Okay, I'm still reading through Vol 1, but I'm really confused about something the game is just NOT explaining for me: mass effect maneuvers, via spells, or curses and any other negative aspect on NPCs. Let me clarify with two examples:

Example 1: Joe Wizard decides to use Spirit magic to cause a blinding light to fill a zone giving all in it who fail their defense rolls, a negative aspect of Blinded By the Light.

Now I get that Joe Wizard can tag this or hand it off to his assassin friend to invoke against one of the NPCs for a +2 on, let's say, a Stealth roll or an attack roll. Joe Wizard could also compel NPC #1 to attack his best friend and lifetime companion NPC #2 (who bonded over having the same first and middle name). Here's my question, what about NPC #2? Unless Joe Wizard wants to dump a fate point to compel all of the NPCs to miss or misfire, NPC #2 has no penalty on attacking, even though he SHOULD be blinded, at least partly so.

Example 2: Using a modified example in the book, Joe Wizard decides to cast the curse/maneuver Can't Think Straight on a performer before he gets on stage to foul him up.

Now I'm ASSUMING he can spend a fate point to compel said performer to foul up on the stage. Now here is my confusion, can other PCs, who's characters are aware of this curse, spend Fate Points to compel this curse even though they aren't there? Assuming the curse lasts until sunrise, do the PCs have to continuously spend FP (say at one per scene) to maintain the lack of concentration? Shouldn't the fact that Joe Wizard spend several FP to invoke aspects JUST to get the curse to be cast (filling the power deficit) count towards something?

In both cases, do I the DM have to compel my NPCs and likewise award my NPCs Fate Points when, let's face it, they're probably going to die in battle?

I like Aspects, I do, but they seem not to matter unless Fate Points are being spent on them.