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Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: "With great power comes great responsibility."
Spider-Man has declared that this article is still under construction. |
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This scum Alex Rider is really bothering Kenshiro! IT MUST BE REWRITTEN OR ADDED TO!! So sayeth the great god of Earthrealm Raiden: or he will send lightning bolts to terminate you. |
| “ | Alex Rider, who else? | „ |
| ~ Alex Rider after defeating Julius in Point Blanc. |
Alex Rider is the titular main protagonist of the franchise and book series of the same name and it’s live action adaptations. He is the nephew of a secret spy for MI6 named Ian Rider, whom he lived with because his parents died in a plane crash when he was a baby. When his uncle was killed, Alex took his place and was sent to finish his uncle's final mission, then went on to complete 8 more missions around the world. After that, he went to America to live with the family of a friend, before eventually returning to the UK.
He was portrayed by Alex Pettyfer in the 2006 film and by Otto Farrant in the Amazon TV series.
Biography[]
After the death of his parents in a plane crash, Alex has been living with his uncle, Ian Rider and caretaker, Jack Starbright. Alex picked up numerous skills like karate and driving before he was of the legal age to from his uncle though Ian was frequently travelling due to his job at the Royal & General Bank.
Stormbreaker[]
One night the police show up to Alex's house and inform him and Jack that Ian was killed in a car crash because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Alex is immediately sceptical because he knows for a fact that his uncle always wore a seatbelt. At Ian's funeral, Alex notices some of his co-workers from the bank are carrying guns which they try to hide. Alex tries to break into a junkuyard the next day to investigate his uncle's car since he hadn't been given access to it and sees it riddled with bullet holes. While investigating, he ends up almost crushed by a machine but narrowly escapes. A man named Crawley meets him outside the yard and asks Alex to come to the Royal & General the next day. When he does, he asks to see his uncles office but the bank workers refuse. Alex, however, climbs through a window and into the window of his uncle's office by hoisting himself on the British flag. Alex is caught and knocked out with a drugged dart though and ends up waking up in an MI6 facility under the watch of agents Alan Blunt and Ms. Jones who tell him they were impressed with his skills. They explain the bank is just a cover for MI6. Ian was one of MI6's agents who had been assigned to investigate a Lebanese businessman named Herod Sayle whose planning on donating a Stormbreaker computer to every school in the United Kingdom for every student, something MI6 found too good to be true. Ian had reported nothing suspicious about Sayle until his last day of work when he told them he had found something but ended up being assassinated on his way out. Since Alex is so young, MI6 wants Alex to infiltrate Sayle Enterprises pretending to be a kid named Felix Lester who had won a competition to be the first kid to use a Stormbreaker so he can gather information. Alex refuses at first but Blunt threatens to have Jack deported if he doesn't which forces Alex to agree to their demands.
Alex spends the next week training in a top-secret MI6 SAS facility. Everyone around Alex is given a codename corresponding to an animal (Alex's being wolf) though the adults, especially a man named Wolf, treat Alex poorly with Wolf even attempting to sabotage his training. During a parachute jump, however, Alex notices Wolf is scared to jump and realizing that Wolf would probably lose his position if he didn't, kicks him out, something Wolf later thanked him for. After eleven days, Alex is brought back to base and given a soap bottle that contains liquid capable of burning through metal, a yo-yo that doubles as a grappling hook and a Nintendo which functions as a smokescreen, bug detector and phone. Ms. Jones informs him that they believe an assassin named Yassen Gregorovitch killed his uncle and to tell them if he sees him. Alex is then sent to be picked up by Sayle's employees and is brought to Sayle Enterprises and shown his room. Alex meets with Sayle and his two employees Mr. Grin and Nadia Vole who seem welcoming. That night, Alex finds a drawing of something he believes his uncle did but neither he nor MI6 can identify it. Alex is asked to test out the Stormbreaker the next day and is amazed by how great the computer is, causing him to doubt whether or not it really is dangerous. He sneaks around a restricted area of the compound but is caught by Vole. That night, Alex plays snooker against Sayle and wins which enrages him.
Later on, Alex tries to investigate the compound at night and finds Yassen and Mr. Grin unloading a Chinese submarine full of sealed boxes. When one of the men drop a box, Yassen shoots him. Alex goes to the library the next day to find further information and learns his uncle had been searching for information on viruses before he died. Alex thinks this means that Sayle may be using computer viruses. He identifies the map his uncle made by comparing it against what was written in a book and realizes its a diagram of an abandoned mine underneath the Sayle Enterprises compound which Sayle owns. Alex goes to check it out but is attacked by two men on quads who nearly kill him with flamethrowers but he tricks them into slamming into an electric fence which takes them down. Alex then goes to an entrance to the mines and enters it, managing to walk across a low mine tunnel until he reaches a stream which he swims across using a wetsuit his uncle had left. He reaches a secret lab where he realizes the viruses are not computer but physical and are being loaded into the computers. Before he can escape, he is caught by guards. He is then brought before Herod Sayle himself who explains he plans on murdering every child in Britain as revenge for his bullying in school which Alex points out is not a good excuse.
Sayle then leaves and has Vole throw Alex into the tank with the jellyfish. Alex is nearly killed but remembers the cream and uses it to break free from the tank which floods Sayle's office and deposits the jellyfish on top of Vole. Alex then escapes on a quad while being pursued by guards and uses the grappling hook from the yo-yo to get on a transport plane. He then puts a harpoon gun to Mr. Grin's head and forces him to pilot him to the Science Museum in London where Sayle plans on having the Prime Minister push the button which will bring all the computers live. Alex uses a parachute to jump off the plane early because he doesn't trust Grin and leaves his Nintendo in it which causes a smoke explosion in the cockpit, triggering Grin to land the plane. Alex then parachutes into the Science Museum where he immediately shoots the Prime Minister's hand and the controller for the Stormbreakers right before they can come live which saves the schoolchildren of Britain from imminent death. Afterwards, MI6 thanks him for his service and sends him home, keeping his contributions secret from the public. The Prime Minister sends him a message thanking him for his heroism. On his way home carrying a forged doctor's note claiming he had been sick for the last few weeks, Alex is kidnapped by Sayle who had escaped and taken to a building but before Sayle can shoot him Yassen appears and shoots Sayle. Alex asks Yassen if he will kill him but Yassen says he won't unless he has a reason to and leaves.
Point Blanc[]
A little while has gone by since his last mission and Alex has returned to an unassuming school life. A drug dealer named Skoda has been selling drugs to Alex's classmates, throwing their lives into disarray which disgusts Alex. He decides to follow Skoda on his bike as he leaves the school and follows him all the way to the barge he and his accomplice are staying in. Alex gets in a crane and tries to lift the barge and drop it in a car park but accidentally drops it into a police conference room. Nobody is killed but Alex is arrested, however, his arrest is noted by MI6 who bring him in once again to Alex's dismay and ask him to perform a job for them in return for having his charges waived. They want Alex to infiltrate a school in the Alps called Point Blanc where troubled rich kids go because two billionaires, Michael Roscoe in New York and General Ivanov in Russia, both died mysteriously and they both had rebellious sons who attended the boarding school. Alex is given the false identity of Alex Friend, son of David and Caroline Friend, who is a delinquent expelled from Eton and sent to stay with them. Their daughter Fiona at first is harsh on Alex, even letting her boyfriend play shoot at him but later on, while the two are horse rising together, Fiona falls in a train tunnel and Alex rescues her which gains him Fiona's admiration. Ms. Stellenbosch of Point Blanc soon arrives and picks up Alex, taking him to Paris for refuel. After dinner, Stellenbosch has Alex drugged and examined without his knowledge though he wakes up fine the next morning and is taken to Point Blanc soon after.
At Point Blanc, Alex quickly develops a friendship with James Sprintz, the only boy at the academy who doesn't act like a robot. Alex quickly makes notes on all the students within Point Blanc and based on how robotic they all act, deduces they might be brainwashed. A few days later, Alex sees James being dragged away by Stellenbosch and the guards screaming yet the next day he is eating breakfast totally fine and acting just as robotically as the other students which draws Alex's suspicions. He crawls up to the forbidden second and third floors through a soot-filled chimney but finds they are identical to the first down to the last detail. He overhears a conversation between school director Dr. Grief and a doctor employed by him, Mr. Baxter, which ends in Baxter being shot for asking Grief for more money. Alex leaves via a private elevator and signals MI6 for help but they hold off on sending help. Alex uses that same elevator the next day to check out the school's basement where he finds James and the other students imprisoned because Grief cloned himself and has disguised those clones as them while imprisoning the real versions of themselves in the basement of the school.
Alex tries to escape after telling them he is from MI6 but is caught and knocked out by Ms. Stellenbosch who brings him to Dr. Grief. Grief explains the full depths of his plans which are to send his clones back to the student's wealthy and well-connected families so he can take over the world. He then has Alex imprisoned and plans on dissecting him the next morning. Alex uses an exploding pin given to him by MI6 to escape his prison and slides down the mountain using an ironing board. Grief sends men on snowmobiles after him but Alex evades them all and ends up in the hospital where Ms. Jones has arrived and pretends that he is dead to ensure Grief doesn't kill the imprisoned students. MI6 plans on sending a raid lead by Wolf into the school which Alex insists on joining despite being frustrated he can't carry a gun. Alex and his team get into the school quickly but Alex ends up confronting Ms. Stellenbosch who beats him up and tries to kill him only to be killed by Wolf first. Grief tries to escape by helicopter but Alex sends his snowmobile into the sky and knocks the helicopter down. Afterwards, MI6 thanks Alex for his service again though Alex doesn't accept their words and asks never to be asked to spy again which Alan Blunt does not plan on complying with. Alex then goes back home where Jack tells him that his teacher Mr. Bray wanted to see him. Alex heads to school only to find the Grief clone that was to replace him there instead. Alex and the clone fight though one of them is defeated.
Skeleton Key[]
Alex is sent to Wimbledon by Smithers to keep an eye on things under the cover of being a ballboy so he can keep an eye on things due to a recent break-in which Alex accepts when Smithers tells him it will be relaxing and fun. During his time working there, Alex meets a girl named Sabina who he befriends but notices a Chinese guard acting suspiciously. While attempting to investigate the man, the guard turns on Alex and tries to kill him but Alex defeats the guard in combat and exposes his scheme which was to cheat the game. The man turns out to have been part of a gang called the Triads and while surfing with Sabina, a Triad member on a jet ski attacks Alex for revenge but Alex defeats him but learns that he's no longer safe due to the Triads so MI6 and the CIA sends Alex to the island of Skeleton Key off the coast of Cuba alongside CIA agents Turner and Troy. They want him to act as the two agent's cover so they can investigate a Russian general named Sarov who is staying there and has a meeting with the Russian president coming up where he may do something dangerous. Alex is hesitant but has little choice and is assured he won't have to do anything. Turner and Troy are not happy with having to deal with a teenager which annoys Alex though spending time with them while playing family makes him wonder what a normal family would be like.
On Skeleton Key, Alex finds a Geiger counter in a Nintendo that Turner and Troy gave him and realizes they're looking for a nuclear weapon. Despite Turner and Troy's insistence, Alex insists on accompanying them on their mission to survey General Sarov's house so he doesn't have to sit around the hotel, however, the two don't come back in time. Alex goes to investigate and finds the fault they were using to infiltrate the house is more well-defended than they thought and the two agents are dead but upon return, he is kidnapped by a mercenary named Conrad whose serving Sarov. Conrad tries torturing Alex but is stopped by Sarov. Sarov explains to Alex that he had a son, Vladimir, who looked a lot like Alex and died while fighting in Afghanistan and he wants Alex to take his son's place. He has Alex sleep in the slave house but otherwise gives him free reign. Alex gets to meet the Russian President when he's visiting. He tries to escape by hiding in his car but is caught. Later on, Sarov has the president and his other guests drugged and has Alex and the rest of his men and the nuclear weapon taken aboard a plane with the destination of Murmansk in Russia in mind. Here, Sarov explains to Alex that he plans on triggering a nuclear explosion in Murmansk that will spread fallout across Europe in an abandoned Soviet-era shipyard so he can encourage the Russian people to rise up against the current president and restore Communism with him at their helm. Alex is horrified by this plan. While refuelling in Britain, Alex uses an explosive hidden in bubble gum that Smithers gave him to escape the plane but is recaptured. Alex is brought to Murmansk where Sarov has Alex chained to a peer while Conrad sets up the explosion. Alex manages to escape though but is attacked by Conrad who Alex defeats by lifting him with a magnet and throwing him into the sea. He is confronted by Sarov who threatens to shoot Alex but after Alex tells him he'd rather die than have a father like him, Sarov shoots himself in front of him. This scars Alex mentally who lashes out at Jack for the first time upon being brought home though he quells this feeling slightly by meeting with Sabina again.
Eagle Strike[]
Alex is on vacation in the south of France with Sabina and her family. One day while on the beach, he notices Yassen on a boat alongside some other men. Alex goes off so he can watch Yassen which he does while hiding outside of a restaurant he's in and overhearing a call between him and a client. Alex realizes Yassen is on a mission but ignores it because he wants to spend some time as a normal teenager. However, later in the day, he learns that Sabina's dad was caught in a fire and barely survived which makes him realize that Yassen was targeting the Pleasures. He boards Yassen's boat to investigate him and points a gun at Yassen when he finds him but is unable to kill him which leads to his capture. Yassen decides to put him in a gladiatorial arena with a live audience to make him fight a bull. Alex throws the flag at the audience which allows him to escape. He then calls a number he found on Yassen's phone and realizes the number links to pop star Damien Cray. When Alex goes home, he explains his suspicions to Jack who believes him. He tries bringing Sabina to the Royal & General Bank but MI6 act as if the place is a normal bank which makes Sabina think Alex is lying and leave him.
Ms. Jones and Alan Blunt appear after Sabina leaves and tell Alex he shouldn't tell anyone about his activities. Alex tries explaining his suspicions about Cray but MI6 does not believe him due to Cray's extensive charity work and how harmless he seems which annoys Alex. Alex goes back home to Jack and there he learns that Cray is releasing a console called the Gameslayer with an advanced system which Alex decides to investigate. Smithers mails Alex a bike which he is to use to investigate Cray. Alex and Jack go to the Pleasure Dome where the Gameslayer will be unveiled, getting in after Jack pickpockets a ticket. The unveiling seems quite normal until Cray asks Alex to do a test run of the game. Alex does surprisingly well which causes Cray to intentionally bump Alex to make him lose. After the show, Alex wonders if he was wrong about Cray but then learns a journalist who questioned the Gameslayer at the event died suddenly so decides to continue and goes to Paris to meet a photographer named Marc Antonio who worked with Edward Pleasure. Antonio explains an NSA member named Charlie Roper was meeting with Cray and they were investigating but he is then killed by attacking gunmen who Alex kills by jumping off the building. Alex then goes to Amsterdam where Cray's video game company is based, breaks into the compound using Smither's tech and overhears Cray and Yassen talking about a flash drive and a plan called Eagle Strike and Cray killing Roper. They catch Alex and Cray has him but into a real-life version of the game he had played earlier but Alex escapes by cheating in various ways he could only do as a real person and not an avatar. He fakes his death in order to bypass Cray's guards, steals the drive from his room and escapes back to London with Jack.
When he gets back to London, however, Alex learns that Sabina has been kidnapped by Cray who demands the drive in return for her. Alex surrenders himself but threatens to destroy the drive if Cray doesn't release Sabina (hoping she'll go to the police) but Cray refuses and has them both captured. Sabina apologizes to Alex for not believing him before. Cray then invites Alex and Sabina to tea and tells them Eagle Strike is his plan to hijack the American nuclear weapons system so he can wipe out the drug-producing regions of the world so he can "make the world a better place." Yassen then has Alex and Sabina out on biochemical suits which will make it impossible to tell they are underage and they are brought alongside the rest of Cray's agents to the airport in Amsterdam where they are forced to follow Cray as he forcefully seizes control of Air Force One, creating a fake nerve gas scare to distract everyone and then using a stolen copy of the President's fingerprint to launch the nukes. Cray then orders Yassen to kill Alex and Sabina because he's bored of them but Yassen refuses to Cray shoots him and then Alex but Alex survives because he was wearing a bulletproof suit Smithers gave him. Sabina then attacks Cray and is helped out by Alex. They wrestle with Cray for a while until managing to knock him out of the plane and into the jet engine. This causes the plane to crash though Sabina disables the nukes in time. Yassen, as he is dying, tells Alex that his father was a contract killer like him who MI6 killed and that he should go to Venice and find something called Scorpia. Alex is confused by what Scorpia means though doesn't tell MI6 what Yassen told him. Sabina, meanwhile moves to America with her family which saddens Alex.
Scorpia[]
Alex has been working hard to make up for all the school work he missed and eventually is given the opportunity to go on a field trip to Venice. Alex plans on using the trip to find out what Scorpia is. He notices a boat with a scorpion on it and follows it until it reaches a luxurious building where a party is being held by a woman named Julia Rothman. Alex sneaks in with the help of his friend Tom and ends up almost being killed by a tiger until it is deacticated by a man named Nile. Alex mentions Scorpia to Nile who immediately tries to drown him but Alex escapes through a pipe. Alex later learns that Scorpia has connections to Consanto Enterprises and with the help of Tom and his older brother, Alex parachutes onto the roof of the building. Alex encounters Nile again who kills the company head, Dr. Lieberman, and invites Alex to come with him as he destroys the building which he accepts. Nile takes Alex to have dinner with Julia Rothman. She explains to Alex that Scorpia is an international criminal organization and his father was one of their best agents who assassinated six people. One day, he was captured by MI6 who arranged for a hostage exchange between them where MI6 would return his dad in return for the son of a British senior civil servants son who Scorpia had kidnapped. The exchange happened on Albert Bridge but MI6 betrayed Scorpia and shot Alex's father. Julia tells Alex that Ms. Jones was the shooter and Alex agrees to help Scorpia.
Alex is taken to a Scorpia-operated school on Malagosto island where he is subjected to a series of physical exams but deemed healthy and put through a series of training courses which he does swimmingly at. Julia and the school officials, however, realize that Alex does not possess the mind of a killer so decide to send him on a mission to assassinate Ms. Jones. They bring Alex back into the UK at the same time as one of their terrorist attacks to distract airport personnel. Alex is sent to Ms. Jones apartment complex disguised as a pizza boy. He puts his gun and other supplies in a soda bottle and leaves it on the front desk "accidentally" so that the men working there will hand it to him and not send it through the metal detector. Alex goes up to Ms. Jones floor and knocks out a guard. He then comes face-to-face with Ms. Jones. Alex, seeing the photos of Ms. Jones with her family, starts having doubts as his perception of her as just a target fades. AALex eventually ends up shooting but he doesn't hit her due to an invisible pane of bulletproof glass blocking her and gets arrested. He is held in confinement for a while before being brought to meet Alan Blunt for breakfast. Blunt explains to Alex that Scorpia is threatening to kill thousands of British children using unknown means if their demands are not met. Blunt brings Alex to a meeting of British officials including the Prime Minister where Alex and the officials realize Scorpia is going to use a beam sent by a satellite to trigger poisons but in the bloodstreams of British children via vaccines.
The British government believes they can handle the situation though Alan Blunt disagrees and has Alex sent on a mission back into Scorpia in order to find out where their satellite is. Alex realizes Scorpia injected him with the poison to but goes on the mission anyways. MI6 arranges a fake car crash in which Alex supposedly escaped custody. He then calls Scorpia who bring him back to their base. Alex meets Julia Rothman again who has Nile search him for trackers. He finds none because the tracker is actually in his brace. Julia takes Alex to an empty church where Scorpia is using a hot air balloon to activate the poisons from. Alex accidentally mentions that children will die causing Julia to realize he has a tracker in his brace. Before they can do anything though, MI6 storms in having been alerted by Alex. Scorpia launches the hot air balloon which Alex grabs onto and tries to deactivate the satellite. Nile climbs on behind him but Alex realizes Nile is scared of heights and uses this to take him out before disabling the satellite in the nick of time, causing the balloon to crash and kill Julia Rothman. Afterward, Alex is taken to the Royal & General again by MI6 who tell Alex the truth: That his father was never a Scorpia agent but a double agent in deep cover. His "death" on the bridge was faked. He actually died alongside Alex's mother months later when Julia Rothman found out he was a double agent and bombed the plane he was on. Alex leaves the Royal & General that day conflicted after learning all this information but then he is shot by a Scorpia sniper from a nearby roof which he barely survives.
Personality[]
Alex has become quite obstinate, courageous independent in his character as a result of having no parents. Quick-witted and good at assessing the dangers ahead of him, particularly on missions, he has a very strong level of intuition. Though he is prone to extreme emotion at times (such as fear and panic) he never lets it get the better of him. Shown to be a mature teenager, Alex is good at analyzing situations, before then often going on to handle them better than most adults would be able to.
He has a kind-hearted personality and retains this even after being exposed to death and danger on a regular basis because of his involvement with MI6. He is shown to have a good sense of humour, often aiming bits of snarky and dry mockery at his enemies despite the danger that he is in. He purposefully does this because he knows that people make more mistakes when they're angry. He is also pessimistic and can be rather rigid towards people, especially to Tom Turner and Belinda Troy in Skeleton Key, since they keep ignoring and antagonising him, despite the fact that he saved their lives.
He is an extremely self-sacrificing, brave and heroic person, always willing to give himself up for his friends or family. He is also sarcastic and frequently angers those around him with a cutting remark. He cares very much for people such as Jack Starbright or Sabina Pleasure. He is rather deductive and extensively brilliant, displaying a natural talent for espionage techniques. He is an excellent tactician and an adept spy, using several of his teenage characteristics to his advantage.
After each and every mission, Alex is severely traumatized. By the end of Scorpia Rising, he's profoundly emotionally damaged. Losing his housekeeper, the only adult who really cared about him, was a major blow, but shooting Julius was also a contributing factor. Not only did he kill another human being, he killed a person who looked just like him. Essentially, he killed himself. Because of this, he is mostly quiet and brooding after it's all over. The head of CIA, Joe Bryne compared it to "As if he had aged ten years."
However, this was not the end for Alex. After a month of living in the US, he received an email, reading "ALEXX I'M AL---"; he was convinced that Jack had not died in a car bombing, and ran away to Egypt, to the fortress where he believed she died. He eventually discovered that Jack was indeed alive and well, having been kidnapped by Mafia leaders Giovanni and Eduardo Grimaldi, and being used by them to attend to fifty-two kidnapped schoolchildren, whom the Grimaldi twins had stolen for ransom. They reunited and rescued the captured children, returning to their Chelsea home, and resuming their old lives: Alex going back to school, and Jack returning to study law.
Quote[]
| “ | I was just working in the Crime figures, I think there’s been a drop. | „ |
| ~ Alex foiling an underwater drug operation in Point Blanc. |
External Links[]
- [1] - taken from Alex Rider Fandom.