History BLAM / Literature

** In ''The Patchwork Girl of Oz,'' the protagonists come across a cabin on a deserted stretch of the Yellow Brick Road. A disembodied voice begrudgingly agrees to provide them with food and shelter for the night. The titular Patchwork Girl annoys the unseen host and winds up locked outside overnight, where she sees a large wolf come to the door several times. In the morning, the travelers who spent the night inside realize they still feel hungry and tired, as if they hadn't eaten or slept at all. None of this is elaborated on, they don't lose a day to actually rest or eat, and Ojo doesn't even complain about the experience (which makes it one of the few things he doesn't complain about). However, surviving correspondence between Baum and his editors indicate that one or two chapters Baum wrote for this novel were deleted and are now lost. It is also noteworthy that the phrase "the wolf is that door" was early 20th-century slang for being in a desperate state of debt, which may or may not be relevant.

* The encounter with the Sphinx in the Labyrinth of ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians''. Funny? Yes. However, it is never referenced afterwords, and appears to come off as an AuthorFilibuster.

** In chapter 14 of the Gospel of Mark, during the arrest of Jesus, it's briefly mentioned that there was a man who ran off naked after someone grabbed his robe. It has no relevance to the story and is never mentioned again or in the other Gospels. Some scholars have claimed that this man, whom they call the Naked Fugitive, was Mark himself, as in the author of the gospel. Others even believe he might have been a male prostitute, which all of its possible implications.

* There's that uncomfortable and unnerving "Vodka" chapter that comes the eff out of nowhere late in ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials''. Will, a 12 or 13 year old boy, is traveling alone. He stops at the house of an old priest to ask for directions. The priest pushes him into accepting a drink of vodka, chats in an overly friendly manner, is very touchy-feely, [[LeaveYourQuestTest tries to convince Will to stay a while]] and is just generally creepy. After few pages of this, Will insists on leaving and the man gives him a hug and lets him go. There is no mention of the incident or the old man ever again. Most likely this was a jab at the Catholic Church, referencing their rampant sexual abuse of children.

* The ''Literature/ConanTheBarbarian'' novel ''Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon'' features Conan seeking to reclaim the throne of Aquilonia, and being forced to travel across Hyborea to find the Heart of Ahriman as it passes through several hands. At one point, it ends up in the Temple of Set, and Conan ventures inside. He meets an ancient vampire named Akivasha, who attempts to seduce him, but flees further into the temple to find the Heart, Akivasaha is never brought up again. So in the middle of a long adventure about a quest to reclaim a kingdom, there's just a random scene with Conan being seduced by a hot vampire lady and walking away.

* Literature/HarryPotter's dreams and [[ImagineSpot mental images]] can be downright WEIRD. Take, for instance, the dream Harry had in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix book 5]] right before [[MoodWhiplash the attack on Arthur Weasley.]] In summary, Cho Chang tells Harry that Cedric had bought her tons of Chocolate Frogs, Hermione suggests giving her his Firebolt, he explains that it's currently locked in [[TyrantTakesTheHelm Umbridge's]] office, and he's trying to hang up Christmas ornaments shaped like Dobby's head. [[MindScrew Yeah.]]
** [[ItMakesSenseInContext To be fair]], his dreams are [[RealDreamsAreWeirder precisely like how normal dreams work]], which helps establish the MoodWhiplash when he transitions from a normal (if odd) dream to [[DreamSpying a realistic, coherent vision of Nagini's attack]].

** The Literature/BookOfExodus has the much-debated "Zipporah at the inn" episode which is no longer than three verses. En route to Egypt, Moses and his family stay at an inn. The Lord ''tries''(?) to kill him for unexplained reasons (right after He gave him the mission to free Israel). Moses' wife Zipporah takes a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of their son. Zipporah has one very confusing (at least to the modern reader) line of dialogue, calling Moses "a bridegroom of blood to me," which only adds to the weirdness. The standard interpretation of the passage is that God wants to kill Moses for neglecting the rite of circumcision of his son but it's not stated explicitly and the incident is never mentioned again.
** In chapter 14 of the Gospel of Mark, during the arrest of Jesus, it's briefly mentioned that there was a man who ran off naked after someone grabbed his robe. It has no relevance to the story and is never mentioned again or in the other Gospels. Some scholars have claimed that this man was Mark himself, as in the author of the gospel.
** The Gospel of Matthew has a few verses that mention a miracle where a mass of people come BackFromTheDead and were seen by many in Jerusalem. Not only are there only 3 verses mentioning this event, none of the other Gospels (all of which tell more or less the same story) even bring it up.

* At the end of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's ''Literature/TheShadowOfTheWind'', the protagonist finds a strange old man with golden eyes and a grey coat, described as "a deserter angel", who is laughing outside and playing with the snow. The man, whom the protagonist feels can "read into his soul", just wishes him good luck and is never seen or mentioned again.

* The scene in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'' where Rincewind and Twoflower's dragon disappears, and Rincewind somehow wills them to Roundworld, where they're on an aeroplane that's been hijacked and are named Dr Rjinswand and Jack Zweiblumen. When the Luggage appears to threaten the hijacker Rjinswand wishes he were somewhere else and they're back on the Disc, with the only evidence of this scene being that they're not in the same place they were in when the dragon disappeared (although still falling) and the Luggage now bears the "powerful travelling rune T.W.A." Even for a RandomEventsPlot, it's kind of disconnected from everything around it. The TV and comicbook adaptations both skip it entirely.

* Played with in ''Literature/TheBarsoomProject''. When the participants in the Fimbulwinter Game take an approach not anticipated by the Game Master, he activates a ''pre-designed'' Big-Lipped Alligator Moment to keep the players distracted while he thinks about how to deal with their unexpected course of action. In-Game, it's a BLAM, but out-of-Game it's entirely justified.

** Many of the BLAMs in the first editions of L. Frank Baum's and subsequently Ruth Plumly Thompson's Oz books are not the author's fault, but that of illustrator John R. Neill. Neill's illustrations frequently do not sync up with descriptions of people, place, and things which the authors provided. A truly bizarre example comes in the early chapters of ''The Scarecrow of Oz'', in which on old man and a little girl go on a ''Gilligan's Island''-style boat trip gone wrong. Neill chose to pepper the adventure with gratuitous scenes of an attractive, well-built, not-quite-human lady in the water, with fins on her arms (a la Aquaman) and on the sides of her head (like Flash wings or Catwoman ears). She is wholly Neill's own creation, as the text mentions no character beyond the two boaters in this part of the story, and no mermaid/nereid/selkie/whatever in any other part. But while the mysterious swimming champ is weird enough in her own right, the crowning BLAM moment is the full-page illustration preceding chapter one, in which she is riding a whitewater wave which strategically covers her lower body, except for a "window" which gives us an unobstructed view of her bare buttocks, adding an inexplicable act of Mooning to the Oz books.

* The ''Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse'' novel ''Far Country'' departs from the BlackAndGrayMorality WarIsHell, [[AbsentAliens human-only]] action the series is known for, and instead features a race of intelligent pre-industrial BirdPeople, the Tetatae, that were found by a wrecked jumpship after a BlindJump. WordOfGod states that the story remains canonical, but they have no intention of returning or even mentioning them (the jumpship was regarded as [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace lost in transit]]), feeling that aliens do not fit within the greater universe.

*** The Gospel of Matthew has a few verses that mention a miracle where a mass of people come BackFromTheDead and were seen by many in Jerusalem. Not only are there only 3 verses mentioning this event, none of the other Gospels (all of which tell more or less the same story) even bring it up.