History Main / Blankslate

See also NurtureOverNature, ConditionedToAcceptHorror, MoreThanMindControl, RousseauWasRight, StockholmSyndrome and ThenLetMeBeEvil.

* [[NoNameGiven Assistant]] from ''LightNovel/HumanityHasDeclined'' has this as his backstory. This plays out considerably differently from usual, as he became completely unmemorable from a lack of anything to remember. He only truly enters the story after getting a personality.

* [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent Ennis]] in ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' starts as one of these and gradually develops more of a personality. [[spoiler:It's revealed that this has happened many times before, and every time the homunculus turns on Szilard in the end, before he destroys it and makes a new one]].

* The second arc of ''Manga/VinlandSaga'' involves Thorfinn moving from the borderline EmptyShell he became at the end of the first arc into a BlankSlate, and from thereon into an actually heroic character. This gets {{lampshaded}} by [[CoolOldGuy Sverker]], who delivers a short speech on how being empty inside can be a good thing since you can fill the emptiness with something useful.

* Kyle [as in [[Series/KyleXY XY]]] started out as this.
* Luke in Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures before Sarah Jane adopts him.

* Joan from the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Tabula Rasa".

* ''VideoGame/SuperDarylDeluxe'' - the titular Daryl looks like a BlankSlate due to how [[NoSocialSkills overwhelmingly unexpressive]] he is. Because he [[HeroicMime never speaks]], it is difficult to say what he thinks - only that he tends to do what anyone tells him without question.

A Blank Slate is an empty character with absolutely no beliefs, no opinions, and no experience, ready to be shaped by the outside world. Sometimes, this is an extreme case of FishOutOfWater, in which a character is transported into a world that they literally know nothing about. Other times, this is the result of a character being created by magic, or mad science, and thus the character is essentially "born" with the mind of an adult, but no life experiences whatsoever. In some instances, this is actually the result of a mind wipe.

* The Ali Landry film ''Film/RepliKate'' revolves around this trope; the hero is in love with the beautiful Kate but far too nervous to talk to her. When she is accidentally cloned the hero and his roommate educate the Blank Slate clone with stereotypical guy traits like love of sports and casual sex. HilarityEnsues.

See also OCStandIn, the FanFic counterpart of this trope where non- or under-developed characters are given more quirks and personalities.

* In the first ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'', ''[[UpToEleven everyone]]'' except Angel (BigBad) and Sera (Amnesia) are this. After they get infected with the atma virus, they awaken to a single powerful emotion and develop from there.

* [[spoiler:Scion]], to a huge degree. He's easily talked into heroic acts, as he simply emotionlessly repeats what he's been told, but [[spoiler:once Jack gets to him, calls him out on this, and talks him into a [[AxCrazy different worldview]]...]]

* From ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', [[TheCorrupter Jack Slash]] accuses Oni Lee of being this. Jack nominated Oni Lee as a prospective member of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Slaughterhouse 9]], but quickly realized that Oni Lee had little to no motivation; that he was just an unimaginative robot, waiting for his orders. In a somewhat [[MotiveRant pretentious dialogue]], Jack notes that he ''hates'' blank slates.

* Scion in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', to a huge degree. He's easily talked into heroic acts, as he simply emotionlessly repeats what he's been told, but [[spoiler:once Jack gets to him, calls him out on this, and talks him into a [[AxCrazy different worldview]]...]]

* This was the shtick of ComicBook/{{Longshot}} during his first six-issue series in 1985 and twenty years later he got blanked again in the pages of ComicBook/{{Exiles}}. Being a SlaveMook by design, it's unfortunately easy for his creators the Spineless Ones to do this to him whenever they catch him.

* Kendal from [[https://comicaurora.com Aurora]] is a being created by the god Vash to use whenever He needed a body. When Vash was forced out of the body, it gained its own sentience as Kendal.

* The chatbot [[http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/23/11290200/tay-ai-chatbot-released-microsoft Tay]] was another attempt at designing an AI that could learn to talk like a human. Unfortunately, it was targeted by {{troll}}s and learned to emulate [[{{GIFT}} the dark side of the Internet]], causing Microsoft to [[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/26/microsoft-deeply-sorry-for-offensive-tweets-by-ai-chatbot shut down the project]] and delete the worst of Tay's obnoxious spewings.

* ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}''... The book version, anyway. The Creature is essentially "born" without any idea of what the outside world is like, especially since Victor (his creator) ran out on him, because of his apparently hideous appearance... in fact, it's because of the disgusted ''reactions of others'' towards how he looks (the very negative reaction) that he starts to turn toward doing evil; [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds no one will ever try to get to know]] the ''real'' him...

->''"What's interesting to me.. .is that you don't call out to God. It isn't a question of faith; it's just vernacular. Anyone in this much pain prays, or at least curses, but... we take God from you too. You really ''are'' a shell."''

* For the patient of the week in the ''Series/{{House}}'' episode "Mirror Mirror" this is actually part of his mysterious affliction. He has no memory of who he is and simply reflects the doctors' personalities back at them. When they realize he's specifically picking up on social dynamics and mimicking the person in charge in any given group, House takes great delight in demonstrating that he's the one being mimicked even when his boss is in the room too

* For the patient of the week in the ''Series/{{House}}'' episode "Mirror Mirror" this is actually part of his mysterious affliction. He has no memory of who he is and simply reflects the doctors' personalities back at them.

* Myria [=LeJean=], an inhuman spirit with no conception of personality, gender, or individuality - until she is incarnated into a fully-formed adult female body and dropped into the human world in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/ThiefOfTime''.

* ''{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastWars'': Quickstrike and Silverbolt's stasis pods were damaged by the surge at the end of season 1/start of season 2, which led to them awakening with no idea of who they are. Megatron uses this to his advantages by convincing them that they are Predacons. It works out with Quickstrike, but not so much with Silverbolt because he at least retained his honorable personality.
** Quickstrike had a personality too. AxCrazy. His just worked well with the Predacons, and Silverbolt's personality, not to put too fine a point on it, didn't. Tigatron would be a better example, since he "hatched" with no identity or allegiance and ended up becoming a tiger, which apparently means a lone-wolf nature-loving pacifist.

* Down through history, many people have experimented with isolating children to see if they'll respond with the "original human" language or moral ideas. Emperor Frederick II put kids with mute nursemaids to see if the original language was some form of Hebrew, but instead they all developed expressive signs. Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins school for the blind, had some such idea about divine consciousness, and wanted to keep his deaf-blind student Laura Bridgman from finding out about Christianity or other religions. This failed as well, and Laura eventually became a Baptist.

* Human and animal babies are already blank-slates, ready to be shown the real world via their parent's (or lack of) upbringing.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie'': Several Gems are stricken with IdentityAmnesia. While most of them at least know their place in Homeworld's HiveCasteSystem and what they were made for, [[spoiler:Amethyst]] instead repeats and mimes whatever's done in front of her. [[spoiler:All this implies not only that Rose, Garnet and Pearl had to teach her to talk after they found her, but that this state was probably due to her "overcooked" status by having stayed in the ground longer than normal.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie'': Several gems are stricken with IdentityAmnesia. While most of them at least know their place in Homeworld's HiveCasteSystem and what they were made for, [[spoiler:Amethyst]] instead repeats and mimes whatever's done in front of her. [[spoiler:All this implies not only that Rose, Garnet and Pearl had to teach her to talk after they found her, but that this state was probably due to her "overcooked" status by having stayed in the ground longer than normal.]]