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"

Omega-xis: Well if it makes me strong, it's my kind of curse.
- Mega Man Star Force 2

A character has some "terrible" curse placed on them (if they weren't born into it to begin with) 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~~, ''almost always'' Cursed With Awesome.

The jury is out on the justification of the "curse" of Awesome being Fantastic Racism; on one hand, superpowers aren't that much fun when the majority of the population are Bastards who believe suffocating you in your sleep is pest control. On the other, it's not like All Of The Other Reindeer will have an easy time burning you. But if you keep driving off every Torch-swinging Muggle for a generation or so, you're just reinforcing the Fantastic Racism... On and on it goes.

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.
  - Plus, when they fought the first time, it soon became apparent that they couldn't win with the technique as they kept trading the upper hand back and forth because Ryoga hadn't completely mastered it (making it a directed beam attack) and every time they'd blast the other with it their satisfaction at striking a blow to their opponent would raise their spirits enough that they couldn't use the technique anymore, but depressed the other guy to the point where he had all the ammo he needed. Later, when Ranma develops his own attack to counter it, Ryoga's mastered it (making it a downward beam that drops straight through Ryoga), and Ranma still can't beat it-he has to find a way to get Ryoga to defeat himself with it.
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.
- Watanuki's actually suicidal because he knows that he's not supposed to exist, being a time travel duplicate and he believes that his existence is causing those around nothing but misery. He's wrong.
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, superior reserves of magical energy, greatly augmented strength and speed, a much lower requirement for food, and tremendous stamina. However, he also has blue stone skin, rocky protrusions (which look vaguely like scales) 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 super strength (shooting someone's head off with an arrow), which comes in very handy among all the hostility he gets faced with.
- Because it's incredibly whiny to want to get rid of a curse that will kill you.
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.
Naruto the character is the "can" part of Sealed Evil In A Can because he houses an evil spirit inside him. Said spirit becomes the major reason for his extreme powers becauase it's huge stock of Applied Phlebotinum supplies the energy to all his strongest attacks. Oh, and he stops angsting about the demon after the first episode.
- Don't forget the nigh-immortal levels of regeneration.
- The down side of all this awesomeness is that the adult members of his village associate him with the monster that destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones, causing the orphaned Naruto to grow up isolated and hated by almost all. There's also the danger that the seal on the spirit will fail to varying degrees, loosing the fox on the world to merrily murder everyone in its path, nakama included. Plus, using his regeneration powers rapidly erodes his lifespan... so it's literally killing him.
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.
  - * Mahou Sensei Negima also has Setsuna, a half-Tengu demon girl with albinism. This made tengu "Bird Tribe" demons shun her as "unlucky" since she has....wait for it...white wings. Her friends think this is awesome. (Particularly amusing is how Asuna can't help but grope and fondle and...er...smell Setsuna's wings every chance she gets.) For her behavior to make any sense human mages had to have shunned her as well; but we've never seen anyone say an unkind word in her direction; so it could just be her personality.
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.
In Witchblade anime Masane tries to remove or destroy titular implant/symbiont which transforms her at will into Nigh Invulnerable tank-ripping Stripperiffic death machine. Naturally, poor thing deigns to notice her efforts only when she's about to hurt herself, then instantly wrecks offending power tool and returns to its nap. To be fair, she saw Superpower Meltdown of its EvilKnockoffs and so has good reason to suspect it's Deadly Upgrade as well, though otherwise it seemed to be "merely" too fatiguing.
While it also goes to show some of the really gruesome downsides of immortality, Baccano! explicitly lampshades its Cursed With Awesome status: Discovering that most of the Martillo and Gandor family gangsters mistook the two bottles of the elixir of life for some celebratory wine, Maiza attempts to apologize for dragging them into "the harshness of having to live for eternity." Their response is summarily summed up as, "Are you kidding? This is awesome." Considering the title of the episode ("Both those who are immortal and those who are not enjoy life equally"), it doesn't look like they're meant to be proven wrong.
Edward and Alphonse once tried a very stupid thing, trying to bring back their mother, and this sets off the plot. Ed lost his leg, Al lost his body and then Ed sacrificed an arm to attach his soul to some armor. They both want their normal bodies back. Getting Al a normal body back makes sense because he can't feel, mentally age, taste, experience normal human contact or pretty much anything like that. Plus, he'll explode eventually. But Ed? Ed gets automail (which a lot of other people have), making him stronger, able to transmute his limbs, doesn't mar his appearance if he doesn't want it to, can use his limbs as shields and repair them as needed (though not terribly well) and he can transmute without a circle, though he'd keep that ability. Granted, 'get our bodies back' eventually turns more to 'stop the evil Big Bad and get Al's body back' mostly (in both media), but still.
- There are a couple points when Ed acknowledges the advantages of his artificial limbs, like when he uses them to safely climb on top of a wall covered in barbed wire, then string the wire down to Al for him to climb up like a rope.

Comic Books

Spider-Man is one of the biggest comic book examples. His powers seem to always attract foes who try to take out his family and loved ones. He also bemoans how being a super hero pulls him apart from said loved ones.
- In issue #100 of The Amazing Spider-Man, Spidey takes a serum to remove his powers. This leads to a messed up ~~acid trip~~ dream sequence. When he wakes up, he finds that he has instead grown four extra arms. Good job on that one, Petey.
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...
  - But his powers were massively downgraded. He later cut a deal with Cyttorak to defend Charles Xavier from the Hulk, and has become evil again because of it.
And speaking of the 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? With the blue skin, she's the hottest actress in that movie.
  - Mystique implies that being terrorised by humans because of her 'monstrous' mutation is why she joined the 'evil' team, in the first movie's helicopter scene.
- 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.
- This point's been lampooned in Toyfare's "Twisted Toyfare Theater" comic, with a villain exclaiming "rich teenagers with superpowers? Yeah, I WISH I had your problems!"
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?
  - His powers do include breaking the fourth wall, so it's not implausible...
- 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.
- And, as an issue of Starman points out, a mediocre crimefighter at that. Blessed with mediocrity!
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.
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 an Eldritch Abomination) 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.
  - The whole "you're going to kill everything" part does piss him off
- 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 Krauss and his wife died during the Chengdou disaster; 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~~ an Eldritch Abomination 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.
This certainly happens to Dr. Manhattan. Being the only person with god-like powers in the entire known universe is a plus. But he lost his humanity, not really caring about anything but science.
Hob from The Sandman is literally cursed with immortality for his hubris (but will die if he ever gives up on life). He ends up coping extremely well and very much enjoying his long life with all it's ups and downs.
- I don't recall it ever being referred to as a curse by anybody, or it being implied in any way that he was being punished for anything. He claimed once, while out drinking with friends, that he had no intention of ever dying - and unknown to him, there happened to be someone in the room who could arrange that. So he gets to live forever, just as he said he would. At regular intervals he meets with the being responsible for his condition, they discuss how both he and the world have been doing, and he is offered death. So far he's never accepted.

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.
- His power of Inner Beauty Vision also allows him to see an otherwise-sexy gold-digging nurse for what she really is, even though he doesn't realize it at the time.
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.
- Well, that's depression for ya'.
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.
- With Spidey, his resentment isn't so much about having superpowers themselves, but rather that he resents the responsibilities he feels he has to constantly live up to. Plus it really only kicks in when the rest of his life is going down the drain too. At the start of the third movie, he's keeping his life well balanced and as such, he actually enjoys being Spider-Man.
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 250 cm 300 kg bear with buffalo horns could do.
- It may be awesome for him, but what about all the servents who are turned into anthropormorphic furniture and knicknacks?
Pirates Of The Caribbean has a crew of unkillable zombie pirates. They spend the entire movie trying to become killable again. This is fortunate for our heroes, who want to kill them.
- Because they're completely trapped in their pain. They can't satisfy their hunger, thirst or any other needs. You know how you feel when you haven't eaten all day? When you've just gone on a hike and are seriously tired and dehydrated. When you've just held your breath for as long as you can? Well, multiply that by a thousand, then imagine feeling that for eternity.
  - In the second movie Bootstrap Bill. When the pirates strapped him to a cannon and dropped him into the ocean, he sank to the bottom and stayed there for years, unable to move or die. And then got press-ganged into working for Davy Jones. Talk about A Fate Worse Than Death.

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.
  - It's even better when you realise why they take it so differently: The girl was a living accessory to rich, powerful men all her life, with no real skills, ambitions or capabilities. Now, being a vampire, she is finally important and powerful by default, which is like a dream come true. Her boyfriend, however, despite being a 100-pound-nothing weakling, always knew what he wanted to be and had the guts to leave his home (with his family's blessing) and strike out on his own, taking most things that happen to him with pretty good humour. So vampirism really has nothing to offer to him, it just takes away the things he already had and liked.
- The vampires in Twilight suffer this to the extreme. Yeah, they have to drink blood and they can't go out in sunlight, but they also get super-strength, super-speed, super-attractiveness, skin as hard as diamonds, and the only the way they can be fully destroyed is by tearing them apart and burning the pieces. Oh, and the reason they can't go out in sunlight isn't because they'll burn up...it's because their skin sparkles. If they live in an area where the weather is usually overcast, like the Olympic Peninsula, they can go outside whenever they feel like it. And the blood they drink doesn't have to be human blood...the Cullens subsist on animal blood.
  - And hey guys, Twilightverse vampirism doesn't affect your sperm viability!
The same thing could go for Werewolves, though again, your mileage may vary.
- Similar to the vampires above, the werewolves in Twilight (who are actually not "true" werewolves, but shapeshifters who can only take a wolf form) actually don't have a bad deal at all. They gain increased height and musculature for their age, heal super fast, and don't grow old as long as they "phase" into their wolf forms regularly. In return, all they have to do is keep their tribe's territory safe from vampires. Their only disadvantage seems to be difficulty controlling their phasing into wolf form at first.
  - Leah, the only female werewolf in the history of the Quileute tribe, has her own specific awesome curse. In Breaking Dawn she complains that her werewolf transformation has made her "20 and menopausal." So...wait. She has all the positive effects of the birth control pill with none of the negative effects, with the added bonus that she heals super-fast and can turn into a badass vampire-destroying wolf whenever she wants? And she can regain her fertility at any time by simply not transforming into a wolf anymore? This (female) troper is failing to see how that sounds like a bad deal in any way.
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". After a while it seems as though anyone who has a power is bound and determined never to enjoy it. Then again, they are consequently involved in a lonely war against alien invaders, and Tobias's lifespan is greatly shortened in his hawk form (though he always has the option of mode locking himself in human form).
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.
- A similar story from Scotland (I think) features three witches, a baby, and a piece of peat. No one told the baby, and on her wedding day she found the piece of peat and tossed it on the fire.
- The Greek equivalent of that story was named Meleager. The Fates appeared to his mother and told her that he would only live as long as a certain stick in the fire remained unburned. Then when Meleager "accidentally" kills two of his brothers, his mom goes insane and burns the stick, which results in him horribly melting in the arms of his wife-to-be Atalanta.
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.
- So this guy is basically Bruce Willis' character's hitwoman girlfriend in The Whole Ten Yards.
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. ...which kinda makes it a curse In Name Only.
Garion in The Belgariad. He's The Chosen One, and he spends most of the series asking "Why me?" He is a sorcerer- sorcerers work by using the Will and the Word (they direct their will at something and speak the word to make it happen.) Although it's pretty awesome as to what he can do, in Queen Of Sorcery, he believes himself to be a Complete Monster after he burns the killer of his parents to death using sorcery.
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.
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).
- 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.
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.
In Christian folklore, the Wandering Jew is ostensibly "cursed" with eternal—or at least unnaturally long—life for taunting Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion.
You'd think that having a marked tendency to break—accidentally—every third thing you touch would count as a curse. The protagonist of Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians certainly does. But what if you learned this "curse" extended to breaking doors that you need to get through, or your grandfather's restraints, or that gun the villain is about to shoot you with ...
Winter Celchu (introduced in the Star Wars Expanded Universe Thrawn novels and subsequently featuring in the X-Wing comics) has a perfect memory, which leads to a curious case of both Cursed With Awesome and Blessed With Suck: in her work as an Intelligence agent her ability to remember conversations verbatim and maps with a single glance (just for a start) was doubtless of endless use, but the pain of such horrible things as the destruction of her homeworld Alderaan never fades. She's very pragmatic about the ability, though.
Erast Fandorin was Born Lucky, and so always wins at gambling games. He utterly hates it, though it has been a huge help to him on many occasions.
Somewhat subverted with Jaenelle from the Black Jewels trilogy; she's the newest and one of the most powerful incarnations of Witch in the history of the Blood, capable of things no one else had even dreamed of—but she has extremely legitimate reasons to wish she was rid of it. Her family, psychically aware of each other like all of the blood, sense that she's different; it creeps the hell out of them and causes them to send her to Briarwood, a hospital for 'odd' high born girls that is actually a playground for pedophiles.

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.
  - It should also be noted that the prop VISOR gave the actor playing Geordi chronic headaches in real life.
- 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.
- When Q gave (a pre-Bearded)Riker access to the Q's god-like powers, he (among other things) restored Geordi's eyes. I don't remember exactly why Geordi rejected it, but it probably had something to do with the fact that it was provided by Q messing around with Riker.
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. In fact, her bitching comes across as Narm when you consider the powers others have. Such as Ted and Maya, who kill their loved ones by feeling emotion. Oh poor Claire, she really has it rough, being immortal and feeling no pain.
  - To be fair here, it wasn't the fact that she couldn't feel pain in and of itself. It was the fact that she feared that it would lead to an inability to feel ALTOGETHER.
- Although, given what happened to Adam, perhaps Claire unknowingly had the right idea to begin with. She's way too young to know that Who Wants To Live Forever sucks though, nor does she mention it, she just seems to hate the fact she heals in and of itself.
  - Considering that Word Of God confirms she's a masochist, she'll probably come to love her misery.
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!
- Of course, anybody who knows about his future knows that he'll eventually grow out of it and embrace his powers.
- To be fair, he also can't have sex without killing his partner unless they also have superpowers.
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.
- However, there's the fact that, despite of being dead/immortal, the Reapers still need to eat, sleep, and earn, beg, borrow, or steal (mostly steal) money and shelter somehow. 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"...
  - But then again, they are angsty about doing their jobs, as if they are causing the deaths to occur, when in fact they are saving souls from the more gruesome outcomes mentioned above. Reapers are, in a sense, "superheroes": sure, they have to hide their powers, adopt a secret identity, create alibis for their activities, and find a way to survive at the same time— but since it's all in a good cause, surely they should be able to find some small amount of satisfaction in the role?
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.
Again with Buffy: An early Halloween episode has everyone who bought from one costume store cursed to change into their costume. It goes bad, yes, as Buffy forgets how to be a Slayer, Willow is now a ghost and a whole lot of people are now horrible monsters. But Xander has become a millitary soldier, helps save the day and even though he regains his brain when the threat is ended, the knowledge sticks around for many years (it ends up fading). Said knowledge ends up saving the day. A lot.
Openly addressed in the first episode of Being Human. "How noble of you to take on the curse of immortality so that your friends could wither and decay in hospitals and old people's homes..."
The Charmed Ones from Charmed seem to fit this. For the first three series they don't half go on about being spectacularly powerful witches (especially Piper) and are all somewhat inclined towards giving up their powers if given the chance (especially Piper...) in fact, they only stop complaining about their abilities (to freeze time or move things with their mind/astrally project or see into the future/levitate) in order to use them to save the day from demon of the week.
Chuck has a super government computer in his mind that makes him become a spy, get a super hot girlfriend/protector, and do something with his life outside fix computers. Despite this he has an incessant need to be rid of it.
- Then again, it places him and those around him in frequent danger (occasionally getting them tortured, shot and/or killed), forces him to lie to and disappoint his friends and family, completely eliminates his privacy, undermines any potential intimate relationships, and has led to abandonment or betrayal by at least his father (after Chuck's mother was already gone), friend (who got him kicked out of Stanford and put his life on hold in the first place) and girlfriend. Even the Curse itself is mostly not Awesome—it allows him to identify certain national security threats, and keeps him in a constant state of fear and anxiety.
Acknowledged in the promotional ads for The Listener, about a guy who can hear people's thoughts: he used to think his power was a curse, but he's figured out a way to save people with it.

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)
  - Also as our group found out the hard way, you don't want to fight an npc with "flaw". Nothing better than someone getting up and going apeshit after you've dealt enough damage to kill a human
  - 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.
And let's not forget the demon lord Baphomet, who was supposedly either a human or an animal (presumably a bull, given his minotaur links) "cursed" to be a super-powerful demon lord ruling an entire layer of the Abyss and building his own monsters.
Depending on how the P Cs swing, any World Of Darkness game can turn into this.
Given that the world of Exalted has the Immaculate Order, an entire religion devoted to demonizing the Celestial Exalted, it's entirely possible for a Solar or Lunar with Immaculate sympathies to view having become an incredibly powerful demigod as a curse. (Terrestrials are venerated by the Order, and Sidereals a) have been forgotten by most of Creation, including the Order, and b) are recruited, trained, and disabused of any innaccurate notions about Exaltation and the world in general within days of the Second Breath.)
If you're really lucky in Warhammer 40000, you'll end up like this. Example: The closest thing to retirement a Space Marine might ever get is having their mangled, mortally wounded body put on life support and encased in a Dreadnought, a heavily armed walking tank, for thousands of years. Getting to blow shit up from beyond the grave, and sleeping the rest of the time, seems pretty cool.
- There's one tale Orks tell of a warband that ventured into the Eye of Terror, ending up on a demon world where they were all slaughtered... only to be raised again every morning to keep fighting, for the Blood God. Orks consider this heaven.

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, the idea being that Link now has to carry more stuff, and does this three times.
- And let's not forget our good friend Wolf Link, who appears when when Link goes into an area covered with twilight, and not only makes a few things a bit simpler, but also has the ability to warp. Although it's played a bit more straight later, when Zant acutally does curse Link, locking him in wolf form. When you get the curse removed (and now at your disposal), Midna lampshades the fact that the curse has turned out to be quite useful.
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. And of course there is an initially helpful but very evil voice talking in your head.
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 Roxas. 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/Evolution, is cursed by a two-heads dragon, attaching them onto the unlucky warrior. If at first it looks terrible (two 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.)
- If you do his optional quest, he later realizes he ultimately likes the two little dragons. His real curse though seems to be his absolutely abysmal luck, of which the dragons are just one of the results.
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.
- The Slayer form initially seems to be rocking, since after all you can turn into an ungodly powerful machine of death and destruction, but it has a really harsh draw back in that if the protagonist stays in it any longer than about half a minute they die and instead fuel the rebirth of Baal.
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 also isn't very cursed, since all he lost was his body hair; unfortunately, his condition isn't very awesome either since his dragon pact-partner happens to be petrified.
- Seere's condition normally would be considered awesome until you take into account that there is a pedophile in the party...
Frog from Chrono Trigger 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. He even directly states that he's happy with the frog thing at one point. And this is from a character who gets pretty Wangsty about other things during the game.
Frog (in response to Magus asking how life as a frog's been): Quite well, actually. This form has been a blessing in disguise. Without it...
*Frog draws the Masamune*
Frog: There are some things I'd never have achieved!
Both Kain and Raziel from the Legacy Of Kain series get this, but Raziel is doubly cursed with awesome - first for being a vampire, and second by being thrown into a maelstrom of ~~acid~~ water and turned into a vampire-hunting soul wraith. As a result he loses many of his vampiric weaknesses, such as his aversion to water, weakness in sunlight and need to drink blood, while still keeping his useful abilities, like super-strength and (limited) flight.
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, though as he tells you, he actually never made a cure and you still have Corprus. 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. Apparently he doesn't infect others with the original disease, either - that would be Blessed With Suck.
- Likewise in Oblivion the player can be turned into a vampire by contracting the disease from fighting other vampires. There's a relatively lengthy sidequest to get a cure, but most players won't use the cure even after getting it because the free powers gained from vampirism greatly outweigh the disadvantages.
- Daggerfall had lycanthropy. Becoming a lycanthrope granted stat boosts at night in exchange for uncontrollable bloodlusts every week or so. Thing is, "stat boosts at night" translated as "your character is a nocturnal god" and "weekly bloodlusts" translated as "a piss-easy quest to get a ring that satisfies them." Any hardcore fan of the game agrees: once you go furry, you don't go back.
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 agonizes 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. There is actually an aquatic sea serpent zombie form of a boss you fight previously in the game who has this effect constantly. And there is an item that brings you back to life with full health. Healing items are useable against enemy monsters. So So Yeah in that case, it's sort of a Blessed With Suck sort of thing if you happen to have a spar Mega Phoenix Down or two normal Phoenix Downs.
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.
Two-thirds into the plot, Sagi in Baten Kaitos Origins finds out that he is a product of the experiment that involved combining a human with a piece of evil gods to produce a man-made spiriter (the series' equivalent of the chosen one with legendary powers). While he turns into a demon due to witnessing the torture of his mother at one point, he becomes an all-powerful being once he learns to control the power of an evil god within him. From then on, he has no problem defeating villains who have been unstoppable up to that point.
- The extent to which this is a "curse" is debatable, since the extra power is at least partly The Power Of Friendship. After all, the piece of the "evil" god is actually the player. There's also a subversion: player choice can lead to a Non Standard Game Over (meaning it really is a curse).
Kubikiri Basara, first appearing in Samurai Shodown 3, is a ghost. In the living world, Basara can teleport through shadow, transform into a shadowy bat, and control his bladed disc with his mind. He wants his "accursed" existence to end so he can stay with his beloved Kagaribi in the afterlife. In his SS5 ending, he recovers a repressed memory: he, not Zankuro, had killed Kagaribi.
In Mega Man Battle Network 3, the bug associated with the BusterMAX program is basically Power Incontinence; it causes MegaMan to use all of his uploaded chips in rapid fire at the beginning of the turn, aiming and timing be damned. The Game FA Qs community held a contest to see who could produce the best character with that glitch as a stipulation. Most of them tried to work around the issue, but this troper is particularly proud of his contest winner, which combined chips that didn't really care about aiming (field control objects, defensive powerups, Geo Effects and so on) with a specific buster Charged Attack synergy strategy to transform the glitch into as much of an advantage as possible.
Corporal Matthew Kane of Quake 4 is captured and painfully transformed into a cyborg by the Strogg about halfway through the game, but he is rescued by his squadmates before the mind-controlling chip inserted into his brain during the "Stroggification" process can be activated. You can see the whole disturbing process here. Despite having most of his organic body crudely replaced with cybernetic parts, his increased strength, speed, and resistance to Strogg technology such as teleporters (which are instantly fatal to regular humans, as demonstrated when one soldier attempts to go through and it rips him in two) are huge bonuses - especially as his aforementioned resistance to teleporters and the like render him the only member of the Rhino Squad capable of destroying the enemy.
The hero in the platformer game Demon Returns in Game Center CX 2/Retro Game Challenge 2 seems to be a form of this: he's turned into a purple imp-like demon by the Big Bad of the game, but all it does is to give him sharp claws from which he can fire various elemental attacks when sufficiently powered up and the ability to use any enemies he runs across as his personal form of transportation. It does seem to hinder him in that he needs to consume apples constantly to stay alive, though.
Jak gains Dark Eco powers in Jak II: Renegade. Everyone else treats it like a curse: the Baron claims it's going to kill Jak, people who watch him in action are terrified, and Count Veger in Jak III concludes that because of it Jak is an abomination who deserves only death. Jak, on the other hand, seems to know exactly how much fun it's possible to have when you can rage everyone on the screen to death in one apocalyptic spray of purple lightning.
The Ghouls in Fallout were created by being subjected to a megadose of radiation during the Great War. The downside is that they look like the living dead and may eventually become feral. The upside is that they are healed by radiation and they can potentially live much longer than mere humans.
- Conversely, the Super Mutants are Blessed With Suck, considering how they're all former humans who were kidnapped and forcefully converted into Super Mutants by The Master on the grounds that existence as a Super Mutant was much better than existence as a mere human. Sure, you get super strength and significantly reduced aging. But you also lose all your memories (and in most cases, drop a few dozen IQ points). You also become instinctively mindlessly loyal to The Master and the Super Mutant horde. Plus, you're now sterile and look like ass (although not quite as badly as the ghouls).
In the PC version of Powerslave (aka Exhumed in Europe), mummies sometimes launch a spell which turns the player into one of them for a few second - and he can launch a very powerful attack meanwhile.
Female lead Reimi Saionji in Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope was genetically enhanced as part of a project to enable humans to live on the nuclear-wasteland surface of Earth. She has a superhuman immune system and healing ability which even allows her to recover from having most of her body turned to stone. She feels guilty about it because as a little girl, she survived severe radiation poisoning when some of her friends didn't. This was agravated by the fact that she still felt the effects of the radiation poisoning as her body adjusted and she was then forced to listen to her friends parents rant about how she should have died with them.
In Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha Vs King Abaddon, its revealed that Gouto's role as The Mentor is meant to be a punishment for an unknown crime he committed. Because forcing him to help his descendents become true Summoners and protect the world from evil is ''such'' a bad thing.

Webcomics

Ash Upton's life, from Misfile, has on the surface markedly improved since the titular event. S/he's picked up a girlfriend, has two tricked out racing cars, she has established a good relationship with his mother, his father is significantly more involved in her life, and he has guys hitting on her while offering large discounts on expensive autoparts. However since this all involved an involuntary Gender Bender whether you consider this Cursed With Awesome or Blessed With Suck is up to the reader.
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.
- Doesn't a chainsaw just rip you apart regardless of how sharp the chain is?
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.
The titular character in Dominic Deegan. Already gifted with receiving visions, Dominic focused on second sight magic in order to help people and protect his loved ones (to clarify: second sight = actively looking into the past, present, or future, where as visions happen seemingly at random.) Of course, he spent a great deal of his time as a fortune teller for townsfolk who were Too Dumb To Live and resented his very existence.
Minus. Great powers. The other kids consider them cheating and won't play with her.
- Well, most of them. And in quite a few cases, yeah, that would be cheating. And then there's the whole Disproportionate Retribution thing, including, but oh-so-very not limited to, Baleful Polymorph. I'll tell you, if I ever see a little girl with short, improbably-colored hair (not to mention that it shifts colors for no apparent reason with some of it sticking up, and wearing a t-shirt and shorts, I'm staying back until I know she's not going to turn me into something for daring to get justifiably angry.

Web Original

Pretty much all of the protagonists in Dimension Heroes don't want their Guardian powers, despite how cool some of them think they are.
Nikki Reilly from Whateley Academy fits this in my opinion. He gets told that basically she has won the Superpower Lottery. He is becoming what they call the "Faerie Template". Only a thousand people have this. Aging so slow that the first person to get this was in 1695 and still hasn't shown any signs of aging. Also becoming a Mage which only thirty others of the same template are. Then they say that he can tap ley lines to increase his power which only 15 other Faerie can do. Then they add that he can tap the natural world for power (e.g. lightning or wind ) which narrows it further. After they get to "only two others can do all that you can" they find out he is an Empath too. The drawback? He is becoming a she and the more power he uses the more he becomes a she. He/She considers all this a curse? Admittedly it's not free of charge but I don't think being female should be classed as a curse!Hey kid you're the next best thing to immortal and hugely powerful but you have to be an extremely good looking girl. Tough break huh?

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).
Transformers Animated Blackarachnia is constantly searching for a way to remove her organic half and angsting about everything she's had to give up because of it. However, her exile was self-imposed, her organic parts give her the ability to generate webbing and paralyzing venom, and her hideous body has seduced pretty much every Autobot and Dinobot she's come in contact with.
- Though she is apparently physically less durable to some degree: she stated she couldn't survive diving into a frozen lake in her current condition.
- Plus given how much the Autobots seem to hate organics (minus the main cast of course) there is a pretty good reason why she's in a self-imposed exile
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.
- On top of which, the transformation hurts quite a lot.
In The Simpsons episode The Mansion Family, it was revealed that Mr. Burns suffers from every disease known to man, some of them discovered in him. However, "Three Stooges Syndrome" basically causes the diseases to cancel each other out. Mr. Burns thinks he's indestructible because of this despite the doctor warning him that even a slight breeze can kill him.
An episode of Futurama had Fry get infested with alien worms from an egg salad sandwich. The worms then built a metropolis in his bowels and began overhauling his entire body, bringing him to a level of peak mental and physical capabilities. Everybody else treats this like a horrible affliction and resolves to remove his worms, but Fry thinks this is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
Aang from Avatar The Last Airbender. Not that you can blame him, that's a lot of friggin responsibility to dump on a 12 year old.
In one of the more recent My Little Pony animated specials, the titular character of "Come Back, Lily Lightly" is the only unicorn whose horn lights up, which she assumes will get her ostracized if anyone finds out. Thus, she runs off when she's accidentally outed, only for her friends to find her and tell her that a glowing horn is cool, and helpful for finding lost ponies on dark nights.
- Clearly she's seen Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

Fan Fic

Wingfic (in which a character grows wings, wangsts about it and gets reassured by his Slash Fic partner) invariably causes Angst Dissonance because most readers think that having wings would be incredibly cool.

Crystal Ball Scheduling

« Narrative Devices »

Curse Is Foiled Again

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« Sour Grapes Tropes »

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Blessed With Suck

« Power At A Price »

Blind Seer

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« Added Alliterative Appeal »

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