"You'll soon discover that the depressing food sold by supermarkets becomes much tastier when you've shoplifted it."
— Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book, 1969
An index of tropes about robbery, stealing, and theft. And of course, the thieving criminals who commit these acts.
Compare Con Man, who usually tricks people into giving them money instead of taking it.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Pickpocket: Someone pretends to hug/kiss a person they're stealing from.
- Armed Blag: A plot focusing on the theft of an armored car carrying someone's payroll.
- The Artful Dodger: A homeless kid who steals and doesn't mind being homeless.
- Ballistic Discount: A villain steals a gun from a store and shoots the clerk.
- Bandit Mook: Video game enemies who can steal items from the Player Character.
- Bandit Clan: A gang of robbers who live in the rural countryside.
- Bank Robbery: Just what it sounds like, one or more people rob a bank.
- Blatant Burglar: A burglar wears obviously shifty clothes.
- Borrowed Without Permission: Someone who takes from another tries to claim that they merely borrowed it.
- Brain Theft: Stealing someone's gray matter.
- The Caper: Organizing an elaborate robbery.
- Caper Crew: A group of thieves, each of which has a special job.
- Caper Rationalization: The group of people doing The Caper have a good reason to steal.
- Caught Up in a Robbery: A plot in which a work's main or supporting characters get wrapped up in a robbery that suddenly and unexpectedly occurs at their location
- Chekhov's Exhibit: If a fancy exhibit is shown in a museum, you bet it will be stolen.
- Clairvoyant Security Force: Even though something looks unguarded, someone who tries to steal it will be stopped by a guard.
- Classy Cat-Burglar: A female thief who's seen as sophisticated.
- Clothesline Stealing: A character needs clothes and steals some from a clothesline.
- Coin-on-a-String Trick: Characters tying a coin into a string, inserting it into a coin-operated machine, then pulling it out.
- Confiscated Phone: Interrupting a call by taking the phone.
- The Convenient Store Next Door: A store is right next door to the place people want to rob.
- The Crime Job: A crime story called "The [X] Job".
- Cutlery Escape Aid: Using a utensil to escape from prison.
- Desert Bandits: Impoverished robbers in the desert.
- Double Caper: Protagonists are told to steal, they find out their boss was a fraud, and go to steal from them.
- Drunk Rolling: Stealing from the pockets of passed-out drunks.
- Empty Quiver: Nukes are bound to be stolen.
- Enemy Eats Your Lunch: Eating an enemy's lunch in front of them to assert dominance.
- The Fagin: A male criminal who adopts children and has them steal for him.
- Faking and Entering: Someone deliberately trashes their friend's house that they are robbing so that nobody would suspect them.
- False False Alarm: Thieves set off an alarm but convince the guards it's no big deal.
- Fell Off the Back of a Truck: Stealing something or buying something stolen and claiming it fell off a truck.
- Filching Food for Fun: Stealing someone else's food as a prank or a petty revenge, done mainly because of the thrill and excitement.
- Film Felons: Covering up an Evil Plan (usually a robbery) by pretending to be making a TV show or a movie.
- Fire Stolen from the Gods: Knowledge now possessed by humanity is said to have been stolen from the gods.
- Five-Finger Discount: Stealing money from people's pockets.
- Gentleman Thief: A Classy Cat-Burglar except Gender-Inverted.
- Give Me Back My Wallet: Snarking at and/or stealing back from a pickpocket.
- Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen: Someone steals the clothes of Skinny Dipping people.
- Gotta Have It, Gonna Steal It: Someone wants something trendy but isn't allowed/can't afford it, so they steal (or attempt to steal) it.
- Grand Theft Prototype: Somebody steals a prototype weapon during a war.
- Grave Robbing: Stealing dead bodies.
- Hand of Glory: A severed hand that is either holding a candle or each of its fingers are lit like candles, sometimes used to help people steal.
- Heist Clash: Two or more parties attempt to rob the same place at the same time, leading to complications.
- Heist Episode: An caper-style episode where the characters have to steal something.
- The Help Helping Themselves: A household servant steals or otherwise uses their master's property without permission.
- Hero Stole My Bike: During an action-packed scene, a hero steals a scooter/bike/tricycle from its rightful owner.
- High-Speed Hijack: Hijacking a moving vehicle.
- The Highwayman: A man who robs people on highways.
- Hoarding the Profits: When an individual or small group steals the gains from the larger group they are part of.
- Honor Among Thieves: Thieves may sometimes have a few virtues.
- No Honor Among Thieves: But more often than not, their greed tends to make them rather untrustworthy.
- How the Character Stole Christmas: A villain tries to stop a holiday from being celebrated by taking the things associated with the holiday (often a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!).
- Impossible Theft: Stealing something that's practically impossible to steal.
- Inside Job: A crime, normally a robbery, committed by someone with license to enter restricted areas, etc.
- Intangible Theft: Stealing an abstract concept, something like a name, or something that exists but isn't a physical object (like a smell or a shadow).
- Just Like Robin Hood: A thief who only robs bad guys and then gives the loot away to the poor.
- Karmic Thief: A thief who robs bad guys, but keeps the things they steal.
- King of Thieves: The leader/most important criminal, usually a thief.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: A video game protagonist who steals a lot.
- Little Miss Con Artist: A little girl steals.
- Lockpicking Minigame: Part of a video game that involves picking a lock.
- "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Someone drops from the ceiling on a wire to steal a heavily-guarded object.
- Mistaken for Thief: A character didn't really steal, but is wrongly thought to have done so.
- Monumental Theft: Stealing a large monument.
- Mooks Ate My Equipment: Video game enemies that dine on equipment or items that the player character needs; the effect is basically stealing from the player character.
- Mugged for Disguise: Characters have to disguise themselves as the enemy, so they mug some enemies of their clothes.
- Noble Shoplifter: Someone is virtuous but needs to steal from stores.
- Organ Theft: Taking live people's internal organs.
- Outlaw Couple: Two lovers who are both criminals, usually robbers.
- Outlaw Town: A settlement designed for fugitives.
- Panty Thief: Somebody (generally a pervert) who steals women's and/or girls' underwear.
- Penny Shaving: Stealing tiny amounts of money to avoid being caught.
- Percussive Pickpocket: A pickpocket pretends to bump into the person they're robbing.
- Phantom Thief: An elusive thief who disappears.
- Pirate Booty: Pirates steal boxes of gold and/or jewels.
- Planet Looters: Alien invaders looking to strip the resources of a planet.
- Plunder: Opportunistic looting and robbery, especially when done by bandits, pirates, or soldiers who are raiding a particular location.
- Replaced with Replica: Stealing a plot-important item, and then replacing it with a fake.
- Robbing the Dead: Stealing from a dead person.
- Robbing the Mob Bank: A thief steals from another criminal, who tries to get the thief caught.
- Roguish Poacher: A hero who steals animals for food.
- Roguish Romani: Romani/Gypsy people stereotyped as thieving criminals adept at pickpocketing.
- The Rustler: Somebody who has the talents of a cowboy/cowgirl but steals the farm animals.
- Safecracking: Stealing or breaking into safes.
- Salvage Pirates: Robbing people who need rescuing.
- The Scrounger: A character who shows up with supplies for burglars for unexplained reasons.
- Secret Test of Thieving Skill: A character has another character steal something in order to test their stealing abilities.
- Shoplift and Die: A game where you're meant to shoplift but if you fail, someone or something will kill you.
- Shouldn't You Stop Stealing?: A character used to have a good reason to do something bad (usually stealing) but now they don't but keep doing it anyway.
- Sky Heist: Using an aircraft to steal something without landing.
- Steal the Surroundings: Somebody steals what surrounds the thing they want to steal.
- Stealing from the Hotel: A character stays at a hotel and takes things like towels/stationery/toiletries/etc.
- Stealing from the Till: A character is meant to handle other people's money or whatever but steals it; also called embezzlement.
- Stealing from Thieves: When robbers get a taste of their own medicine.
- Steal It to Protect It: The only way to prevent something from being stolen is to steal it yourself.
- Sticky Fingers: Somebody is a kleptomaniac or otherwise steals just for fun.
- Stolen by Staying Still: Stealing something by making people think it disappeared.
- Stolen Good, Returned Better: Someone steals and improves an object, then the person who was robbed gets it back.
- Stolen MacGuffin Reveal: The hero steals an object everyone wants, but then another person reveals that they've also stolen it and the one the villain has is usually a decoy.
- Street Urchin: A homeless kid who steals to survive.
- Stripping the Scarecrow: Taking the clothes from a scarecrow or a mannequin.
- Stupid Crooks: A robber who fails spectacularly at being stealthy.
- Suspicious Spending: Often funded through ill-gotten gains.
- Taken During the Ending: A character/object is taken away at the end of the story for a purpose, leaving it ambiguous on what's going to happen next.
- Taking Over the Town: The villains take over a town and steal from it.
- Thief Bag: A bag full of stolen items.
- Thieves' Guild: An elite team of thieves.
- Thieving Magpie: Magpies are kleptomaniacs and a lot of them favor shiny objects.
- Thieving Pet: A pet who steals human things.
- Through the Ceiling, Stealthily: Going into a room through its ceiling, with stealth.
- Train Job: Boarding a train in order to steal from it.
- Trickster God: Gods of trickery and deceit.
- Underwear Flag: Someone puts underwear (usually stolen from someone else) on a flagpole.
- Unknowingly Possessing Stolen Goods: A character gets in possession of items that turns out to be stolen property.
- Victor Steals Insignia: The winner of a combat takes a symbol off their defeated foe.
- Video Game Stealing: Video game characters steal in unrealistic ways.
- White-Collar Crime: Crimes (usually thefts) committed by White Collar workers.
