Blessed with Suck/Myth, Legend and Folklore

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • One of the earliest examples is the Greek myth of King Midas. Everything he touched turned 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 Dionysius as a reward for the hospitality Midas had shown to his friend and tutor Silenus.)

Everything King Midas touched
turned to gold, the lucky fellow.
Every single thing I touch
turns into raspberry Jell-O...

    • Parodied in a Skittles commercial, in which an old black man has the power to turn everything he touches into Skittles. His coworker thinks this is awesome. He is harshly corrected.

Old man: Is it awesome... when you can't hold your newborn baby boy in your arms? Did you feed and dress yourself this morning? I didn't. I met a man on the bus today. I shook his hand. he'll never see his family again. I guess it's pretty awesome.

      • He then proceeds to answer his phone, turning it into Skittles, then hits the desk in frustration, with predictable results.
      • There was also a children's book that referenced this, The Chocolate Touch, by Patrick Skene Catling (the main character's family name was Midas to complete the reference); the main character, a kid, somehow got the ability to turn everything that touched his lips to chocolate, and for some Fridge Horror, the cover of the book has the kid kissing his mother on the cheek, and you can see that she's turned into chocolate from the head down to around her shoulders.
    • The song King Midas In Reverse was written by someone who didn't understand the Midas myth and all its implications; the song is about somebody whose touch turns things to dust. The writer failed to realise that turning things to gold at a touch is just as bad; how would such a person eat or drink?
    • The Narnia book Voyage of the Dawn Treader features a subterranean lake which has the Midas curse upon it.
  • Cassandra got the power of prophecy as a gift from Apollo... but when she spurned him, he declared that -- though she was always right -- no one would ever believe her.
  • Eos, a Greek nymph, 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.
  • 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.
  • 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's 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.
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