Alex Rider (character)
From BookJive
Alex Rider (character) | |
 | |
| Description: | A young agent for MI6, the British international intelligence service. |
| Book List: | Harry Potter Series |
Alexander "Alex" Rider is a fictional character. He is the protagonist and title character of the popular Alex Rider series of novels by British author Anthony Horowitz. He is also the protagonist of two short stories written by Horowitz based in the same canon as the series, Secret Weapon and Christmas at Gunpoint.
Alex is a young agent for MI6, the British international intelligence service. At no more than fourteen years of age, Alex was forced into this occupation after MI6 noticed Alex's many talents.
Alex is often known as "the reluctant teenage super-spy".
He was played in the film Stormbreaker, based on the novel of the same name, by Alex Pettyfer.
[edit] Physical appearance
Alex Rider is described as a strikingly good-looking 14-year-old boy, with fair hair that hangs in strands, and a handsome, slender face that "would attract plenty of girls". He has serious dark-brown eyes and a slightly hard, narrow mouth.
Alex is well-built and slim, and has a sun tan. He is also mentioned to have a birthmark on his left shoulder. He is very fit, being described as having "the body of an athlete"[1]. Alex is of medium height but quite tall for his age.
Alex wears mostly casual clothing, and often wears a wooden bead necklace.
Towards the later novels, though he stays fourteen throughout the series, Alex is described as looking older - this being due to the difficulties and pain he endures because of his MI6 life.
[edit] Characteristics
Alex has become quite independent in his character as a result of having no parents. He is quick-witted and good at assessing dangers ahead of him, especially on his missions, and he has very strong intuition. Though he is prone to extreme emotion (especially fear and panic) he never lets it get the better of him.
Alex has a good-hearted personality, and even maintains this after the effects of his MI6 life. He is a particularly mature boy; he can often handle difficult situations with care and intensity like that of an adult. He is generally polite and well-spoken.
He has a rather dry sense of humour, with a tendency to make jokes during difficult situations, and also to mock the flaws and physical appearance of his enemies and their actions.
[edit] Background and personal life
Alexander Rider was born on 13th February 1987, in West London, England, to John Rider, an MI6 agent, and Helen Rider, a nurse working in radiology.
When Alex was a baby, his mother and father were killed by Scorpia in a bombing after an aeroplane had landed. Fortunately, Alex was not on the aeroplane (though he was meant to be at the time); he had an ear infection and stayed behind with a nanny. Alex's paternal uncle, Ian Rider, raised Alex after his parents died.
Ian and Alex were very close, and when Ian was home they did practically everything together. Ian often took Alex around the world to educate him about other cultures. Alex has lived abroad, once spending the best part of a year living in Barcelona, Spain, and he has also stayed in the Marais district of Paris, France.
Because Alex's parents and uncle have died, his former housekeeper/babysitter (now his new guardian), Jack Starbright, takes care of him.
Alex currently lives in Chelsea, London, with Jack Starbright. He attends Brookland Comprehensive School and is now in year 9 of secondary school (third year of high school). Alex has a friend in this school named Tom Harris who finds out about his MI6 life. But unlike Sabina Pleasure, Tom is very supportive of Alex and covers for him whenever he needs it.
Alex has been raised in a somewhat different environment than most other boys his age. As a result, he tends not to relate much to his peers, and does not have many friends at his school, apart from Tom Harris. But Alex does not mind this, as he is not the type to hunger for popularity.
Before Alex was forced to join MI6, he wanted to be a footballer, but now is unsure of what he wants to do when he leaves school. He still does not express any interest whatsoever in following his father's (and uncle's) footsteps in becoming a full-time MI6 agent.
[edit] School life
Alex normally goes to Brookland School in London, but his education has been interrupted several times for MI6 missions. Alex's school life suffers quite a lot from the disruptions of his life as a spy.
From what Alex's hobbies are, it is easy to tell what this favourite school subjects would be: Physical Education and Language would be among them. It is also mentioned that he finds Physics boring. Alex once displayed remarkable skills in a Mathematics class when he solved a problem on the blackboard after only glancing at it, despite having been distracted most of the lesson.
Jack Starbright often worries about Alex's academic life - she even hires a tutor to help Alex catch up with the schoolwork he missed while on errands for MI6.
The school secretary, Jane Bedfordshire, has always had a soft spot for Alex.
[edit] Relationships
Jack Starbright The person Alex has had the most time with is Jack Starbright, his uncle Ian always having been away on business. Alex met Jack when she came from America under employment of his uncle as a housekeeper and babysitter for Alex, who was seven years old at the time. She has known Alex for seven years. After Ian died, Jack became Alex's guardian. Jack is by far Alex's closest friend, and even though it was originally her job to care for Alex, they have grown attached and their relationship has become very personal. However, as Alex's MI6 life starts to take a toll on him, it also places somewhat of a strain on their relationship - Jack is always very worried and upset that Alex's life is constantly being put in danger.
Sabina Pleasure Alex met Sabina at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and they quickly became good friends. Sabina soon became suspicious when Alex had to leave the Championships early, and more so when Sabina saves his life and then he disappears for weeks on a mission. Alex's constant disappearances place a real difficulty on their relationship, and when Sabina finally finds out the truth about Alex when they are kidnapped, things turn out differently for them. Sabina soon leaves Britain to live in America. Sabina shows great romantic feeling for Alex, as she has kissed him twice, and expressed her feelings to Alex that he is attractive.
[edit] Talents
Alex is fluent in several languages - as well as his native English, he speaks fluent French, German and Spanish. He also speaks basic Italian and Japanese.
Alex is skilled in many activities, including extreme sports - martial arts (Alex is a black belt in karate), scuba diving, abseiling, mountain climbing, rifle shooting and snowboarding. He also plays tennis, football and basketball, and is on the Brookland School basketball team.
While on a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic, Alex learnt the "art" of pickpocketing from his uncle. He puts this skill to use when he needs a special persons' ticket to a conference to investigate Damian Cray, though he feels remorse about it.
Alex is also skilled in snooker, and represents the junior team at his local snooker club.
Alex's athletic talents greatly assist him during his missions many times, for example in Stormbreaker he rides a fourwheeler to elude guards, in Point Blanc he snowboards down a mountain on an ironing board to escape Point Blanc Academy, in Skeleton Key he Scuba dives into Skeleton Key, in Scorpia he BASE jumps into a factory and in Ark Angel he walks between two skyscrapers on a tightrope.
As the series progresses, Alex becomes exceptionally more skilled at spying, to the point that he sometimes investigates and pursues some enemies by himself while not on an MI6 mission.
Throughout the series, Alex has demonstrated great persuasive ability - in Scorpia he successfully convinces his school friend that he is a spy; in Scorpia convinces Scorpia that he'd completed a mission despite the fact he hadn't; in Ark Angel he talks kidnappers out of cutting off his finger.
[edit] MI6 life
As an MI6 agent (as unwilling as he is) Alex has been sent on numerous missions, all notably within one year, and these have had an impact on him in various ways. They are:
[edit] Stormbreaker - From schoolboy to superspy: Alex's first mission
After Alex's uncle dies in strange circumstances, Alex wants to investigate the matter. He goes to the breaker's yard where his uncle's car is crushed, and he narrowly escapes after he himself is almost crushed with it. MI6 had a hidden camera on Alex during this, and are curious about him. Crawley, MI6's messenger, phones Alex and invites him to the "bank". Alex complies, but is curious to look in his uncle's office (which is locked), and he climbs out of a 17th story window and talentedly maneuvres to the office window to do that.
Alex finds his uncle's work documents. He is deeply shocked by what he finds out: Ian Rider was not a banker as Jack and Alex originally believed. He was an agent for MI6, and was killed on his last mission. By encouraging Alex's hobbies, Ian had trained Alex his whole life to be his successor. Upon realising this, Alex is highly reluctant.
Alex does not want to be an agent for MI6, in fact, initially he flatly refuses. But he is told that his legal guardian Jack Starbright will be deported and Alex sent to an institution if he does not cooperate. Alex does not want this for Jack or himself, so reluctantly he agrees. He is sent to a training camp to prepare for his first mission.
Alex is made to train with people much older than himself, making him feel out of place, and this is made worse in that he is bullied by the other trainees. But Alex wins their respect when he does well in the training and proves his worth.
After Alex finishes training with the SAS, he is sent to Cornwall in South England to investigate a Middle Eastern multi billionaire, Herod Sayle. Alex poses undercover as Felix Lester, the winner of a computer magazine contest. As Alex investigates, he gradually discovers more about his uncle's final mission.
Alex's cover is blown, and Sayle, now aware of what Alex is doing, keeps Alex tied down in his office - rendering him helpless to thwart Sayle's plans to destroy the children of Britain with a virus. Alex manages to escape using the gadgets Smithers gave him, and his mission is a success - Alex bursts into the Science Museum and shoots the virus's activation button.
Sayle attempts to take revenge on Alex after the mission. As Alex is walking out of MI6 headquarters, he is kidnapped by Sayle and taken to a helipad, where Sayle tries to shoot him, but Yassen Gregorovich arrives and shoots Sayle, saving Alex's life.
[edit] Point Blanc- - Alex's second mission in the French Alps
Alex is back at school. One day he finds a drug dealer near his school and follows him, eventually using a crane to destroy the drug dealer's supplies. This leads on to Alex's next mission.
Alex is sent to the French Alps to Point Blanc Academy, a proclaimed school for misbehaving wealthy boys, to investigate the supposed head teacher of the school, Dr. Grief. Alex goes undercover as Alex Friend, rebellious son of Sir David Friend. For his cover, he has to dress and behave completely different - he has his ear pierced, a different hairstyle, and different clothes. To reinforce his cover, Alex pretends to drink gin when he first arrives in the Point Blanc hotel, knowing that there are surveillance cameras monitoring him.
Alex is dining in the hotel, when he realises he has been drugged - his drink has been spiked. Alex staggers out to his hotel room where he collapses. He is transported to a laboratory where doctors strip him of his clothing and examine every inch of him, with the intention of replacing him with a clone. When Alex wakes up, it seems nothing has happened - but after this, Alex finds that Point Blanc Academy is not what it claims to be, and is a threat to the future of the world.
When Dr. Grief finds out that Alex is investigating him, he reveals his plan to replace the Point Blanc students with clones of himself (his "children"), surgically altered to look like them, so he can control the world's major suppliers. He arranges for Alex to be dissected alive in a biology class. Alex manages to escape using the gadgets Smithers gave him, including an exploding earring. He also makes a snowboard out of an ironing board and uses it to slide down the steep mountain from Point Blanc, while Dr. Grief's security guards pursue him. When leaping over a speeding train, he crashes and is hospitalised, and Dr. Grief's agent is told that he has died. Fortunately, Alex wasn't badly injured, and MI6 sends him back to Point Blanc Academy to take Dr. Grief by surprise.
After the success of this mission, Alex returns home, but his relief is short-lived. He finds out that Dr. Grief and his staff managed to surgically alter the last Grief clone to look like Alex after he had been drugged at the hotel - the clone is completely identical to Alex, apart from his voice. The two Alexes have a showdown in Alex's school.
[edit] Skeleton Key - Alex becomes a target for assassination
Plus or minus three weeks after Point Blanc, Alex is playing soccer when he unexpectedly encounters Crawley, who tells him about how MI6 expects the Wimbledon Tennis Championships are being sabotaged. Alex is soon sent to the Championships undercover as a ballboy. It is here that he meets Sabina Pleasure, his recurring love interest.
A Big Circle (Chinese gang) assassin finds out Alex is investigating the games, and unsuccessfully attempts to kill him. Alex is almost killed again by another assassin later when he is on a surfing holiday with Sabina in Cornwall - Alex rides the "Cribber" wave on Fistral Beach despite the fact that he is too young, when the assassin attempts to run him over with a jet ski. Though he escapes the gang member, he cannot escape the relentless tide of the Cribber. Alex gets trapped in the tide and drowns. A frightened Sabina searches the water for Alex, and eventually finds him. After dragging his body ashore, Sabina attempts to resuscitate him with mouth-to-mouth. When Alex still does not breathe, she pounds on his chest and he finally coughs up. The Big Circle assassin disappears.
The holiday is interrupted when Alex is taken to hospital. To escape the Big Circle, Alex is forced to leave Britain temporarily. MI6 sends him to Skeleton Key, an island near Cuba, to investigate General Alexei Sarov, a wealthy but suspicious man who lives there. Alex goes undercover as Alex Gardiner, an American boy supposedly visiting on holiday. Two CIA agents accompany him, undercover as his "parents", though both are soon killed by an underwater trap set by Sarov. When Alex is attacked by a great white shark, the same trap kills it.
Alex is captured by Conrad, Sarov's deformed assistant. He is brought to an old sugar factory, placed on a conveyor belt, and is forced to tell Conrad that he is a spy, as well as why he is spying - while the conveyor belt is gradually moving him towards a deadly, grinding crusher. However, just before he is about to be crushed, Sarov unexpectedly somes to his rescue - but not without a price.
Alex becomes a prisoner in Skeleton Key, kept against his will by Sarov. Alex must find a way to escape before Sarov puts his threatening plan to action. Sarov also develops twisted, sentimental feelings for Alex. He tells Alex he wants to adopt him, as Alex reminds him of his deceased son. When Alex refuses, claiming he would rather be dead than have the terrorist Sarov as a father, he shoots himself in front of Alex. Alex is taken to hospital in Moscow by Russian police and eventually back to England.
Alex is affected deeply by the events of this mission. He suffers such depression that even Jack Starbright, his closest friend, can not console him - she attempts to get him to see a doctor, and for the first time in his life he snaps at her. Her attempts to uplift him are not successful, and Alex begins to realise that his life will never be normal. But Alex soon encounters Sabina Pleasure again, who invites him on holiday to France. After this Alex is positive and content again.
[edit] Eagle Strike - Alex's first adventure on his own
Alex is on holiday with Sabina Pleasure in the south of France when he sees Yassen Gregorovich, the assassin who killed his uncle. This makes Alex very wary and no longer able to enjoy the holiday. Soon their holiday home is destroyed by a bomb, injuring Sabina's father. Alex is sure Yassen was involved, so he investigates.
When Yassen finds out, he tests Alex's skills by forcing him into a bullfight. Alex is forced to wear a matador costume and endure a terrifying ordeal from a bull, all of this in public. Alex eventually succeeds, and manages to escape Yassen and his accomplices with only minor injuries, before being safely returned to England.
During this, Alex finds out that Yassen's mobile phone has the number of Damian Cray, a singer and anti-drugs campaigner. He suspects Damian Cray was also involved in the holiday house incident.
When Alex attempts to tell Sabina this, he is also forced to tell her he is an MI6 agent, as he would have no other way of explaining his sudden disappearances on her, as well as why he knows so much about the incident. But problems arise when Sabina does not believe him. Alex attempts to prove it to her by actually taking her to the MI6 building - but it appears to only be a bank. Alex is angry that MI6 would do that to him, especially when Sabina tells him he has mental problems and deserts him.
Alex is determined to gather evidence. Accompanied by Jack Starbright, he travels from France to the Netherlands investigating Cray.
Alex acquires a ticket to a conference Cray is attending, where Cray introduces his new game console, the Gameslayer. Alex is the only teenager in the conference, so he is ushered onto the stage and made to play the Gameslayer. When Alex is starting to beat the game, Cray cheats him into a loss by pulling his arm away.
Alex continues to investigate Cray when suddenly Cray finds out what Alex is doing. Alex is captured and forced to endure a real-life replica of Cray's video game, and is nearly killed - he barely manages to escape.
Alex does not go undercover in this installment.
[edit] Scorpia - Alex wants revenge against MI6
Alex has been told by a now-dead Yassen Gregorovich to go to Venice to find "Scorpia" so he can find his "destiny". He has also found out that Yassen once worked with Alex's father. Alex is confused and unhappy about this, as he does not know what Scorpia is, or what it has to do with him.
Meanwhile, Jack Starbright has expressed worry over Alex's schooling - concerned about Alex's progress due to the constant interruptions of his missions, Jack hires a tutor for a reluctant Alex. This really annoys Alex, as he has to work very hard in order to catch up.
Alex finds out his friend Tom is going on a vacation to Italy so de decides to go with him, hoping to find Scorpia. When Alex infiltrates Widow's palace Tom covers for him as he investigates.
When Alex eventually finds Scorpia, he discovers it is an organisation his father worked for, and joins them without telling MI6. Alex does this because he wants revenge against MI6 for all of the things they put him through. His first mission is to kill Mrs Jones, the head deputy of Special Operations.
While temporarily working for Scorpia, Alex goes undercover as a pizza delivery boy while infiltrating Mrs Jones's apartment. He does not succeed, and realising that Scorpia are attempting to use him against MI6, Alex goes back to MI6 and does a mission to investigate Scorpia for them. This mission is a success.
Upon his return from the mission, Alex finds out that his father was not an assassin; he worked for MI6 undercover as an assassin, and that it was Scorpia that killed Alex's parents.
As he is walking out of MI6's building, Alex is about to phone Jack Starbright and ask her to go out with him - when he is shot in the chest by a Scorpia assassin. Alex is rendered unable to breathe. He sees his deceased mother and father, having a near-death experience, before losing consciousness.
[edit] Ark Angel - Alex is dragged back into spying
Alex is alive.
In spite of having been severely wounded in the last installment, Alex manages to survive when the bullet, aimed at his heart, missed it by centimetres and hit his upper lung structures instead, explaining why Alex could not breathe. He was rushed to St. Dominics hospital to get surgery for his damaged artery and awaits his return home after eleven days. But on his final night in hospital, he is forced into action once again when four sinister men forcefully enter the hospital asking for Paul Drevin, and Alex witnesses them murder the night receptionist, who was Alex's friend.
Alex defeats the men single-handedly using a range of hospital equipment, but he is finally overpowered when he is knocked out and kidnapped. The kidnappers think he is Paul Drevin, and are about to cut off his finger when Alex manages to convince them that he is not Paul Drevin. They try to kill him after this, but he escapes and goes back to hospital.
At home, Jack reveals to Alex her doubts as to whether she is able to continue looking after him, as he is always getting into difficult situations and she feels useless. As always, Alex reassures her otherwise. Suddenly, Nikolei Drevin, Paul's father, calls and asks Alex to join him for lunch. Alex agrees, but it would be a decision he would regret.
[edit] Snakehead
The seventh novel of the Alex Rider series is unpublished as of yet. Information on plans for Alex's character can be found in the article for Snakehead. hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi whats whats whta111ajgksjgiwaegjiwe WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTT!!!
[edit] Notes
Despite coming face-to-face with many criminals and having personally witnessed many murders and other deaths, Alex does not possess a killer's instinct, and never kills unless in self-defense; however, he has personally killed or been responsible for many of the deaths of the criminals he faces for this reason.
In addition to being employed by MI6 in Stormbreaker and Point Blanc, Alex has done two missions for the CIA, in Skeleton Key and Ark Angel, and will do a mission for Australian intelligence in Snakehead. In Eagle Strike and Scorpia, he becomes involved in adventures for personal reasons.
