Thief (series): Difference between revisions

[[File:t1-boxart.jpg|thumb|400px|"What the hell is a [[Unusual Euphemism|taffer]] anyway ?"]]

 

 

 

 

This devotion eventually led to the creation of [http://www.thedarkmod.com The Dark Mod], a total conversion for ''[[Doom (series)|Doom]] 3'', turning it into a stealth-based game like ''Thief'' with even more fan-made missions.

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Abandoned Hospital]]/[[Bedlam House]] : {{spoiler|The ''[[Thief]]: Deadly Shadows'' level "The Cradle".}}

* [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]: The Downwind Thieves' Guild is headquartered in the sewers beneath the Overlord's Fancy tavern and illegal casino.

* [[Adventurer Archaeologist]]: The elder civilizations aren't going to need those shiny things any more, are they?

* [[Affably Evil]]: The [[Big Bad]] of the first game - especially until the dramatic [[The Reveal|reveal of his true self]].

* [[All in a Row]]: A few groups of police and guards act this way in the second game, e.g. Cavador's bodyguards follow Cavador.

* [[All Webbed Up]]: One type of the [[Giant Spider|big arachnid]] enemies in the first game has this as his special power. It's better not to even get too close into his firing range and [[One-Hit Kill|snipe him]] with the bow from a safe distance.

** {{spoiler|''Twice.''}}

* [[Artificial Brilliance]]: The series is well known and highly respected for the impressive AI of its [[NPC|NPCs]].

* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: Sneaking past various threats undetected and non-lethally dispatching enemies with a single blow to the head from your trusty blackjack.

* [[Back Stab]]: Mooks tend to react negatively to corpses they find, though. It should be pointed out that this game series does not encourage backstabbing, sometimes to the point of initiating a [[Nonstandard Game Over]] for killing of any kind, unlike pretty much any other [[Stealth Based Game]]. ''Usually'' that's only if you're playing on the highest difficulty setting -- although there are some levels where you auto-fail the mission if you're detected even once, or leave behind ''any'' trace of your having been there. And dead bodies count as traces.

* [[Bizarrchitecture]]. Constantine's mansion in the first game (the level is called "The Sword). The first floor and forward area of the mansion appears normal but the further you go, the more weird it gets. Some examples:

** In the ''Gold'' version, the Brobdignag section. (There is a Lilliputian section as well.)

** In the greenhouses, search the ceilings until you find the section that is actually water; you can climb up through it into a tub of water in the room above.

** In the deepest part of the mansion, weird twisting tile hallways and perspective-warped corridors are interwoven with mossy green tunnels going straight through the structure. At this point, the thought may strike that the architect is just screwing with you. {{spoiler|And he is - it's all a test.}}

* [[Convection, Schmonvection]]: Garrett has no trouble delving in caves half-filled with lava as long as he remains on solid ground. But should even his little toe actually touch lava, he drops dead instantly.

* [[Conveniently an Orphan]] : Garrett. We know nothing of his earliest past or who his parents were. Nor does he. When we first see him, he's already a ten or twelve year old street urchin.

* [[Conspicuously Selective Perception]]: The entire game mechanic is built around [[NPC|NPCs]] failing to notice the player character if he is in shadow, while being extraordinarily sensitive to noises he makes himself and oblivious to noises made by machines set in motion by the protagonist. Garrett, as an ex-Keeper, may or may not have quasi-mystical ninja powers (it's never made ''absolutely'' clear whether they're actually mystical or simply stealth experts).

** The Keepers have a special power given to them by the glyphs. In the first game, a young Garrett noticed that no one could see Artemus walking through a crowd in broad daylight, and the Keeper Tower itself was invisible to the city until it lost its glyph protection.

* [[Creepy Child]]/[[Emotionless Girl]]: Gamall, the Keeper Translator, a 10-year-old girl, from the second and third game. {{spoiler|She gets a pretty shocking [[Reveal]] during the course of the third game.}}

* [[Crush! Kill! Destroy!]]: In ''Deadly Shadows'':

* [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]] : The Hammerites are essentially your typical medieval Christian church [[Expy|Expys]], but with a few twists on their mythology: The belief that the Builder (the one god) led humanity out of savagery by the gift of fire and more advanced tools like the first hammer, slightly mirrors the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus. It's also the reason why Hammerite rituals and worship are centered around human work, handicrafts and industry... And a possible explanation for the whole steampunk feel of the world.

** It's pretty obvious that the Hammerites are primarily based on the conservative Catholic church of medieval times, whilst the Mechanists seem to be more or less the Protestant equivalent, with [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Karras being a sort of steampunk Martin Luther or John Calvin]].

* [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: In some levels, you can steal every key from a guard, have them chase you into a locked room, then quickly leave and close the door. Doing so will ''lock the guards into the room so they can't leave'', giving you free reign over the house.

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Did You Just Rob Cthulhu]].

** Also a more straightforward [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]] for the [[Big Bad|BigBads]] of the first and third game. Garrett being a stealthy bastard, [[Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?|he achieves victory not by brute force, but through cunning and preparation.]]

* [[Difficult but Awesome]]: The gameplay of the series in general, particularly if you choose to play all three games in a [[Stealth Run]] style as much as possible ([[Pacifist Run|to the extent of not even knocking out enemies even if you would have the opportunity]]). If you beat a tough mission on Expert level without getting caught and stealing all the loot or getting all the needed information/macguffins, you can congratulate yourself - you'll pretty much be ready to handle most stealth games in existence (at least the more flexible ones, without [[Useless Useful Stealth]] and [[Fake Difficulty]]).

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: ''The Dark Project''. After going through some of the scariest and most intense scenes in first person game history, you finally have a moment to breathe [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AdhWsObqvk&NR=1 at the end]. Until the [[Sequel Hook]].

* [[Easter Egg]] : The basketball court hidden in the training level of the first game. {{spoiler|Only accessible if you select Expert difficulty.}} It doubles as a [[Developer's Room]] thanks to a scroll containing the dev team's quotes.

* [[Elaborate Underground Base]]: The [[Island Base|Markham's Isle complex]] in the mission "Precious Cargo".

* [[Eldritch Location]]: The walled-off bits of the old city and the Precursor's Lost City are unsettling, but Shalebridge Cradle is this trope personified. It's implied that the building itself has its own malevolent consciousness.

* [[Everything's Deader with Zombies|Everything's Worse With Zombies]]: One of the few bigger criticisms of the first game was the fact that it had too many levels populated by various undead creatures and monsters. Zombies were chiefly removed from ''The Metal Age'' along with burricks and most other monsters because players preferred to concentrate on, you know, pure thievery. The third game generally took the middle route, with mostly realistic missions interspersed by more supernatural and undead/monster-heavy ones.

* [[Exploding Barrels]]: They're red and marked with a flame logo on them.

* [[Faking the Dead]]: {{spoiler|Garrett does this in the third game in order to escape Shalebridge Cradle.}}

* [[Famed in Story]]/[[Shrouded in Myth]]: By the third game, Garrett's name is pretty famous in the city as ''the'' preeminent thief -- you can listen in on snippets of gossip (both accurate and exaggerated) about his exploits, and other lower-caliber criminals bragging about being as good as him or out-and-out claiming to ''be'' him to bolster their own reputations.

* [[Game Mod]]: Several. Most notable is ''Shadows of the Metal Age'', a full-length, [[Fan Sequel|fan-made]] [[Expansion Pack|expansion]] for ''Thief II'', with a new main character, weapons and items, and a story of [[Revenge]] and manipulation.

* [[Genius Loci]]: As Garrett describes the Cradle:

Not a house that GIVES you bad dreams, but the house is the one who dreams. And invites all within to STAY in those bad dreams...

* [[Gentleman Snarker]]: First Keeper Orland and some of the other Keepers, to a degree.

* [[Gentleman Thief]]: Garrett is the ultimate subversion of this trope. He's a [[Hidden Depths|gentleman]] [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|on the inside]], [[Jerkass Facade|with a rough and snarky outward shell]], [[Jerkass Facade|but he'd really rather it not get out.]]

* [[Giant Spider]].

** These appear occasionally in the first game.

* [[Grey and Grey Morality]]: ''Everyone'' in the setting, including the forever-locked-in-conflict Hammerites and Pagans. Each faction and character have their moments of nobility and humanity, as well as [[Kick the Dog]] ones. The only apparent exception to this trope would be the major villains, and even then, they may simply have taken their faction's dogma too far or have sympathetic motives buried somewhere deep in the past.

* [[The Guards Must Be Crazy]]:

** Also, it's one thing to go after a Noisemaker arrow; another is to pretend the freaky crystal lying on the floor under a doused lamp is invisible.

* [[Hannibal Lecture]]: The villains of the series, mostly towards Garrett. [[Shut UP, Hannibal|He doesn't give a damn.]] But they usually don't know of his exact location when he's hidden, so they just keep on ranting, hoping to unsettle him...

** The engine was first developed for an Arthurian-themed game which never saw the light of day because the swordplay was far too complex, so they gave the complex swordplay to a character who wasn't meant to be good at sword fighting. They made ''[[Thief]]'' and the rest is history. ''Thief: Deadly Shadows'' used the [[Game Engine|Unreal Engine]], so they finally replaced the sword.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Viktoria explodes herself into a torrent of trees and plant matter to set up Soul Forge for Garrett to wipe it out with the rust gas.}}

* [[Hyperactive Metabolism]]: Food is edible and heals in the first two games, particularly the second. All games also have [[Heal Thyself|healing potions]].

* [[The Infiltration]]: The ''Dark Project'' mission "Undercover".

* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: Viktoria's face is rather similar to that of [http://www.mobygames.com/images/portraits/large/1192562205-00.jpg her voice actress], isn't it?

* [[Mad Scientist]]: {{spoiler|Karras, the founder and leader of the Mechanists.}} He seems to have a [[Freudian Excuse]], but yikes.

* [[Magitech]]: Some of the technology in the game's universe seems to be of this variety. Sometimes, it's clearly related to the Lost Technology trope above.

* [[Master of Unlocking]]: Garrett. The start of the {{spoiler|''Assassins''}} mission from the first game even shows Garrett visiting one of the City's fences and buying a new pair of trusty lockpicks [[Rule of Funny|(that come packed with a short manual for newbie thieves)]].

* [[Meaningful Name]]: {{spoiler|The word "Gamall" is Scandinavian (and Tolkien-talk) for "old".}}

* [[No OSHA Compliance]]: According to the briefing before the "Stopping Time" mission, more people have been killed by the gears of the city clocktower than the blade of the city guillotine.

* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]/[[Hell Is That Noise]]: Many of the creepiest levels use this to great effect{{spoiler|, the first half of the Cradle mission being a textbook example}}. Granted, there may be some real threat lurking in the shadows or eerie spaces, too. Maybe.

* [[Oh Crap]]: This isn't an expression we see Garrett use very often, but it snuck its way, most memorably in TDP {{spoiler|when Viktoria takes his eye}} and in DS {{spoiler|when he spies Gamall animating statues in the Keeper compound.}} Just about every Keeper got this during {{spoiler|Gamall's advancement ceremony when she revealed herself as the hag}}.

* [[Order Versus Chaos]]: The struggle between the orderly Hammerites and chaotic Pagans are a major plot point in all 3 games.

* [[Orphanage of Fear]]: Shalebridge Cradle used to be an insane asylum and an orphanage {{spoiler|at the same time. The children and patients were supposed to be kept separate; it didn't always hold true.}}

* [[Our Dragons Are Different]] : Burricks - wingless reptiles with the size of a pony and the outward appearance of a chubby theropod dinosaur - are apparently the closest thing to a dragon in the Thiefverse. Expectable in such a down-to-earth [[Low Fantasy]] setting. Burricks aren't actually ferocious (being herbivores), but they can still be dangerous. No, they don't breathe fire - instead, they burp cloud after cloud of some sort of highly concentrated fumes created in their digestive system. The fumes are corrosive and you'll suffocate in them almost immediately. It's implied they have slightly explosive properties - Garrett makes a snappy remark in the second game about how ''"infiltrating Shoalsgate is like looking down a burrick's throat with a lit match"''. Burricks appear up-close-and-personal in several levels of the first game and in the form of hunting trophies and occasional references in the second and third game.

* [[Pardon My Klingon]]/[[Unusual Euphemism]] : Taffer, to taff, taffing taff... The most standard curseword in the series' universe. The various guards are its most prominent users. "Taffin' cripes, I knew I smelt trouble! Where are you, you taffer? Aah, you're taffing me. Who's gonna clean up all this taff?" The word "taffer" seems to be a general term for a criminal, low-life or annoying person. [[Cluster F-Bomb|And some other things.]] Other cursewords uttered by various characters are fairly standard or slightly archaic.

* [[Perpetual Poverty]]: Uh, Garrett? Over the course of three games you've stolen thousands and thousands of gold. ''Why'' do you still have trouble paying the rent? Are you throwing it all away between each caper? Ale and whores? Seriously, hire an accountant or something, man.

* [[Phantom Thief]]/[[Impossible Thief]]: Garrett, of course. While he steals for a living, he also turned to it to get out from under the self-imposed (and self-righteous) restrictions of the nigh-invisible Keepers. Many of his capers are clearly done as ''ars gratia artis''. In one first-game mission Garrett decides that the best revenge against a crimelord's assassination attempt is, instead of killing him, to sneak in and remove every valuable object from said crimelord's house. Granted, you also have the option of doing that ''and'' (depending on difficulty level) killing him.

** Also subverted in that Garrett's single most frequent recurring complaint is 'I have to do this job because the rent is due'.

** Of course, all of his incredible exploits heavily depend on the skill and patience of the player. There are really few things as satisfying as being able to sneak through an entire mission stealthily, grabbing all the visible and hidden loot, and not getting seen or otherwise detected by anyone.

* [[Plot Coupons]]: The first game has Garrett find the four keys to a locked cathedral.

* [[Red Herring]]: In ''Deadly Shadows'', Garrett is led to believe that {{spoiler|First Keeper Orland}} is the traitor when {{spoiler|the ruins of the collapsed city clocktower point to his office}}.

* [[Refusal of the Call]]: Garrett does not want to be a Keeper or to be involved in their plots. [[The Call Knows Where You Live|This doesn't stop The Keepers from seeking Garrett out.]]

** Garrett has other ideas.

*** And of course, this is followed by:

** And subverted at the end of the second game:

'''Garrett''': Tell me. }}

* [[Remixed Level]]: The Lost City. Appears in two different versions in the first and second game.

** [http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/Easter_Eggs Here's a pretty detailed (though not definite) list of the various hidden references.] (Of course, take caution while reading - there might be minor spoilers about the structure and content of the missions.)

* [[Sinister Minister]]: {{spoiler|The Mechanist leader, Father Karras.}}

* [[Slobs Versus Snobs]]: The two sets of guards arguing in Thief 2's ''Life of the Party'', Lady Van Vernon's guards are far better spoken, coming up with some truly classy insults. However, when the arrows start flying it's Master Willy's slovenly-sounding guards that win.

* [[Soft Water]]

* [[Spirit Advisor]]: Brother Murus {{spoiler|sends Garrett on multiple [[Fetch Quest|Fetch Quests]] to help him resolve his [[Unfinished Business]].}}

* [[Stalker with a Crush]]: {{spoiler|Possibly Father Karras. Just listen to his endgame rambling at Garrett. "I'd have had thee under my control, else dead! Indeed, I'd have had both..." What the hell's he on about? Well, consider those masks, and then twitch!}} Garrett, amusingly, shrugs off hearing this recorded Yandere-fest. [[Shut UP, Hannibal|"Yeah, keep talkin'..."]]

* [[Stealth Based Game]]: The series is effectively impossible to complete without either stealth or cheating. The main character simply isn't formidable enough to actually fight all the guards one at a time, let alone in groups, and in ''Thief 2'' there was at least one mission where remaining undetected was a required victory condition. Although lone guards are easy to dispatch if you could get a clear shot at their back while they were unaware of your presence, even then, some missions stipulate that you cannot disable any guards or civilians.

** It should be noted that circle-strafing and having lots of room to back up can help take out several guards at once. Most die after 2 or 3 overhead swings. The trick is just making sure they don't hit you.

* [[Strange Bedfellows]]: The second game has Garrett team up with the survivors of the group he defeated in the first.

** Late in the first game, he teams up with the Hammerites against a common enemy, an 'eye for an eye', if you will. Fittingly enough, the level in which the event takes place is called ''Strange Bedfellows''.

* [[Stupidity Is the Only Option]]: The entire plot of the first game is driven by this. What ''idiot'' would possibly think that unsealing the ancient Hammerite Cathedral and freeing the Eye from its confinement would be a good idea, after the Eye ''talks to him in his head'' and visibly manifests its obvious evil on several occasions? For that matter, what idiot would think that Constantine had any intention of actually paying him that ridiculously oversized a fee for delivering the Eye, when he could simply mug Garrett and take it from him? Garrett didn't even get half the money up front. Apparently his streetwise instincts and common sense ''completely'' evaporate if you wave a bag of gold under his nose... which is in character for Garrett, at least.

** This is especially true considering the cathedral is in a part of the City that was walled off. Garrett's tone in describing the abandoned part of city seemed fairly skeptical of the actual danger. If the Hammerites were comfortable with leaving such an important artifact in a sealed cathedral in a ''sealed'' part of the City, it's fairly safe to assume the Hammers know something Garrett doesn't.

* [[Technical Pacifist]]: Garrett, surprisingly enough. He's a thief, not a murderer.

* [[Thank the Maker]]: The Mechanist robots ''reeeally love this trope'' : "Praise Karras", "All should fear the word of Karras, the word of Karras...", etc. Needless to say, [[Most Annoying Sound|it can get annoying]]. A full list of the phrases can be seen [http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/T2_Sound_Folder:_Robots here]. This trope is [[Playing with a Trope|slightly played with]] though - [[Talking to Himself|every robot uses a voice track recorded by Karras himself.]] It can become creepy hearing him speak from all of their mouths, even after you work out their limited speech patterns.

* [[Thieves' Guild]]: Garrett's not interested in sharing his profits. The local guild bosses are less than pleased. One baron gives him trouble and giving it right ''back'' is the object of a mission in the first game.

* [[Those Two Bad Guys]]: See [[Vitriolic Best Buds]] below. There are two guards in every game who change employers often, and for some reason anyone who hires them soon gets a visit from Garrett. And they ''still'' [[Genre Blindness|haven't learned not to talk loudly about where the keys are hidden and the secret doors are...]]

* [[Unnecessarily Large Interior]]: The Halls of Echoing Repose, from the first game's "Down in the Bonehoard", as well as the Brobdignagian area in Constantine's Mansion in the ''Gold'' version.

* [[Useless Useful Stealth]]: Nicely averted (unsurprisingly, since proper stealth is the meat and potatoes of the whole series). Sure, you can still cut or blast your way through most enemies if needed, but it's not as fun or effective and you'll be scorned by both the game and the fans for it.

* [[Video Game Caring Potential]]: Adorable drunk guards and any other innocents you can't convince yourself to kill or harm. And for some, in the first game, [[Ridiculously Cute Critter|burricks]].

** Many players even have a pointless, yet heartwarming habit of leaving the knocked-out [[NPC|NPCs]] on softer surfaces (beds, carpets, sofas), [[Pet the Dog|as a sort of compensation for the inconvenience of being unconscious]].

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: Play the games the way they're meant to be played and you'll avoid it. But still, you can pickpocket virtually anyone (given the right circumstances), backstab anyone not aware of your presence from behind, snipe people and various fauna in the head with a broadhead arrow, blow up or gas people and creatures with fire arrows and bombs/mines, blackjack everyone in the city quarter and hide them in bushes or ignite puddles of oil and throw the unsuspecting innocents in there, blind people with flashbombs, blow zombies to chunky bits or dust with holy water arrows, etc., etc. And best of all, if you kill any normal living being, [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|you can clean up the puddle of blood]] [[Awesome Yet Practical|by shooting a water arrow into it]]. Of course, you should steer away from any open violence, since in the end, [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment|the guards or creatures will probably catch you and arrest or kill you]].

* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: [[The Fool|"Dumb Guard"]] (a.k.a. Benny) and [[Smart Guy|"Smart Guard"]] (a.k.a. Nick or Jored). [[Odd Couple|As different as night and day]], but [[Buddy Cop Show|good pals]] and [[They Fight Crime|co-workers]]. A lot of their conversations turn into pure [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].

* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: After the second mission of the third game, the nearest fence is roughed up by the fiancee of the man you rob trying to reclaim the Bloodline Opal (which she apparently had been planning to poison her betrothed for), forcing you to go to another district, through a gated that is blocked by men under her employ. Later on, you hear that the lady has sworn revenge for your theft. She doesn't appear again.

* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: On Expert difficulty, killing human civilians and guards is an automatic mission failure. This doesn't apply to animals, monsters, machines, undead or humanoid beasts. One exception is the Servants, {{spoiler|who are people who've been kidnapped, vivisected and turned into cyborgs/living weapons}}. Killing them on Expert difficulty also grants you a mission failure. A notable exception occurs in the {{spoiler|last mission of ''The Metal Age''. The Masked Guards are apparently Mechanists who started questioning Karras' increasingly unstable behavior and methods, earning them a hasty conversion into Servants (as evidenced by the blood on their chestplates). They'll actually [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|beg you to kill them]] and [[Mercy Kill|thank you if you do]]}}.

* [[X Meets Y]]: [[Homage|Garrett]] [[Shout-Out|himself]]. Part [[Raymond Chandler|Phil Marlowe]], part [[Arsène Lupin]], a pinch of [[Robin Hood]], some nods to [[Batman]], [[Badass|and all awesome.]]

** The series' setting itself could be described as a [[Darker and Edgier]] version of ''[[Discworld]]'' [[Refuge in Audacity|on drugs]] + a somewhat [[Deconstruction|deconstructed]] take on the [[Low Fantasy]] and [[Medieval European Fantasy]] tropes + heavy doses of [[Steampunk]] and [[Clock Punk]] aesthetic + [[Raymond Chandler|Chandlerian]] [[Film Noir]].

* [[Kill Screen]]: The default number of polygons that the first two Thief games can render on screen at any given time is 1024. Any higher than that and you get a "hall of mirrors" effect, and then the game crashes. Several ambitious fan missions skirt carefully close to this number at all times due to level of detail! Some even come with warnings saying "Don't look here or there at this point" to avoid a crash.

* [[Shout-Out]]: To many other games, tv shows, movies, and even other mission authors

* [[Would Not Shoot a Civilian]]: While in the main game this only applies on "hard" or "expert", many fan missions make you auto fail if you kill an unarmed NPC by default.

 

[[Category:The Nineties]]

[[Category:Stealth Based Game]]

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[[Category:Thief (series)]]