thief calls a none-elf better then him?
 

in 391# thief calls king steve the best criminal EVER
but king steve is warring against elfland AND is human
is :thief: serius??

Yes.

You don't mess with King Steve. Ever.

King Steve is merely an Avatar of raven in my opinion, well... not so much an avatar, but if anyone reads Raymond E. Feist books then he has a sliver of the trickster god in him.

I'm not sure if Thief prides himself on criminality, so it's probably just a case of the silly one-liner slightly coinciding with Thief being sick of dealing with Red Mage basically asking him to defy logic/physics/etc. and just saying that to try and shut him up. (But really it's probably solely a one-liner type thing.)

Funny > Continuity.

I wouldn't really say Thief insisting Elves are the master race is very important to continuity...

As per the 'courting rituals of the elves' from earlier on, I'd say that in thief's mind, thievery and deceit are the very basis of his people's culture. In this case, it makes any elf committing these deeds not a criminal, but a model citizen. Therefore, when he said king steve was the best criminal mind, he clearly meant that King Steve was his favorite inferior (sentient) lifeform.

Okay I'll find a better explanation.

Thief is SO good that he managed to convince himself that the shit he does makes logical sense by explaining it to the other light warriors or whoever else he is tormenting. His lying ability is like 583939487598345 but his mental resistance is only 583523987659832, so he started believing himself.

No, I didn't count the digits. It looks like the latter number has fewer. I don't care because it still means the same thing. :D

Of course, you have to account on what Steve was directing his troops to do with elvish prisoners.

Does Thief even know about the war between the elves and dwarves that started because of BM's Meteor spell?

More importantly, does he even know about King Steve's most recent war with the elves?