Impossible Thief: Difference between revisions

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For a thief who isn't 'impossible' so much as 'too good to be true', it's a [[Classy Cat Burglar]] or a [[Gentleman Thief]], respectively. Compare with [[Phantom Thief]].

== Carmen Sandiego ==

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* In Batman/Superman: Generations, president [[Green Lantern|Hal Jordan]] has a contingency plan for in case [[Superman]] goes evil -- a [[Kryptonite Ring]] stored in an ultra top secret bunker behind the most sophisticated alarm systems on the planet, protected by a river of molten synthetic Kryptonite. When he goes to retrieve the ring he finds [[Batman]] has already nipped in and taken it.

* In JLA: Tower of Babel, the [[Big Bad]] steals human language, first written, then spoken as well.

* Arpin Lusene, the Black Knight, from [[Don Rosa]]'s Disney comics, does this all the time. No wonder, since he's an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[~~Arsene~~ Lupin|Monsieur Lupin]] below (as well as [[Gentleman Thief|Gentleman Thieves]] in general).

* Arpin Lusene, the Black Knight, from [[Don Rosa]]'s Disney comics, does this all the time. No wonder, since he's an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[Arsène Lupin|Monsieur Lupin]] below (as well as [[Gentleman Thief|Gentleman Thieves]] in general).

** He casually steals [[Serial Escalation|a man's socks while he's wearing them, the bullet's from a museum guard's gun and a viking ship.]] While naked.

** He also stole the filament from camera's flash bulb. While the camera was in the cameraman's ''hands''. In the same story, exactly same time, he stole another reporter's ''underwear''.

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** [[Justified Trope|Justified]], since they do this by reading the subject's mind. In a situation like that, ''all'' you can steal are ideas.

* In ''[[Despicable Me]]'', one of Gru's rival villains is able to completely remove one of the Pyramids of Giza and replace it with an inflatable model without anyone noticing. Gru himself mentions stealing [[Franks 2000 Inch TV|the Times Square Jumbo-tron]], the Statue of Liberty ("The small one, from Las Vegas"), and the Eiffel Tower ("Also from Vegas"), and the film's plot largely revolves around his scheme to steal the moon.

* In ''[[~~Its~~ a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie]]'', Kermit enters [[Wonderful Life|an alternate reality in which he never existed]] and meets Fozzie, who has become a street thief. Fozzie promptly picks his pocket. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Kermit's angel companion, who correctly points out that Kermit, being a frog, doesn't ''have'' any pockets.

* In ''[[It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie]]'', Kermit enters [[Wonderful Life|an alternate reality in which he never existed]] and meets Fozzie, who has become a street thief. Fozzie promptly picks his pocket. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Kermit's angel companion, who correctly points out that Kermit, being a frog, doesn't ''have'' any pockets.

* The Thief from ''[[The Thief and The Cobbler (Animation)|The Thief and The Cobbler]]'' steals the [[MacGuffin]] from a collapsing death machine, the words "The End" at the end of the movie and ''the film from the projector''!

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* In the [[Thursday Next]] book ''The Eyre Affair'' the villain Acheron Hades has various inexplicable abilities such as not appearing on film or video, being impossibly persuasive, practically unkillable, able to "lie in thought, word and deed" and can push his hand through a bulletproof glass case to steal the item inside leaving only a faint ripple in the glass. In one scene he muses on how there's no need to hide from the guards, since they would be easily taken care of, but that wouldn't be as much fun.

* The title character of [[Roald Dahl]]'s short story "The Hitchhiker"; which was made into an episode of ''[[Tales of the Unexpected]]''.

* [[~~Arsene~~ Lupin]] is an impossible thief, possibly the first. The stories, written by Maurice LeBlanc, are contemporaneous with Conan Doyle's [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories. Lupin sometimes adds insult to injury by giving the owners of his targets details such as the time, date, or even method of the theft in advance.

* [[Arsène Lupin]] is an impossible thief, possibly the first. The stories, written by Maurice LeBlanc, are contemporaneous with Conan Doyle's [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories. Lupin sometimes adds insult to injury by giving the owners of his targets details such as the time, date, or even method of the theft in advance.

* [[Raffles|A.J. Raffles]], in the stories by E.W. Hornung, repeatedly pulls off "impossible" thefts, including that of a gold cup from the British Museum, and once, stealing the collection of "souvenirs" of his previous crimes from the Black Museum of Scotland Yard itself.

* The main character of the ''Dickie Dick Dickens'' series starts out as this. He is a humble pickpocket who earns the ire of the gangster leaders of Chicago by not playing by the rules; when they sic the police on him in a massive betrayal, he turns out to have stolen ''every gun of every cop in Chicago'' the day before. The embarrassed cops call it a day; Dickens dumps the weapons in Lake Michigan.

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** The fact the [[Legacy Hero|original Grey Fox]] stole the iconic Grey Cowl from a Daedric Prince (basically demons so powerful they're worshiped as gods) makes these legends well deserved.

* In the bonus chapter of ''[[Disgaea]] 3'', a mysterious thief {{spoiler|actually Overlord Baal in his incarnation as an insanely overpowered yet cutesey mushroom}} is stealing all sorts of ridiculous things from various [[Nippon Ichi]] characters, including: An unspecified item from Mao, a 1 billion HL savings from Etna, a collector's DVD set from Flonne... and then it gets weird: Salvatore's "womanliness", a "space and letter A" from Master Big Star (turning him into Master Bigster), Prism Red's friends, Laharl's height and his screen time in the new game, Axel's stardom, [[Phantom Brave|Marona]]'s "pure heart", and a game in which Asagi (a [[Running Gag]] N1 character) is the main character. Slightly subverted in which {{spoiler|Baal}} says he doesn't remember "stealing all that", making it unclear how much was actually stolen and how much was "insurance fraud".

** [[Bonus Boss|Asagi]] has regularly tried to steal the role of main character from the protagonist of the game(s) she's appeared in -- apparently, [[Makai Kingdom|a certain book]] cursed her to not be able to return to her ''own'' game, and so she's forced to level up profusely and attempt to steal the spotlight from every other game's main character. {{spoiler|Her most recent attempt has her donning an [[Made of Explodium|explosive Prinny suit]] in an attempt to steal the role from the protagonist of "Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?", a [[~~Everythings~~ Better With Penguins|Prinny]] ([[Department of Redundancy Department|of course]]), only for the suit to [[Failsafe Failure|violently detonate with her inside it upon losing]].}}

** [[Bonus Boss|Asagi]] has regularly tried to steal the role of main character from the protagonist of the game(s) she's appeared in -- apparently, [[Makai Kingdom|a certain book]] cursed her to not be able to return to her ''own'' game, and so she's forced to level up profusely and attempt to steal the spotlight from every other game's main character. {{spoiler|Her most recent attempt has her donning an [[Made of Explodium|explosive Prinny suit]] in an attempt to steal the role from the protagonist of "Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?", a [[Everything's Better With Penguins|Prinny]] ([[Department of Redundancy Department|of course]]), only for the suit to [[Failsafe Failure|violently detonate with her inside it upon losing]].}}

* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', the Queen of Hearts accuses Alice of being one of these and stealing her heart. The real culprit was a Heartless. The fact that the Heartless managed to steal her heart without her seeing it could also count, unless it did it when she was asleep.

** Should be noted that hearts are not metaphysical concepts in this case (they're also distinct from the muscle)-- they're literally glowing valentine's hearts that serve as a person's emotional and spiritual core, and Heartless steal them on a regular basis (although not always without being noticed).

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** Any time Yuki gets in a fight as a [[Magical Girl]] (usually in the Omake chapters), she "fights" by stealing peoples' weapons before they can use them. When Dom [http://megatokyo.com/strip/1311 points a gun at her], she steals ''all'' of his numerous guns and ammo clips in the blink of an eye, and then she disappears...[[Up to Eleven|with his van, before he even notices his guns are missing]].

* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=560#comic This] and [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2257#comic this] from ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]''.

* Thief from ''[[~~Eight~~ Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'' can steal anything that isn't both on fire and nailed down (maybe). He even {{spoiler|stole his post-class change costume from his future self. (...Which naturally [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/09/19/episode-1174-oh-thats-what/ somewhat bit him in the rear] later.)<ref>Only "somewhat" because Sarda would have de-leveled him anyway.</ref>}} He also stole ''a soul'' from [[Soul Jar|its container]] (the [[Plot Coupon|Earth Orb]]) and once stated he'd have no problem stealing his opponents resolve.

* Thief from ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'' can steal anything that isn't both on fire and nailed down (maybe). He even {{spoiler|stole his post-class change costume from his future self. (...Which naturally [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/09/19/episode-1174-oh-thats-what/ somewhat bit him in the rear] later.)<ref>Only "somewhat" because Sarda would have de-leveled him anyway.</ref>}} He also stole ''a soul'' from [[Soul Jar|its container]] (the [[Plot Coupon|Earth Orb]]) and once stated he'd have no problem stealing his opponents resolve.

** When asked about how he was able to get so much loot from an already-plundered town, thief responded: "They (The pirates) left everything that was nailed down. I did not."

** He also knew Black Mage's secret fear that he was going to steal all their souls because, "I steal souls ''and'' secrets."