WMG / Sly Cooper

Sly is his own Egyptian ancestor

Sly remains trapped in Ancient Egypt long enough for him to move on from his old life and marry an Egyptian lady. They have a child who has a child and so on until Sly is born to end both Clockwerk and the Cooper legacy. That means the Cooper line of thieves ends with Sly, concluding the series.

Sly landed in present Egypt

Hey, is there any undeniable proof that he was not just catapulted away from France to Egypt? Perhaps Sly simply returned to Paris shortly after Bentleys epilogue, having been unable to phone the gang earlier by some reason (I mean, it may take time to find your way to a telephone from the desert).

Clockwerk created the Cooper Cane

It's only fitting for a family of thieves to have originally stolen what would become their trademark cane. Plus, it would explain Clockwerk's vehement disdain for the Cooper Clan; they took his invention and got credit for what they stole, when it should've been his glory.

• Possibly Jossed. The first "Cane" was created by "Bob" Cooper, of 10,000 BC.

Sly's family are members of the Assassin Order

Ancestral memories, the Thievus Raccoonus which is not unlike Altair's Codex, unprecedented sneaking skills. It all fits!

An Anubis-like jackal will be an enemy in Sly 5

Ancient Egypt, complete with said jackal as a statue? I think so.

Sly 5 will involve a Mirror Universe.

One of the game's most popular characters will be a Classy Cat-Burglar version of Carmelita that will have the hots for her counterpart.

Sly 5 will have another Bittersweet Ending

It's traditional for the Sly Cooper games, sans the first one, to have a Bittersweet Ending.

The reason Penelope joined the Cooper gang was because of the incredible wealth of the Copper Vault

She was introduced in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, the same game where the central conflict was Dr. M and The Vault. And while the Vault was rebuilt, its contents (which would have propelled whoever finds and opens it straight to the Fiction500) were lost. Now, since it was Sly's fault that the vault was destroyed in the first place, she felt that she and Bentley's talents were squandered. (The fact that Sly and his gang are Just Like Robin Hood and don't actually keep their wealth or spend it in Conspicuous Consumption only adds to her disillusionment.) As a result, she turned evil because she thinks Sly's honor was making her a hobo. Alternately, she may have been Affably Evil All Along (her introduction was at a flying competition where competitors get shot out of the sky) and was simply drawn in the gang for riches. (Not much of a change from the Fallen Hero version but still likely). Regardless, she still has a genuine affection for Bentley (she wouldn't make that offer otherwise).

• Possibly Jossed: Penelope never really did anything for the money, in fact her Heel–Face Turn was more so because she felt Sly was squandering Bently's abilities.
  • Penelope claims right after her reveal as the Black Knight that she and Bently could have made billions in weapon design. There's no doubt that money played a role in her resentment towards Sly over how she saw him as holding Bently back from being much richer and/or more influential. Even back in Honor Among Thieves she was the only teammate recruited with a lure of riches instead of joining out of loyalty, ideals, or from Sly helping her out like he did for Dimitri and Panda King. Penelope could have joined the Cooper Gang assuming they were master thieves who made bank looting whoever they wished, then became disgruntled as they showed themselves to be the honorable thieves she looked at with contempt, complete with losing interest in Sly when she knew him better. Once the Cooper Vault job ended with its destruction, she would continue to resent Sly for not only making them go so far for so little, but also since Bently would be guarding the Thievius Raccoonus and overall looking after the Cooper legacy instead of (in Penelope's eyes, anyway) going out in the world making his mark on it.

Penelope

will become a Darth Vader ExpyShe already has a Black identity-concealing suit of armor.

Sly 5 will deal with the origins of Clockwerk.

Since Sly 4 didn't, but kept showing that dang owl hanging around everywhere, it's probable that Sly 5 will have to deal with it — especially given that the ending almost certainly necessitates doing more time traveling once they figure out exactly what happened. Theories as to things which may happen:

• Sly decided to Write Back to the Future, making it possible for Bentley to find him again. However, his writing is currently in a museum collection, and the gang needs Carmelita's help to get it. She'll have to spend a good long while deciding whether To Be Lawful or Good.
• Clockwerk is actually Penelope. The ending of Sly 4 makes it clear she's still very much interested in the Cooper gang, and she's already spent plenty of time as a male persona. A time travel accident could land her back at the dawn of time, and she winds up so angry at Sly and his gang that it eventually twists her mind and makes her forget her entire identity, right up to gender, save for the fact that she hates a guy named Cooper. Given a few thousand years of being the only sentient being in existence, she'd likely Go Mad from the Isolation.
  • To elaborate on this, Penelope, possibly after a future adventure of the Cooper Gang could get stranded in the far away past while using a golden machine for transport/combat. Out of desperation she manages to convert part of it into a life support system to keep her alive. As time passes she replaces more and more of her body as it gets more and more older, losing more of her self until what's left is the total basics (namely her hatred of a ringtailed raccoon theif called Cooper). She could even remember her gender, but just never bothered to say otherwise since she had nothing to lose by being assumed male. Her brutality would be one of the remnants of her old self, considering Penelope/Clockwerk's actions across millenia. The owl design could been part of the machine to begin with or got put into it as time went on.
  • Alternatively, Penelope is the one who turns Clockwerk from his original flesh-and-blood to his cyborg form.

Clockwerk will attack you in the fourth game

Since he's stalking you around the map, I can guarantee that, at some point, he will attack you in some capacity.

• Jossed. Clockwerk only appears in the game as a background cameo, visible in the distance of some of the eras, but is never met or interacted with.

Carmelita does not try to seriously capture Sly, at least in the games.

Think about this. Carmelita is almost always 1 step behind Sly Cooper almost all the time, and is their unwitting pawn. This is not the real case. Sly Cooper is actually Carmelita's unwitting pawn! By trailing slightly behind Sly Cooper, Carmelita has busted:1. The Fiendish Five, who all controlled their own local gangs. Particularly Muggshot in Mesa City, and the Panda King, who is more than likely a terrorist given him being a pyromaniac and HOW HE CAUSED AN AVALANCHE ON A CITY IN-GAME!.

2. The Klaww Gang, notably the Contessa, who was hypnotizing criminals after infiltrating Interpol, and Rajan and his illegal spice cartel.

3. Octavio, who was going to sink buildings in Italy so they would watch his operas. General Tsao for kidnapping Jing King, and raising the undead, and finally, Dr. M, who tried to murder Sly.It would go against Carmelita's interest to capture Sly. Without him, many dangerous criminals would go unpunished and continue to harm innocent people.

• Yet she ruins Sly's plan to take down Octavio and the city suffers some damage.
  • Well, maybe she's not aware all the time that Sly's going after a criminal.

Carmelita is a cyborg ala Robocop or the The Six Million Dollar Man.

She was once injured in the line of duty, so she was made stronger, faster, better. Hence the Nigh-Invulnerability and the super strength. We already know via Clockwerk and Dr. M that this tech is available in the Sly Cooper universe.

• And the nananananana sound effects lifted straight from The Six Million Dollar Man when she jumps over a building.
  • If only they could fix the bug in her vocal programming regarding that fluxing accent.

Dr. M betrayed the Cooper gang to the Fiendish Five ten years prior to events of Sly 1.

When Dr. M was envious of being a sidekick, he wanted to get Sly's father out of the way so he can claim the Cooper Family Fortune himself.

• Around the time Sly got the Thievius Raccoonus book from his father, Dr. M told the Fiendish Five the current whereabouts of The Cooper family home. After that, the Fiendish Five killed Sly's father and stole pages of the Thievius Raccoonus.
• Having worked for the Coopers, Dr. M must have heard of Clockwerk.

Sly was disgusted with the Family Vault.

From Sly's descriptions of his ancestors, he took great pride at how they were virtuous in their own way, and made life better for other people. His own exploits got him a lot of cash; but we can see from his life-style that he never hoarded it. He didn't take Dr. M at his word, but did accept this upon seeing how the Family Vault was an over-glorified shrine to themselves; piles of cash accumulated doing nothing. By the third game, he had gotten greyer and greyer in his actions to achieve it. He never voiced his worries, because the greyness was his friends trying to help him achieve his goal; a goal that turned out to be hollow.

He still had loyalty to his team. By pretending to have amnesia for "merely" chasing Carmelita; he could cut himself off from the lifestyle without denouncing his friends who had gotten him that far.

Sly 4, if it's released, will have time travel, a dinosaur NPC, and either a Downer Ending or a Bittersweet Ending.

In addition, Sly will not have to choose whether to save his dead parents.

• In order: Confirmed, sort of jossed (there's pterodactyls as generic enemies in 1 level), confirmed (the ending is more Downer than bittersweet) and confirmed.

In Sly 4, we'll see the origins of Clockwerk due to the time travel

.It will turn out that, like Dr. M, Clockwerk was the brains of the original Cooper Gang; however, since he'd probably be a rather tall bipedal anthro owl, like this fan-art, he'd also be the brawn of the team. Chances are his hatred for the Cooper family was initially for the same reason as Dr. M; Clockwerk grew envious of the fame Slytankhamen had earned. The envy evolved into hatred, and, after killing Slytankhamen in pursuit of a gem known as "The Eye of Horus," this happened. Naturally, he retained his genius in his more monstrous (read: like a real owl) form. As a trade-off, he went batshit insane, and his lifespan decreased. Now fueled entirely by hatred, he made himself a mechanical body, which changed over the ages as technology advanced, from a Steampunk version to a Diesel Punk version, and others in between. Also, Sly 4 will end with the timeline altered, and the Hate Chip was never found and Clockwerk possesses his old body.

Clockwerk will return in Sly 4, but without time travel.

Something that just occurred to me is that someone so dedicated to exterminating the Cooper family line wouldn't limit himself to just one body with an easily-destroyed Hate Chip. Somewhere in Russia, there's a Magitek supercomputer, that houses the actual consciousness of Clockwerk. That supercomputer is already working on an upgraded form for Clockwerk; faster, sleeker, more powerful, and with a less-easily destroyed Hate Chip. He basically has "back-up" files so he can return if one body/Hate Chip is smashed. It just takes a few years for the supercomputer/factory to build a new body. Also, he's making his new body un-hijackable. He does NOT want a repeat of the Clock-La incident. In essence, Sly is basically Fighting a Shadow unless he destroys the supercomputer... And even then, Clockwerk's digitized mind might escape to the Internet, and infect a weapons factory to build a new body...

Sly eventually told Carmelita about the amnesia thing.

He seems to want an honest relationship with her. He would have to be an idiot to not tell her. Alternatively, Sly 4 will open with Sly about to tell her, but the plot brings it into the open in the worst possible way.

• Or she's in on it, but if anyone else knew, he'd still have to go to jail for all the things he stole. This way, he gets some sort of disability-induced legal immunity.

Murray and Jing King will be lovers in the new game

• And Jing will have taken her father's place on the team.

Sly is actually a Stepford Smiler

• Think about it. He saw his father brutally murdered in front of him. That's gotta affect a kid. He may just be repressing the trauma by focusing on his criminal work and his family's legacy, but inside he could be pretty much broken...
  • Sigmund, what... just stop it!

MadWritter: Here's my levels idea for Sly 4: Thieves in Time and its costumes

• Intro Level: Interpol's Training Room — Carmelita Fox makes a "I can't believe I'm doing this" monologue. As Fox talks, we learn that the head of Interpol wants Carmelita and Sly to go undercover as criminals to discover why they are disappearing — and she had to make it look good, as she knows Sly is faking memory loss.
• Episode #1: "Payment From A Black Sheep" — Carmelita and Sly work on dealing with a fake Sly Cooper and defeat him — revealing him to be a black sheep of the Cooper Clan, who is dying. He explains that someone copied the blueprints of Bentley's Time Machine — but he dies before Carmelita can ask him — who paid them. A surprising voice answered, "Me." It's Bentley — fully healed — and with him is Murray, Penelope, and The Guru.
• Episode #2: "Thief Like A Egyptian" — The gang travel to the time of Slytunkhamen II Cooper, and meet him and get his pages back into the books, as well as defeat a smug snake villain (a real snake who's smug as they come in villain hood) — Alexandria, Egypt is the area — and the final battle takes place in the burning library against the smug snake's helper, Werk.
  • Costume: Egyptian costume with the ability to become invisible for a short time frame.
• Episode #3: "Knight of a Thief" — The gang travel to to the time of Galleth Cooper of the Knights of the Cooper Order and help them against the the evil routines of Werk - and deals with a villain who thinks she's the Black Knight's descendant — unaware that that's one of Galleth's many aliases.
  • Costume: Knight Armor — Thinner than the Shogun armor in Japan — Sly is protected from all physical harm, but he can't use his cane — but he does have a sword to go with it.
• Episode #4: "A Sunny Encounter" — Salim al Kupar of Arabia is the next time period that the gang hit. They help him out by getting rid of Werk. Werk's voice starts to become semi-familiar to Sly.
  • Costume: The Persia costume that makes Sly go faster.
• Episode #5: "I Take The High Road" — Ireland is the landing point for the gang here as they deal with Slaigh's anger, and Werk's nasty tricks and the new villain's plot. In the end, the gang get Slaigh's pages back into the Theivus Racoons.
  • Costume: A druid costume allowing Sly to slow down time.
• Episode #6: "A Chaos Spiral" — This time period is where the gang get to meet up with Riochi Cooper and deal with El Jefe.
  • Costume: Shogun costume that protects Sly from fire and sends fireballs back.
• Episode #7: "A Pirate Life For Me" — Back to Blood Bath Bay — at the point of their founding — as this is where "One-Eye" Cooper is in charge — and she has some pages — but they work for her to get the pages by taking down a problem for them.
  • Costume: A pirate costume that allows Sly to have the strength to lift up heavy stuff, but at the cost of forgoing the Thief Aura.
• Episode #8: "Go West, Young Thief." — Carmelita and Sly are shocked to see that Sheriff Fox is in league with Tennessee "Kid" Cooper — as they deal with Werk — who had finally become Clockwerk — and deal with Clockwerk's dangerous Iron Horse that makes the three Iron Horses under Jean Bison in Sly 2: Band of Thieves look like a kid's remote control train.
  • Costume: Cowboy costume — This costume allows Sly to use a gun (the gun is similar to Carmelita's shock gun, but uses the same button as Sly's cane.)
• Episode #9: "The Cooper With A Thousand Faces" — Thaddeus Winslow Cooper III's London is the next stop for the gang, for the next piece of the book. Thaddeus disguises himself as some of the Gang Members to sneakily help them out of danger.
  • Costume: Dear Stalker costume — Sly can early turn into any guard by using the O button while wearing this — even if the guard is facing Sly.
• Episode #10: "Up In The Air" — Otto Van Cooper's time period. The gang meet up with him and deal with Clockwerk's latest deadly machine as well as the plot of General Mandrill, Dr. Mandrill's dad. After this defeat, General Mandrill surprises the gang with information — Dr. M couldn't fight Sly in the vault, as he was DEAD because of Conner Cooper's final heist.
  • Costume: Mechanist — Allows Sly to repair damaged things.
• Episode #11: "My Dad — The Thief" — The gang reaches the time of Dr. M, McSweeney, and Cooner Cooper. They learn a lot of stuff and try to stop Dr. M's death, but ultimately fail. It turns out Sly is hiding out after hearing voices, getting a lot of surprise information: 1) Neyla is the head of the Klaww Gang, 2) Arpeggio had built a cloning device, 3) Dr. M is going to be the first test case for it, and 4) the Klaww Gang used Sly to get rid of The Fiendish Five by having Clockwerk kill his parents. "Anger" is "too sissy" of a word to describe how Sly feels about this.
  • Costume: "Doctor" — Similar to the Mechanist - but this allows Sly to heal a person.
• Episode #12: "Now It's Personal" — This takes place in the present day as the gang decide to get revenge on Arpeggio and Neyla. After destroying the Klaww Gang's cloning machine and giving them the beat-down, we learn that Clockwerk had invented cloning before "One-Eye" Cooper was born.
• Episode #13: "The Robotic Owl" — This episode takes the gang against Clockwerk's clone — but before the gang wreck Clockwerk's weapons and his cloning machine.
• Ending: Fox stated the adventure had took past her retirement from law enforcement. Bentley explains he had two helpers from the Cooper Family, but he's keeping the other member secret. After the credits, we learn that Bentley got the information for the entire adventure though time from Sly's own kid.

Thieves in Time will feature a similar structure to 3... BUT AWESOME.

• Why did Sucker Punch take us through the Cooper vault at the end of 3, introducing us to all of Sly's ancestors? Because in 4, Sly will have to pull off a caper that no gang of thieves alive can pull off. So, he'll use Bentley's time machine to get some thieves that aren't alive; namely, his ancestors. Sly 4: It's a Family Affair.

Sly 4's villain will be...

Clockwerk.

• Jossed. A few references here and there, but you never fight him.

The Big Bad of Sly 4 is collecting every single "Theivus Racoonus" page from every era that had a Cooper member.

According to the Wordof God from the New Gods of Sly Cooper, "Sanzaru Games", the Big Bad of Sly 4 is a collection. Since the plot deals with the pages of the "Theivius Racoonus" disappearing and getting lost in the time stream, this must be the Big Bad's goal.

• Jossed.

There was no Noodle Incident between Dr. M and Sly's father. He was angry because...

... he believed that, by dying against the Fiendish Five, Sly's father betrayed the team, and him especially. Yes, his obsession for the treasure of the Cooper Vault is from selfishness, but also in a twisted sense of protecting what is left of the good times he and McSweeney had with Mr. Cooper. And he wasn't about to let a "selfish weakling's" son take the treasure that McSweeney, Mr. Cooper, and Dr. M himself collected over the years.

The Future levels in Thieves in Time will have a Cyberpunk aesthetic.

• Just watch and see the Blade Runner references and Matrix references.

Doctor M is still alive after the end of Sly 3.

Because of his hatred for the Cooper Clan, thus turning him into the next Clockwerk.

Clockwerk will have a Multiple-Choice Past

It doesn't seem too out of the question.

—-

Sly's father's name is Claude.

He was a kleptomaniac from Cleveland who specialized in copping clean copper clappers that were kept in closets.

The Big Bad of Thieves in Time is...

A future/alternate Bentley, who became jealous of the Cooper Clan (just like Clockwerk and Dr. M before him) after traveling through time and seeing all the previous Coopers, so he steals the pages of the Thievius Racoonus. Present Bentley realises this and goes back in time to when he built the time machine to destroy it, stopping himself from ever having traveled through time and from ever having stolen the pages.

• Jossed. The Big Bad of Thieves in Time is a completely new character.

The Contessa is a vampire

In Sly 3, General Tsao unleashed Chinese praying mantis vampires. Sometimes spiders are called bugs — when spiders aren't bugs... The Contessa is based on a spider and she had werewolves on both her prison and her mansion grounds. According to ancient vampire myth, Count Dracula was first bitten by a werewolf. According to Bentley's intro to "Jailbreak" in Sly 2, Contessa's husband died of a under a mysterious — mostly like the Contessa draining him for blood. Vampire are known to have hypnotizing eyes — so it's not surprising to see The Contessa being a hypnotist. I think Dracula was written in the Victorian period where Gothic stories were starting to sell like hot cakes. The Contessa lives in a Gothic mansion in Prague.

Carmelita may be a succubus

I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out. Just listen of how much she changes her voice, since when does someone change their voice? My guess is the voices are from the souls she sucked out. Not to mention no one could harm her, regardless of the many times she get hit. Even after Bentley uses the bomb glitch to take her down, you go back to the safe house, go outside again, and you can see her patrolling the level like nothing happened. Or how high she can jump, how many officers can jump at super height while others need to use a jet pack? Though she may be a vigilante succubus and steal the souls of female criminals.

The Cooper Gang will accidentally reassemble Clockwerk in Sly 4.

In this video, the developer being interviewed notes that one of the treasures collectible in the game is a "rather familiar-looking claw," then quickly moves on. The claw strongly resembles one of Clockwerk's. The developers refuse to answer questions about Clockwerk, which makes it seem likely that he plays some role in the game. Maybe the treasures collected over the course of the game will include Clockwerk parts from throughout his history, which may assemble into a ramshackle revived version of Clockwerk.

• Jossed. Clockwerk pops up here and there, but doesn't have any role in Thieves in Time.

The Cooper Gang IS Clockwerk

This is a ridiculous thought which occurred to me late at night, as all good epiphanies do. I was reflecting how it would be immensely cheap of Sanzaru if they had Sly interact with all these ancestors of his, each of whom was expressly killed by Clockwerk, and not mention the mechanical bird in some form. Suddenly, I realized that if all of these Coopers were killed by Clockwerk, and Sly interacted with all of them, it would only take a series of unfortunate accidents and Sly's appearance being changed, or even just remembered wrong, to facilitate this ludicrous plot twist. I haven't given it much thought beyond that, except that by the time Clockwerk!Sly is facing off against his past self at the climax of the first game, he's Going Through the Motions in order to keep the space-time continuum from tearing apart (most likely under orders from Bentley).

A Sadistic Choice in Sly 4

Since it's about the time continuum getting screwed, I bet that Sly will be forced to choose whether or not to save an ancestor or allow Clockwerk to kill the ancestor.

• Jossed, although it does make for some good discussion and analysis/Fanfic Fuel material.

Sly is hired by Interpol and has been for years; the rest of the gang just doesn't know.

Since "Constable Cooper" wasn't arrested on sight in Paris and there is no such thing as an "amnesia amnesty clause", it's in Interpol's best interest to have someone with deniability.

We'll meet the ancestors of the villains in Thieves Across Time.

Since the game takes place during different time periods so it shouldn't come as a shock if we meet the ancestors of the antagonists of previous games. In Feudal Japan, we'll meet Panda King's ancestor. In Medieval England, we'll see Raleigh's. If there's a western level with Tennessee Kid Cooper, odds are we'll meet Muggshot's Great Great Great Grandfather who was a bandit who Tennessee stole from. We might even see Jean Bison before he got frozen on ice as well in the 1850s. Maybe even accidentally cause it and cause him to get frozen.

• Jossed.

The Big Bad in Thieves Across Time is related to Penelope.

He has mice in hazmat suit minions. We only see him in shadow, but he has mouse/rat features. Also, Penelope's disappearance is what kicks off the plot. So our big bad could be a relative of Penelope, a Future Me Scares Me Penelope, or even one of Penelope's descendants... and they kidnapped Penelope to prevent her from stopping them, but that causes Bentley to stop them and...now I have the Time Travel Headache.

• Jossed, although she does work with him in some capacity.

The Collector 'collected' Penelope.

Due to her knowledge and know-how of both Time travel and the Cooper clan, the Collector picked her up with the intention of keeping his machine tip top and using her knowledge to go to the specific time periods in order to erase the Cooper line history. You'll have to save her in one of the final missions before the final battle.

The Big Bad in Thieves in Time IS Penelope

She wears the same hazmat suit that the rat henchmen wear at the beginning, the Collector has mouse traits, and she just happens to disappear the moment the Thievious Racconus starts to slowly vanish. The Collector also has time travel technology, which Penelope could have taken from building the time machine with Bentley, not to mention she's pulled off being a mysterious, mustachioed villain before.

• Nope, Penelope is working with him, but plans on betraying him.

Black Tyrant Penelope isn't the same Penelope that was kidnapped, and Sly can rescue her.

Alright, we're going to get Timey-Wimey here, so stay with me. Penelope was kidnapped by her future Black Tyrant self. She's locked away somewhere so that BT!Penelope can brainwash her, and train her into becoming the Black Tyrant. It'll be discovered that Penelope is being held in Egypt and, after some confusion, Sly breaks her out. We discover from Good!Penelope that BT!Penelope went evil because the first time she and Bentley used the time machine, they were captured by Clockwerk. Bentley was killed, and Penelope was forced to create the Hate Chip. That's what has caused her to become so bitter and twisted. BT!Penelope blames Sly for Clockwerk's actions. That's why she teamed up with La Paradox, and kidnapped herself before the time machine was finished, to prevent Bentley from dying. Unfortunately, freeing Good!Penelope doesn't erase BT!Penelope from the timeline, who has shown up. (BT!Penelope says she'll just recapture Good!Penelope again, which prevents a paradox.) Good!Penelope builds a makeshift signal to Bentley and the Gang for them to come rescue them. There's a heist to destroy BT!Penelope's time machine in the hopes of erasing her. In a fight, Good!Penelope takes out BT!Penelope. However, the destruction of the time machines have caused a wibbly-wobbly thing to happen and there's an explosion. Good!Penelope, Bentley, and Murray are thrown back into the present day. Carmelita and Sly are stranded, again, in Ancient Egypt but with NO way back at all. Which leads us to the next WMG...

• Nope. Just turns out that Penelope grew to resent Sly.

Sly is Slytankhamen the First.

Stranded in Egypt, Carmelita and Sly start a family. Sly's a little too old to do his usual tricks, so he teaches his son, Slytankhamen the Second, and starts to write down everything he knows in a book. Thus, a legend is born.

• I haven't seen the secret ending yet, but from what I've heard, he's in Egypt by himself.
  • This explains why Slytankhamen the first isn't remembered as a thief like his son, Slytankhamen (Sly) rewrote the Thievious Racoonus and what all his descendants should do and the techniques they would use.
  • Y'know, I've been thinking about this one a lot recently. However, at the same time, I'm trying not to, because all of Sly's ancestors were killed by Clockwerk, if I remember right. Which would mean that sooner or later, he'll be killed by Clockwerk. Brings to mind the line "You will never be rid of me" in a really horrible way.

What Really Happened to Penelope?

• Brainwashing.
• A twin with the same name
• An alternate universe version of her
• Sanzaru Games disliked her.
  • Alternately, someone working for Sanzaru had ties to Disney. Therefore, Penelope being Prince Hans' Distaff Counterpart might not be a coincidence^* Thieves in Time and Frozen were in development at the same time.

The Black Knight was meant to be Sir Raleigh.

Within the episode Of Mice and Mechs, there are a number of frog statues and frog motifs. The taverns are named after frogs, which is also pointed out in the loading screens for no reason. The safe treasure in the episode is also frog themed, and it's Sir Raleigh's top hat. Sir Raleigh is also an Englishman, who would probably feel at home in the medieval England setting, and he has a fondness for machines, so he could easily have built the mechanical henchmen in the level. This is why so many people feel that Penelope's betrayal of the team was so shoe-horned and nonsensical. Because it wasn't meant to be Penelope in the first place. Sir Raleigh, as a nod to the first game, was meant to make a comeback as a villain.

• "Eureka!" Moment! So how about we try explaining the events this way - Penelope WAS kidnapped, but by Sir Raleigh, and the "Penelope" you fight is actually a Ridiculously Mousy Robot under his control. Naturally, the Thanatos Gambit here was to send team genius Bentley into a Heroic BSoD (which worked — temporarily), and get revenge on the Cooper Gang for being the first villain of the series to be defeated. The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue has "Penelope" as a criminal on the run, so perhaps she's just reporting back to her creator, and giving news of her "success" — sure, the Cooper Gang's still around, but with Sly stuck in Ancient Egypt...

Carmelita's Feudal Ancestor was a Geisha

In the Feudal Japan level, look at the signs; one of the Geishas on it is clearly a fox woman who has the same hair and look as Carmelita. Now then this leads to two possible scenarios.A: She was a Geisha and Rioichi was one of her customers at times.B: She was a Kunoichi in servitude to the Shogun and chased after Rioichi, looking to capture him and bring him to justice for all he's stolen the same way Carmelita does Sly, each one unaware the other poses as a Sushi Chef and Geisha. Kunoichis in Real Life did that to kill their targets, so that's more likely.

Clockwerk is following Sly through time in the fourth game

In the game Clockwerk appears in all the chapters, even the one taking place in prehistoric era, but this doesn't mean he'd really be tens of thousands of years old. The Clockwerk we see during the feudal Japan era is the true Clockwerk of that age, who due to his intelligence was able to figure out what Sly's sudden appearance was about and travel across time in the wake of the gang's time warps while scheming on how to use the opportunity to his advantage. This could be basis to the main story of Sly 5.

Speaking of Sly 5...

We still haven't seen most of Sly's other mentioned ancestors: There's only a rough handful, and there are still plenty of big-name Coopers left: Thaddeus Winslow III, Henriette "One Eye" Cooper, Otto von Cooper, etc (the latter two are particularly ripe for potential, since they would be able to take the Biplane and Pirate Ship segments from Sly 3 literally whole-sale). And since Sly is in Ancient Egypt, that's begging to introduce Slytankhamen the First...

Before the events of this game, Tennessee Kid Cooper had paid a visit to the Cooper Vault.

During a Bentley Tech about Toothpick's vault, The Kid remarks that he upgraded from his revolvers to his rifle. He placed his revolvers in the Cooper Vault before planning the Cotton Bluff's bank heist.

Clockwerk was never a living being turned robot but actually...

A mechanical owl built by Penelope to get revenge on Sly for holding her and Bentley back. His hate is actually hers, and he was built to snuff out Sly by getting rid of the Coopers head on. This is why he is actually immortal; he is just a mech built to satisfy HER vengeance.

Yet another Penelope is Responsible for Clockwerk Theory

Consider the following:

• In Sly 4, Bentley and Penelope have more or less discovered/invented time travel.
• Penelope was able to refine the time travel system to 1. not require an artifact to travel to the past (as far as we can tell) and 2. transport a gigantic vehicle.
• Penelope regularly builds robot suits and mechs for herself.
• She hates Sly Cooper, believing the idea of being a noble thief is a setback and weakness.
• She DID, however, admire him for a while before her Face–Heel Turn.

Now consider Clockwerk:

• He has been around for a LONG time.
• Somehow, he appears as fully mechanical even in the Ice Age.
• He lives via unfiltered, insane Cooper hate.

Let's say Penelope is jumping through time, sending Bentley mysterious postcards throughout space and time. She comes across an owl, a rival thief to the Coopers with no moral qualms, always frustrated by their successes over him. Penelope sees this as a perfect opportunity. She tells this owl that she, too, hates the Cooper family, and volunteers to help him. Thus, Clockwerk is given incredible technology in an era that simply cannot handle it. Once the mechanical owl is complete, Penelope is promptly disposed of, perhaps eaten — owls do eat rodents, after all.

Fueled by Cooper hate, Clockwerk lives forever... until he meets Sly. For some reason, he just cannot defeat this one particular Cooper. Perhaps a bit of the rodent's lingering affection is holding him back and he simply doesn't realize it.

Basically, Penelope is the instigator of a Stable Time Loop and is ultimately responsible for Sly becoming the raccoon he is in the first place.

The prologue mission in Sly 5 will be a flashback...

To the gang's first ever heist: stealing the cookie jar in the Happy Campers orphanage.

Penelope used to believe in the concept of honorable thieves...

...until Sly left her for dead. Or at least, from her perspective.

Think back to chapter 5 of Sly 3, specifically the mission where you dig up Dimitri's grandfather's diving gear. LeFwee has his blade to Penelope's back and what does Sly, the current object of her affections, say?

"Let's head back to the boat."

Now, as the players, we know there was more to it than that. Sly simply wanted to get to a less tense environment so they could properly plan a rescue without fear of Penelope getting hurt. But what does Penelope say?

"You can't just leave me here!"

She didn't know what Sly was planning. Sly didn't even offer any clarification or attempted to comfort her. That job fell to Bentley. As far as Penelope knew at the time, Sly was all ready to leave her behind. Now, Penelope is an intelligent girl and, once she was safe and sound, she most likely came to the conclusion that Sly was just trying to help.

But it didn't matter.For that one moment, a shred of doubt crossed her mind.For that single solitary second, her vision of an 'Honorable thief' was put into question.

And what was it Dr. M said to Sly? How he justified turning against his father despite all they had been through?

"Time does funny things to people."

Time.

Time is all that was needed to have that shred of doubt fester and grow within Penelope.Abandoning the team to go chase after some woman?Making a big show about sharing the vault with his 'family' then immediately going in by himself?From an outsider's perspective, it all seems rather damning.

• Finally! A theory that has her Face–Heel Turn make sense!

Not all of Le Paradox's were rivals with their Cooper counterparts.

Some were, like Sly and Cyrille's fathers (if they were rivals and didn't just happen to be casing the same museum). But most Coopers and Paradoxs weren't even aware of each other's existence or, if they were, kept a respectable distance from each other. Some Coopers and Paradoxs may have even worked together and some Coopers might have taught their Paradox counterpart some of their moves, which is why Cyrille, and presumably other Paradoxs before him, are able to use certain moves like the Spire Jump and Rail Slide.

the reason for Clockwerk being mechanical as far back as the ice age is simple.

Le Paradox left advanced technology scattered across time. This includes the Ice Age. Clockwerk simply noticed the strange machines, stole what he could over the years, swapping body parts with machinery when he needed to...and the rest is history.

Bentley is a Time Lord and the Cooper Van is his TARDIS

You know it had to be said.

Sly and Cyrille's fathers had an unknown rivalry

While Le Paradox Sr. saw The Coopers as the Le Paradoxes' arch nemesis, Cooper, however, has never even heard of the Le Paradoxes until the attempted frame job, and even then he thought his name was Le Pair-a-ducks.

Clockwerk was the last remnant of an advanced civilization that predates the Ice Age

Interestingly, there is a very small piece of evidence in the ice age level that supports this theory. In a couple of places on the map, there are what appear to be the broken remains of train tracks. They're in such bad shape that it's unlikely that they were part of the Grizz's operation. They're also not really connected to anything, so whatever rail system they were part of is long gone.

Since Clockwerk has already undergone his transformation into a mechanical monster by the time the Ice Age rolls around, it's likely that the Cooper family existed in this civilization as well. For irony, the Coopers of this era could be exactly the sort of scum that their descendants normally targeted for theft. For even more irony, the rivalry between Clockwerk and the Coopers could have somehow brought about a cataclysm that caused the the Ice Age and the downfall of their society.

• Actually, I think those train tracks were transported through time at the same time as when the Cooper van was falling and they were caught in the jump and just kind of landed anywhere because of the nature of the jump.

Sly Cooper is NOT the last of the Cooper line

Rather, he's the last of the major line of Cooper family members. My theory is that the Theivius Racoonus only passes to the eldest male son of the Cooper line, and that son then has the task to carry on the family legacy. In families of more than 1 child, the other children are free to get out of the business if they choose, or to keep in contact with their big brother and get their legacy included as well. Even if Clockwerk came after the active thieves, the family was just too large for him to go after all of them.

Thus, although Sly might seem to be the last of the mainline Coopers, given that his girlfriend would never procreate or agree to his lifestlye for the kid, there might be a cousin of Sly who can carry on the Cooper legacy should Bentley ever decide to retire and pass the Thievius Racoonus on to another master thief who would only steal from criminals.

• The other wiki states that while Ryoichi Cooper was in Japan in 1600 A.D. Henriette Cooper was sailing in the Caribbean in 1616 A.D. and since they don't seem to be father and daughter they can at most be cousins, so this seems confirmed.

Sly 5 will continue Sly 4's story and end with a Sequel Hook for the next generation of the Cooper gang

We already know time travel will have to be involved to save Sly, so after they find him, they'll have to go through history to stop Penelope and Clockwerk (who she built the robotic body for) and possibly the future as well. At the end, the stinger will show Sly and the rest settled down, him and Carm having a kid (who shall be referred to as Skyler for the rest of the post because I love SFC), Bentley with either an unrelated protégé or with a reformed Penelope, Murray, Dimitri, and Panda King, all having some relation, Skyler (plus a twin sibiling) will be forced into action in a situation so Carmelita has to agree to let Sly train him, leading to Sly 6, or an ending showing that the Cooper legacy lives on even far into the future.

Neyla's first name and middle initial are...

Jude S.

Sly will make his child earn the Thievius Raccoonus

At the end of the original game, Sly comments that unlike his ancestors, he had to earn his access to the Thievius Raccoonus. Realizing that such experience shaped him to be a better thief, when Sly's kid (assuming he has one) is old enough, Sly will start having him earn the book with various challenges. While not lethal like what Sly actually faced, it'll probably be "real" enough that it's a challenge to overcome rather than just being taught in tiers. Plus, it'd be a great way to hold back the iconic moves early on in a future game and justify a Bag of Spilling. Even a Justified Tutorial if it's told by time skips.

The Sly Cooper movie will retain the same tone as the games, but it'll also include more character development for the Sly Cooper gang.

Unlike the original game, there will be more tension between Sly and Bentley. Bentley will be more exasperated with Sly's recklessness because the latter doesn't always stick to the plan and fears that his friends might get hurt because of it. As the Sly Cooper Gang begins to recover the stolen pages for the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly becomes more obsessed with preserving his family legacy and neglects the support from his best friends who have always been there for him. This reaches a breaking point where Sly ends up choosing to save one of the book's pages over his best friends when they're also in danger and prompts a What the Hell, Hero? moment from Bentley. An argument ensues between Sly and Bentley (with Murray trying to act as the peace mediator) and ends with Sly declaring that he doesn't need Bentley and Murray. Of course, not long after Sly leaves them and goes to confront Clockwerk and save Carmelita, he has a My God, What Have I Done? moment. And then, just as Sly is about to be killed by Clockwerk, Bentley and Murray come to the rescue and the friends rekindle their friendship after taking down Clockwerk, recovering the last page, and escaping from the law once again.

The movie will have a prologue beginning with the night Sly's parents were murdered by the Clockwerk Gang, followed by Sly's first meeting with Bentley and Murray before cutting to the present-day.

Sly 5 will begin with highlighting what each member of the Cooper Gang brought to the team, yet also show why they could be independent.

During the initial parts of it (perhaps tutorials for each character's abilities), we will get to see each one on their own (Sly in Egypt trying to leave a clue, Bentley and Murray looking into present day problems, Carmelita busting crooks), and during these tutorials we will see the strengths and weaknesses of each character highlighted, showing that Doctor M's statement that Bentley was the real leader was not as true as suspected but also highlighting what each member of the team brings to bear. So, we will see how not having Sly's thief skills adversely affects Bentley's ability to orchestrate his efforts, but can still somewhat hold his own, Sly will come up with his own plans, but lacking Bently's encyclopedic knowledge, they won't be as sharp, so he has to use his thief skills to make up for it, and Murray will... well, he'll probably just be on the wrestling circuit still. Both as a way of showing that the characters all could theoretically be loners (Sly's still got the skill, Bently's got his brains, Murray has his brawn), but also show that they are who they are because of each member of the team contributing their part.

The Fearsome Five will be the villains in Sly 5

You fight Sir Raleigh alongside Thaddeus Winslow III, Mugshot alongside Otto Van Cooper, and Mz. Ruby alongside Henriette Cooper.

Sly 4-6 will be retrospectively called the Sly Time Trilogy

As noted above, we still have several ancestors we haven't explored yet. And with Sly stuck in ancient Egypt, there's some real potential to concoct a second time travel plot at least involving traversing time searching for Sly and fighting against rival thieves.

However, what I see as the backbone of this trilogy is a question and a rivalry. The question is, "How should our past influence how we move into the future?" After all, look at the villains of Sly 4. El Jefe lives only in the present by plundering as a mercenary warlord. Toothpick was inspired by old western movies for his life path. Grizz was trying to recapture his brief fame though his art thefts. Ms. Decibel is trying to create a future with le paradox while having her past love of all music classical end up defining her until she decided to change to teaching rather than taking. Le Paradox not only came from a thief legacy, but wanted to be the best thief in all of history.

The one exception to this rule is the rival. Penelope had a past with the Cooper Gang and wanted to make a future with billions in weapons designs with wealth and power galore. She is going to be the dangerous foe on par with Clockwerk before, because of this past connection to the Cooper Gang. However, unlike Clockwerk, she has a vision of the future that's beyond mere revenge, seeking world domination. What was the line she gave Bentley? "That's kind of funny, seeing as you work for a thief. But the greatest thing Sly stole is your potential." Penelope isn't just the Sixth Ranger Traitor. She's also the Classic Villain and the Shadow Archetype. Her main motive is Pride and Greed, but what sets her apart is that she can see a vision of a world beyond just getting rid of the Coopers. What's interesting about her character was that she obviously didn't see working for Le Paradox as an end-all for her rise, and she also seemed to have some lingering affection for Bentley. (Hence the postcards she kept sending him.) However, her obsession with creating a better future for herself will eventually become her defining trait, and thus be the one character who's defined not by her past, but by her drive into the future.

Sly 4 was about her rise to power. All those mice henchmen? Friends of hers. Then in the 5th game, her goal will be to obstruct the Cooper Gang from ever finding out that Sly is in Egypt. She'll discover some message that Sly left them that was preserved in time, and try to keep it from them. To that end, she'll create a new gang of thieves to try and throw them off the scent, maybe even recreating the time travel schemes to steal objects from the past for herself (thus subverting Never Recycle Your Plots). In the end, they'll rescue Sly alright. However, Penelope will still be at large, and thus paving room for Sly 6: The Thief War. Bringing all the other members from Sly 3 back, as well as bringing in some new faces, the Cooper Gang will prepare for their final showdown with Penelope — a mouse who knows how they think — and their final quest to defeat her.

Yet underneath it all is going to be a question for Sly and his friends as this goes on. Sly has been defined by his itch to pull a heist. Heck, even when he tried to retire, he couldn't due to his history of continuing to pull them off. However, in fighting Penelope, Sly and his gang is going to start realizing that they can't keep repeating their same cycle of break up, find their own things to do, get back together, do a big heist, break up again. Thus the 6th game will answer the question for the cooper gang: How long do you intend to remain master thieves? (This will also serve as a meta question for how long they can keep the Sly franchise going.) I don't know how they plan on answering the question, but whatever is decided will decide what kind of future is in store for this character and his games.

Penelope didn't REALLY turn evil.

The Penelope we saw in Thieves in Time isn't the real Penelope. This is not a "twin sister with the same name" theory, but a theory involving the unexpected.

The Penelope in Thieves in Times is a clone created by voodoo magic. That's right. Mz. Ruby is the mastermind. She escaped from prison and was subtly influencing Le Paradox and Miss Decibel. The clone came up with a false motive.

As for the real Penelope, she's a prisoner of Mz. Ruby, who seeks to reform the Fiendish Five. Of course, she runs into many problems, mainly the Panda King being a Cooper Gang member and Clockwerk being dead.

Sly will have to crossdress in Sly 5.

Murray and Bentley have both had to dress in drag for a mission. It's Sly's turn next.

Sly wasn't sent into the past, he was sent into the future.

Did we see any proof that Sly was in Ancient Egypt, or was he just in Egypt?

The villain of Sly 5 will be an Evil Cooper Clan member.

Perhaps Sly's father had a brother with whom he had a falling out. This bad relationship could be because Sly's grandfather chose his father over his uncle to carry on the legacy of the Cooper Clan. Sly's uncle then set out on his own. The plot could revolve around how he has his own copy of the Thevious Raccoonis, calling him and the Clan idiots for not realizing there was a such thing as a copier machine. The game would be a battle of Cooper Gang vs. Evil Cooper Gang.

Penelope is possessed by Clockwerk's hatred.

A lot of people find it very sudden that Penelope suddenly decided to hate Sly Cooper and his concept of a "gang" despite being an integral part of it at one point. But then it hit me: Who else was driven by an immeasurable hatred of everything Sly and his family stand for? Who's hatred is so powerful that not only can it grant immortality, but it can drive others to hatred for Sly, like Neyla for example? (she hated Sly before, but after merging with Clockwerk, she mentions feeling 'a power of hatred growing within [her]', and resorts to making raging death threats to the gang.) Maybe Penelope was possessed by this hatred, either through finding the broken hate chip and touching it, or from Clockwerk's machinery having trace amounts of his hatred stowed within. If this is so, then, ironically enough, it'd be her love for Bentley counteracting fully becoming a new Clockwerk.

Flashlight Guards suffer from vision problems

They can't see you unless you're in their light even when it's daylight outside which would be completely absurd in real life... unless they can't see very well normally! Since it'd be easier just using a light to help with their impaired vision instead of, you know, going to an optometrist, they use that instead. It would also explain why Flashlight Guards have poor aim when you're running and why they can't go onto rooftops - it's too dangerous for someone who can't see properly.

The Big Bad of Sly 5 will be that corrupted, evil version of Sly from Carmelita's version of the story where she met Sly.

Okay, hear me out:Since Sly's trapped in Ancient Egypt at the end of the 4th game. It's completely possible that this "Evil Sly" has an "Evil Cooper Gang" where "Evil Bentley" (Names not final) has a Universe-Hopping Machine (Since our Sly's universe has a time machine), with Evil Sly posing as our Sly, only to then attack our Bentley, Murray and Carmelita, These evil versions then hijack the Time Machine. And go around causing a trouble and mayhem. They eventually end up in Egypt, where Sly finds the Time Machine along with the Evil versions, now having to fight one of them.

The Big Bad, or atleast a major enemy in Sly 5 will be sly's and carmelita's son

He'll be an aspiring cop who resents the criminal history of his ancestors, and will use the time machine to sabotage his families heists to cancel out their history of being thieves and free him from his past.

There will be a new police inspector in the fifth game.

The new inspector's main goal is to bring Carmelita to justice, as he views her as a traitor. Making him more tragic is the fact that he idolized her, and to find she has become a criminal herself gave him the desire to see her behind bars.

Thieves in Time is just a What If? scenario

Let's face it, guys. A fifth game is at this point as dead as TRON 3, and the TV series might either be a Continuity Reboot or just continuing from where Honor Among Thieves left off. The best bet is that Bentley failed to build a time machine. Given magic is involved, the Guru would've warned him and Penelope of the results if they succeeded, and showed them via "getting into their heads and freaking them out" the events of the fourth game. A horrified Bentley would scrap the whole project, saving Sly's life and Penelope's morality in the process.

• I doubt that the TV series will be anything other than an Alternate Continuity starting from scratch, though.

Neyla will appear in the CG-animated television series.

Sly's attraction to Carmelita is hereditary.

I believe that Sly's ancestors post-Bob were all attracted to people of law-enforcement.

When she isn't chasing Sly, Carmelita Fox is a Hero of Another Story

Her adventures involve the likes of dealing with Aztec Gods, fighting the Neo Knights of the Golden Circle, starring/co-writing a series of Cheesy movies from her home country that tell the games from her point of view, meeting and befriending heroes of other countries, dealing with the return of the Evil Wolf Priestess (whose crimes, when alive, resulted in the World Peace Accord of '71 making zombie production illegal), dealing with a secret society of foxhounds that continue the practice of Fox Hunting, and so much more.

Penelope's Face–Heel Turn was unintentionally caused by meddling with history.

Originally, Le Paradox kidnapped and forced Penelope to work on the time machine, but his attempts to tamper with history (and the Cooper gang's efforts to set it right) sent ripples through time, resulting in changes in the present era—one of which was altering Penelope's personal history, changing her from a loyal member of the gang and friend of Sly to a greedy, amoral crook who hated Sly and was willing to sell him out to Le Paradox.

Le Paradox himself is either unaware of what happened, his memory changing with the altered course of events, or he is aware and just doesn't say anything about it to Sly in order to torment him further by letting him think that his close friend and ally had betrayed him.

The "hole in time-space" Bentley mentioned at the end of the fourth game will become a major plot point for the next entry.

Beyond sending Sly back through time to Ancient Egypt, said time-hole also damaged the time-space continuum itself. Unlike Le Paradox's time-tampering, which only mostly affected the Cooper Clan's history, it's possible that this hole (which was strong enough to warp a part of Le Blimp into the time vortex) won't be as easily repairable. Unless the Cooper Gang reassembles in time, sooner or later this hole will grow and reality itself will either experience a Time Crash or begin tearing itself apart.

Possible adaptational changes the Sly Cooper cartoon will make from the games.

1) Carmelita Fox may undergo a hefty amount of Adaptational Badass, becoming much more hypercompetent than in the games. Several of her times chasing Sly Cooper will end mostly with Sly narrowly escaping capture and some moments where Carmelita even succeeds in catching Sly well enough that he does stand trial and even briefly serves prison time (his friends naturally help him break out later.) This could also help add some dimension to why Sly is attracted to Carmelita by having him be pleased and excited that someone like her can always consistently challenge him. Oh, and Carmelita can also be the best combatant out of the main cast in terms of training and experiance, making so any head-to-head fight she has with the Cooper Gang ends with them being curb-stomped, further justifying them needing to evade her.

• Carmelita may also get a dose of Adaptational Nice Girl or Backported Development in that she ends up recognizing that Sly and Cooper Gang aren't evil pretty early on. However, this may lead to her being further motivated to arrest them, thinking them as well-meaning but misguided rogues whom she thinks don't fully understand what they're doing or are disregarding possible conseqences of taking down villains their way with no regard for how the law works. Inspector Fox may approach her efforts to arrest the Cooper Gang with For Your Own Good intentions in mind because of this.

2) Clockwerk will be given much more screen time relative to the rest of the cast, such as showing how he interacts with other villains, in contrast to how he only appeared and died at the end of the first game. More development will be given to him, he'll be given other strong motivations beyond just exterminating the Cooper line, and he'll likely be more proactive in pushing back opposition, being a supreme Knight of Cerebus acting as a threat to the Cooper Gang and INTERPOL alike. He'll also become more of a Magnificent Bastard with a more Faux Affably Evil personality a la Megatron.

3) Penelope Mouse will be given an Adaptational Early Appearance mixed with a slight dose of Adaptational Heroism and possible Adaptation Relation Ship Overhaul with Bentley. She may start out as a technological prodigy who at some point caught wind of the Cooper Gang's activities and was inspired by them. She will actively seek them out with the intention of joining them in their crusades and manages to impress Bentley enough for him to take her as his protege, with a Teacher/Student Romance between them gradually rising up. As a consequence, Bentley may worry abit more more Penelope's safety and may work to keep her away from field operations as much as possible, Penelope will naturally feel stifiled and a rift between teacher and student starts to grow. Eventually, Penelope may lose patience with Bentley and leave the team to stake out on her own, with Bentley either worrying about her more because he thinks she may be in over her head or feeling guilty upon realizing he wasn't respecting her as much as he should've. Should Penelope eventually become a villain, she'll be portrayed as more sympathetic with her motives falling under Villain Has a Point (or even Both Sides Have a Point if Bentley had actualy perfectly justifiable reasons for keeping Panelope out of the field).

4) As a twist, The Cooper bloodline will be hit somewhat with Adaptational Villainy. While studying the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly may start out idolizing his family as being heroic rogues or at least lovable rogues who only act with the best intentions in mind. However, Sly may discover evidence revealing that more than a few of his ancestors were actually just as bad if not worse than the villains he himself fought, and somehow being that nasty while still technically adhering to the traditional rules of the Cooper bloodline. Sly will be faced with an existential crisis to a point of considering the idea of hanging his cane permenantly and turning himself in. It may take some convincing to get Sly to continue going about his Loveable Rogue ways with the added intention of reforming the Cooper line.

Penelope will become the next Clockwerk

Clockwerk was motivated by hated of the Cooper Gang, and became immortal by cyber-converting his body and creating a Hate Chip with the sole intent of wiping the line out. But we don't know what caused him to become immortal in the first place.

Clockwerk has stated in his last words that Sly (and likely his descendants) will never be rid of him, and Neyla mentions feeling a great power when she merges with Clockwerk and becomes Clock-La, with the implication of a Split-Personality Takeover. Penelope's hatred of Sly is of her own, and she's initially a soft-spoken sociopath with some control of herself, but it's not until Bentley rejects her that she snaps and becomes as Ax-Crazy as Neyla was upon her first defeat in Canada.

Neyla failed to become the next Clockwerk because the Hate Chip was destroyed. But Penelope has something Neyla didn't have: knowledge of time travel. If she became that desperate to get revenge on Sly, Penelope could just figure out Clockwerk's secret by going back to his time, and create her own Hate Chip. Clockwerk's curse is therefore restarted with countless generations of the Cooper Gang being terrorized by an immortal mouse with access to time travel. But whether Penelope will remain in control, or Clockwerk will posses her like he apparently tried with Neyla, remains to be seen.

Santa Claus exists in the Sly universe.

Considering all the other Magical Realism seen in this series, would it really seem that far-fetched?

Recasts of the Fiendish Five after Kevin Blackton's death:

• Clockwerk: Corey Burton, Richard Epcar
• Muggshot: John DiMaggio, Steve Blum
• Panda King: Phil LaMarr
• Sir Raleigh: Corey Burton

Assuming none of them die of unnatural causes, Bentley will outlive the rest of the gang significantly on account of being a turtle.

• A significant portion of box turtles in particular can live up to a century in real life (one's said to have lived to at least the age of 138), and pets have been known to outlive their owners. To give a comparison, a few "what-if future" comics starring the Ninja Turtles have shown them as living to well over a century—despite presumably being of a species with a natural life expectancy decades shorter than a box turtle's. Despite how the Funny Animals in the Sly Cooper universe seem to have the same metabolic and aging rates that we real-life humans do, traits from their biology still come through at times (even if in an Animal Stereotypes way), with Sly himself as just one example of such. Potentially, a what-if story about Bentley in the distant future could even be explored, showing how he deals with the consequences of outliving Sly, Murray and everyone else—and potentially even outliving their next of kin. Considering how this franchise has already dealt with themes of loneliness and impermanence (with Bentley himself having taken the brunt of both in the second game)...

Why the Coopers never heard of the Le Paradox family

is because...

• The Le Paradox family were full of failed thieves. Each one attempted to fashion themself as a rival to the current member of the Cooper family, only they were nowhere near as good as the Coopers and oftentimes became the unintentional fall guy for the Cooper in question. For their parts, the Coopers wouldn't bother to question it, simply viewing it as someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time or simply enjoying the luck of not having the cops on their tail yet.

Spire Jump is older than Rioichi's time.

• Given that Sir Galleth, who came 300 years earlier than Rioishi, knows the Spire Jump, Rioishi didn't come up with the manuver. However, it's possible that the move that Sir Galleth uses is a precursor to the one Rioishi is given credit for. Makes one wonder if Salim can use it, and other "later" maneuvers too?
  • Just checked, and Salim can, at the very least, do a version of the Spire Jump.

Penelope Evil Twin Teory.

• Given the differences between the two, in Sly 3 and Thieves in Time, here is how the Twin Theory could work. Mr. and Mrs. Mouse, who wanted to be surprised, were expecting one big boy, were surprised to have two smaller girls, Penelope A(lana) and Penelope B(eatrice). Alana is a spoiled brat that thinks she's going to get the boys, and money, while Beatrice prefers grease and machines. Beatrice eventually encounters the Cooper Gang, joins them, and becomes wealthy at the end of game 3. She shows off pictures of her place to Alana, who gets jelous. With the help of Le Paradox, Alana abducts Beatrice, replaces her, and forces her to make her mechanical army, threatening to do evil things to Bentley if Beatrice doesn't do as she's told. Beatrice manages to fight back by building in Big Obvious Weaknesses (red eyes and such), so that Sly and the gang could defeat her sister more easier. She might be stuck in a hidden room in the castle, that Sir Galleth could crash through. As for rescue, there's probably scrap laying around that she might use to make a time machine. Wouldn't be the first time a hero stuck in a cave built a way to escape from trouble.

Clockwerk didn't wipe out the Coopers because of his mechanical body.

To recap, Clockwerk hated the Coopers so much that he had his body replaced with machinery to ensure that he would survive long enough to undo the Cooper Line. While in the first game he claims that he left Sly alive to watch the Cooper Clan falter without the Thievius Racoonus, that could have just been him trying to rationalize it with his humanity (or "owlmanity" or whatever). Instead, it could have been a case of Cybernetics Eat Your Soul. Clockwerk indeed held genuine hatred for the Coopers and this was used to keep his mechanical body alive, but the basic programming of his mechanized brain prioritized his survival. Thusly, Clockwerk was psychologically incapable of doing away with any of the Coopers until they had sired a proper heir that could carry on their legacy, thus ensuring that the machine could still run in perpetuity. It would also explain why he had brought the Fiendish Five to help him kill Connor Cooper: Sly was just a small boy and stealing the pages of the book would endanger Sly's chances of becoming a master thief, so his programming wouldn't let him kill them. He formed the Fiendish Five so that they could break the rules in his programming so that he wouldn't have to.

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