Curse Escape Clause: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|"For every rule, there is a loophole."|''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]''}}
{{quote|"What's up with all the loopholes? Seriously, was this fairy tale written by a lawyer!?"|'''[[That Guy With
There is the tendency for every magic spell (usually [[Curse
Compare [[No Man of Woman Born]], which is a prophecy that acts as an If/Then Statement. Like that trope, the No Escape Clause is usually something [[Impossible Task|ludicrously unlikely]] (of course, we all know how [[Million-to-One Chance|statistics play out]] in stories). [[No Man of Woman Born|Playing with the language]] of the escape clause is common; sometimes the words are twisted around to use puns or less obvious meanings but this is so old that taking it literally has become more common.
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Alas, forbidding someone to do something because such abstinence is needed to break the curse tends to be [[Forbidden Fruit]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[
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* One Celtic myth had the hero under a geas that he should not see his love, neither in day or by night, neither on foot nor mounted, neither clothed or naked. [[No Man of Woman Born|He visited her at twilight, wrapped in a fishing net, with one leg on a mule]].
* [[Sleeping Beauty]] is cursed to die on her [[Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday]] until another fairy turned it to merely sleeping a century. (In many variants. In others, she's victim of a Prophecy.)
* In ''[
** Other tales of this type include ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140322063941/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/eastsunwestmoon/stories/brownbear.html The Brown Bear of Norway]'', ''[
* The froggy heroes of ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130718140553/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/frogking/stories/queen.html The Queen Who Sought a Drink From A Certain Well]'' and ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130906231232/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/frogking/stories/wellworld.html The Well of the World's End]'' was cursed into that shape. He had to have the heroine obey him for a whole night and then cut his head off to free him.
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130708093355/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/crane/snowfirered.html Snow White Fire Red]'', the ogress curses the hero to forget the heroine as soon as his mother kisses him. However, when she sends a magical dove to recite her story, it jogs his memory loose.
** In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131129143022/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/pentamerone/16dove1911.html The Dove]'', any kiss whatever makes him forget the heroine, but she cures it the same way.
* In ''[
** In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130718151144/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sixswans/stories/twelvewilducks.html The Twelve Wild Ducks]'', their sister must also keep silent and make shirts out of thistledown.
** In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131204105124/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sixswans/stories/sevenravens.html The Seven Ravens]'', the sister has to track them down.
* In the Old Norse ''[[The Tale of Norna Gest
== Films ==
* The lovers of ''[[Ladyhawke]]'' are cursed to be apart: she is a hawk by day, while he is a wolf by night. When they are reunited during a solar eclipse, the spell is broken.
* In the [[Disney]] adaptation of ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]'', this is justified in that Merriweather was actually augmenting Maleficent's "die on her [[Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday]]" curse. She wasn't strong enough to negate it, but she could provide an out.
* Disney's ''[[Beauty and
* Disney's adaptation of ''[[Hercules (
* In ''[[Shrek]],'' Princess Fiona is cursed from a young age to transform into an ogre at sunset and return to her human form at sunrise. It can only be undone by [[True Love's Kiss]]
** Fun trivia? In the original storyboards, the "night" form was her NATURAL form! She was actually under an enchantment to be beautiful during the day. This makes sense, in light of her father being a frog.
** In ''Shrek Forever After'', Rumpelstiltskin's [[Magically-Binding Contract]] with Shrek is rendered null and void by... wait for it... [[True Love's Kiss]].
*** ''Shrek Forever After'' further [[Playing
* In ''[[The Swan Princess]]'', the curse that turns Odette into a swan and back ostensibly can only be broken by Rothbart himself if she marries him. It's later revealed that if her sweetheart Derek makes a vow of love to her that he then proves to the world, that will be enough to break it.
* In ''[[The Princess and
** {{spoiler|Even a princess of [[It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans|the Mardi Gras parade]]. Or a princess by marriage.}}
* The spell Queen Grimhilde of ''[[Disney/Snow White A The Seven Dwarfs|Snow White
== Literature ==
* In [[
* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Stardust (
* In [[
** But... [[Fridge Logic|don't babies cry? A lot?]]
* These are apparently mandatory on the ''[[Discworld]]'': in ''Sourcery'', a dying wizard tries to cheat Death by transferring his essence into his sourcerer (not a typo) son's staff. Death reminds him that, because only he is inescapable, there must be some loophole in the prophecy. {{spoiler|The loophole is that the wizard would truly die when his son voluntarily threw away his staff. Which he did when he realized he [[I Just Want to Be Normal|just wanted to be an eight year old boy]], not the most powerful wizard on the Disc.}}
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* In the ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant|Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant]]'', one of the subplots involves a sorcerer who uses pure gold as his power source, but must deliberately put a flaw in each spell. For example, he created a magical prison for the destructive Sandgorgons, the flaw being that if a particular Sandgorgon's name is spoken aloud, it is released until it kills the speaker. He wants Covenant's white gold ring, because being an alloy, it is "flawed" already, and thus can be used to create perfect works.
* In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, setting and foiling these clauses is practically a science (though it would have to be, since the ambient magic in the land causes events to turn out like whichever fairy tale they most resemble).
* In ''Dragonsbane'', by Barbara Hambly, the villainess performs a curse without 'limitations' and summons a dragon which she refuses to banish. The heroine later figures out that she can't banish it, not won't, since the 'limitations' keep the curse alive and give the caster ongoing control over it..
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[Iron Shadows in
* In James Schmitz's Telzey Amberdon short story "Child of the Gods", Telzey is mentally enslaved by another psionic, with several of her most potent skills locked away. When the man is incapacitated and a monstrously powerful alien is shortly due to arrive to enslave and/or eat them, Telzey breaks free when she realizes that his command to look after his best
* In [[Jim C. Hines]] [[Princess Series]] curse loopholes are explained as being about leverage and possibility; a truly unbreakable spell would require an enormous amounts of power but true love is rare enough that it's functionally the same as an unbreakable curse. Which also implies that people only hear about the notable
* ''Shadow Spell'' by Caro King (from "Seven Sorcerers"" series) features many of them:
** Azork - If he {{spoiler|ever feels love again}}, his existence as leader of Cryptmonsters ends.
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== Live Action TV ==
* Cleverly applied in ''[[Buffy]]'' and ''[[
** The curse is later deliberately broken when they need to ask Angelus some things Angel doesn't know, by hiring someone to feed him into a magic [[Lotus Eater Machine]].
** It was a bit subverted (not sure if that'd be the right word for this) when Wesley tells Angel to stop using the curse as an excuse not to go after a relationship opportunity with an interested woman (who Angel met because she was bitten by a werewolf). After all, as Wes puts it, "Most of us have to settle for ''adequate'' happiness."
* [[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]] is all over this trope. The entire town of Storybrooke is cursed with [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]], but Snow White and Prince {{spoiler|James's}} daughter was smuggled out and is slated to break that curse [[Because Destiny Says So]].
** In-universe, True Love's Kiss acts as a universal cure for all manner of curses.
== Tabletop Games ==
* In the [[Ravenloft]] campaign setting for ''[[
** The ''Book of Vile Darkness'' gives us dying curses, which are spoken by an evil creature as it dies. There are two ways to cure them - one is ninth-level magic, and one is a condition set at the time of casting (such as "Climb the tallest mountain in the world"). These may be completed by someone acting on the cursed's behalf, as long as they do so explicitly to lift the curse (for example, if a peasant didn't know the king was cursed and climbed the tallest mountain in the world, nothing would happen - but if the king's champion did so in his lord's name, the curse would be lifted).
* Inverted in ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' game ''[[
** However, it ''is'' possible to work around the conditions of a pledge, which is why most people with a brain don't try making deals with [[The Fair Folk|the Gentry]]
** ''[[
* For game balance reasons this is required for any "permanent" effect in ''[[GURPS]]''.
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* In ''[[Into the Woods]]'', the witch's spell causing the Baker's family to be barren will be lifted if the Baker and his wife can procure a few [[Plot Coupon|select objects]]. (The objects are not directly related to the curse on the Baker's family: they're actually part of the Escape Clause for a curse that ''the witch'' is suffering under, and she promises to take the spell off the Baker if he helps her out.)
* In the [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] opera, ''Ruddigore'', Baronets of Ruddigore are cursed to do an evil deed every day or die painfully. The main character outwits the curse by pointing out that not doing an evil deed is the same thing as killing himself, which is in and of itself an evil deed.
* In the musical [[Once Upon a Mattress]] King Sextimus the Silent is mute until "the mouse devours the hawk".
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* ''[[City of Villains]]'' characters can be cursed by the Circle of Thorns with a particularly nasty curse that will cause them to undergo the same horrible end that the Circle's enemies, the descendants of the Mu, are planned to face. It's not clear exactly what the result of the curse itself would be, but the Circle were going to slowly torture and kill each Mu, then rip out and then send to a special corner of Hell their souls to be the feed of a demon named Lilitu. As there's roughly 1 billion descendants of Mu on the planet, and the player character would have that done roughly a billion times simultaneously to him or her, mystically inclined contacts tend to assume the term blast radius is apt. Destroying and trapping Lilitu prevents the curse from working.
* Presented in the ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series introduces the concept of a counter-curse that can, well, undo the original curse. [[All There in the Manual|The manual]] for the original game (Hero's Quest) stated that the more powerful the curse used, the less stringent the counter-curse would be. In other words, if a curse was overly powerful, then undoing it would be child's play, but if the curse is minor, countering it would require very specific conditions to occur. And all curses and counter-curses are in rhyming verse, which necessarily results in ambiguity. The player character naturally undoes the curse (though, strangely enough, it's ''not required'' to fulfill all the objectives of the counter-curse to win the game, resulting in the game telling you [[What the Hell, Hero?]].) The counter curse is a follows:
{{quote|
''Free the man within the beast'' {{spoiler|The Baron's son has been turned into a bear, you need to change him back to a human.}}
''Bring the child from out the band'' {{spoiler|The Baron's daughter has been enchanted and became the leader of the bandits. She needs to have the enchantment lifted}}.
''Drive the curser from the land'' {{spoiler|Baba Yaga laid the curse, she needs to be driven out of Spielburg.}} }}
* Invoked with [[King's Quest VI]] where Alexander is cursed by the Beast. Alex, being a minor sorcerer, points out that ''every'' curse has a weakness to which the Beast tells him to go out and fetch a "Beauty" for him.
* Lampshaded then averted in the [[AGD Interactive]] [[King's Quest]] games. The [[Big Bad]] ''did'' put Graham under a curse. All parts of the curse (the family in danger, Graham's heart attack, Rosella and Alexander not inheriting the throne) came true, but not in the way the [[Big Bad]] wanted!
* In ''[[
* {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Caius Ballad]]}} of [[Final Fantasy XIII-2]] tries to invoke this regarding {{spoiler|Yeul (who is [[And I Must Scream|cursed to constant death and resurrection because of seeress powers]])}} by initiating a successful [[Time Crash]]. After all, {{spoiler|if there's no timeline to see, there's [[Your Days Are Numbered|no impending threat on Yeul's life]].}}
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== Web Comics ==
* One [[Story Arc]] in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' involves a private war between a couple ghosts. One ghost is cursed to play Solitaire over and over until he wins, which he can't do because his deck is missing one card. The 52nd card is framed behind glass, with a sign saying only to break the glass in an emergency.
* In one ''[[Arthur, King of Time and Space]]'' strip, the sorceress Morgan mentions that every curse needs to have an out, "or the spell is structurally unsound and won't work".
* In pages 94 through 105 of ''[[Looking for Group]]'', Richard's imp Hctib Elttil puts a pendant on him that shrinks him to the size of a toddler, which also makes him a lot weaker. The pendant's curse can only be broken by performing a selfless act. Seeing as this is ''Richard'', he seems to be screwed. {{spoiler|But when the building he and a small boy are in is about to explode, Richard protects the kid with his magic, causing the curse to be broken.}}
* [[Roza]] [http://www.junglestudio.com/roza/?date=2008-11-10 features two searches for this.]
* In ''[[Erstwhile]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20130828165506/http://www.erstwhiletales.com/a-tale-with-a-riddle-0-3/#.T29v9Nm6SuI the heroine can be saved from being turned into a flower if she is picked].
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[
** Happens again in the "City of Stone" arc when David Xanatos again [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|screws The Rules with money]] in order to "Make the sky burn."
*** [[Word of God]] says that adding an escape clause [[Justified Trope|makes spells much easier to cast]], no matter how unlikely the clause may seem.
*** This only applies to ''human'' magic. Fae magic is a bit more relaxed for the user and as such, they don't usually have escape clauses... they are more commands.
** Elisa uses [[Loophole Abuse]] to undo a spell that made Goliath into an obedient, unthinking slave, by ordering him to behave exactly as if he's ''not'' under the spell. Although this loophole wasn't built into the magic by its caster, the nature of this command evidently cancels it out entirely, as Goliath not only resumes behaving normally but ceases to look ensorcelled.
* In the series ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'', Agrabbah was once attacked by a would-be conqueror while Aladdin, Jasmine and Genie were away on other business. In desperation, the Sultan donned a suit of enchanted armor that would make him "as strong as stone". The armor allowed him to defeat the conqueror, but also allowed the spirit of the armor's original wearer, an evil sultan of Agrabbah's past, to possess him, turning him evil and paranoid to the point where he tried having Jasmine executed. Aladdin realized that "as strong as stone" meant that the armor drew its magic from a stone statue of the evil sultan, and was able to break the spell and restore Jasmine's father to his old self by coercing him into destroying the statue.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Magic and Powers]]
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