go back to human form...
  - Who can blame him/her? What would you rather be, a normal bland human or a fire mouse in basically the same society except no clothes and the ability to burn everything in your path?
In Kingdom Hearts II, occasionally, when you attempt to use one of the first three Drive forms Sora gets, you can activate AntiForm, which is Sora's connection to being turned into a Heartless once. It comes with dramatically increased power and agility, the ability to perform absurdly fast and powerful combos that can range across the screen, and of course black, wispy tendrils from your outfit and your hair. The downside? The complete inability to heal while the form is active, plus the inability to gain experience while in the form. Thus, while it's incredibly powerful, there are often very good reasons to want to avoid it.
- This troper would like to add that he lost a boss battle that was all but won when this happened, since all the boss had to do was move away.
- This troper would like to add that he WON a boss battle that was all but lost when this happened, since all the boss had to do was land a one or two more hits to win.
- This troper would like to add that Anti-Form isn't powerful at all; its attack is the weakest attack Sora can use. It makes up for it by being insanely fast, both in movement speed and rate of attack.
- This troper would like to add that this is the ONLY Drive form that you can't switch out of at will, which is very bad if you get it during an inescapable boss fight, which is of course when you're most likely to want to use a Drive form anyway.
- This troper would like to add that it is not impossible to beat boss battles without using Drive forms, and any staggering setbacks from Sora's Anti Form can be avoided by not completely relying on Drive forms. Additionally, when you are using Drive forms nonstop, every other time you try to transform it will be Anti Sora, so you can at least cut your losses by transforming into something that doesn't take very much MP, and then wait until you change back to normal to try something useful.
- This troper would like to add that repeatedly activating the Anti-Form is the second condition to unlocking Sora's final (and strongest) Drive form, aptly named Final Form. The first condition, by the way, is to have seen Sora's battle against Roxax. Only after that scene can you try to attempt to earn Final Form. When you try to take a Drive form while meeting the conditions to go into Anti-Form, there's a small chance that, if you were going to go into Anti-Form, you'll go into Final Form (and the chance increases each time you go into Anti-Form instead), and Final Form can then be selected at will. Also, you will NEVER go into Anti-Form when trying to go into Final Form, no matter what. Now THAT'S Cursed With Awesome.
  - Plus, each time you drive into Final Form, it decreases your chance of driving into Anti-Form on any Drive other than Final Form (though why you'd want to go back to any other form once you've grinded Final Form a bit is quite beyond this troper).
Ashton Anchors, in Star Ocean The Second Story, is cursed by a two-heads dragon, attaching them onto the unlucky warrior. If at first it looks terrible (2 dragon heads protuding from his back aren't exactly pretty) they are quite useful in battle. Unfortunately, they do have minds of their own, and thus he has little control over them. (In the anime version, they're prone to seizing control of his body, turning him into a Bad Ass... but he can never remember it afterwards.)
The main character in Dragon Quest VIII survived the curse placed on Trodain due to a curse placed on him as a baby, that had the side effect of making the cursed immune to any other curses. In an odd subversion of Gameplay And Story Segregation, this even makes him immune to the status effect "Cursed".
The protagonist of Baldurs Gate I and II (and his brother) is "cursed" with supernatural powers due to being descended from an evil god. Depending on which character alignment the player picks at character creature, and on later choices during the game, the character's divine powers differ and grow. "Good" characters may view the ability to destroy the universe as a curse, evil ones probably don't.
Nero's arm in Devil May Cry 4 is demonic, which makes him go to great lengths to hide it from his fellow demon slayers. He's also not happy with the fact that he has a demonic arm, but in all honesty, it's the main reason why he's such a Bad Ass, since it bestows all kinds of asskicking powers to Nero that Dante simply can't match.
- This troper thought that Nero's feelings about his demonic arm made total sense, actually. In his case it's not really a curse (he activated it himself through strong desire to save someone else) and the reason he hides it is because, well, he's a member of demon slayers who will kill him if they see it. But he never once wished for it to go away. He even says he would gladly accept the exile of becoming a full demon as long as he could still protect Kyrie.
In Drakengard, there is an idiosyncratic price a human in a pact with some eldritch creature has to pay for that creature's services. Caim and Leonard have obvious curses - they have lost their voice and sight respectively - but Seere loses his "time", making him immortal. While it is arguable that no one wants to live forever (especially as a six year old child), Seere has already lost anyone dear to him by this point, and it is very hard to say this is a real, immediate curse compared to the others. The hierarch Verdelet is also Cursed With Awesome since all he lost was his body hair. He's a lesser case since his dragon pact-partner happens to be petrified.
Frog from Chrono Trigger isn't here yet? He was cursed into the shape of a little frog. Which is the only reason he has the strength, agility, and extra body parts needed to use Slurp, Slurp Cut, Leap Slash, and even his final ability.
- Meaning, every ability that isn't granted to him by the physical manifestation of War, and War only gave him those because a frog using Water magic seemed appropriate. So, basically, everything.
  - Of course, Frog might be a non-example since he states himself that he doesn't mind his frog shape — he's after Magus because he killed Cyrus, not because he wants his curse undone.
In Net Hack, many "cursed" items can be helpful if applied right, for example a cursed genocide scroll will create monsters instead of kill them, allowing for many useful tactics, such as nurse danceing (Nurses will raise your HP maximum if they attack you when you have no armor on, soround yourself with lots of nurses and... works best on no teleport levels, so the nurses can't flee.).
In Morrowind, it's possible to contract Corprus disease, an incurable illness which disfigures the flesh of its victim. It increases your strength and makes you immune to disease, but reduces your intelligence and makes people disgusted by the sight of you. In addition, it can lead you to a quest where you seek out a wizard who is working on a cure for Corprus. If you volunteer to be his test subject, he'll succeed in removing the negative side effects of Corprus, as well as the strength boost. Incidentally, this leaves you with the immunity to disease, which is a prerequisite to becoming the Neravarine.
- The disease itself is far from a blessing, as it makes you look like a zombie or leper. It also ravages the mind, as only two people, the main character included, are shown to keep their sanity. The reason the player does not suffer those effects is because of Gameplay And Story Segregation.
  - The Corprus incident is even MORE awesome because it effectively makes him immortal if not killed in battle. As the prophecy puts it, neither blight nor age can harm him/The Curse-of-Flesh before him flies' Curse-of-Flesh is the prophetic name for Corprus.
Adelle of Final Fantasy Tactics A 2, as well as a few other characters are Gifted, which grants them unique powers and nigh immortality, but not all can control it. Adelle initially antagonizes over it after her village was wiped out by a plague that didn't affect her. It's also something that makes her desirable by the bad guys, with her consent or not. Many of the other Gifted are outcasts of one kind or another, either because people don't trust them or because of their own desire. Lennart for example states that he couldn't bear being friends with normal people that die within a normal lifespan anymore. She feels that she's been Blessed With Suck at first, but as she meets other Gifted and is given their power for her unique class (Heritor), she comes to realize it's not so bad after all—which allows her to release her own Gift—"the power of life, in all its forms and splendor".
In Metal Slug 3 's second stage, getting attacked by a zombie turns you into a zetta slow zombie...but in return, you become immune to human attacks and you gain a special attack in which you vomit a powerful blast of blood.
And for that matter, Zombie status in Final Fantasy X. While your character does convert HP restoration to damage, attacks with drain effects will now heal, while the user takes damage instead, and your character becomes immune to instant KO.
In F-Zero X, machines with E-ranked grip aren't that bad...in fact, using one allows you to (ab)use several Game Breakers that will let you take massive shortcuts and gain ridiculous bursts of speed.
Fortune from Metal Gear Solid 2 cannot be hit by bullets or rockets, and grenades fizzle out when near her. And all she can do is moan about how she can't die.
When Samus defeats the Omega Pirate in Metroid Prime, it falls on her, "corrupting" her Power Suit into the Phazon Suit. The "beneficial side effects" (decreased damage and immunity to blue Phazon) from this corruption are all that the player ever experiences, and the only negative consequences show up in the sequel, in a bit of Ret Con. The Phazon corruption of Samus herself in Prime 3, on the other hand, has both ups and downs, in that she can use it to enter the very powerful Hypermode, which uses health as ammo and can lead to total corruption if not managed well.
Suikoden usually averts this trope; the drawbacks of the True Runes are in most cases genuinely horrifying. A couple of them have no real drawbacks, though (the Dragon Rune and the Gate Rune, for example); their bearers are essentially getting godlike power and immortality for free, so you have to wonder what they're complaining about.
In World Of Goo, when you encounter an "infected area" in Cyber Space, your first instinct is of course to go around it. But Guide Dang It, the "Grape Vine Virus" actually empowers your free-living projectile goo to cling to each other and form long chains.
The Nameless One in Planescape Torment is immortal, can regenerate and has some really cool powers as a result of his immortality, yet the entire goal of the game is to become mortal again. Then we find out there is a huge price for this: every time he dies he loses all his memories, someone else dies in his place and becomes a Shadow, and after enough deaths he will start to lose his mind.

Webcomics

Ash Upton, from Misfile, can't go long without cursing being turned into a girl, even though as a whole his life is better. He's picked up a girlfriend, has two tricked out racing cars, has established a good relationship with his mother, and his father is significantly more involved in his life. The only seeming downside is dealing with menstual cramps and getting hit on by guys.
- And the guys are offering discounts on expensive autoparts at that!
  - On the other hand, Ash has to deal with all the real psychological issues that a transgender "man in a woman's body" has to deal with, so it's not quite as awesome as it sounds.
  - The authors know what they're talking about, so if anything it's maybe supposed to be shown as just how much someone will give up to not have to deal with that stuff. The cars, the new best friend, the love life, etc... basically everything in life that means anything to you. Of course, with the hinting that possibly Ash's friend was supposed to die in a car accident in the "real world" it was also hinted that Ash decided that would be too much and that she is now re-thinking her plans...
  - The loss of wang is also not something Ash is wild about, coupled with his/her new friend's refusal to do anything with Ash while Ash is female (because she's not gay). Highly frustrating one imagines.
While the Negative Continuity of the series prevents it from being explored too in-depth, this strip of The Non Adventures Of Wonderella ends with Wonderita being cursed so that "any blade she touches shall become as dull as a river-washed stone". The final frame shows somebody futilely trying to chainsaw her to death.
This is a major element in The Challenges of Zona, in which a classic slacker gets transported to a magical world, gifted with magical bardic music powers that let him do everything from mind control to blast fireballs, and who immediately ends up seducing an improbably endowed barbarian chick—and then goes into repeated funks about how it's all too much, he can't handle it, he's not worthy, yadda yadda yadda. You'd think anyone with that much facial hair would've already had 'em drop, but....
Chris from 8 Easy Bits. In an omake episode he brags about his fighting abilities, saying that he could kick Death's ass who promptly shows up and throws down with him, the stakes being death or immunity from it. After an epic battle, by fate or fortune he wins and achieves total immortality. He changes his mind after a week and spends the rest of the ages dispatching monsters and heroes outside of Death's reach to re-earn his right to an end outside of God.

Western Animation

In Justice League, Jason Blood betrays Camelot to Morgan Lefay, and as a punishment, Merlin binds his soul with the demon Etrigan - thus rendering him virtually immortal. Although Jason perceives this as a terrible curse, it's hard to see the downside, since the demon can't even come out unless Jason recites a specific short poem although the demon also speaks inside his head constantly, so it can go either way).
- Have you ever heard Etrigan talk? Having him speak inside your head constantly would drive the average man insane in a week. Cursed. Totally cursed.
- Chalk this one up to a slight case of Adaptation Decay. In the comics Etrigan was originally a demon that had been cursed into human form, later retconned into a human whose soul was bound to a demon's, then retconned again (by John Byrne, naturally) into a monster cursed with the soul of a human. And it was only centuries after being cursed that he discovered the poem that would transform him to demon form. Etrigan is also more explicitly malevolent in the comics, and Jason Blood sometimes struggles to control him. Also he speaks in near-constant rhyme (if that doesn't drive you nuts then nothing will).
Demona of Gargoyles gets this twice: The first, she and MacBeth are magically bonded so that each is immortal, unless slain by the hand of the other. Second, she was zapped by Puck to turn human in the day time instead of going into the normal stone sleep. Both "curses" were meant to be punishment, but all they did was give Demona more time to plot against her enemies (99.9% of Earth) and gave her foes fewer ways to take her down for good.
- Considering how much she hated humans, it probably was a reasonable way to curse her.
- Plus she can't heal like normal gargoyles, so she just suffers until a wound is fully healed at a slow human rate

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