Basic Trope: A curse comes with positive side-effects that outweigh any negative effects of the curse.
- Straight: Bob is cursed to be the smartest person in the world.
- Exaggerated: Bob is cursed with omnipotence.
- Downplayed:
- The Agony Beam curse cripples Bob with horrible pain, but afterwards he trains his body to fight through it and becomes a more vicious warrior as a result.
- The curse is a destined and unavoidable horrible death. However this means nothing else can kill Bob resulting in invulnerability - very useful for those who want to do something at the cost of their life but still a terrible thing.
- Justified:
- "Alice was required by the rules of magic to place a curse upon her son... but nowhere did it say that the curse had to be a terrible burden, and she did love him with all her heart."
- Or it was intentionally a curse, but Bob bends it to be a power.
- The wizard focused solely on "Curse" magic, and, through Sufficiently Analyzed Magic, learned to use a painless version of The Punishment as a reward.
- The wizard himself is cursed; the effects of "Curse" and "Bless" are inverted.
- The hexer wanted it to be a blessing, but was Geased against it. Due to poor wording, however...
- Because the magic of the universe runs on Magic A Is Magic A, the wizard who has focused on curses has learned through Exact Words and Loophole Abuse to make a curse which is only a slight annoyance but can offer a huge boon to the one who bears it.
- The wizard intended it to be a lesson to the person he cursed, which eventually the cursed person later understands why.
- Inverted: Blessed with Suck
- Subverted:
- Bob is cursed to be the smartest person in the world... but "smartness" in this case means being able to see through every argument, and not being able to shut up, so that it really is a curse.
- Alternately, Bob is cursed with a demonic form with Super Powers... that are preventing him from using his normal, more powerful Super Powers.
- The superpowers would normally be a blessing, but With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility... Eventually, Bob has a nervous breakdown because no matter how hard he tries, he can't save everyone. This is the real curse, the burden of the mighty, the guilt of a hero. Consumed by his failures, Bob cries himself to sleep at night, alone in his tiny apartment, with no time for friends, too busy scrambling to save the world to hold a steady job.
- Bob’s curse works in his favor and it doesn't even have any serious downsides. It turns out, however that Bob’s cursed form is weaker than his true form, despite its benefits, and it's this that is pissing him off so much.
- The curse turns out to be actually one which tailors itself to the person it's on: whatever the benefits and downsides are, to the person it's on, the benefits aren't worth it...and are there merely to make it harder to get help lifting the curse.
- The definition of 'curse' is different from the norm. Curse just means a magical effect sustained by the bearer. A 'blessing' is one powered by an external source. Given that negative effects are useful when self-sustaining and it has a draining impact on other magic curse took up the current negative connotations.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob is cursed to be the cleverest person in the world... but "cleverness" in this case means being able to see through every argument, and not being able to shut up, so that it really is a curse... but he figures out how to get around the "never shut up" part, and thus, find his curse useful.
- Bob is cursed with a demonic form of Super Powers that are preventing him from using his normal, more powerful Super Powers... but then he faces the enemy immune to his normal powers and finds out that he is vulnerable to his demonic powers.
- Parodied:
- People start lining up to get cursed by the evil wizard in the hopes of getting wonderful side effects as a bonus.
- Bob is cursed by having a hundred dollars added to his bank account. When he asks how this qualifies as a curse, the villain rants about how Capitalism Is Bad and the greed will get to his head any moment now.
- Zig Zagged:
- Sometimes the curse of berserker rages causes problems, sometimes the cursed character can overcome the negative effects through willpower and use their curse-boosted physical abilities to act as a true hero.
- It's The Corruption and it gives superpowers in exchange for the user's health and sanity.
- Lovecraftian Superpower. Yeah, it's a superpower-but you have to say "If you are a minor, pregnant, may become pregnant, or have a heart condition, please leave the room" before you use it.
- Bob’s powers hurt like crazy while in use.
- The curse was a full-blown Curse, complete with incontinence, more pain than there is possible benefit, the Required Secondary Powers practically being nonexistent, and a possible slow and agonizing death. Our hero was fully aware of this when he got cursed, but considers the powers awesome anyway— but it's precisely because of all of the curse's problems, not because of what he could do with them.
- Averted: It's a terrible curse. Full stop.
- Enforced: "We can't have something really bad happen to the hero, so let's make the curse inadvertently beneficial".
- Lampshaded: "Oh, one of THOSE curses". "Huh?" "He's saying that it actually benefits the person cursed".
- Invoked:
- "If I play my cards right, I can trick the wizard into choosing a curse that isn't too terrible at all".
- "I try to remind myself, every once in a while, of the downsides of my overly-vast intellect. It keeps me humble...keeps me sane."
- Exploited:
- Bob has a wizard in his party specifically to place awesome curses on him.
- Knowing that Bob has crippling esteem issues despite his great power, the villain offers a deal: Bob gives his 'curse' to the villain and in return he has the normalcy he desperately craves.
- Defied: "You'll place a curse on him. And the curse must be a true curse, none of this 'blessing in disguise' nonsense!"
- Discussed: "You do realize that some people would kill to have that curse placed on them, don't you?"
- Conversed: "Why is that character complaining? He got superpowers, and none of the usual downsides thereof".
- Deconstructed:
- The failure of the curse actually subverts the morality of the setting, as the threat of curses were all that kept people in line.
- Bob is the cleverest person in the world, so everyone seems to him as children. He cannot find anyone who would understand him, doomed to be Surrounded by Idiots. It may additionally result in depression after overthinking the meaning of life etc.
- An antagonist who's Blessed with Suck becomes The Resenter for Bob, due to both power envy and feeling Bob is very ungrateful for receiving this "gift."
- Reconstructed:
- "With great power comes great responsibility", and responsibility is meant to be the "true" curse.
- The antagonist eventually appreciates that while the curse is mostly positive, it still has its downsides.
Back to Cursed with Awesome with you, or I'll... I'll... I'll turn your bones into Indestructium! Or how about Irresistible Charisma, eh? Or maybe Incomparable Body Arsenal?! Okay, You asked for it!... Still here? Swift Reformation of Flesh! Ha ha! Take that!
