Don't know when the problem was introduced, but dictviews_sub is doing: tmp = _PyObject_CallMethodId(result, &PyId_difference_update, "O", other); to implement subtraction (after creating result as a set of the keys in question). That's violating the CallMethod contract though (which states the format string should produce a tuple), and while it looks like CallMethod does fixups when the contract is violated, this creates some very odd behaviors. With a list, everything is fine: >>> d = {0: 'zero', 1: 'one', 2: 'two', 3: 'three'} >>> d.keys() - [0, 2] {1, 3} >>> d.keys() - (0, 2) TypeError: 'int' object is not iterable Basically, the fix up doesn't get applied when you subtract a tuple, so it's as if it's trying to call: result.difference_update(*(0, 2)) # Unpacking used to illustrate, effect is result.difference_update(0, 2) With the list, it's wrapping to make a one element tuple, so it behaves like: result.difference_update(*([0, 2],)) # Unpacking used to illustrate, effect is result.difference_update([0, 2]) For more details, see http://stackoverflow.com/q/35784258/364696 Fix should be to change call line to: tmp = _PyObject_CallMethodObjArgsId(result, &PyId_difference_update, other, NULL); (assuming _PyObject_CallMethodObjArgsId is a thing), or if it's not a thing, to fix the format string to force tuple wrapping: tmp = _PyObject_CallMethodId(result, &PyId_difference_update, "(O)", other);

New changeset 0cae6b6e3d7d by Benjamin Peterson in branch '3.4': properly use the ObjArgs variant of CallMethod in dictview binary operations (closes #26478) https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/0cae6b6e3d7d New changeset a5bc5c9490f5 by Benjamin Peterson in branch '3.5': merge 3.4 (closes #26478) https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/a5bc5c9490f5 New changeset 9532a8815a9c by Benjamin Peterson in branch 'default': merge 3.5 (closes #26478) https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/9532a8815a9c

Well that was patched quickly, impressive turnaround on this

New changeset 309f3559a729 by Benjamin Peterson in branch '2.7': properly use PyObject_CallMethod in dictview binary operations (closes #26478) https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/309f3559a729