History Main / BlankBook

* Books written in Braille seem to be completely in blank... at first sight, at least. And in a way, the situation is inverted if you're blind.

** The book used to seal [[MailerDaemon Moloch]] was blank until the sealing ritual was performed, at which point it would fill up with words. When Willow scanned it into the library computer, it became blank again, as Moloch was released into the internet.

* ''Literature/ASongofIceandFire'' has Jaime Lannister, the new commander of the King's Guard, finding a book in which the deeds of all commanders are written. His part is mostly blank. He will have to fill in his deeds, and up to that point those are mostly deeds he regrets, and therefore he chooses to be a better person so he could be proud of what he will write down for posterity.

** The [[TomeOfEldrichLore Tome of the Pah'Wraiths]] is a forbidden and blasphemous text in the Bajoran faith. But when it is opened, the pages are all blank, confounding those who would seek the evil knowledge within. Only after [[spoiler:a virtuous man is murdered while trying to keep the book from evil hands and [[BloodMagic his blood drips onto the pages]]]] does the actual text appear. Even, then only the ChosenOne of the Pah'Wraith can actually read it; anyone else who tries risks being supernaturally blinded.

** The Tome of the Pah'Wraiths is a forbidden and blasphemous text in the Bajoran faith. But when it is opened, the pages are all blank, confounding those who would seek the evil knowledge within. Only after [[spoiler: a virtuous man is murdered while trying to keep the book from evil hands and his blood drips onto the pages]] does the actual text appear. Even, then only the ChosenOne of the Pah'Wraith can actually read it; anyone else who tries risks being supernaturally blinded.

* Truth Martini has two main methods when it comes to gaining new followers. His "House Of Truth" wrestling school, which he graduating from comes with a moderate chance of wrestling for Wrestling/RingOfHonor, and forcing them to see his wisdom by [[ThrowTheBookAtThem smacking them]] with his "Book Of Truth", which is full of blank pages.[[/folder]]

'''Type 1:''' It may be that the character is trapped in a LotusEaterMachine of some kind and the book being empty or filled with nonsense is a sign that something isn't right, since a MasterOfIllusion would have to manually "write" each and every book himself.

'''Type 4:''' Lastly, the book being blank could be an Aesop for knowledge or lack of it. Perhaps the famed book of wisdom is blank because the person finding the book is supposed to write out the important knowledge himself because having gone through the quest to find the book he now has the wisdom to write the book of wisdom himself. A case of AllThatGlitters. Or if the book was a blank holy text, it shows that character is denied the knowledge that will save his soul because he is now beyond redemption.

* Whenever the Book of Shadows goes blank in ''Series/{{Charmed}}'', there's something very wrong happening. Usually it means that the sisters have lost their powers, as they and the book are linked.

* There is an actual book that sold over a million copies, written by Cindy Cashman under the alias "Dr Alan Francis", called "Everything Men Know About Women" - and yep, it's just a bunch of empty pages. One of these is produced every few years, generally titled, "The Wit and Wisdom of ''{Insert Politician}''". Some were also made as audio discs, which are of course completely silent. For equality's sake, a book titled "Everything Women Know About Men" also exists and it is also completely blank.

* ''[[Literature/A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' has Jaime Lannister, the new commander of the King's Guard, finding a book in which the deeds of all commanders are written. His part is mostly blank. He will have to fill in his deeds, and up to that point those are mostly deeds he regrets, and therefore he chooses to be a better person so he could be proud of what he will write down for posterity.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* In ''Manga/XxxHoLic'', there was a demon that ate words from books. It was eventually tricked into eating the words on a ProtectiveCharm, making it SealedEvilInACan.

[[folder: Comic Books]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Web Comics]]

** "''How ridiculous, my own subconscious is mocking my goals.''"

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life]]

* There is an actual book that sold over a million copies, written by Cindy Cashman under the alias "Dr Alan Francis", called "Everything Men Know About Women" - and yep, it's just a bunch of empty pages. One of these is produced every few years, generally titled, "The Wit and Wisdom of ''{Insert Politician}''". Some were also made as audio discs, which are of course completely silent.
** For equality's sake, a book titled "Everything Women Know About Men" also exists and it is also completely blank.

This trope is for in-universe cases only. If a character quickly flips through the book to find the only page that matters, but closely examining the sequence shows that other pages are blank or gibberish, that's simply the creators cutting costs on unimportant details. If those pages actually contain unique material, that's FreezeFrameBonus.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Gateway}} Frederik Pohl's Gateway]]'' has a blank book "Everything We Know About the Heechee", much like in ''[[Literature/HeecheeSaga the original novel]]''. Unlike the novel, in the game such books actually serve as logs of prospectors studying Heechee artefacts.

* ''[[VideoGame/Gateway Frederik Pohl's Gateway]]'' has a blank book "Everything We Know About the Heechee", much like in ''[[Literature/HeecheeSaga the original novel]]''. Unlike the novel, in the game such books actually serve as logs of prospectors studying Heechee artefacts.

* In ''PennyArcadeAdventures'', the [[TomeOfEldritchLore Necrowombicon]] appears to be blank to anyone not ''meant'' to read the book. To anyone planning on spreading horrific evil that will advance the goals of the four evil gods, it is full of handy step-by-step instructions.