>> How we'd override "pass" boggles my mind.

> An expression that does nothing. Putting `''` in a function is equivalent to `pass` in that it lets the parser do its stuff. `pass` could be a builtin defined as `None` and the behavior would be the same as today, without a keyword.

The net behaviour would be the same but actually referencing None in the function body increases the refcount of None and immediately decreases it again.

  >>> def foo(): pass # no function body, after all
  ... 
  >>> def bar(): None # reference to None
  ... 
  >>> def frob(): "" # docstring
  ... 
  >>> import dis
  >>> dis.dis(foo)
    1           0 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
                3 RETURN_VALUE        
  >>> dis.dis(bar) # incref, decref
    1           0 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
                3 POP_TOP             
                4 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
                7 RETURN_VALUE        
  >>> dis.dis(frob) # see "1 (None)" instead of "0 (None)"
    1           0 LOAD_CONST               1 (None)
                3 RETURN_VALUE
  >>> foo.__doc__, frob.__doc__
  (None, '')

I admit the difference is merely an academical one but saying pass is not special is not true.