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Gate of Truth (view source)

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{{trope}}
[[File:FMA_gate_of_truth_7086.jpg|link=Fullmetal Alchemist (Mangamanga)|frame|Step inside, don't be shy! There's everything you'd ever want to know... ''[[Equivalent Exchange|for a price.]]'']]
 
 
{{quote|''"It was like all the information in the world was being poured into my brain at once. My head felt like it was about to burst, but for an instant, it became clear: the truth of everything."''|'''Edward Elric''', ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Mangamanga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''}}
 
The Gate Of Truth is a central nexus of all knowledge in the universe, or something close to that. Tends to be difficult, if not nearly impossible to reach. If the answer is [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Forty-Two]], then chances are, the question is somewhere in there. It may or may not be [[Genius Loci|sentient]], and may or may not be actively collecting knowledge, but what's important is that it already has a lot of it in stock. If it's known at all to people, those who know about it are very likely to be an elite of some sort, and will more likely than not be killing each other just to get there.
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== Anime and Manga ==
 
* The [[Trope Namer|Gate of Truth]] from ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Mangamanga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. Truth, [[The Blank|a white, featureless]], [[Jerkass Gods]] [[Our Gods Are Different|godlike being]] whose physique matches that of the person entering his realm, is the gatekeeper. {{spoiler|You pay with a part of yourself, which Truth then wears until you reclaim it, assuming you ever do; in exchange, you gain the ability to perform alchemy without a transmutation circle.}}
** At the end, it is revealed that {{spoiler|it is possible to pay with your Gate instead of your body parts; however, this renders the alchemist unable to perform alchemy ever again, and unless he somehow is tied to another person's gate, will strand him in Truth's realm until he dies.}}
** Works slightly differently in [[Fullmetal Alchemist (Animeanime)|the 2003 anime version]]. There is no gatekeeper; rather, the Gate itself is implied to be sentient. Also, the Gate is, in fact, {{spoiler|a portal between the world of the series and our own world, and thus the source of [[Powered Byby a Forsaken Child|the soul energy that powers Alchemy]]}}. It is inhabited by {{spoiler|weird black imps that do the body part-claiming in Truth's stead -- and for a short period of time, the homunculus Wrath until Ed provides him with a means of escape. It's implied the imps are actually the souls of those who die in our world}}.
* ''[[Mnemosyne]]'' has Yggdrasil actively trying to become this by casting time spores on the world and using them to gather data.
* Parodied in ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' when Spike and Jet brave the perils of a flooded, crumbling museum to retrieve the last working Betamax machine so they can read an ancient tape. The contents of the tape and their effect on the crew seem to play this trope straight though.
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== Literature ==
 
* In ''[[The Odyssey (Literature)|The Odyssey]]'', there are two gates through which all dreams pass, one of horn and one of ivory. Dreams that pass through the horn gate are true (that is, they come to pass in [[Real Life]]), whereas dreams that go through the ivory gate are deceptive and false.
** This particular imagery recurs in ''[[The Aeneid (Literature)|The Aeneid]]'' and in many later works. English-language works making use of the motif include ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'', ''[[A Wizard of Earth Sea]]'', Robert Holdstock's fantasy novel ''Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn'', and ''[[The Sandman]]'' by [[Neil Gaiman]].
* Speaking of, in [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Neverwhere]]'', the angel Islington guards, among other things, the door to Heaven, hidden in the deepest part of the London Underground.
* From the [[Cthulhu Mythos]], Yog-Sothoth is the Gate. Yog-Sothoth is the Key. Yog-Sothoth is the All-In-One and the One-In-All. [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Past and present are one in Yog-Sothoth.]] He alone knows where the [[Eldritch Abomination|Great Old Ones]] walked the Earth's fields, and He alone knows where they shall do so again and why none can behold Them when They walk.
* "Deep Thought" from ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy]]''.
* The vignette "A Man Before the Law" in the [[Franz Kafka]] novel ''The Trial'' is a [[Subverted Trope|subversion]], in that the man trying to enter the gate that leads to the law itself never gets to entire despite spending an entire lifetime trying to learn the required price.
* Many fictional uses of the [[Real Life]] Library of Alexandria, which was lost or destroyed depending on which story you believe, have it become one of these.
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* Mimir's Well, from [[Norse Mythology]]. Odin paid for his wisdom with one of his eyes.
* In the [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]], God would seem to be this, since he is omniscient - he "knows all". The Bible also has the Tree of Knowledge where Adam and Eve got the [[Forbidden Fruit]].
 
 
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== Western Animation ==
 
* The [[Amulet of Concentrated Awesome|Matrix of Wisdom]] from ''[[Transformers Generation One1]]''. When opened, it destroys an intergalactic [[Hate Plague]] by [[It Runs Onon Nonsensoleum|unleashing its accumulated wisdom]].
* Wan Shi Tong's Spirit Library in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' is this, complete with scary spirit guardian.
** For that matter, so is the spirit world itself, where Aang has to brave various monstrous terrors so that he can ask questions of his previous incarnations.
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