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Walking, talking, purring class. She doesn’t steal; she liberates. She doesn’t lie; she fibs. She steals from the rich and keeps it all for herself, but at least she is easy on the eyes.
The hero is often at a loss whether to stop her or throw her down on the floor and make out with her. This dilemma is usually short, as she uses the distraction to escape/knock him out.
Bonus points if she has a cat theme or makes bad feline puns.
Either way, Classy Cat Burglars are sophisticated and highly-skilled. They target only the finest items (and best-protected) for "liberation", and pride themselves on leaving little or no clue on how they accomplished their burglaries. A fair number of them are independently wealthy and couldn't care less about the money: they just want a good challenge. ( Genre Savvy detectives understand that a well-guarded, priceless item is the best bait in the world for these sleek critters). The actual term "cat burglar" comes from the notion that such a person is quiet as a cat (one that never claws its way up the drapes, gets into fights with the dog and tears your refrigerator to bits).
Like their spear counterparts the Gentleman Thief, they usually regard the police with a certain amount of disdain and condescension, and frequently leave behind "calling cards" announcing who performed the crime. With a Worthy Opponent, they may have a less adversarial relationship, verging at times on friendship (and if the opponent is of the opposite gender, fraught with UST).
Compare Phantom Thief. If the hero is very very lucky, may result in Dating Catwoman.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Psiren in the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime, pictured above. Additionally, she has to pull down a zipper on her suit to reveal her transmutation circle just above her chest.
- Note that her actions are praised by the locals as the place that the episode takes place in is doomed and all the publicity is revitalizing the town.
- Fujiko Miine in Lupin III, Lupin's female compatriot and sometime rival.
- Train Heartnet from the anime Black Cat is an assassin and a rare male example of a criminal with a cat theme. The series title is his alias and he unashamedly sports a fluttering black cloak and a bell on a red string as a necklace.
- Wouldn't that, y'know, ring? A lot? While he's trying to be stealthy?
- Not if it didn't have a clapper inside, or whatever that little ball in a jingle bell is called. After all, if that's missing, then no sound will issue from the bell. Of course, if he does have that little detail NOT missing, then it's just another mystery yet-to-be-Hand-waved.
- Or, you know, he could just be that awesome, as Mr. Popo once demonstrated.
- Actually one of the few things the anime did better than the manga... it explains it by stating that he wears it so he can't be stealthy, because Eve doesn't trust him. He was trying to kill her at the start of the anime, after all; wearing the bell (at her request) is his way of saying 'I'm never going to try to hurt you again'. In the manga, which has a different progression of events, the bell is just there to look catlike.
- Wedy in Death Note.
- Chiko in The Daughter OF Twenty Faces is one of these in training. She tends to sometimes cross into action girl territory, though.
- Another male example would be Phantom Dark, of DN Angel. No cat theme, but he fits pretty much everything else.
- The Kisugi sisters from Cats Eye are the very embodiment of this trope.
- The Major pretends to be one of these in Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex episode Cash Eye, in homage to the above Cats Eye, leaving a similar calling card. The faked heist itself is pure Ocean's Eleven.
- Nami of One Piece would probably qualify, though she has no cat theme beyond her Bad Ass Nickname and Word Of God stating that the animal she most resembles is a cat.
Comic Books
- Catwoman is an obvious example.
- Felicia Hardy, Marvel's Black Cat, also plays up this theme... Purrrrr...
- Maggie the Cat from Jon Sable Freelance.
- The Fox from Wanted.
- The Blonde, star of series of erotic comics by Italian artist Franco Saudelli.
- In Adèle Blanc-Sec: Le Mystère des profondeurs, Georgette Chevillard, who wears a skin-tight black costume that shows off her matronly bulginess, parodies this trope.
- Kitsune in Usagi Yojimbo. Also her apprentice Kiyoko (who happens to be a cat).
Film
- Danielle (Brigitte Auber) in Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief, complete with cat theme.
- A decade later, Hitchcock directed Marnie, which is told from the point of view of the Classy Cat Burglar (Tippi Hedren).
- Virginia "Gin" Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) in Entrapment.
- Maggie Cheung turns into one for a night in Irma Vep.
Literature
- Although she is also a Barbarian Hero (ine), Conina from Sourcery is a good example of it.
- Keira the Thief in the Dragaera novels; she's one of the most talented thieves in the Jhereg crime syndicate, to the point where any unsolved burglaries are usually attributed to her, and she's polite and classy when speaking to others. She also has no need of wealth, as she is the immortal sorceress Sethra Lavode, who took up the guise in order to gain intelligence on the syndicate and kept it up when she discovered that committing the thefts without using her powers gave her the first real challenge she'd had in tens of thousands of years.
- Sandra Paris, a.k.a. the White Queen, Nick's sometimes rival in the Nick Velvet short stories of Edward D. Hoch.
Live Action TV
- Gwen Raiden in Angel gets bonus points for pure class and a shocking personality.
- Amanda from Highlander The Series and Highlander The Raven.
- Bela from Supernatural Season 3.
- Slight subversion: The Unicorn from the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" becomes a lot less classy when she's exposed.
- Played straight with Lady Christina de Souza in Planet of the Dead, whose class derives from the fact that she is an English aristocrat.
- Vala Mal Doran of Stargate SG 1 was something of a failed cat burgular. In addition to failing to steal the Prometheus and a Goa'uld Naquadah bomb, she fails to seduce Daniel Jackson. Repeatedly. And Lt. Col. Mitchell. And Teal'c. But mostly Daniel.
- I don't know, even getting to the point of possibly stealing a gigantic well-defended armed and heavily populated ship single-handedly is pretty damn cool. If she'd chosen anyone besides Daniel to tie up she probably would have made it. Plus, as she points out, the Goa'uld Naquadah bomb was inside alien technology she'd never seen before and...well...she rushed it. And she did eventually seduce Daniel, and discovered he was resisting before because he thought she wasn't as interested in him as he was in her. Plus, you know, she's played by Claudia Black so you can't criticise her 'cause she's gorgeous.
- Subverted in (where else?) Firefly, when Saffron tries this act on Mal. It fails.
- Yves Adele Harlow from The Lone Gunmen.
- Max from Dark Angel fits this role when she tries to steal from Logan. In what has to be a Shout Out to Catwoman, she goes after a statue of Bast and even explains its significance.
- Parker from Leverage stole the Hope Diamond and put it back cause she was bored.
- Marian from Robin Hood dresses up as the Night Watchman in order to steal from the rich and give to the poor, years before Robin himself was doing it.
Radio
- Lady Lilian Hawthorne, a.k.a. "Janus", from the Doctor Who audio adventure The Veiled Leopard.
Theater:
- The short-lived musical Drat! The Cat! is about a debutante who becomes a cat burglar for the thrill.
Video Games
Western Animation
- Ashely alias Katnappe from Xiaolin Showdown.
- Viper from Jackie Chan Adventures, well at least until her Heel Face Turn...
- Nightshade from C.O.P.S..
- Shego in Kim Possible is generally seen as a thief when not being employed or being in vacation. In fact, the one episode Kim forgot about crime fighting due to amnesia, Shego spent the episode stealing stuff, instead of taking over the world stuff.
Web Original
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