http://docs.python.org/3.3/c-api/structures.html#METH_KEYWORDS

"Methods with these flags must be of type PyCFunctionWithKeywords. The function expects three parameters: self, args, and a dictionary of all the keyword arguments. The flag is typically combined with METH_VARARGS, and the parameters are typically processed using PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords()."

The documentation doesn't mention the args/dictionary arguments will be NULL when there are no positional/keyword arguments. It might also be worth mentioning the arguments are in effect "borrowed" references.