History YMMV / SlyCooperThiefOfVirtue

** Bubo's criticism of the "Judiciary council" that voted 5-4 on letting Torus invade Switzerland not being a "decisive majority" alludes to the outcomes of the supreme court rulings on the ACA and DOMA which happened to have the same outcome, which Wrath of the Wolf King wasn't written too far after.

** In general, the fact that Interpol operates like the US government in this comic and mirrored controversial issues in the USA during the mid 2010s makes it even harder to ignore the conservative subtext.

* JustHereForGodzilla: Most of the fans of this work read this comic simply for the fact that it resolves Thieves in time's reviled ending.

* FanNickname: Sly's father is frequently called "Dad Cooper" by the critics of the comic.

* UnacceptableTarget: Cops and conservatives are portrayed sympathetically whenever they're subject to mistreatment in the comic, as shown through Jack Lupus who's both; any time Jack's attacked or snarked at, the author intends for him to be the victim.

* AcceptableTargets: [[StrawLiberal Liberals]], progressives, the media[[note]]shown in "To Protect and Serve"[[/note]], "activist judges", members of social movements[[note]]shown in "The New Director"[[/note]] are all portrayed unsympathetically in the author's comic and side stories.

* IdiotPlot: [[spoiler: Jack Lupus and Dominic Torus are to thank for every bad thing that ever happened in this comic; the former more than the latter since he took a talisman that would end up giving Drake the three crystals that eventually kickstarted his career as a criminal mastermind]].

* {{Anvilicious}}: Jack Lupus became a mouthpiece for the self-determination aesop of the story halfway through the chapters “Welcome to the Jungle” and "Wrath of the Wolf King" and starts hammering it in, especially during scenes at [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-278-544575291 Interpol HQ]] and [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-328-589326799 at a diner]] he brought Drake in, to the point that it comes off as objectivist, even reactionary, depending on how it's interpreted.

* AcceptableTargets: [[StrawLiberal Liberals]], progressives, the media[[note]]shown in "To Protect and Serve"[[/note]], [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight "activist]] [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure judges"]], members of social movements[[note]]shown in "The New Director"[[/note]] is portrayed unsympathetically in the author's comic and side stories.
* {{Anvilicious}}: Jack Lupus became a mouthpiece for the self-determination aesop of the story halfway through the chapters “Welcome to the Jungle” and "Wrath of the Wolf King" and starts hammering it in, especially during scenes at [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-278-544575291 Interpol HQ]] and [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-328-589326799 at a diner]] he brought Drake in, to the point that it comes off as objectivist and even ''reactionary'' depending on how it's interpreted.

** How the ending of Thieves in Time was resolved and ''why'' Sly and Carmelita ''suddenly'' grew distant. The fact that the series never got a canon resolution didn't help this at all.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
** Torus enforcing global gun control in "Welcome to the Jungle" or talking about the using the death penalty with a crystal in "Wrath of the Wolf King" seem rather out-of-place for a Sly Cooper-related work to some audiences.
** During Drake's backstory flashback in "Wrath of the Wolf King", there's a scene where a young Drake opens a door for a [[StrawFeminist mouse woman, who tells off Jack for it in very specific detail]].
* CriticalResearchFailure: The author seems to have confused Interpol's leadership structure with that of the CIA, given that Torus is known as a Chief Director instead of a president, and the structure of Interpol in general seems more akin to the US government.
** Having said that, this might have been intentional on the author's part since calling him the president of Interpol would have made the social commentary too blatant.

* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler: Lady Venom and Colonel Zahn are freed despite their crimes and the latter has clear intentions of settling the score with Sly one day, along with the fact that Vick ends up taking over Drake's Criminal empire which is portrayed sympathetically. To top it off, Torus is arbitrarily replaced by Eddard "Ned" Grey; an officer that lacks his experience and did very little to actually warrant his promotion to Director, who [[FridgeHorror will probably approach the position with Jack's mindset and in a way that meets]] [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Bubo's]] [[FridgeHorror approval]] (and "The New Director" confirms [[AscendedFridgeHorror all that]] [[UpToEleven and more]]). Despite all this, the ending is weirdly upbeat like Thieves in Time was on the basis of the Cooper Gang getting back together and Sly's rekindled relationship with Carmelita, despite that its shown that most of the remaining villains (save for Kevin, Kre, and Caesar) are either still at large or plotting revenge, and the hands-on Director Torus who had a progressive mindset and was willing to bypass red tape to stop criminals is now gone]].

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: Despite that the fancomic and the side stories that were made after are based on an politics-free series that is supposed to be about thieves and stealing loot from other criminals with an even bigger plot behind each installment, the existence and development of Director Dominic Torus and Judge Shelby can be seen as turning the story of the comic into one big subtle jab at leftism and judicial activism seeing how Torus' implied "liberalism" (which is more akin to conservatism) and Shelby's activism is apparently meant to be what accelerates Drake Lupus' plans and allows him to cause chaos. There are also other aspects of the story that support this:

** In "The New Director", Ned's answers are akin to that of an originalist and ultraconservative politician, and he's portrayed sympathetically unlike the reporters in his story (one of them who the author insinuates was apart of a social movement, basically insinuating it was something like Black Lives Matter). The author even uses Ned to ''dogwhistle'' the All Lives Matter slogan in that same line. Unlike with Jack or Bubo, the author intentionally hid Ned's politics and got his fanbase to sympathize with him ''first'', then revealed his politics ''after'' the comic ended.

* ItsNotSupposedToWinOscars: The author has relied on the fact that Thief of Virtue is a fancomic regarding certain aspects of his story that made no sense.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Jack Lupus became a mouthpiece for the self-determination aesop of the story halfway through the chapters “Welcome to the Jungle” and "Wrath of the Wolf King" and starts hammering it in, especially during scenes at [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-278-544575291 Interpol HQ]] and [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-327-588470519 at a diner]] he brought Drake in, to the point that it comes off as objectivist and even ''reactionary'' depending on how it's interpreted.

* {{Anvilicious}}: The minute that the chapter “Welcome to the Jungle” and "Wrath of the Wolf King" hit their halfway points, Jack Lupus became a mouthpiece for the self-determination aesop of the story and starts hammering it in, especially during scenes at [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-278-544575291 Interpol HQ]] and [[https://www.deviantart.com/connordavidson/art/Sly-Cooper-Thief-of-Virtue-Page-327-588470519 at a diner]] he brought Drake in, to the point that it comes off as objectivist and even ''reactionary'' depending on how it's interpreted.

* {{Anvilicious}}: The minute that the chapter “Welcome to the Jungle” and "Wrath of the Wolf King" hit their halfway points, Jack Lupus became a mouthpiece for the self-determination aesop of the story and starts hammering it in by constantly talking about how people get to decide who and what they are, that people aren't born a certain way and that we can't "simply shirk responsibility" by claiming it's "simply our nature", and that everything is always a matter of choice to the point that it comes off as objectivist and even ''reactionary'' depending on how it's interpreted.

** [[spoiler: How Clockwerk and the Necklace are connected; the author really didn't elaborate much on it aside from the fact that it was given to Drake and the crystals came from Clockwerk's grave]].

* DesignatedHero: Sly tends to act [[AdaptationalJerkass rather selfish in this comic]] and [[KickTheSonOfABitch almost kills Kevin Turbo by threatening to tip his car into water]]. In the chapter "Welcome to the Jungle", [[SkewedPriorities Sly neglects to mention that there were warlords who Zahn had sold weapons to that planned to terrorize the Congo]].

* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler: Lady Venom and Colonel Zahn are freed despite their crimes and the latter has clear intentions of settling the score with Sly one day, along with the fact that Vick ends up taking over Drake's Criminal empire which is portrayed sympathetically for whatever reason. To top it off, Torus is arbitrarily replaced by Eddard "Ned" Grey; an officer that lacks his experience and did very little to actually warrant his promotion to Director, who [[FridgeHorror will probably approach the position with Jack's mindset and in a way that meets]] [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Bubo's]] [[FridgeHorror approval]] (and "The New Director" confirms [[AscendedFridgeHorror all that]] [[UpToEleven and more]]). Despite all this, the ending is weirdly upbeat like Thieves in Time was on the basis of the Cooper Gang getting back together and Sly's rekindled relationship with Carmelita, despite that its shown that most of the remaining villains (save for Kevin, Kre, and Caesar) are either still at large or plotting revenge, and the hands-on Director Torus who had a progressive mindset and was willing to bypass red tape to stop criminals is now gone]].

* {{Wangst}}: There was alot of this after the chapter "Winter Storm", especially with Sly Cooper, Drake Lupus, and Ned; moreso with Ned than any of them, given his constant sulking of why women don't like nice guys and 24/7 self-pitying around Carmelita it's ''just him'' that doesn't get the girls.

** During Drake's backstory flashback in "Wrath of the Wolf King", there's a scene where a young Drake opens a door for a [[StrawFeminist mouse woman, who tells off Jack for it.]] It seems to exist for no reason than [[TakeThat to take a potshot at feminists]].

* AcceptableTargets: [[StrawLiberal Liberals]], progressives, the media[[note]]shown in "To Protect and Serve"[[/note]], [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight "activist]] [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure judges"]], members of social movements[[note]]shown in "The New Director"[[/note]]...basically anything that's on the left side of the political spectrum (sans the media, which is always considered left by most conservatives) is portrayed unsympathetically at best, and vilified at worst.

** [[spoiler: How Clockwerk and the Necklace are ''at all'' connected; the author really didn't elaborate much on it aside from the fact that it was given to Drake]].
** Torus' character development; [[spoiler: suddenly everyone dislikes him and he's seen as a tyrant because of arresting Sly Cooper and other criminals. The way people react to Torus' actions don't even remotely make sense. Despite Sly and the cameos he arrested were criminals, he's ''still'' ostracized by the public]].
** Ned [[spoiler: [[DisproportionateReward becoming the Chief Director of Interpol]]; while this was popular with the author's fans, it doesn't exactly make sense in-universe given that he is only an inspector and doesn't actually ''have'' any leadership experience. A SuddenPrincipledStand doesn't exactly call for that nor justify it; not even "The New Director" justifies the logic behind it]].

** During Drake's backstory flashback in "Wrath of the Wolf King", there's a scene where a young Drake opens a door for a [[StrawFeminist mouse woman, who throws a hissy fit about it.]] It seems to exist for no reason than [[TakeThat to take a potshot at feminists]].

* DesignatedHero: Sly tends to act [[AdaptationalJerkass rather selfish in this comic]] and [[KickTheSonOfABitch almost kills Kevin Turbo by threatening to tip his car into water]]. In the chapter "Welcome to the Jungle", [[SkewedPriorities Sly neglects to mention that there were warlords who Zahn had sold weapons to that planned to terrorize the Congo]]. A thief indeed, but of virtue? That's debatable.
* DesignatedLoveInterest: Ned is presented as a rival with Sly for Carmelita's affections but he doesn't do anything to win her over or deepen their relationship, not to mention how Sly and Carmelita have known each other much longer than he has.

* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler: Lady Venom and Colonel Zahn are freed despite their crimes and the latter has clear intentions of settling the score with Sly one day, along with the fact that Vick ends up taking over Drake's Criminal empire which is portrayed sympathetically for whatever reason. To top it off, Torus is arbitrarily replaced by Eddard "Ned" Grey; an officer that lacks his experience and did very little to actually warrant his promotion to Director, who [[FridgeHorror will probably approach the position with Jack's mindset and in a way that meets]] [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Bubo's]] [[FridgeHorror approval]] (and "The New Director" confirms [[AscendedFridgeHorror all that]] [[UpToEleven and more]]). Despite all this, the ending is weirdly upbeat like Thieves in Time was despite that its shown that most of the remaining villains (save for Kevin, Kre, and Caesar) are either still at large or plotting revenge, and the hands-on Director Torus who had a progressive mindset and was willing to bypass red tape to stop criminals is now gone. Apparently all that matters is that Carmelita and Sly are together again and the Cooper gang is reunited...]]

* InformedWrongness: Pretty much in anything that Torus ever does inside the comic is somehow bad, with his most notable ones being jailing the Cooper Gang and "bypassing" Bubo's obstruction through Shelby to save innocents in the Congo.

** We're supposed to believe Torus is wrong in saying that change must be forced where its denied, but he's actually right in a sense given that not ''everyone'' wants be taught to change for the better, and that ultimately its necessary to force them to whether people think they're in a position to or not for the sake of everyone else.

* UnacceptableTarget: Cops and conservatives are apparently a no-no, as shown through Jack Lupus who's both; any time he's attacked or snarked at, he's supposed to be seen as the victim.

** As of "Winter Storm", Eddard "Ned" Gray was supposed to be a DoggedNiceGuy who we're all supposed to feel bad for [[DidNotGetTheGirl because he didn't get Carmelita]] and wish nothing but the best for, but more often than not he seems more like an obnoxiously flat character who's ''constantly'' feeling sorry for himself to the point of being obnoxious; [[TheEeyore His behavior demonstrated through "Serpents Kiss" as well as at the midpoint of "Welcome to the Jungle" with his conversation with Carmelita]] only exacerbates the incel-like feel to his character. Ontop of that, he's demonstrated little to show that he's grown as a person aside from a preachy SuddenPrincipledStand against Torus in "Wrath of the Wolf King", and yet ''somehow'', ''[[DisproportionateReward this warranted him becoming the Director of Interpol and a implied girlfriend]]'', the latter which bares no relevance to the comic or series [[ThrowTheDogABone except to give Ned a love interest and a happy ending]].
*** It gets worse in "The New Director" given how much AscendedFridgeHorror it's loaded with when he begins to reveal his originalist-like, hands-off intent during a press conference as the new Chief Director. Essentially he becomes an {{Foil}} to Torus at the end of the story and runs Interpol exactly in the way Bubo would have wanted it; with the same conservative hands-off mindset Bubo had that lead to the mess with Drake Lupus and with lots of red tape, essentially making him Bubo's puppet, which "Welcome to the Jungle" already showed why that is an awful thing to do in the Sly-fanverse. The fact that it's thanks to Sly that the fact that the warlords were threatening innocents in the Congo went over his head contributes to Ned and Bubo's kind of mindset, and it just solidifies how unqualified Ned is and only ends up making him seem as detestable as Torus was intended to be.

* {{Wangst}}: There was ''alot'' of this after the chapter "Winter Storm", especially with Sly Cooper, Drake Lupus, and Ned; moreso with Ned than any of them, given his constant sulking of why women don't like nice guys and 24/7 self-pitying around Carmelita it's ''just him'' that doesn't get the girls.

** We're supposed to believe Torus is wrong in saying that change must be forced where its denied...''but is he though''? Many instances in history have shown that change has had to be forced rather than taught such as the American Civil War and World War II, [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement and that's all that will be said on the matter]]. With that being said, however, Torus is actually right in a sense given that not ''everyone'' wants be taught to change for the better, and that ultimately its necessary to force them to whether people think they're in a position to or not.

* AccidentalInnuendo: The title is supposed to mean that Sly is a virtuous thief, but the alternate meaning of "virtue" makes him kind of sound like a rapist.

* AccidentalInnuendo: The title is supposed to mean that Sly is a virtuous thief but it makes him kind of sound like a rapist.[[labelnote:The reason why?]]Virtue also means a person's chastity, which is another word for virginity. If Sly's stealing that...[[/labelnote]]

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Despite the author's attempts at making the characters seem harsh and nasty, there's many aspects to them that make them more likeable than the one's portrayed sympathetically.
** It's very easy to dislike Torus and dismiss him as a powermonger at first simply because he's against [[DesignatedHero Sly and the Cooper Gang]], but if you take into account certain aspects of the series, it becomes harder to hate him given that he's had more success than anyone else in Interpol in stopping crime and yet he still gets nothing but flak from everyone, including the pretentious [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Judge Bubo]]; his willingness to bypass his red tape helped him [[PetTheDog save innocents being terrorized by the Congo's warlords]] that Sly nor Bubo ever gave a second thought about. Ironically enough, the anti-liberal/progressive sentiment the author had in creating this character actually made Torus even more likeable than he intended.
** Very little is known about the nameless female mouse mentioned in the Big-lipped alligator trope entry; the comic introduced her to be vilified for being nasty to Drake for opening the door (and many fans joined in on it), but she might've come out of a very abusive/strict/controlling relationship where the guy insisted on doing everything for her instead of letting her live. That sort of thing can leave one with raw, easily-frayed nerves when faced with things that reminded of past situations when Drake opened the door for her.

* FridgeBrilliance: [[spoiler: Given that "Cold, Cold heart" implied that the cybernetics from "project winter" were what drove Snow into becoming the deranged killer he was in the comic, it only makes sense that the same would occur with Ice which most likely explains why she refused to listen to Sly when the castle was crumbling]].
* FridgeHorror:
** Seeing that Sly and his gang were more concerned about getting Drake's green crystal from Zahn than they were about the warlords going off to go and wreak havoc with their new weapons (which, again, Sly neglected to mention after waking up), innocents would have been killed by the warlords if [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight Torus didn't "bypass" Bubo through Shelby to invade the Congo]].
** The fact that Bubo even has private bank accounts; the author never elaborates on what those are and why he has them, but given the kind of leniency he had with Jack and the kind of opposition he gives Torus, one can only assume the worst.
** Much of how Ned answers the reporters in "The New Director" are just [[NonAnswer Non-Answers]], but these two specifically.
*** The beginning of his answer to [[StrawLiberal the second reporter]] asking to how Ned intends to fix [[FantasticRacism the targeting of specific animal types]]? He begins it with stating how all lives matter and then follows it with a [[NonAnswer tone-deaf speech]] that doesn't even bother to address the reporter's concerns...essentially Ned just plans to ignore the issue and not address corruption in the same manner that Bubo did, [[IdiotPlot which was how the entire mess in "Thief of Virtue" began]].
*** When asked if he intends to take Interpol down a progressive direction? Ned yet again dodges the question and states [[BlindObedience he'd enforce every law exactly how it was written]], [[LameExcuse even if he “disagreed” with them]] until the "appropriate party" has determined to change the law (which, given Bubo's potential hand in things at Interpol, [[FixingTheGame may be never]]); basically this insinuates he intends to take a LawfulStupid approach, ''[[JustFollowingOrders even when its the morally wrong thing to do]]'', and then hide behind disingenuous disagreement to downplay the fact which reeks of hypocrisy given how he worked with a master thief similar to Jack Lupus; Basically, Ned just told that reporter ''no''.

** Bubo is meant to be a benevolent reasonable authority figure to call out Torus who's supposed to be seen as overstepping lines and taking things too far, but more often than not the owl comes across as a patronizing and arrogant obstructionist who's more concerned about red tape instead of stopping crime who, as director, put no rein on his detectives at all given [[IdiotBall he allowed Jack to get away with affiliating himself with Sly's Father and Torus to go corrupt with a gambling addiction]], both which lead to the tragedies that kickstarted the plot. He also criticizes Shelby for having bias in a ruling, [[{{Hypocrite}} but also does the same in a case he's presiding over during "Welcome to the Jungle"]] ''[[DoubleStandard and is still portrayed sympathetically despite the fact]]'', which he tries to pass off to Torus as "perspective on civil cases" in the next chapter. It's also mentioned he has bank accounts that Torus apparently criticized in "Wrath of the Wolf King" raising speculation on what sort of dealings he had going on behind the scenes when he was Director and the kind of corruption he dabbled in/allowed, making him seem corrupt.

** Much of how Ned answers the reporters in "The New Director" are just [[NonAnswer NonAnswers]], but these two specifically.

** Much of how Ned answers the reporters in "The New Director", but these two specifically.

** While the author tries to portray her as nasty and condescending in "Winter Storm", Ice does inadvertently make a good point in her speech with Ned, given that some "nice guys" selfishly expect women to flock to them simply for being nice or giving disingenuous compliments, rather than their character, and in Ned's case its implied that he expected her to pick him over Sly given his tone-deaf inquisition over Torus' claims regarding Carmelita and Sly. Given that Ned's almost oblivious to her feelings for Sly and doesn't really have much character, Ice did make a very good case in her brutally honest lecture to him, however harsh it was.

*** It gets worse in "The New Director" given how much AscendedFridgeHorror it's loaded with when he begins to reveal his originalist-like, hands-off intent during a press conference as the new Chief Director. Essentially he becomes an {{Foil}} to Torus at the end of the story and runs Interpol exactly in the way Bubo would have wanted it; with a conservative hands-off mindset and with lots of red tape, essentially making him Bubo's puppet, which "Welcome to the Jungle" already showed why that is an awful thing to do in the Sly-fanverse. The fact that it's thanks to Sly that the fact that the warlords were threatening innocents in the Congo went over his head contributes to Ned and Bubo's kind of mindset, and it just solidifies how unqualified Ned is and only ends up making him seem as detestable as Torus was intended to be.

*** The beginning of his answer to [[StrawLiberal the second reporter]] asking to how Ned intends to fix [[FantasticRacism the targeting of specific animal types]]? He begins it with "All lives matter", a slogan widely considered to be willfully ignorant of systemic racism in real life, and then follows it with a [[NonAnswer tone-deaf speech]] that doesn't even bother to address the reporter's concerns...essentially Ned just plans to ignore the issue and not address corruption in the same manner that Bubo did ([[IdiotPlot which was why the entire mess began]]).