Thieves.

[sistermagpie]

A couple of weeks ago malsperanza did this post about the Trickster archetype. I love archetypes. That sounds like a weird thing to say...what does it mean exactly? I've no idea, but I know I love archetypes.

So her post made me think about different archetypes that I like, particularly ones that I've really identified with. I went through some ones that seemed obvious and then I realized that I've always had a real love for...

The Thief

I don't know if I have anything intelligent to say about this archetype...I'm kind of hoping somebody else does. There are different kinds of thieves that come up in stories...I've noticed it's common in fantasy for there to be a Thieves Guild which I think is significant because liking that character isn't necessarily about liking to be outside the law. They become a necessary part of the society instead of parasites, able to have honor where they might not otherwise. But then, I think the honorable thief is probably part of the archetype.

The first thief I loved was Walt Disney's Robin Hood, whom I still love. (I think it's probably pretty easy to get a sense of archetypes I love--I tend to have artistic representations of them all over my office.) He was a fox--literally. I used to tie yarn to ceiling lamps and pretend to swing on them etc. Then I was seriously into the Artful Dodger. He artfully dodged, which meant people could not catch him. He got away with stuff. I took to wearing overly large overcoats.

In life, I do not steal things. But I do want to steal things. The reason I don't is because I'm just too aware of the person on the other end. I had my wallet stolen once and my bank account completely cleaned out, which is just a low and disgusting thing to do to somebody. I don't look for little ways to cheat corporations or anything like that, because I'm just always aware that if everyone did that nothing would work. However (big however) ummm...I did go through a phase when I was young where I did steal things. V. embarassing to admit. I'm trying to remember why, really. I don't get a thrill out of breaking the law. It wasn't a compulsion. I think I just love that whole now-you-see-it-now-you-don't and I'm walking out with it thing. I still want to sometimes, but don't.

So I was wondering what exactly I like about this character that it's important to me. I don't know what this archetype is necessarily supposed to mean. There's different types of thief archetypes. I'm not into con artists, grifters etc. I don't like thieves who steal wallets. I like thieves who steal objects...special objects. Jewel thieves who slip into guarded displays and steal notorious gems. Or pickpockets who walk through a room with the book of Important Information and nobody noticed it was gone. Stealing money doesn't interest me as much, bank robberies etc. Also I like thieves who aren't known, who slip in and out and nobody knows who they are. Cat Burglers, iow. I don't like criminals as a group, though. I'd hate to live with criminals--I'd hate to live amongst people I didn't have a certain level of trust around. But Raffles the Amateur Cracksman? I am so into that.

The Pink Panther? It's a diamond. Not a cartoon character. Yum.

I think maybe it's a combination of, for one thing, the self-sufficiency. It's a survival thing if you can always take what you need. But also there's the way you can take what you want without having to pay. Not just paying with money but paying by having to give an account of yourself. I think that's the way I read too. I like to go into something, fasten onto some things that catch my interest, grab them and run. Once people want to tie me down and I want to run away with my treasure and hoard hoard hoard.

I think I do this with fandom too. It's not that I don't take an interest in anyone outside myself. I do feel like being part of a community is a give and take. I guess the true thieves of fandom are the lurkers if you look at it that way. But what I mean is, I do tend to hone in on the thing that interests me and just grab all I can out of that. I expect some people would probably read this lj and think my focus is ridiculously narrow. Or that I'm just obsessed. But maybe I do kind of see myself diving in for those jewels and sticking them in my pocket. So anyway, *loves* thieves. I'm sure there are good ones I'm not thinking of. I'm sure it will come as no surprise I loved the "klepto Draco" thing in CoS the movie.

Having written this it has occurred to me that magpies are known to be thieves. I think somebody even wrote a piece of music about that. Damn, is that a totem or what?!

Comments

Thief

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better about admitting, I did some shoplifting when I was in between 7th and 8th grade. I was, to quote everyone at the time, 'Acting Out'. I got caught once, shook it off, got caught twice, got hideously embarassed, and stopped.

Re: Thief

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm glad I'm not the only one. It was stupid but...there ya go!

[(Anonymous)]

The thieves you like are the ones that are showing off by being invisible. An interesting inversion.

Leshii

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeeaaah...now you put it that way, that is what they're doing.

It's funny...recently there was a thing on the radio asking what power you'd most want: super strength, flight or invisibility. My roommate and I both had the exact same answer. We said we'd want flight, but only because we sort of already had the power of invisibility.:-)

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

<3 the Thief!

Prometheus, thief of fire, is my favorite. And Hermes who steals Apollo's cattle. And Robin Hood. These are Virtuous Thieves, who steal with a higher purpose (but we'd probably like them just as well if they stole just for the hell of it. Because they are so good at it).

Thief is a rule-breaker, and we all like to *imagine* breaking rules, even if none of us likes to be the victim of a thief. What we like is the kind of transgressive thievery that stirs things up, breaks rules that were too hidebound, too rigid. I am attracted to the thief whose criminal behavior has a creative streak--Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, or Melina Mercouri in Topkapi--these are ingenious people; artists (like the Artful Dodger, or the con artist in Six Degrees of Separation, who is compared in the play with a Kandinsky painting).

The essence of art is Something made from Nothing. That is quite close to Something gotten for Nothing--the essence of theft. Think of Jack Sparrow stealing a magical cursed coin by palming it--making it disappear. (Indeed, think of Elizabeth Swan stealing the coin from young Will at the beginning of the story: a theft sets the story in motion).

What about The Maltese Falcon? There's a story where everyone is a thief, trying to rip off everyone else. They all want to steal the black bird, if they can find it. But what gets stolen in the end? Only Sam Spade's heart.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Prometheus, thief of fire, is my favorite.

Ah! Once I finished I thought--Prometheus! I forgot him completely! I remember reading something I think by Joseph Campbell where he said Middle Eastern religions and Western religions both separated God and man into two things (unlike Eastern traditions). The two could almost be defined by two stories: Job and Prometheus. Job gets mistreated by God and falls to his knees and still worships him. Prometheus is offered freedom from torture if he will apologize to Zeus for stealing fire and he tells Zeus to go to hell. If you're on God's side you're in one tradition, if you're on Man's side the other.:-D

The essence of art is Something made from Nothing.

Oh wow--what a wonderful way to put it. And that is definitely a lot of the way I think of the thief who lives on nothing, just pulling it out of thin air when he needs it. In fact, when I was temping I basically had that philosophy. I just trusted that when the rent came do somehow I'd find the money to pay it even if I was "stealing" it because it was money I didn't really have. I just had to trust somehow I could make it appear. I was a bit like Jack Sparrow, stepping onto the dock just as the boat sunk into the water.

That connects to the rule-breaking thing as well, I think. Like in PotC both Jack and Elizabeth to a lesser extent are showing people another way to live. It's even driven home that this isn't about taking from other people--he's a pirate but he's still a good man. Piracy is more about freedom than dominating or humiliating others, though as you said Jack isn't a fuzzy character. There's a dark side to it, because there's no security.

I also have dreams that my equally dream-obsessed friend refers to as my "morally ambiguous" dreams. I'm always involved in some kind of crime and getting away with it. Once it was a bank heist. The trouble in that dream came because my upstairs neighbor was arrested for it, having been in jail. I knew the right thing to do would be to tell the truth, but still thought it was better to see if he got out on his own because he was innocent and had an alibi. Why sacrifice myself if I didn't have to? Also I was upset that the other people in on the plan (usually I work alone in these dreams--now I see why!) hadn't come up with a cover story to stick to. Anyway, I've yet to turn myself in in any dream.:-)

happy new year!

[closet-geek.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons the Artful Dodger really interested me as a kid probably lies around the first three letters of his name. My parents had already given me the lectures aboout why we don't steal candy bars from the supermarket or pink hair clips from the drugstore, and I completely respected that. I think the fact that he was actually stealing, committing a crime, slipped my mind through all the slick, now-you-see-it...now-you-don't-and-I'm-walking-out-the-door, as you said. I'm not interested in being an "outlaw". The romantic notions associated with that title disinterest me. But I'm remembering the street corner performers who used to enthrall me as a child, the ones who would wave a silk scarf over the cage of a bird and in a space of one second (I kept my eyes open extra wide so as not to miss it) the scarf was in the cage and the bird was in his hand. Thievry reminds me of a slick magic show more than anything, a really good illusion, an artist at work. It's probably a strange coincidence that I'm reading this as the trailer for "The Score" plays on my T.V, but I remember watching that movie and being amazed at all the planning and covert operations that went on just to steal a that one sceptor. The black oufits and masks, the cat-like grace of prowlers in the dark. It's not the fact that I want to steal for profit, it's more like I want to steal for the...sport, almost. I don't steal--I actually pay for the salad dressing packets at the cafeteria--but I can't deny that it's really, really appealing. It's a magic show. It's an art.

It's really, really weird.

Re: happy new year!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah! That's it. It's the art of it. And the fashion, frankly. The black outfits. I have a sweater that I mostly bought because of its name in the JPeterman catalog: Cat Burglar's Sweater.

It's weird, too, how you can be attracted to that aspect without getting any real pleasure out of being an outlaw. A lot of people probably think you can't separate the two. And I guess, yeah, you are working outside the law, but it's like you're working outside physical laws as well, and that's what's more interesting to me.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Dude. I know exactly what you mean about hoarding (as soon as I think someone -expects- something of me, I freeze up, can't do it-- it's like a -curse-) and the attraction of thieves/archetypes/thief archetypes (a subdivision of the trickster archetype) and being irresponsible and independent and mischievous and-- yeah.

I can definitely see Draco as that sort of thief-- a precious object thief. Yes. Well, he's got other things going on-- Big Deal things, which thieves generally avoid like the plague. Draco is all about the small time & the selfish, I think. Okay, back to the archetype & away from Draco. eheh. Thieves are amoral characters, usually, chaotic neutral in D&D terms, which is what makes them attractive to me. I like lawful good & chaotic good too, of course (I do love paladins & heroes), but there's some ineffable charm about the slick-fingered smooth-talking man who walks like the wind and laughs like a wind-chime. He has that special sort of grin and he never grows up.

Because stealing like that-- hoarding-- especially shiny pretty things you don't necessarily need-- is such a childish thing isn't it? I have that weakness myself, mostly 'cause I think I'm still so immature & I don't like growing up and realizing there are consequences to everything and nothing fun is without a price. But the thief archetype goes after the thing with the highest price and walks away with it, smirking. Because he can.

It's like the ideal of youth & fecklessness & freedom.
or at least that's my half-assed on-the-spot theory~:))

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh! Yes! I can totally see this as something Draco could actually do in canon--like he might pick something up just because it was there and maybe somebody else wanted it. Or he'd have taken things from the Manor and brought them to school without knowing what they were, but now everyone's looking for it.

Actually, I read a story once that didn't work but it was very emotional and all, and the person used the klepto thing. Draco just had this box o'stuff under his bed. Weird stuff that had gone missing. I think I always figured that suited him because...well, he's not really a klepto because that's a whole different thing about compulsion to relieve stress and he's not doing that in the movie. But I could see him having so little control over his environment he likes to just grab things that have some meaning for him for some reason. That's another reason I really liked it in the movie. I didn't think it was saying Draco was bad or daring, just that he was a weird kid. He took stuff that had private meaning for him.

Errr...yes, back to the archetype and away from Draco.:-)

Because stealing like that-- hoarding-- especially shiny pretty things you don't necessarily need-- is such a childish thing isn't it? I have that weakness myself, mostly 'cause I think I'm still so immature & I don't like growing up and realizing there are consequences to everything and nothing fun is without a price.

Yup, that's totally me. I see things that I just like and I want. I usually end up just spending money on them that I don't have. But oh, the lovely lovely STUFF that's out there in the world. Yum! It's like always having what you want at your fingertips.

[ljash.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I can remember when I was into D&D that I went through a strong "Theif" phase. (But I never learned to spell it. I must have written that word a thousand times and I still never spell it correctly.) And of course Robin Hood is always appealing. And I have that obsessive love for Catwoman...

I think what really appeals to me about thieves, at least (hmm in the plural I can spell it) the ones who show up as characters, is the command of the night that they have. They're always lithe, sneaky, invisible. They know just what they're doing and where they're going. They look at a place and have more of a sense of it, its corners and shadows, than the people paid to guard it who stand there all the time. There's always a kind of underdog sense, and a sense of challenge, and of outwitting the greater force. But I think what I really love is the sneakiness. Here is the terrain and I slip in and out of it. Or maybe it's not the sneakiness so much as how observant they have to be. I just like the way they can scope things out and know what's where, and other people can't even see them.

This is apparantly my night for long replies that make no sense when I read them back. Go, me! I am very tired. :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

(But I never learned to spell it. I must have written that word a thousand times and I still never spell it correctly.)

Don't you just love words like that?

No, you're reply made total sense! That's definitely a big thing that I see with them as well. It's the idea of like being able to see in the dark and also be invisible. I have a feeling I'd have played a lot of thieves too if I did D&D...

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

Heh, interesting, especially since I read one of malsperanza's trickster posts yesterday.

I like the Disney Robin Hood - he has such a voice! The perfect Englishman accent, don't you think? ;D

Don't have anything particularly useful to say, but the post and comments made for interesting reading. I just wonder, does the moral alignment of the thief have much to do with the attraction of the archetype? You have your noble thieves, like Robin Hood, who steal because they think it's right, presumably also theives who are just greedy, and then the thieves who like to show off their own skill, fend for themselves, are more like the trickster. But if it's the skill you're interested in, do you still get into, er, 'stealing' scenes, like the ones in action movies (hmmm...Bond usually ends by blowing things up, what else? That scene in Mission Impossible?) where the character is not really a thief, nor are they particularly noble-cause driven, but they are the good guy and take an object away from the bad guy?

Re:

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I like the Disney Robin Hood - he has such a voice! The perfect Englishman accent, don't you think? ;D

Oh my god, totally! I had the record when I was a kid too, and the way he said, "Marion my darling, I love you more than life itself." Squeeee!

On a funny sidenote, my roommate recently revealed that she had once tried to find me some Robin Hood stuff for a present. She said she went on google and typed in "Robin Hood" "Fox" so that she'd get the right one, from Disney. She was surprised at how many costumes and things were available, and confused as to why they seemed to be written in this suggestive tone...

...and that was my roommate's first exposure to furries.:-D

But if it's the skill you're interested in, do you still get into, er, 'stealing' scenes, like the ones in action movies (hmmm...Bond usually ends by blowing things up, what else? That scene in Mission Impossible?) where the character is not really a thief, nor are they particularly noble-cause driven, but they are the good guy and take an object away from the bad guy?

You mention this and immediately my mind fills with all the thief scenes I have absolutely gotten into over the years. I like some big ones like in Raiders of the Lost Arc when Indy replaces the gold bust with the bag of sand. But mostly I love the elegant swiping scenes, like the beginning of the Pink Panther, pickpocket scenes or yes, the scene in Mission Impossible. I much preferred the thief girl to Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief too. I'm sure there's probably a lot written about theft and the sexual connotations thereof. (Maybe I should rent Marnie...)

Re:

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

Hee at the furries. Google is a dangerous thing.

Also, I read this yesterday, and thought of you!

...he lived in a life wild as that of the Arabian Nights, but missionaries and secretaries of charitable societies could not see the beauty of it. His nickname through the wards was "Little Friend of all the World"; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was Intrigue, of course - he knew that much, as he had known all evil since he could speak - but what he loved was the game for its own sake - the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl up a water-pipe, the sights and sounds of the women's world on the flat roofs, and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop under cover of the hot dark.

from Kim. :D

Re:

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oooooh. Now that is GOOD!:D

[cuppatea.livejournal.com]

(A late post, and therefore also a completely random one...)

Have you read Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief? Gen, the thief of the title, is proud of being a thief not because it puts him outside society or gets him rich but because it takes skill and intelligence to outwit others. It's clear from the flap copy in the sequel that thieving isn't just about material goods — it says, "...he must steal a queen, he must steal a man, he must steal peace." (But if you haven't read the first book, don't read the flap copy of the second until you finish the first book — spoilers otherwise!)

And speaking of a slightly different kind of thief, the magpie: If you read Sunday's Times, you must have seen the article about His Dark Materials, where Philip Pullman is quoted as saying his daemon would be a magpie or jackdaw, "one of those birds that steal bright things"?

Re:

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL--Yes! I loved that quote! One more reason for me to finish the HDM trilogy. I've only read the first one so far.

But The Thief sounds like something I should definitely check out--thanks!