Blessed With Suck / Mythology

• One of the earliest examples is the Greek myth of King Midas, where everything he touches turns to gold. When he tried eating and drinking, he discovered the downside. This also qualifies as No Good Deed Goes Unpunished and Be Careful What You Wish For, as his golden touch was a wish granted by the god Dionysus as a reward for the hospitality Midas had shown to his friend and tutor Silenus. (In Dionysus' defense he did try to warn him what a stupid wish it was.) See Midas Touch for related examples.
• Eos, a Greek goddess, gifted her lover Tithonus with eternal life but not eternal youth. She meant for him to have youth, but somewhere in the fine print that got left out. He turned into a cicada in the end, slowly withering away.
  • Selene, the goddess of the moon, fell in love with Endymion, a prince. Learning from the aforementioned example of eternal life without eternal youth, she wished for her lover to remain forever in the state she first saw him, obviously meaning for him to stay a healthy and strapping young man. What she forgot, was that she first saw him while he slept...
• Sir Gawain's strength increases with the sun, making him nigh invincible about noon. Unfortunately, it also decreases with the sun, leaving him sapped of energy later in the afternoon and unable to work nights.
  • Actually even more horrific than one might think at first, since the British Islands are notoriously cloudy. If the ability means "amount of sun = strength", then only very rarely would he have full strength.
• Prometheus was immortal, which was cool until the whole eagle-eating-out-his-liver-daily thing. Eventually, Hercules did pass by and unchain him though.
  • More dramatically, Prometheus' gift of fire to man was this, as well. Previously, man lived in an idyllic-but-primitive state, part of the gods' attempt to make sure that this time they wouldn't kill each other. While the fire from Olympus did inspire and elevate them, it also created violence and led all the social problems of the world.
  • According to some versions, Pandora being presented to mankind by the gods after the fire was stolen, and then her opening the stupid box/jar, led to the problems of the world. Can also be a case of lousy blessing in that Pandora was gifted by all the gods to be the perfect woman^note Greek style -then Zeus blessed her with endless curiosity, without the brains or common sense to restrain or direct it.
• Chiron was also immortal, which was fine until he was accidentally shot with a poisoned arrow. He was left in burning unending pain until he sacrificed his immortality to allow Prometheus to go free (if he hadn't not even Hercules could have freed Prometheus).
• Servants in the Muslim paradise are said to be "boys blessed with eternal youth". Imagine being twelve or thirteen years old forever, eternally waiting on martyrs with dozens of virgins each, whom they are not expected to share with the help.
  • Speaking of Islam: You may wonder, how can a men that enter paradise can satisfy all the virgins that he will get? Well:'It is quoted by Ibn Kathir, in his Qur'anic Commentary, the Tafsir ibn Kathir, and they are graphically described by Qur'anic commentator and polymath, al-Suyuti (died 1505), who, echoing a hasan hadith from Ibn Majah, wrote that the perpetual virgins will all "have appetizing vaginas", and that the "penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal".' In case you missed some of that: Men in islamic paradise will have eternally erected penises.
• One classical interpretation of the Medusa myth was that rather than punishing her for sleeping with Poseidon, Athena was "protecting" her after he raped her; by making her hideous and giving her the power to turn ogling men to stone, nobody would ever take advantage of her again (with obvious shades of Defiled Forever). Or maybe Athena just took a sick pleasure in doling out a really twisted kind of protection.
• From Irish mythology, Diarmuid O'Duibhne was blessed by an unknown fae being with a spot on his face that would cause women to fall in love with him just by looking at him. Sounds great, until the woman who's supposed to be marrying his king falls for him instead and forces him to elope with her, causing said king to chase after him with all his army. Which was mostly made up of Diarmuid's old friends, who didn't much like the situation either. It didn't end well, but it did inspire the later legends of Tristan and Isolde, and Lancelot and Guinevere.