Promethean Punishment

""[...] ...as for Imhotep, he was condemned to endure the Hom Dai, the worst of all ancient curses. One so horrible had never been done before. He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, The Undead for all eternity. The Medjai would never allow him to be released. For he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh-eater with the strength of the ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility!""

- Exposition for The Mummy 1999

A long time ago, The Punishment committed a terrible crime. It was decided that the only way to truly make him pay for his deeds is a torture of the darkest supernatural sort. A side-effect to this, however, would be gaining command over the very forces of life/death/darkness themselves. The Punishment then uses this new power to bring terror and death to everyone.

Which may prompt the audience to wonder "Wait... they're giving him magic powers and immortality as a punishment?! Is this Cursed with Awesome or not?" The answer, is, of course, "Yes." Of course, even with powers it's still implied that it hurts. It's sometimes more a punishment to humanity for allowing such a person to exist. Or the punisher just doesn't care what kind of threat they would become if free... just as long as The Punishment is in as much pain as possible. So now they have a supernatural being in as much pain as possible who hates them even more. Good move, geniuses.

Of course, they now have to keep them locked away somehow, but this usually doesn't bite them in the ass. At least, not them. No... it's the present generation's problem. If they're lucky enough, there will be an Achilles Heel that can break The Punishment.

Compare Unishment, where the intended "punishment" is actually something the character enjoys or wanted all along. Compare with Who Wants to Live Forever? and Cursed with Awesome. Compare Phlebotinum Rebel; another case of creating one's own nemesis. Contrast Evil Makes You Monstrous, where the character gets superpowers because they were super evil. More often than not, the result of a Neglectful Precursor's bad parenting.

Anime and Manga

 * A sort-of example from Beat Angel Escalayer and its Spiritual Successor Beat Blades Haruka: When Escalayer, Haruka, Narika, or Subaru are defeated in battle, they're raped by their enemies, but this gives them a boost to their vital stats.
 * In the series Hell Girl, Enma Ai is cursed for . Her punishment: to become the Hell Girl, bringer of revenge. She offers a service for people with bitter grudges they can't do anything about. She'll take the hated target to hell immediately; in exchange, the contractor will also go to hell upon dying. Thus Ai's "punishment" is a much greater punishment to mankind -- her service keeps the vengeance and bitterness flowing.
 * That was kind of the point - it's implied that her employer is the Devil.
 * She can only use her powers to avenge others; if she tries to send someone to hell without making a deal with someone else she is sent to hell instead.

Comic Books

 * In the DCAU, Jason Blood's binding to Etrigan was punishment for betraying King Arthur and letting Camelot fall. Said 'punishment' consists of becoming immortal and getting a Super-Powered Evil Side. Of course, you may say that being eternally bonded to a demon (even a noble one) that hates your guts is a form of punishment too, especially since Jason appears to be seeking redemption for his acts but aware he will never get it.
 * The curse of The Buzzard, from The Goon, falls somewhere under this. The Zombie Priest, a powerful necromancer and implied demonic entity, cursed a Wild West sheriff to become an "Anti Zombie", an immortal being compelled to feast on the flesh of corpses and the undead, while still remaining alive and thus effectively beyond his control. He performed the magic to transform him into a zombie, but in a panic because The Buzzard was about to shoot him he messed it up. In doing so created his own worst enemy: a zombie-fighter who will never age, never die, can't become one of the undead, and eats both the zombies he kills and the corpses that the Zombie Priest needs to make replacement zombies.
 * In Generation X, Penance was an example of the punishment. periodically fed on  Pretty slick, too bad she broke out and got love from Generation X.
 * Also different from some examples, the Penance body is Made of Diamond but was arguably more powerful before being punished, and managed to pass the punishment off on someone else who escaped it, leaving the Penance body hollowed out but still stalking around somewhere...
 * The Wendigo from Marvel Comics, itself based on Native American myths; according to the folklore, those who resorted to cannibalism in times of famine would be transformed into giants with hearts made of ice and an insatiable desire for human flesh.
 * Superman-Prime: At the end of his first storyline as antagonist, he was imprisoned within the main Green Lantern battery by the Guardians Of Oa, themselves. Not only does he escape in short order, but his method of escape (absorbing enough of the battery's energy to break free) temporarily left him with supercharged power levels - strong enough to fly between dimensions, destroy planets on a whim and slap around Mr. Mxyzptlk.
 * Penance (different Penance) used to be Speedball, a Fun Personified character you've probably seen elsewhere on TV Tropes, until he caused a major accident resulting in multiple deaths, so he inflicts this upon himself. No one really got it. He's been restored to being Speedball, though the survivor's guilt that fueled his Penance persona is still there.
 * The comic book Chakan the Forever Man (which inspired an obscure Sega Genesis game) is about the eponymous Chakan, a master swordsman, beating Death in a swordfight in order to gain immortality. He becomes immortal; however, for his arrogance Death curses him with a zombie-like visage and "eyes that burn with hellfire", and also to be constantly tormented by nightmares where "pain is real and unforgiving". If he can destroy some Eldritch Abominations, though, Death will finally let him rest forever.

Film

 * Although he's not shown to be suffering, the Big Bad of Wrath of the Dragon God tells us that he's suffering the pain of undeath until he finds the orb which lets him control the title dragon in the opening sequence, and so he hunts it down, causing the rest of the story to happen. Even as a great wizard that he is shown to be doesn't cancel out the pain.
 * When the main character's wife falls under the same curse, it is seen as painful, along with the implication that when she first begins to turn all of the mages she's working with will turn against her.
 * The Oathbreakers from Lord of the Rings are an example of The Punishment done smartly- they get undead immortality as part of the curse for betraying Isildur, but become bound to serve his descendants if they ever need to call on them, and the only real power they get is the ability to inspire unnatural terror (shared by all Middle-earth undead). This is also a true punishment, as in Middle-earth the mortal soul wants to leave the world after the span of a lifetime and is in agony if it cannot.
 * The Mummy Trilogy: The eponymous mummy. Particularly bad Fridge Logic too, because the people who cursed him in the first place had to spend the rest of their lives guarding him, as well as pass that on to all their future generations. Meanwhile, the title character attains immortality, has enough power to bring about The End of the World as We Know It, and can essentially try as many times as he wants to bring his former lover back from the dead. In other words, the mummy was Cursed with Awesome and his punishers got nothing out of the deal to make it worth it.
 * The film does provide something of a justification (Your Mileage May Vary on how good it is) that the curse was feared by those who might use it since the mummy's resurrection would allow him to use incredible power, but it would cause the cursed one to experience horrific torment in the afterlife. The fact that it starts off with being mummified and sealed alive in a casket with flesh eating insects, with the implication that it gets worse from there, may make the powers granted an odd form of Equivalent Exchange.
 * It's also sort of justified by Ancient Egypt itself: they took the afterlife seriously. Making sure someone had a shitty afterlife WAS the worst thing you could do to them.
 * Fridge Brilliance! Didn't the Ancient Egyptians believe that you went to the afterlife with the same body you were buried in? (Or something to that effect). That would explain all the mummification rituals. However, Imhotep's body was eaten alive by bugs, thus screwing up his body for the afterlife. It might just be Values Dissonance on the part of the watcher, and a potential glimmer of "Shown Their Work" for the people who made the movie.
 * Further justified by the degree of the crime. Playing the human form of a god for a chump and then murdering him when he finds out is probably well worth the toil of a hundred generations of servants to make sure the villain got what was coming.
 * Film example: Captain Barbossa & his crew from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl stole cursed gold and were turned into a literal "skeleton crew" because of it. While they could not get any pleasure from anything, they ended up being far more formidable foes, as they couldn't be killed.
 * It's heavily implied that they get hungrier and thirstier with each passing moment--in other words, they are starving as if they haven't eaten in decades, but they can't die. Besides, by the time the gold was cursed, the Aztecs were dead. The gods probably didn't care what happened to the rest of the world.
 * actually catches on to this and
 * Davy Jones and his crew from the second Pirates film suffer under similar circumstances, but in their case (his, at least) it's out of choice. It's also explained that over time they lose their identity, and as a result the crew are little more than puppets of their corrupt captain's malignant will.

Literature

 * In Fool Moon there is a character who is under a hereditary curse that turns him into a massive, Chaotic Evil, unstoppable, berserk super-werewolf during the full moon. He doesn't enjoy it but it's a lot worse for everybody else.
 * To put this in perspective, at one point the character is arrested and thrown into a holding cell, hours before a full moon. The result is a level of devastation that makes the rampage in the police station scene from The Terminator look positively tame by comparison.
 * A common punishment in Perdido Street Station is to replace parts of a person with mechanical or biological parts, which are always at least inconvenient. But more often completely dehumanizing, crippling, and horrible. Sometimes, as with Jack Half-A-Prayer, they provide an advantage that the judges who imposed the sentence never thought of, making the "reMade" a more dangerous criminal. Since they tend to also be assigned to hard labor, some are given mechanical strength enhancements in order to make them more useful, which also has unfortunate side effects if they get free.
 * Unfortunate? Many freed Remade (FreeMade) team up with La Résistance, and anyone fighting the status quo in New Crobuzon...
 * Dracula's origin in some versions of his story, most notably the film Bram Stoker's Dracula.
 * The Mark of Cain that Cain received as the first murderer (in The Bible and the Torah) is sometimes interpreted as turning him into a terrible monster (the question of why God would punish a murderer by making him several times better at murdering is never addressed).
 * Beowulf, penned in the 8th century, describes the monster Grendel as a descendant of Cain.
 * The Old World of Darkness RPG game Vampire: The Masquerade (seen on TV in Kindred: The Embraced) takes this a step further and makes Cain(e) the first vampire.
 * The Death Knight Lord Soth from the Dragonlance books. He was given a holy quest to stop The Cataclysm, but turned away from it to confront his wife, whom he suspected of cheating on him, and then refused to save her when she died in The Cataclysm. For this, he was cursed... with immortality, nigh-invulnerability, and incredible magic power, and the 13 knights that served him were likewise transformed into undead creatures under his control.
 * One has to consider that this moment of failure made the unlife of Soth a mockery of all he stood for. Yes he gained power, but never would he know peace.
 * Later inverted in the Ravenloft novels, where Soth is pulled into Ravenloft and unable to escape due to his wickedness. There's dispute about that, though.
 * The Word of God says that he got immortality and eternal agony from the gods of good that would remain until he would beg for forgiveness, but the awesome magical powers came from Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness who wanted to use his hatred for her own purposes. He refused to listen to both parties, instead content to sit in his castle and think of his past mistakes until Kitiara came along and showed enough bravery to intrigue him.
 * Later in the series, we see scenes from the perspective of other undead characters, who are in agony because they can eternally see paradise but never reach it. In the very likely possibility that Soth suffers something similar, his incredible powers probably just seem like a bad joke compared to what's perpetually being dangled just out of reach.
 * Soth may be an aversion in the very end, depending on who you believe. According to Dragon Magazine in its list of top D&D villains, Soth was indeed transferred to Ravenloft, and ruled his own dimension for a time...and eventually, the torment of that plane (and possibly interaction with a magic mirror of some sort?) got to him, and pushed him into an epiphany. When Takhisis came calling again, Soth rejected her. She slew him, and he finally found peace.
 * It's worth noting that, while the 'Punishment' was a rousing success with Soth, various Dragonlance gods try it later in the series. It does not work. At all.
 * Specifically, Soth in life greatly valued his identity as a Knight in Shining Armor, so being turned into an undead parody of one was legitimately hellish for him. However, when Ausric Krell (a thuggish, backstabbing Smug Snake) is punished in the same way, he quickly decides that being an immortal Magic Knight more than makes up for the drawbacks of undeath in his book. So it's definitely a case where one punishment doesn't fit all.
 * Prince Gaynor the Damned from Michael Moorcock's multiverse. It was less Cursed with Awesome than many of the examples, since he was obviously consumed by despair and misery. He did get the "control over the forces of darkness" bit, but doesn't seem to take much consolation in it.

Live Action TV

 * Buffy backstory: For over 100 years, the vampire Angelus was a heartless killing machine. When he finally chose the wrong victim, a young gypsy girl, her tribe took swift revenge: they cursed him with a soul that felt the torment and guilt of all his sins. That much was a good idea. To twist the knife a bit more, the curse was designed to end if the newly moral Angel felt a moment of pure happiness. That wasn't a bad idea either, as it meant that if having a soul ever became a good thing for him, he'd lose it. No, the bad idea was not telling Angel that! Unaware of the "escape clause", Angel had that happy moment, and Angelus was unleashed on the world again.
 * Of course, if they'd told him, he'd probably have sought that out. By the time he was with Buffy, he wanted to keep his soul, but he spent quite awhile trying to make it work with Darla despite his soul.
 * And, of course, Darla, Drusilla and Spike killed them all almost immediately after they cursed him. They only had a brief period to get the information across, and the man who did it seemed to be busy gloating.
 * In one episode of Tales from the Cryptkeeper an evil knight and his heroic squire set out to kill a vampire. After the knight abandons the squire to save the day alone he gets his comeuppance by being transformed into a vampire himself. This is clearly shown as a terrible punishment, ignoring the implications of a vain, cruel, greedy man being given powerful mind control abilities and Nigh Invulnerability.
 * The punishment itself comes from the fact that he's too much of an idiot to actually USE the abilities he's given, and can no longer check out his own reflection in the mirror he carries around.
 * Stargate SG-1 backstory: To punish for tricking  into ascending him, the Ancients partially descended him, allowing him to keep some but not all of the Ancient knowledge. The latter was punished by allowing him to wander free so she could witness the destructive power she gave him. She ended this by eventually taking matters into their own hands and fighting the former in eternal battle. Is it any wonder the Ancients are the epitome of Neglectful Precursors?
 * Oma's punishment was simply that she had to clean up her own mess, no more, no less. If she had realized that right away, none of the destruction Anubis caused would have happened. Harsh, yes, but there's a certain Fridge Brilliance to it that's the kind of thing you'd expect from the Ancients. Even if your mileage varies on that, it's definitely far from the best example of the Ancients being neglectful.
 * Of course in this case "Clean up your own mess" means "Sacrifice your life to fight Anubis for a few hundred years, after which you believe you'll lose."
 * Didn't he keep all the Knowledge of an Ascended (not an ancient, specifically), but was only allowed to use the Knowledge if he could have gained access to it without ascending?
 * That's still more than enough to make him the Big Bad (until ).
 * This is one of the central plot mechanics of Reaper. When a soul in Hell is tortured with an elemental force of nature for even as little as two years, if that soul then escapes from Hell, then it will have total command of that element on Earth (and, being a bad enough dude to be sent to Hell and a bad enough dude to be able to escape it, will employ that elemental control with great sociopathic intent).
 * This was also the mechanic of Brimstone, a series that did the Hell's bounty hunter thing years before Reaper. The longer a soul spends in Hell, the more Hell becomes a part of them; the more Hell becomes a part of them, the more unholy power they're able to unleash when they break free.
 * Things get pretty bad when someone escapes who had been in hell for several thousand years.

Mythology

 * Older Than Feudalism: In Greek Mythology, some versions of the Medusa myth say she was originally a beautiful nymph. Her monstrous form, complete with killing everybody who looked at her, was the result of a curse put on her by Athena, for the offense of sexually defiling her temple. (Although this may be unfair: some stories say she was raped.)
 * The ancient Indian epic Ramayana features a semi-godly woman who has been punished by being transformed into a demon, which gives her the power to turn the land around her into a burning desert. Her sons meet the same fate, but they already had supernatural powers before their punishment.
 * The Mexican folk tale of La Llorona. She was a woman who drowned her two children for varying reasons (to get a husband, to spite her ex, because she didn't want them-always a petty and/or spiteful reason). After she died, for some reason God cursed her to wander eternally looking for her children instead of just sending her to Hell. She now wanders the riverbanks looking for her children, and drowns any children she finds to try and replace them. Nice job breaking it, God.

Tabletop Games

 * In Vampire: The Masquerade, God punished Caine for killing Abel by turning him into a vampire and cursing him. Now, humanity is plagued by legions of the literally damned undead, which have magic powers, eat people, and secretly pull the strings of many political and financial institutions. Great.
 * Somewhat ameliorated in the Time of Judgment book "Gehenna". In the first scenario, God decides humanity's carried this burden on their own long enough and takes direct action against all vampires.
 * The Ravenloft D&D campaign setting runs on, lives, breathes, and eats this trope. An ethereal demiplane dedicated to the punishment of the wicked, its darklords simultaneously are granted great power over their domains and subjects, but are denied their greatest desire. Examples include:
 * Strahd von Zarovich. In life he was a warrior who spent over 20 years fighting to free his homeland from foreign invaders. Suffering over a youth spent in battle, he eventually fell in love with his younger brother's fiance, Tatyana. On the eve of their wedding, Strahd makes a pact with a Cosmic Horror to gain everlasting life and Tatyana's love. He is transformed into a vampire and murders his brother to have her. At the same time, a Xanatos Roulette by a rival lord kills off most of Strahd's retainers. During the ensuing battle, Tatyana leaps over the castle ramparts in despair over her dead love. Since then, Strahd has enjoyed everlasting life and absolute control over his homeland, though every generation, Tatyana is reborn among the populace, where she inevitably attracts Strahd's attention, is courted for a brief period, and is killed in some gruesome fashion without fail.
 * Azalin Rex. A wizard king from the Greyhawk setting, he ruled his land with an iron fist. He fathered one son, who spent his childhood having the kindness beaten out of him so that he could become Azalin's ideal successor. This failed, and Azalin executed his own son when he tried to smuggle refugees beyond his father's reach. Azalin made a similar pact as Strahd to learn the process to become a lich in order to gain immortality to rule his land forevermore. Decades later, he learned of a scroll containing a spell to resurrect his dead son. At the same time, he was cursed with being unable to learn new magic. Thus, he has the means to correct his greatest "failure", but cannot take advantage of it. Even worse, his new castle in his new domain has a room that would let him circumvent his curse, but every instant in the room causes him agonizing pain, as his undead body is brought back to life, cell by cell, basically decaying in reverse.
 * Lord Soth, described above, had the chance to prevent a world-shattering cataclysm but did not do so out of pride and jealousy. Since then, he had spent the next three hundred years listening to his banshee servants sing the songs of his failures. Eventually, he was transported into Ravenloft and given an exact copy of his former castle, perfect in every detail... Except the architecture keeps changing, which drives Soth - accustomed to rigid military order - crazy.
 * It's interesting to note, though, that out of all Dark Lords, Soth's Punishment in "Ravenloft" was barely worse than what he already suffered in his native setting of "Dragonlance". That's probably why he was sent back to Krynn (the world of "Dragonlance"), from both an in-story perspective (his torment probably wasn't satisfying enough for the Mists) and from a meta perspective (he really wasn't that interesting as a Dark Lord).
 * Vlad Drakov, a Canon Immigrant from the Dragonlance setting, spent his free time as a mercenary general who won many wars but was constantly looked down upon by his clients as he yearned for a country to call his own. Ravenloft provided in its own unique fashion. Drakov was delighted at first, until he discovered that his new country was a backwater tract of mud surrounded on all sides by more advanced and prosperous domains. Which he tried to invade. Over and over and over again, each defeat replacing more of his reputation as a ruthless if successful general with one as a bumbling idiot.
 * Vecna, a demigod from the Greyhawk setting, was trapped by the Dark Powers by virtue of him tying too much of his power into his avatar. Being a god and all, there isn't really much the Dark Powers can do to curse him other than hold him in place and tie him into a physical form. Which doesn't really last all that long once Vecna gets into full Xanatos Roulette mode.
 * How about Jacqueline Renier, a wererat who clawed her way into power? Her curse is twofold: First, she suffers from intense monophobia, which makes her prefer to keep her family (who HATE her) around rather than spend even a moment alone... Secondly, she is doomed to transform whenever she is in the presence of someone she loves. So, essentially, she wants love and companionship more than anything else but is unable to get it...
 * Or Dominic D'Honaire. He was an exceptionally manipulative child, who frequently stirred up trouble among the adults around him for his own entertainment, yet always managed to evade suspicion. He was doted on intensely by the women in his life, in large part because his mother died giving birth to him. As a darklord, he now has the power to control the minds of anyone, making anyone like him... Except for women whom he is attracted to, who are immune to his control and start seeing him as progressively more repellent.
 * Pharaoh Anhktepot, Ravenloft's token mummy darklord, suffered The Punishment twice. First, Ra punished him for his hubris by making his touch lethal, so he started killing his own subjects until the survivors murdered him. Then the Dark Powers got wind of his misdeeds, and confined this once-mighty king in a tiny domain with just a few hundred inhabitants; now undead, Anhktepot can become alive for a day by sacrificing one of its residents, but he knows that doing so too often means he'll run out of subjects and be alone forever.
 * There was also Ravenloft's version of Bluebeard, who was married several times, kept demanding complete, utter and unquestioning loyalty from his wives, and when they inevitably failed, brutally murdered them. Now as a Darklord he keeps falling in love, again and again... but every time he does so, he sees his new lady love as one of his dead wives. Rotting flesh, dripping maggots, and all.
 * More generally, if you're a D&D drow and Lolth gets annoyed at you, she's liable to turn you into a drider.
 * That particular example of The Punishment doesn't exist in 4e, for the curious. The games designers took a long look at the powers the drider gained (more innate spells, increased toughness, better combat ability), their similarity to the spider (a holy creature in drow society and by Lolth's religious tenets), and the fact that the drider form is generally based off of one of Lolth's own avatars, and asked themselves: "why is this supposed to be a punishment, again?" Being a drider is now a blessing, instead of a curse.
 * Originally, (1e), Lolth would test drow who got to 6th level. Those who passed were allowed to continue to rise in power. Those who failed got turned into driders - and their advancement frozen because of it. In other words, those drow who would be more useful at a higher level were allowed to get to high level, and those who weren't got Cursed with Awesome. Win Win for Lolth.
 * Especially because she believes in constantly testing the drow for hardiness and ruthlessness, the losers being eaten. Their transformation is a punishment for failure, but it's a spider because they've become an instrument for Lolth's will.
 * Magic: The Gathering has a few cards that feature this, mostly in black and red. Crovax comes to mind; for killing his guardian angel, he became the extremely powerful Phyrexian vampire overlord of an entire plane.

Video Games

 * Some origins for Shang Tsung have his soul-sucking be part of an Elder God curse, as a way of staving off rapid aging and premature death. Considering the track record of the Elder Gods, this probably wasn't a good idea...
 * Every enemy in Silent Hill seems to be under some forced punishment from the town. Especially the second game. Monsters in straight jackets of their own flesh, monsters built into rusty cages... While these are the film version decided.
 * Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer: For the crime of betraying his god in an attempt to save his lover's soul from eternal torment,  by a particularly capricious god of death. This god may well have wanted to punish the country that created him, as he's never left it since becoming cursed. Of course, this was actually.
 * Earlier, you encounter a plain, ordinary woodsman who was turned into a Shape of Fire, an epic incorporeal undead creature, as a punishment for guiding one of your predecessors (a spirit-eating psychopath) to where he could consume the spirit of Ashenwood.
 * The Big Bad of the Mega Man Zero series, Dr. Weil, had been placed in an immortal, indestructible human-reploid hybrid body, so he could suffer forever in his lonely banishment from Earth. Unfortunately, they neglected to make his new body incapable of, say, speaking and building things, so when he comes back, he resumes the world domination and genocide thing where he left off and is almost impossible to stop.
 * Although most of Dr. Weil's antics in the Mega Man Zero series are "merely" facilitated by the fact that his is immortal - ie, he is still around after 100 years of bitter punishment, and eventually proves very difficult to kill - at the very end of the series It Gets Worse. He figures out a way to use the technology that made him immortal - more commonly known to the players as Biometal - to become superpowered, channel the powers of his deceased minions, harness the raw energy powering his Kill Sat, and generally kick ass. Zero manages to kill him in this form, but that only solves the problem temporarily, as, again due to the Awesome he was Cursed with, he eventually resurfaces in the Mega Man ZX series as something akin to Sauron.
 * Apparently prior to certain changes necessitated to resolve Plot Holes, he was a teenage prodigy similar to Ciel (this is slightly more evident in the third game, where his speech pattern seems less like an old man's and more like a slightly immature teenager, particularly in his use of colloquialisms - can you see any evil doctor without an excuse referring to their nemesis as a "fun guy," non-threat or otherwise?). Considering that the suit also prevents him from aging, this would have just added another reason for Weil to go nuts and try to destroy everything, making this a case where turning someone into The Punishment is an excessively bad idea.
 * The Garradors (burly mutants with huge wrist blades) in Resident Evil 4 might be an example of this, though it's never made clear in the story. It's just that the first one you meet is kept chained up in a dungeon with its eyes sewn shut, while another version wears a suit of armour that completely seals off its head. It seems from the few times you encounter them in the game that they're completely mad and out of control.
 * Ignus in Planescape: Torment was a pyromaniac sorcerer who got brought down by the cooperation of basically every magic user in the Hive. They decided to punish him by turning his body into a portal to the elemental plane of fire, basically making him a Man On Fire on a permanent basis.
 * The only reason it worked at all was because it made him so happy that he just hovered there in contentment, even as a bar was built on the spot with him as the centerpiece.
 * The Nameless One himself could be seen as a self-inflicted form of The Punishment. He wanted to extend his life and he loses his memories, keeping him from being able to fulfill his original intent and breaking the spell.
 * In Baldur's Gate 2, Jon Irenicus is under a terrible curse for past crimes. While the curse does NOT grant him any special ability, it did not remove the powers he already had... and Irenicus is an insanely high-level wizard. His attempts at removing his curse result in many deaths and a lot of suffering for the PC (and his/her sister). Unusually, the people at the origin of the curse actually see their utter lack of foresight come back to bite them in the butt.
 * Of course, that's because they're.
 * In Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, . For the sin of, God cursed him to be eternally reborn with a new body each time he dies, with all his previous memories intact. What does he do with this curse? Why, become an immortal chessmaster, of course, and spends eternity biding his time for the day he is able to take down God.
 * Raziel from Legacy of Kain was cast into the abyss, and after an eternity-long Painful Transformation he came back as a Noble Demon. In his first game he was also bound to the Elder God who (allegedly) resurrected him, and thus could not die.

Web Comics

 * Maoh from Char Cole, assuming All Myths Are True, has been cursed with immortality for the last 2000 years. For attempted petty theft.
 * The Sins in Jack, due to their actions in life, are cursed with powers that seem awesome, but come with conditions attached due to the webcomic's heavy use of Ironic Hell.

Other

 * Klingsor from Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal became this through self-mutilation.
 * Venomstripe from Warrior Cats RPG was punished for her evil acts by being granted telepathy...very painful, semi-uncontrollable telepathy, but telepathy all the same.