263 | thoughts on curses & the different functions they serve in cinderella phenomenon

[straightforwardly]

This morning at work, I spent quite a bit of time musing over Cinderella Phenomenon, particularly in regards to some aspects of Karma’s route.

Not long after I first played this game back in 2019, batman posted a quite insightful review/analysis of the game and characters. I’ve read it quite a few times since then, and one thing that’s always stuck in my head was this line about Waltz’s curse:

Unlike the other love interests, Waltz isn't meant to learn anything from his curse. It's purely punitive, trapping him at the age that he was when he befriended Lucette and made all these promises to her about her seeing the outside world while she doesn't remember him or said promises.

It wasn’t an angle I’d thought about before reading that post, but it’s a position I agree with. But today, fresh from replaying Karma’s route, I found myself thinking about the topic from a different perspective—specifically, in relation to the terms of Karma’s curse, how his curse and circumstances compare and contrast to those of Lucette and Waltz, and how that reflects on the differing natures and motivations of the witches who cast their curse.

First of all, there’s Waltz who, as batman already said, who was cursed by Hildyr, who I think I can safely say is the most “evil” of all the witches we encounter in the game. Accordingly, the curse she cast is pure cruelty—Waltz is not cursed because of anything he did, but because Hildyr wanted to harm and punish him. He has nothing to gain from the curse; it’s only there to make him suffer.

Lucette’s curse, then, is the opposite. She was cursed by Delora, our “good” witch, not because Delora wanted to be cruel, but because she wanted to give Lucette a wake-up call and try to bring out the good she believed Lucette to have inside her. I do have some qualms with how Delora went about this—particularly in regards to some of the things she says near the beginning of the game—but it’s also clear that her intentions were good. This is reflected in the construction of the curse as well: as long as Lucette can sincerely perform the three needed good deeds, she’ll be freed. The terms for breaking the curse and the reason for the curse being cast are bound together, one and the same.

What occurred to me today is that that’s not the case with Karma’s curse. Like Lucette, he was cursed for his selfishness, and like Lucette, he did have lessons to learn through it. But when you look closely at the details of his curse and how it functions, it’s clear that it wasn’t cast with the same good-hearted intentions of Delora’s curse—which makes sense, since we do know it was a “woman scorned” who cast it—and in fact some elements to it that lean closer to the punitive and cruel, though not to the same extremes as Hildyr's curse.

Karma’s curse is one of dual natures, both in how it functions and how to break it. He’s made into both beauty and beast, with punishments relating to both; similarly, in order to be freed, he must fulfill two requirements: to sincerely love someone, and be sincerely loved by them in return. All well and good, except:

He must be sincerely loved by someone to break the curse.

But the “beauty” aspect of the curse means that—with the exception of witches and other cursed individuals—means that every woman he meets falls into a magically induced, artificial love with him.

Logically—what are the chances that anyone could sincerely fall in love with him, under those circumstances? With Delora’s curse, as long as Lucette learns the lessons the curse wants her to learn, she will break the curse. But with Karma’s curse—even if he learns his lesson, that’s no guarantee the curse will break.

We see this demonstrated in the game itself: when Lucette meets him at the start of the game, he’s already undergone quite a bit of character growth since he was originally cursed. He’s still quite flawed (in ways I adore), and he has more work to be done throughout his route, but he’s also quite clear-sighted on his past self’s flaws and mistakes, and arguably has learned his mistake. And yet, he’s still cursed—has, in fact, already had a failed attempt at breaking the curse that ended up breaking his heart instead.

And that’s the part of his curse that I find cruel: that no matter how he might grow and change, there’s a key component of his curse that’s wholly out of his control. That the circumstances of his curse, in fact, actively make it near-impossible to fulfill.

No wonder he feels so helpless and bitter near the end of his route.

Thinking about all of this has made me appreciate the worldbuilding and storytelling aspects of the individual curses in a way I hadn’t before. I can’t remember how much we learn about the witches who cursed the other characters, but I love how just by looking at the construction of the different curses affecting Waltz, Lucette, and Karma, we can see a reflection of the different motivations and personalities of the witches who cast those curses. It’s just so interesting to me.

I also had some brief thoughts on Karma’s non-Lucette interpersonal relationships that I was wanting to talk about, but I should be getting to bed, so I’ll shelve that for a potential another-post.