Tough Travelling hosted by Fantasy Review Barn.
This week’s topic is THE GOOD THIEF

Sure they may pocket things that don’t belong to them. And yes, anything that can be wiggled loose isn’t really locked down and may be fair game to them. And if they put half of their intelligence into legit trades instead of long cons they would probably be pillars of fantasyland’s community. But damn it, some thieves are still good people.

Lovable rogues are some of my favorite characters and I love read about them.

Robin Hood, Little John, Alan-a-Dale, Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, and the rest of the Merry Men. They are the original good thieves.

Autolycus the King of Thieves from Xena the Warrior Princess. Bruce Campbell brought to life this happy-go-lucky thief.

Moist von Lipwig by Terry Pratchett. “What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”

Silk from Eddings’ Belgariad series: one of the first good thief characters I ever read about. And he turns out to be a prince.

Kelsier and his whole crew from Sanderson’s Mistborn series. In the first book they’re planning a heist, the biggest heist in their world.

Loch and her crew in Patrick Weekes’ Palace Job. This group was inspired by “Ocean’s Eleven” except that it has far more women in it (yay!).

Tasslehoff Burrfoot from Dragonlance is a kender, the equivalent of a Halfling in the Dragonlance world. They’re adventurous and talk a lot, rather the opposite of hobbits.

Bilbo Baggins, the burglar hobbit who went traveling with twelve dwarfs and a wizard in Tolkien’s Hobbit.

Regis the Halfling in R. A. Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms books. Regis is the requisite thief and he’s kidnapped quite often.

I can think of only one example from comics:
Marvel has Black Cat: a thief who has the power to bring bad fortune on her enemies.