Characters / Alex Rider

Protagonists

Alex

Alex Rider

Alexander John Rider

Played by: Alex Pettyfer (2006 film), Otto Farrant (2020 TV series)

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Point Blanc | Skeleton Key | Eagle Strike | Scorpia | Ark Angel | Snakehead | Crocodile Tears | Scorpia Rising | Russian Roulette | Never Say Die | Secret Weapon | Nightshade

Alex as he appears in the graphic novels

Alex Rider: "I'm too young to die."

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. He has not only worked for MI6, but also the CIA, Scorpia (in Scorpia), and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (in Snakehead).

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Alex has "fair" hair in the books, later described as light brown in Crocodile Tears. The film and graphic novels (which came out before Crocodile Tears) have it as blond.
• Bully Hunter: Alex befriended Tom by going after his bullies.
• Butt-Monkey: Poor Alex can hardly take a breath of fresh air without being whisked away on another life-threatening, trauma-inducing mission.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Alex is quite nonchalant sometimes about the various death traps and problems he faces....
• Child Soldier: To put it bluntly he entered his business in a similar manner to Shinji Ikari.
• Combat Pragmatist: Has been known to use whatever resources are available to him to win in a fight.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Faces the possibility and escapes this, in Point Blanc, Dr. Grief wants to perform an anaesthetized vivisection on Alex. In layman's terms, he wants to harvest organs from Alex while he's still awake. You may now vomit and shudder. Eventually in Scorpia Rising. Alex is water-boarded by the CIA. Thankfully, Joe Byrne intervenes. Later Razim pulls out his own brand.
• Covered in Scars: Alex is covered in injuries and "souvenirs" from his missions, including a bullet wound just beneath his heart, the scars across his back from being set on fire by an exploding petrol drum, touching a poisonous spider's web, being repeatedly punched in the head by Damian Cray, the aftereffects of being dangled out of a coach window and using a float from a seaplane as a makeshift kayak.
• Deadpan Snarker: Even — maybe especially — in the face of terrible events. Possibly becomes something of a coping mechanism.
• Despair Event Horizon: Pushed over it by Razim.
• Drink-Based Characterization: His usual drink of choice is a Coke or an orange juice.
• Expy: The author wrote him as a teenage James Bond. He even gets unfavourably compared to him a few times by his detractors In-Universe. Case in point his nickname during training: Double O-Nothing.
  • On the other hand, he can also be the end result of imagining Shinji Ikari as a spy.
• Fauxreigner: In Skeleton Key, he poses as the child of an American family from Hollywood. Unfortunately, the Big Bad already knows who they really are.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: Played with. While the Big Bad of the book usually ends up dead, and mostly because of Alex, he rationalizes them away as accidents (in that he didn't intend any of them to die or directly have a hand in their deaths). Alex's willingness to kill is treated by the series as a strict code he has no intentions of breaking—when SCORPIA manipulates him into trying to kill Ms. Jones by showing her ordering his father's death, Alex still has trouble shooting. Eventually, he does shoot, but later is told that his shot would have missed despite being at point-blank range, meaning he really can't kill. In the last two books, Alex begins to lose this innocence, doing things that would definitely kill the recipients—in Crocodile Tears, he cuts open a mook's protective suit while in a toxic biodome and attaches an explosive to a fuel barrel before rolling it over to the main villain. Finally, in Scorpia Rising, the last book he shoots Julius Grief point-blank in the head while the former was at his mercy, but scrambling for a gun. Unusually, this is treated as a good thing, kind of. Ms. Jones states later that due to Julius' personality and appearance, Alex also symbolically killed off the part of his mind that MI6 created—in other words, the part that killed Julius in the first place.
• Gallows Humor: All the time. It would be easier to count the times where he hasn't cracked a joke in the face of terrible events.
• Good with Numbers: In Stormbreaker, Alex shows he is adept in mathematics as he solves a problem on the board just after glancing at it.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: He defects to Scorpia in the novel of the same name, but eventually stays a "Face" after learning the truth about what they really have planned.
• He Who Fights Monsters: It started out with taking out Tom's bullies then taking out Skoda, and later, Damian Cray.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Described as a spy wanting to be a schoolboy.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome/In Harm's Way: Who can't seem to keep himself out of high-risk situations even when Blunt isn't blackmailing him (even though he truly hates his "job") and refuses to quit before it's over...once it's started, anyway. (Also an unusual case in that he's usually not truly motivated by the greater good, although that's certainly a factor, instead being at least partially motivated by the well-being of people he cares about. Both tropes are downplayed.)
• Improbable Weapon User: Being a Combat Pragmatist, Alex has used unlikely objects to take down his foes. Such as a snowmobile.
• Heroic Blue Screen of Death: Suffers one at the end of Scorpia Rising and when Jack is killed.
• In the Blood: His father, his uncle, and his godfather were all spies before him.
• Ironic Name: Rider, if it is in the context of horseback riding, the one sport he hates.
• Knight in Sour Armour: He hates being a spy, but conscience ultimately forces him to go into it. Well, that and Blunt often making it impossible to say no.
• Kung-Fu Kid: One of his ways of getting by with his black belt in karate, since he almost never has a gun.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Alex sometimes veers into this, especially in between missions. It's lampshaded in book two when he causes a lot of damage with a crane. Albeit because he didn't finish what he planned and things gust fell out of shape.
• Magical Defibrillator: Subverted. Alex attacks a character with a defibrillator. Given the misuse in other works, and the whole thing being preceded with something along the lines of "he knew what they did, he'd seen a lot of television", those must have been some pretty accurate television shows.
• Master of Disguise: One reason he blends in so well to backgrounds.
• Mr. Fanservice: Discounting Stormbreaker and it's graphic novel, Alex has appeared shirtless at least once in every novel and graphic novel, and is often described as good-looking and very fit.
• My God, What Have I Done?: A possible interpretation of his Heroic Blue Screen of Death at the end of Skeleton Key.
  • And in Scorpia Rising.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: Filters explicit stuff, until Scorpia Rising, where we are basically just told that Alex tells the CIA to go fuck themselves.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine : This happens frequently with Alex. He's dined with every one of the Big Bad's in each book.
  • Taken to its logical extreme in Skeleton Key where the villain more or less tries to adopt him and treats him like his now-dead biological son, after Alex ends up getting captured. Much of the book is the Big Bad letting (or rather, forcing) Alex to live with him in his luxury home, getting him to take part in various activities (like horse riding) and telling Alex We Can Rule Together. And dining with him, of course. He even forbids his Mooks and The Dragon from harming him (the latter gleefully disobeys) When Alex finally foils his Evil Plan and puts himself at his mercy, he chooses to shoot himself rather than kill him.
• Obfuscating Disability: Alex has been kidnapped and several agencies are looking for him. The bad guys need to get him through an airport without arousing suspicion. How do they do it? They drug him to make him look like a disabled person, they note that no one looks twice at a disabled person, working this to their advantage.
• Omniglot: Can fluently speak French, Spanish as well as some German. It is mentioned on the wiki that he speaks basic Latin and Japanese. He appears to be more fluent in Japanese in the film and graphic novels.
• Our Hero Is Dead: The ending of the penultimate chapter and beginning of the final chapter of Skeleton Key imply that Alex is dead before it turns out that Sarov killed himself, not Alex.
  • The end of Scorpia was not intended to be this as Horowitz believed the audience would assume Alex would be fine.
  • There's a bit of this in Point Blanc too, with MI6 organising a sham funeral to trick Stellenbosch and Dr Grief into thinking Alex was really dead.
• Overt Operative: This isn't a perfect example of this, in that the whole reason for using Alex Rider as a spy is that bad guys are supposed to think that he is Just a Kid. However, somehow the bad guys almost always find out who is really is and who he is working for, often by looking up his file in their Magical Database. Given how many times that his cover has been blown, it is amazing that he is still considered useful for covert operations.
  • He remains useful due to his unique psychology - though he's an experienced and blooded agent, he doesn't act like one consistently. His enemies are used to Child Soldiers, but they aren't used to one being so stable. Alex's lifestyle and worldview (a schoolboy who keeps getting blackmailed into covert operations rather than a covert operative who takes time off to go to school) keep him psychologically healthy enough for people to keep seeing the "schoolboy" and forget that they're looking at a fighter capable of disabling men three times his size with his bare hands and causing millions in property damage with the contents of the average closet.
  • Ironically enough, the fact that Alex is forbidden from ever carrying or using a gun is also a factor that probably contributes to his success. Without the recourse of direct violence to fall back on, Alex is constantly forced to think outside the box and resort to ideas and tactics that villains are unlikely to expect.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: In Scorpia Rising, he gets his revenge on Razim for torturing him and killing Jack.
• Percussive Pickpocket: In Prague in the Czech Republic, Alex learned pickpocketing from his uncle. Alex uses it to swipe matches from the man in charge of SAS training.
  • In Eagle Strike, he uses a similar technique to procure a ticket for Damian Cray's party.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: Alex's fight with his doppelganger at the end of Point Blanc.
  • It happens again in Scorpia Rising.
• Precision F-Strike: Tells the CIA to go fuck themselves.
• Pretty Boy: Thanks to the manga aesthetic of the graphic novels. Not that he's any different in the novels.
• Punch-Clock Hero: He admits as such in Scorpia, but this had been clear from Stormbreaker.
• Real Name as an Alias: A lot of his covers retain the first name “Alex”
• Reverse Psychology: Alex falls for this near the end of Point Blanc. After nearly killing himself at least three different ways to get out of the school, he refuses to help out in the attack...until Wolf comes in and tells him he's Just a Kid. Alex immediately demands to go with them, and realises what he's done five seconds too late.
• Right Under Their Noses: During Snakehead, Alex is trapped on the villain's ship and, with nowhere else to hide from the guards, spends a few nerve-wracking hours hiding under the villain's bed.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In Eagle Strike.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Losing every member of his family and then having the only real adult he can trust killed really takes his toll on him by the end.
• Shirtless Scene: In all novels and graphic novels except Stormbreaker.
• Shout-Out: The "Rider" part of his name comes from Honey Ryder.
• Technical Pacifist: He doesn't enjoy fighting. Doesn't mean he isn't really good at it.
• Teen Super Spy: A deconstruction.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted. He is often responsible in some way for the deaths of a Big Bad or their lieutenants at least once in each novel.
• Torture Always Works: Torture isn't even used much in the novel, and is usually avoided or interrupted.
  • In Skeleton Key when Conrad places Alex on a Sugar Grinder conveyor belt and threatens to grind him up if he doesn't talk. At first Alex attempts to lie but once that fails he spills everything. Conrad being the guy that he is, decides to... grind him him up anyways. Alex is only saved when Sarov interrupts.
  • In Ark Angel when Alex tells Kaspar that he's not Paul Drevin when one of the nameless Mooks attempts to cut off one of his fingers. Kaspar threatens to kill Alex if it turns out he's not really Paul Drevin but they purposely allow him to escape the death trap they built for him as it is all part of Nikolei Drevin's master plan.
  • And the time in Crocodile Tears where Alex was dangling over a pool of crocodiles and told Desmond McCain EVERYTHING rather quickly. Alex is only saved when Rahim interrupts.
  • And then there was the time Alex spilled his guts to a few CIA agents in Scorpia Rising to prevent this. They torture him anyway. He is only saved when their superior Joe Bryne (who knows Alex) intervenes.
• Trauma Conga Line: This is his life in a nutshell.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Some of Alex's escapes. In Scorpia Rising, he escapes because he had a scorpion hidden in a cigarette packet which he'd captured whilst in his cell, which he then placed in the van and tricked Erik Gunter into opening. The only thing the reader knows about this before it happens is that there is a nest of scorpions in Alex's cell.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Anthony Horowitz didn't expect anyone to believe Alex was really dead at the end of Scorpia because the gun used by the assassin is completely unsuited to assassination attempts.
• Villain Killer: As noted by Julia Rothman in Scorpia, almost every villain Alex has gone up against has ended up dead due to his actions, though he doesn't see himself as a murderer by that point, seeing as he's usually acting in self-defense and/or without the intent to kill.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Averted. Alex misses most of his schooling due to his missions. It's gotten to the point that everyone, both student and faculty, somehow knows that there's something wrong with him and that there's more to him than just "illnesses".
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Alex has been described as this by other characters due to the psychological damage he has taken from his missions, enduring horrors that nobody should have to go through and watching people die.

Alex's Allies

Jack Starbright

Jack Starbright

Played by: Alicia Silverstone (2006 film), Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo (2020 TV series)

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Point Blanc | Skeleton Key | Eagle Strike | Scorpia | Ark Angel | Snakehead | Crocodile Tears | Scorpia Rising | Russian Roulette | Never Say Die | Secret Weapon | Nightshade

Jack's appearance in the graphic novels

Eight years before the start of Stormbreaker, she came to Britain. She struggled to receive a visa (mentioned by the MI6 director Alan Blunt), before Ian Rider employed her to look after Alex. After Ian died she became Alex's legal guardian.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the novels she has red hair. In the film and graphic novels, she is blonde.
• Ascended Extra: Plays a considerably more active role in Eagle Strike, only to be Demoted to Extra in Scorpia.
  • And then she ascends back up in Scorpia Rising.
• Blackmail: Blunt blackmailed Alex into being a spy by threatening to use information relating to Jack's visa and have her deported and by making sure Alex would be put into an undoubtedly bad institution.
• Collateral Angst: Invoked by Razim. Jack is blown up by a landmine just to make Alex cross the Despair Event Horizon because Razim wished to see how much emotional pain it would cause Alex. But it's actually just an empty car; Jack was extracted and the car detonated later.
• Cool Big Sis: Jack is actually Alex's housekeeper, but he appears to think of her more as one of these.
• Fiery Redhead: Gets rather heated up whenever Blunt gets involved.
• Innocent Blue Eyes
• Killed Off for Real: Averted. Razim alters footage of her escape to make it seem as though her escape vehicle was detonated, and the Grimaldi brothers enlist her services as a nurse. It is clear, however, that her death was absolutely intended to be real at the time, and Horowitz retconned her survival in when he decided to write another book.
• Kindly Housekeeper: Jack is a bit younger than most examples of this trope, but she still fits as she cares for Alex even though she technically finished her course long ago.
• Nice Girl: As much as the setting allows.

MI6

Alan Blunt

Played by: Bill Nighy (2006 film), Stephen Dillane (2020 TV series)

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Point Blanc | Skeleton Key | Eagle Strike | Scorpia | Ark Angel | Snakehead | Crocodile Tears | Scorpia Rising | Secret Weapon

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• Blackmail: Blunt blackmailed Alex into being a spy by threatening to use information relating to Jack's visa and have her deported and by making sure Alex would be put into an undoubtedly bad institution.
• Character Development: While his overall attitude never really changes, he does start taking Alex a tad more seriously as an agent, going from merely considering him as an asset in Skeleton Key to one of his people by the time of Crocodile Tears. Screwing up the Damian Cray incident in Eagle Strike might have had something to do with it. His Sympathetic P.O.V. in Scorpia Rising even reveals that he's actually quite pleased with Alex's work as an agent, and believes that Alex has surpassed his uncle and father.
• Compromising Memoirs: Discussed briefly after he's forced to retire in Scorpia Rising. He chooses not to do so.
• Create Your Own Villain: One of the most contrived and tragic examples to date. In Scorpia, MI6 knew about Scorpia's rise in recent years so they had one of their agents named John Rider, Alex's father to act as an prospective asset to Scorpia, becoming The Mole to subvert their operations. After some backstory faking, Scorpia scouted and recruited him as planned and he rose among their ranks to be one of their best agents and teachers of future agents. This includes one Yassen Gregorovich, who would wind up being the killer of Ian Rider and the one who sets Alex Rider down the path of the spy.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Always wears grey. Heck, his whole appearance looks monochrome, and he does the same with his office, making sure that it says absolutely nothing about him.
• Demoted to Extra: Only makes a fleeting appearance in Ark Angel during the Villain Opening Scene.
• Establishing Character Moment: Shows off Good Is Not Nice through the said Blackmail above.
• Good Is Not Nice: He is made of this trope. He starts by blackmailing Alex by threatening to arrange for Jack's expulsion from the country, and later entries have him find multiple underhanded methods to get Alex to continue working for him, such as:
  • Point Blank, where he sends Alex over to stop Dr. Grief so that Alex won't get in trouble regarding a drug-trafficking ring that he was trying to stop.
  • Crocodile Tears, when Alex is simply asking him to stop Harry Bulman from divulging his research into Alex's life, Blunt sends him on a mission to spy on Leonard Straik in exchange...a mission that involves a biological research facility filled with toxic fauna and flora that Alex ends up in.
  • Scorpia Rising, when it's revealed at the end that Alan Blunt arranged for the sniper to attack Alex at his school solely for the purpose of getting an excuse to put Alex on another assignment. That's right, he arranged a school shooting in order to coerce a fifteen-year-old boy into working as a spy again.
  • Even in the books where he's not directly recruiting Alex, he's not a very pleasant person to be around, outright dismissing Alex's potential trauma in Skeleton Key (and not showing a high amount of sympathy for an even worse trauma in Scorpia Rising) and dismissing his warnings about Damian Cray in Eagle Strike. At the same time though, he's also up against lunatics and psychopaths whose goals would destroy the balance of power in the world and/or kill thousands to millions of innocent people. Blunt simply sees no need to sugarcoat his actions, and acknowledges that the work of a secret agent is a dirty business.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Uses this trope as an excuse for his general stoic attitude and his actions in Scorpia Rising. He even quotes the trope naming line itself, showing that he is fully aware of this, having to live with such decisions.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The agent who he spent quite some time preparing to use as an asset (Alex), ultimately is the reason why he's forced to retire. The Prime Minister was furious that Blunt essentially recruited a Child Soldier who was lucky to come back alive from each of his missions.
• Hidden Depths: While thinking over Scorpia's latest plot in Scorpia Rising, he's revealed to be genuinely fond of several agents, regretting their deaths, and being quite pleased with Alex's success rate. Part of him is also shown to be relieved that the Prime Minister has forbidden him to use Alex again because of the prospect of Alex getting killed.
• Jerkass: Rather rude, needless to say.
• Karma Houdini: And how. For arranging a school shooting and taking Alex to Egypt for another mission, he gets a knighthood and to retire and take a vacation with his wife. Granted, he wasn't exactly desiring retirement, but he still gets off fairly light.
• Knight Templar: The actions he takes for his plans to come to fruition scream this.
• Meaningful Name: Alan Blunt, to match his abrasive attitude.
• Out-Gambitted: Despite believing himself to be one step ahead of Scorpia in Scorpia Rising, he is in fact walking into their trap.
• Pet the Dog: He shows a surprising amount of concern for Alex in the meeting with the Prime Minister in Crocodile Tears. Then again, he could be doing this to act like he cares, as the government isn't too fond of MI6.
• The Spymaster: Head of MI6.
• The Stoic: He's often described as seeming completely emotionless.
  • Not So Stoic: On the rare occasions he does show emotion, you know it's serious. In Scorpia, he is clearly genuinely afraid of the titular organisation's threat to kill tens of thousands of schoolchildren, and when he's telling Alex the truth about how his parents really died, there's "a little pain" in his voice.
• Token Evil Teammate: "Evil" might be a strong word, but he's certainly got a meaner streak and is more willing to use manipulation compared to the other members of MI6.
• What the Hell, Hero?: On the receiving end of this from Mrs. Jones several times whenever he crosses a line. By Scorpia Rising, she really lets him have it for arranging a school shooting just to hire Alex again, especially since it turned out that he walked right into Scorpia's trap.
• Would Hurt a Child: Arranges a school shooting to force Alex to work for him again.

Mrs. Jones

Played by: Sophie Okonodeo (2006 film), Vicky McClure (TV series))

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Point Blanc | Skeleton Key | Eagle Strike | Scorpia | Ark Angel | Snakehead | Crocodile Tears | Scorpia Rising | Never Say Die | Secret Weapon | Nightshade

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: It is outright stated in Snakehead that Mrs Jones is "not attractive". Compare her appearance in the movie, show, and graphic novels. Even in earlier novels she was described as "a head shaped like a potato".
• The Chessmaster: Conducts an epic operation using John Rider to humiliate Scorpia and rescue an VIP hostage
• Defrosting Ice Queen: As time goes on, she becomes more warm.
• Embarrassing First Name: It's revealed to be "Tulip." To quote Alex's inner monologue: "It made sense. He wouldn't have used that name either."
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's slightly abrasive but genuinely wants the best for Britain, and eventually for Alex too.
• Last-Name Basis: For understandable reasons, she's almost always referred to as "Mrs. Jones" without any mention of her first name.
• Number Two: Is Alan Blunt's second-in-command.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Shares this with Smithers. Both want the best for Alex and by the end of the series are strongly advocating for him to be let free from MI6's employment. After Blunt's retirement, Mrs. Jones takes over as head of MI6, and probably makes sure that MI6 will never contact Alex again.
• She Who Fights Monsters: Mrs. Jones defies the trope in Scorpia. Although she had the chance to correct Alex about how his father died she didn't because she didn't want to use him the way Julia Rothman did.
• The Unreveal: What did happen to her husband and children? This would never have been answered at all had Horowitz not decided to bring the series back, but Nightshade finally fills us in, some nineteen years after the first mention that she "used to have children".
• Trademark Favorite Food: Always has a peppermint.
• You Killed My Father: Alex is informed by Scorpia about the circumstances of his father's death. Subverted by Scorpia with Mrs. Jones for John Rider.

Derek Smithers

Played by: Creator/Stephen Fry (2006 film), Nyasha Hatendi (2020 TV series))

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Point Blanc | Skeleton Key | Scorpia | Ark Angel | Snakehead | Crocodile Tears | Scorpia Rising | Secret Weapon

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• Badass Bookworm: As the gadget guy of MI6, he fits this trope well.
• Big Fun: He's slightly fat, but he's a very enjoyable guy.
• Chekhov's Gun: Word of God stated that Smithers has had a gadget that has appeared, unknown to the reader, in every book to up to the 8th book, Crocodile Tears. This was finally revealed in Scorpia Rising, book 9. And that gadget is Smithers' own fat. In fact, he's very thin and fit but has been wearing a special suit that has made him look fat all along.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: You think his weight problems hinder him? You'd be right, but he's surprisingly effective at getting rid of the Scorpia team that come his way. And then he's revealed to not even be fat.
• Dark Secret: To be revealed in Scorpia Rising as per Word of God, it's that Smithers is actually a thin man wearing a special suit that only makes him look fat.
• Fauxreigner: After removing his Fat Suit it turns out the "real" Smithers is Irish, rather than the "public school" British accent he affects.
• Deadly Delivery: Fails miserably in Scorpia Rising when Smithers uses an X-Ray scanner to prove that the delivery man was carrying a gun and the package was empty. He then gets rid of him with a trapdoor under a welcome mat.
• Demoted to Extra: He doesn't physically appear in Eagle Strike, but sends Alex his gadget-filled bike with a letter attached.
• Gadgeteer Genius: His job.
• Gadget Watch: He gives Alex one in Snakehead that can send out a distress signal.
• Hidden Depths: Scorpia Rising reveals that he's always hated the idea of Alex being a spy, but follows the orders of his superiors regardless. He even tells Alex to forget about them all, considering the business to be dirty and not an adventure, and most certainly not a place for a young teenager to be. Alex mentally comments on this, wondering if he was getting a look at the real Smithers for the first time.
• Literal Surveillance Bug: Scorpia Rising, when Smithers disguises an electronic bug as a dead cockroach.
• Nice Guy: Extremely caring for Alex and often holds reservations about putting him in danger, so for that reason he does his best to make sure he's well protected. In Scorpia Rising, he even agrees to go along with Alex's plan.
• Pun: A lot of his gadget names, including the 'fan club' and the 'Chamber of Secrets'. This therefore makes him a Pungeon Master.
• Put on a Bus: He's left MI6 by the time of "Never Say Die", making it the first book in the series he's completely absent from.
• Sacrificial Lion: Subverted. He's set up to die, but manages to dispose of most of the Scorpia agents sent after him and escapes.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: shares this with Mrs Jones in MI6, by the end of the series he's arguing with Alan Blunt on letting Alex go from employment with MI6.
  • He makes sure Alex is backed up when he goes rogue in Eagle Strike.
• Shoe Phone: Every single one of his gadgets. He never actually invented a shoe that works as a phone, though (at least in the books, anyway).
• Stuff Blowing Up: Several of Alex's gadgets; Smithers notes when giving him the exploding pens in Crocodile Tears that he "likes his explosions".

John Crawley

Played by: Jimmy Carr (2006 film), Ace Bhatti (2020 TV series)

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Point Blanc | Skeleton Key | Ark Angel | Crocodile Tears | Never Say Die | Secret Weapon | Nightshade

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• Adaptation Name Change: His surname was changed from "Crawley" to "Crawford" in the film and graphic novels by request from the actual MI6.
• Boring, but Practical: His attire looks like it came from the 'boring businessman' section. Probably deliberately too, as he is supposed to appear as a banker.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome / Demoted to Extra: He disappears after Skeleton Key. He shows up very briefly in Ark Angel and Crocodile Tears, but in both cases he does very little (his involvement in the latter is about half a page that could have been served by another generic MI6 character). He makes something of a higher-profile return in Never Say Die, though.
• The Generic Guy: His main distinguishing feature is that he has the kind of face one can forget while looking at it.
• Heroes Love Dogs: He is shown walking his dog in Skeleton Key and seems to be rather fond of it.
• Informed Attribute: He says that he is skilled in Martial Arts and is a proficient marksman.
• Master of Disguise: It is known that he can blend in just about anywhere, including the Wimbledon committee.
• Noodle Incident: Crawley has gone up against Scorpia, and does not have positive memories of that time.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Like Smithers, he is more of a decent human being towards Alex.

Fox/Ben Daniels

Played by: Jamie Kenna (2006 film), Ben Peel (2020 TV series)

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Snakehead | Never Say Die

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• Animal Motifs: His codename was 'Fox'.
• Ascended Extra: He was a background character in Stormbreaker but then played a much larger role in Snakehead, as he is promoted to Special Operations.
• Big Damn Heroes: He saves Alex's life by killing Anan Sukit who was attempting to shoot Alex after he had beaten Sukit's fighter "Sunthorn" in an arena fight.
• Dye or Die: It is implied that he is trained to disguise himself. In each of the novels, Ben is said to have black hair cut short, though the extra chapter in "Resistance to Interrogation" describes how "his fair hair was damp and untidy".
• Oop North: He's from Liverpool.
• Selective Obliviousness: During the SAS training in Stormbreaker, instead of bullying Alex like Wolf him and the rest of the trainee group ignore Alex. However he interacts with him in the extra chapter "Resistance to Interrogation" Ben explains what is happening before helping lift the lid off a drain for Alex to crawl through to get out of the place where they are being held.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Assists Alex in Snakehead when he is needed. In Snakehead, he follows Alex whilst he prepares and goes on a mission to infiltrate the Snakehead with his godfather, Ash. He later rescues him in a helicopter.
• Series Continuity Error: Horowitz inadvertently refers to him as "Wolf" in Never Say Die, having conflated the two characters. (This was corrected when the book was reprinted.)
• Took a Level in Kindness: Initially rather frosty towards Alex in Stormbreaker, but warms up to him considerably in Snakehead.

Wolf

Played by: Ashley Walters (2006 film), Howard Charles (2020 TV series)

Appears in: Stormbreaker | Point Blanc

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• Big Damn Heroes: Saves Alex from being killed by Eva Stellenbosch.
• The Bully: To Alex while in SAS training, going out of his way to make his life even more miserable. Its only after the end of their training that he starts to respect Alex.
• The Captain: Now the leader of an SAS rescue unit.
• Jerkass Realization: After Alex kicks him out of a plane to prevent him from being "binned", he decides to turn over a new leaf and give Alex the respect he deserves.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Unlike Fox, his real name is never revealed.
• Put on a Bus: He's wounded in the raid in Point Blanc, and never heard from again apart from a line confirming he survived. It is mentioned in Ark Angel that Alex, in the hospital, receives a card from him, mailed from Baghdad, but he doesn't re-appear after that (ignoring his return in Never Say Die which was corrected to being Fox instead).
• Reverse Psychology: Used this with Mrs. Jones in "Point Blanc" when Alex refuses to take part in a raid on Point Blanc. Wolf comes in and tells him he's Just a Kid. Alex immediately demands to go with them, and realises what he's done five seconds too late.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After the above Jerkass Realization, he's much nicer to Alex.
• Training from Hell: Subjects Alex to this, to a degree.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: An otherwise competent and formidable soldier whose fear of heights almost gets him "binned" in training.

Ian Rider

Played by: Ewan McGregor (2006 film), Andrew Buchan (2020 TV series)

Appears in: Secret Weapon^note He has dialogue in flashback scenes in Ark Angel and Snakehead, but Secret Weapon contains his only actual appearance, in the pre-Stormbreaker story Christmas at Gunpoint

• The Ace: Shown he was one as he taught Alex everything he knew prior to his death.
• Meaningful Name: Likely named after Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. "Ian" is also the Scottish Gaelic variant of "John" (his brother's name), marking the brothers as dark mirrors of each other.
• Plot-Triggering Death: His death kickstarts Alex's (reluctant) spy career.
• Posthumous Character: Is killed right before the start of the series
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Smithers implies this in Scorpia Rising.
  People think that being a spy is fun and exciting. Your uncle was a bit like that. It was all a big adventure as far as he was concerned - and look what happened to him.

CIA

Joe Byrne

Appears in: Skeleton Key | Ark Angel | Scorpia Rising

The head of the CIA throughout the series.

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• A Father to His Men: He appears genuinely upset when his employees die, and is quite upfront and honest to Alex.
• Big Good: For the CIA.
• Good Is Not Soft: Does not object to torturing enemies for information, even if he's unhappy about doing it.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Unlike many of the other Americans, Byrne is willing to give Alex a chance and is much more cautious about his well-being than Blunt is.

Tom Turner and Belinda Troy

Appear in: Skeleton Key

Two CIA members that Alex is assigned to work with throughout Skeleton Key.

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• Adaptational Heroism: In the American version, Turner/Carver is very friendly to Alex and even speaks up for him against his partner, Troy. All of his Jerkass moments are given to her instead. Despite this, Troy is also treated more sympathetically in the narrative.
• Adaptation Name Change: Tom Turner is changed to "Glen Carver" in the American version.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Turner wanted to die for his country. He gets his wish.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Skewered repeatedly by a trap and then had their remains disposed of.
• Distressed Dude: Turner was briefly held hostage by the Salesman.
• Failure Hero: They completely bungle every one of their objectives, with Alex having to pick up their slack and complete their mission.
• Good Is Not Nice: While undoubtedly on the side of good, they're rather abrasive.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Zigzagged. While abrasive towards Alex, they show some concern when he gets himself in trouble, and are undoubtedly committed to the job. They're good friends with each other and Agent Troy is worried when the Salesman abducts Turner.
• Killed Offscreen: Alex deduces that the both of them are killed in an underwater cave while trying to infiltrate Sarov's island. Sarov later confirms their deaths to Alex.
• Overt Operative: They're too hard-bitten and emotionless to reliably hold down a cover. Every antagonist in the book recognises them as spies.
  • The worst instance has to be when a security guard searches their luggage and finds a receipt from Langley (where the CIA is headquartered). But because Alex is with them, the guard lets them pass to avoid the bad publicity of arresting a child.
• The Resenter: Their Cuban associate suggests they dislike Alex because he's a more successful spy despite being a teenager and British.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: What almost gets Turner killed on the Salesman's boat and later gets them both Killed Offscreen.
• Undercover as Lovers: And to fully secure their cover, Alex is added as their child.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Alex saves Turner from the Salesman. Turner snaps at him for almost getting them both killed. Averted in the American edition.

Blake Lewinsky

---

• Inspector Javert: His antagonistic role comes from him recognising Alex as an MI6 agent, but not recognising why he's in Cairo... and being very forceful when trying to get information out of him.
• Killed Off for Real: Takes a bullet during the final battle.
• Torture Technician: He waterboards Alex to try and get information from him.
• Torture Always Works: In this case, it actually does, and Alex breaks and spills everything. Lewinsky still doesn't believe him, though thankfully, Byrne does when he interrupts the interrogation.
• Would Hurt a Child: He's not at all hesitant to waterboard Alex while interrogating him. Byrne is not pleased upon finding out.

Tamara Knight

Appear in: Ark Angel

A CIA agent working undercover as Nikolai Drevin's secretary.

---

• Good All Along: Initially cold towards Alex, she turns out to be his ally helping him several times before revealing herself.
• The Mole: As Drevin's personal assistant.
• Sole Survivor: The only CIA agent partnered with Alex to live to tell the tale.

ASIS

Ethan Brooke

Appears in: Snakehead

The head of ASIS.

---

• Evil Is Petty: One anecdote discusses how, after a defense minister called his jeans “casual”, he got the man demoted such that he was stuck working as a porter at a hotel. While he is theoretically on the side of good, even Alan Blunt thinks he’s devious.
• Token Evil Teammate: Even more so than Blunt, Ethan Brooke theoretically works for good, but is extremely callous with Alex’s life and extremely petty.
• Would Hurt a Child: Not only employs, Alex, a fourteen-year-old, in deadly intelligence work, but is extremely callous with Alex’s safety. He also knew Ash was a traitor, but sent Alex on a mission with Ash anyway.

Anthony Sean Howell (Ash)

Appears in: Snakehead

Alex’s godfather. He was the best friend of Alex’s father. He and Alex work on a mission together to take down Winston Yu’s organization.

---

• Always Someone Better: Ash resented how Blunt and MI6 always saw him as second rate to John, Alex’s father.
• Ambiguously Brown: He’s described as having tan skin and black hair. In Alex’s narration, he says Ash could pass as Afghan (which they’re going undercover as) and didn’t look to be of European descent. However, Ash is English, and has a very English-sounding last name, so it’s unclear what Ash’s ethnicity is or if he’s just a very tan person of English descent.
• Create Your Own Villain: Blunt humiliated Ash by demoting him and blaming him for the failure at Medina. This lead to Ash betraying him, killing John, and working for SCORPIA.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Nineteen-year-old Yassen completely eviscerated Ash and his men in Ash’s backstory.
• Evil Former Friend: He was John’s best friend, the best man at his wedding, and Alex’s godfather. After getting injured and being demoted, he murdered John and joined SCORPIA.
• Establishing Character Moment: Ash’s first scene has him undercover, playing along with a dangerous drill just so Ethan Brooke can test Alex. It shows that while reluctant, Ash will endanger Alex if it furthers his career. In the next scene, he is completely dismissive of Alex’s concerns that the drill could’ve gotten Alex killed.
• Foil: To Yassen Gregorovitch. They were the two people closest to John, and both worked for SCORPIA. Yassen killed Ian. Ash murdered Alex’s mom and dad.
  • Ash acts remorseful about murdering Alex’s parents, but his remorse is ultimately pointless, as it doesn’t stop him from trying to kill Alex if it benefits Ash’s career. Yassen appears to be remorseless about killing Ian. However, he disobeys orders to protect Alex, and ultimately gave his life to save Alex.
  • Ash didn’t object to Alex working in the business, and will get Alex more involved if it benefits him. Yassen repeatedly tries to convince Alex to stay out of the spy business for Alex’s safety.
  • Ash worked for the good side. Ash was trusted with the info that John was a double agent, and John also chose him as his best man. Despite John’s faith in him, Ash betrayed him, murdered him, and, 14 years later, nearly got Alex killed. Yassen was John’s assassin trainee and worked for the villains. John never trusted him with the truth. Despite discovering John’s lies, Yassen never revealed John to the MI6, and later, died saving his son.
• Foreshadowing: A couple of examples:
  • Jack tells Alex that when Ash was in London, he visited a few times, and that he was eager to check up on Alex, his godson. However, despite visiting to see Alex, Jack notes he didn’t talk to Alex much. However, instead, it sounds like he was more interested in dating Jack instead. He probably felt guilty for murdering Alex’s parents. However, it also shows how shallow Ash’s remorse is and how disinterested Ash is in Alex’s well-being.
  • Ash is repeatedly uncomfortable about talking about John and Helen, in his first scenes. Which makes sense, considering he murdered them.
• Hero Killer: Murdered John and Helen to prove himself to SCORPIA.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: From what Alex can see, Ash is a good, knowledgeable agent. However, he didn’t compare to John and he got completely wrecked by nineteen-year-old prodigy Yassen. In a similar vein, fourteen-year-old Alex, despite being in Ash’s territory, figured out Ash was a double agent and defeated him and his boss.
• The Resenter: Ash reveals he joined SCORPIA and murdered John because Blunt always saw him as second best to John.
• Unknown Rival: Ash devotes a decent amount of time discussing Yassen, and seems to see Yassen as his greatest enemy, particularly for his injury and his failed mission in Malta. Yassen, in his narration, doesn’t seem to spare much thought to Ash.

Villains

Sayle Industries

Herod Sayle

Herod Sayle / Darrius Sayle

Played by: Mickey Rourke (2006 film)

An evil billionaire who wants to kill all of Britain's children via a computer virus he has placed in free computers he's given out.

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• Adaptational Nationality:
  • A variation, Sayle is Lebanese in the original release, but in the American releases he's changed to Egyptian.
  • In the movie and graphic novel, he is changed from Lebanese to American and renamed Darrius Sayle.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: He plays snooker with Alex Rider.
• Big Bad: Of Stormbreaker.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Downplayed. He dumps Alex in a Portuguese man of war tank; while it seems pretty elaborate, it's a trap he's 99% guaranteed to not survive, and Alex probably wouldn't have if he hadn't smuggled one of Smithers's gadgets into the tank with him. He also sends Nadia to make sure he dies (although all that ends up accomplishing is getting her killed, again thanks to the gadget Alex smuggled in).
• Evil Is Petty: Wants to kill thousands of children because the British PM bullied him in when they were classmates as children.
• Faux Affably Evil: Acts kindly to Alex but when Alex's true identity is revealed is far less pleasant.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Wants to manipulate the Prime Minister into killing thousands of children because he got bullied by him when they were children. But of course, it's a completely weak excuse, which Alex calls him out for.
  Alex: Lots of kids get bullied and they don't turn into nutcases. You're really sad, Mr. Sayle.
• Meaningful Name: A Biblical one at that, sharing his name with the king who (allegedly) ordered the mass murder of children around the time of Jesus's birth.
  • It's also a pun on Harrods' Sale.
• Misplaced Retribution: Wants to kill all of Britain's children via manipulating the Prime Minister since he bullied him as a child. Said children are however innocent.
• Rags to Riches: Grew up poor as one of fourteen siblings in Egypt, until he saved a very rich English couple on holiday who then adopted him. Suffice to say he made very good use of the money he inherited.
• The Sociopath: He shows no regard for anyone but himself and doesn't care about the grief his plan would inflict on the parents of his targets.
• Tragic Bigot: Deconstructed. He hates English school children for bullying him as a child but the targets of his revenge had nothing to do with the bullying he went through.
• Would Hurt a Child: His main plan is to kill all of Britain's children because he was bullied by his English classmates as a child.

Nadia Vole

Sayle's henchwoman.

---

• Dark Action Girl: She definitely fits this trope.
• Death by Irony: She tries to kill Alex by plunging him into a tank with Sayle's pet Man-O'-War, expecting him to either drown or get stung to death. Instead, Alex blows up the tank from the inside and the Man-O'-War stings her to death in the chaos that follows.
• The Dragon: She helps Sayle with everything and is his top enforcer.

Mr. Grin

Sayle's Pilot.

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• Ace Pilot: Apparently so, as he helps Sayle fly his planes.
• Glasgow Grin: Ever since he got sliced in the mouth with a knife.
• Knife-Throwing Act: He was a circus performer who specialised in catching throwing knives between his teeth before being hired by Sayle.
• Named After the Injury: His name isn't quite Mr. Glasgow Grin, but close enough.
• Tongue Trauma: A large part of his tongue was cut out during the accident that ended his career as a knife-thrower, and he has difficulty speaking as a result.
• Uncertain Doom: His plane crashes but we don't know where he goes.

Point Blanc Institute

Dr. Hugo Grief

A psychotic white supremacist who uses clones to replace children in rich families to slowly take over the world. Also slightly insane.

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• Amoral Afrikaner: Was South Africa's former minister of science. He's also an unrepentant Mad Scientist and Apartheid supporter.
• Deadly Doctor: Is a psychotic doctor who plans to take over the world.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: The book has him going down with his helicopter when Alex shoots a snowmobile at it, while in the TV series, he survives the Point Blanc raid and is taken into custody only to be assassinated by Yassen.
• Faux Affably Evil: Pretends to be kind but is actually a sadistic asshole, as shown by his completely polite demeanor while detailing his plans to vivisect Alex.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: It's hard to find a name more blatantly evil-sounding than "Dr. Grief".
• Politically Incorrect Villain: An unrepentant xenophobe, and one of his goals is to re-institute Apartheid worldwide. He also dislikes British schoolchildren, considering them lazy and ignorant.
• Take Over the World: The only Big Bad of any Alex Rider book to play the trope straight, intending on taking over the whole world through his clones.

Eva Stellenbosch

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Suffice it to say, her TV series actress Ana Ularu is much easier on the eyes than what the books suggest.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Ginger in the books, which make it one of her defining features, but brunette in the series.
• Amoral Afrikaner: Formerly an interrogator for the South African Secret Police and was fervently supportive of the Apartheid regime.
• Bio-Augmentation: The Mission Files suggest that her immense strength and grotesque appearance are partially a result of Grief experimenting on her.
• Brawn Hilda: Has huge muscles and a facial structure that "[isn't] quite human". She was also Miss South Africa in weight-lifting for five years in a row and her strength bowls over Alex in every encounter.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the book, she gets shot multiple times by Wolf and goes out a window; in the TV series, she dies in a gas explosion.
• The Dragon: To Dr. Grief, as the vice-principal of Point Blanc.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Regularly smokes cigars.
• Gonk: Every time she appears, the book gives her an unflattering description.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: The book describes the results of her putting on make-up as looking like "a man in drag". The graphic novels likewise depict her with a very masculine appearance.

Baxter

• Bullying a Dragon: He tries to blackmail Dr. Grief into giving him more payment for his job. Grief kills him. (His MI6 file, seen in the Mission Files tie-in book, notes that it is likely Grief would have killed him anyway; Baxter was not a reliable man.)
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: He looks a lot like Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the comic book version.
• Magic Plastic Surgery: His job is to modify Grief's clones with plastic surgery so they can impersonate the children of super-rich families.
• Trapped by Gambling Debts: He signed up to work for Dr. Grief because he had gambling debts.

Skeleton Key

Alexei Sarov

A Russian General who wants to restore Communism in Russia with a nuclear bomb.

---

• Affably Evil: The only villain that shows Alex genuine kindness, and he honestly believes he's doing what's best for Russia, though his methods are questionable at best.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Is so distraught that his plans were ruined combined with Alex telling him that he'd never want a father like him that he kills himself.
• Bullet Holes and Revelations: The penultimate chapter ends with the statement that Sarov, face to face with Alex, "raised his gun and fired a single shot". A few pages into the next chapter, it's revealed that Sarov shot himself after Alex rejected him as a father figure.
• Childhood Friends: He grew up with the Russian president, Boris Kiriyenko. Despite this, he only views him as a pawn in his scheme.
• Evil Is Petty: One of his goals after restoring Communism in Russia is to rebuild the Berlin Wall, even though he plans to eventually Take Over the World and make Communism the ideology of the world.
• Evil Reactionary: He misses the Cold War era communist Russian regime, and his goal is to see Russia returned to what he considers a much better time in its history.
• Expy: As noted on The Other Wiki, Sarov is very similar to General Zaroff from The Most Dangerous Game, being an Ex-Military General from Russia who is nostalgic for a past era of Russian History, lives on a Caribbean island and has a Handicapped Badass Dragon.
• Genre Savvy: Sarov knows there is an underwater cavern beneath his island and deliberately set a trap to kill anyone who ventures there.
• Gilded Cage: Sarov keeps Alex in a very nice place during his captivity. Sarov even comments on this.
• Glorious Mother Russia: A disillusioned former Soviet general who wants his country back to the way it used to be.
• Kingpin in His Gym: Runs 24 miles around his plantation every morning.
• Knight of Cerebus: Unlike the villains of the previous two books, there's nothing even remotely comical either about him or his Dragon.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Sarov intends to portray his nuking of Murmansk as an accident caused by a defective submarine, which he will then blame on the Russian government being run by idiots.
• Manipulative Editing: In order to destroy the Russian people's faith in their president (and seize the leadership for himself), he plans to release a taped interview of the president drunkenly responding "This is my holiday, I'm too busy to deal with that." The question, originally about a train strike in Moscow, would be changed to the nuclear disaster in Murmansk.
• Must Have Caffeine: Downplayed. Caffeine is mentioned as his only vice, and he allows himself a small amount of coffee every day.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Taken to its logical extreme in Skeleton Key where the villain more or less tries to adopt him and treats him like his now-dead biological son, after Alex ends up getting captured. Much of the book is the Big Bad letting (or rather, forcing) Alex to live with him in his luxury home, getting him to take part in various activities (like horse riding) and telling Alex We Can Rule Together. And dining with him, of course. He even forbids his Mooks and The Dragon from harming him.
• Nuke 'em: Sarov intends to kill millions of people by nuking a nuclear submarine repair shipyard and blaming it on the Russian government's incompetence.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His son was killed in the Soviet-Afghan War.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The calm, rational Blue to Conrad's Red.
• Red Scare: Russian and evil.
• Renegade Russian: He's not working for the Russian government, and in fact seeks to overthrow it.
• Replacement Goldfish: Wants to adopt Alex after the death of his son.
• The Stoic: Stonefaced and humourless by default.
• Straight Edge Evil: Sarov is noted as living a healthy lifestyle with no vices aside from a small amount of caffeine every day.
• The Teetotaler: He never drinks alcohol, which is why he excuses himself from drinking during a toast after spiking the Russian president's vodka.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Wanted Alex to join him and become his adopted son.
• We Can Rule Together: He promises to make Alex one of the most powerful people in the world after his plan succeeds.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Believes Russia was better off under Communism and is prepared to kill millions (many Russians included).
• Why We Are Bummed Communism Fell: Played for Drama; he was a general in the Soviet Union and plans to restore Communism to power in Russia, by any means necessary.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Was driven to villainy via the death of his son, combined with the fall of the Soviet Union.

Conrad

• Adaptational Attractiveness: The graphic novel has Conrad appear as a hunchback with difficulty speaking, but his appearance is considerably less extreme than his description in the original book (possibly because the illustrators couldn't replicate it.)
• Blood Knight: Smiling when he finally gets the chance to beat Alex to a pulp.
• Body Horror: The paragraph describing his appearance is not flattering. You don't survive getting blown up by a bomb in your hands without picking up some nasty injuries to go along with it.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Interrogates Alex when he's tied to a slow-moving grinding mill and threatens to grind him up if he doesn't talk. Decides to go through with it anyway once Alex coughs up the information but Sarov stops him.
• The Dragon: Sarov's personal assistant and assassin.
• Handicapped Badass: His badly damaged body is good for throwing people off and making them assume he's not a capable combatant. They're very wrong.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Was blown up by his own bomb in his backstory. He miraculously survived. Though the metal plates holding him together prove to be his undoing.
• Mad Bomber: Used to be one before his... accident.
• Made of Iron: Almost literally: He has at least thirty metal pins in his body and easily shrugs off Alex's blows.
• No One Should Survive That!: He was blown up by a bomb. Whilst he was carrying it. Horowitz seems to have later decided this was a little extreme, as the Mission Files tie-in book Retconned it to a bomb in the boot of his car detonating whilst he was driving it to an army base he was planning to plant it in.
• Psycho Supporter: Sarov at least has a noble goal from his mindset. Conrad just wants to kill things.
• Punny Name: Conrad sounds like 'comrade', appropriately enough for the lackey of an ex-Soviet general.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The unhinged, bloodthirsty Red to Sarov's Blue.
• Red Right Hand: Probably the most extreme example in the series. He was blown up by one of his own bombs and then surgically put back together with metal parts added. The operation was not completely successful, resulting in his mismatched body.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: When he was nine, he blew up his school with a bomb made in chemistry class after he was given a detention.
• Two-Faced: As a result of his accident. Only half his facial muscles are active.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Long colourless hair on half his head.

The Salesman

A Mexican black-market dealer being investigated by the CIA. He sells uranium to Sarov in the intro to Skeleton Key.

---

• A Glass of Chianti: Enjoys a glass of Cabarnet Savignon while interrogating Turner.
• Bullying a Dragon: The men sent to deliver uranium to Sarov tried to blackmail him for more money. Sarov kills them instead, then sends Conrad to kill the Salesman to keep him from possibly alerting the authorities.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Abducts Turner after finding out he's working for the CIA. The Salesman plans to kill him after sailing to international waters but is foiled by Alex's last-minute rescue.
• Venturous Smuggler: If there's anything illegal that people need, he'll sell it. This includes false identities, drugs and weapons-grade uranium.
• Wealthy Yacht Owner: Sails on an old-fashioned boat called the Mayfair Lady.

Cray Industries

Damian Cray

• Anti-Villain: He did a great deal of charity work. Though this is subverted as the book goes on, as he is willing to go to horrifically extreme lengths to achieve what he thinks is a better world. He has people who oppose him assassinated and his ultimate plan is to nuke drug supplying locations from around the world, which, as Alex points out, would kill thousands of innocent people not associated with drugs and wreak havoc on the environment, which means that for all his talk of being a philanthropist, Cray is literally willing to create what he advocates against if it means what he thinks is right.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted. In addition to being a seemingly-respectable philanthropist who's actually a dangerous maniac, Cray looks handsome and dashing at a distance, but up close the text notes that his appearance is actually unappealing and artificial; clearly the result of plastic surgery.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Even Alan Blunt of all people describes Cray as "just about the closest thing we have to a living saint," to the point of finding it hard to believe Alex's report of him being a murderous madman.
• Blofeld Ploy: In "Eagle Strike", Damian Cray orders Yassen to kill Alex and Sabina. Yassen refuses, saying he "does not kill children". Flustered, Damian snatches his gun, and instead of shooting Alex and Sabina, turns the gun on Yassen.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He goes off his trolley and is vaporized by a jet engine.
  • He also had several people killed in such way, including deep-freezing illegal whalers in their own freezer.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: His Gameslayer console seemed to feature very advanced hardware and could have easily taken the videogame world by storm.
  • The method he used for the "pain synthesis", however, is horrifying: it's implied that he filmed the injuries and deaths of real people in real-life versions of his game levels and based the "pain synthesis" textures on those people's facial expressions.
• Death by Materialism: Literally played straight in Eagle Strike when Charlie Roper is trapped inside a bottle-shaped room and then killed when Cray fills the room with two million dollars’ worth of quarters (the two million dollars Roper was due to be paid for betraying his country). In other words, 8,000,000 quarters.
  • "Blood Money!"
• Disproportionate Retribution: He arranged the death of a journalist who objected to the violence in his video games, and later told Alex he planned to kill him before he found out he was a spy, on the basis that Alex had done too well at what was supposed to be an extremely difficult game.
  • Aboard Air Force One, Cray flips out at Sabina when she insults him and orders Yassen to kill her and Alex.
• Drugs Are Bad: Considers drugs to be the greatest evil on the planet. So much he plans to nuke the world's biggest drug suppliers.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He seems genuinely disgusted by Roper for being a traitor, even though he's the one who benefits from this.
• Everyone Went to School Together: He attended the Royal Academy of Music in London and used to sing there with another boy who turned out to be Elton John.
• Evil Vegetarian: Does not eat meat and values animal lives over other people. Though this doesn't keep him from launching a lot of nukes, which would implicitly kill a lot of animals and majorly mess up the environment.
• Expy:
  • Horowitz has said that he envisaged Cray as "an evil Elton John". He also debuted as part of a band in the 1970s called Slam! before moving on to a solo career, and organized the in-universe version of Live Aid in mid-1980s.
  • He also has quite a few similarities to Gustav Graves, both being seemingly-philanthropic wealthy men with heavy plastic surgery who actually are using their tech for a world-spanning Evil Plan, have Psychopathic Manchild tendencies, and are massively hypocritical in their behavior. They even die the same way, with the hero booting them out a plane to be sucked into a jet engine. Bonus points for being played by Toby Stephens, who also played Graves, in the TV series.
• Faux Affably Evil: While he can be calm and civil, it usually doesn't last very long.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Despite having a spot-on singing voice and wanting to become a pop star, his parents forced him to learn classical music. Fortunately for him, a car fell on top of them, leaving him free to pursue his dreams.
• For the Evulz: Built a life-sized mock-up of the Feathered Serpent video game and subjected Disposable Vagrants to it in order to develop "pain synthesis" technology that rendered on-screen injury and death as realistically as possible. This doesn't fit with his other Well-Intentioned Extremist murders, and was seemingly all for his own twisted entertainment.
• Hypocrite: An extremely delusional one at that. He, a philanthropist who hates any animal abuse, plans to nuke locations contributing to drug trade. As Alex points out, that will kill thousands of innocent people, kill just as many animals, and majorly mess up the environment.
• I Have Your Wife: Or girlfriend
• It's Personal: One reason Alex is after him is that he nearly killed Sabina's father.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He wants to stop drugs, animal abuse, and arms sales, but crossed the line by murdering thousands of people in horrible ways and going as far as to try and cause a nuclear holocaust at the end of the book.
• Knighting: He was knighted by the Queen for his charity work.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: How he disposed of a journalist who asked uncomfortable questions at the launch party. Cray later told Alex that he was going to kill him in a similar way.
• Meaningful Name: "Cray-cray" is a slang term for "crazy", and he certainly lives up to the label.
• Nuke 'em: His plan involves him launching nuclear missiles at various areas of the world to end the drug trade.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He only arranged assassinations of Asshole Victims. At first.
• Pink Mist: This is all that is left of him after he gets sucked into a Turbine Blender.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Has a tendency to fly into violent tantrums whenever things don't go his way.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Invoked by Blunt and Ms. Jones when they explain another reason why they can't just go and investigate Cray's activities.
  "Rich people have connections and extremely rich people have very good connections indeed... If it was discovered that we were investigating him, and merely on your say-so, there would be a tremendous scandal."
• Stage Names: His real name is Harold Eric Lunt.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He's a popular singer and considered to be a kind and generous philanthropist worldwide. When Alex tried to convince MI6 that Cray was planning something evil, they didn't believe him.
• Villainous Breakdown: Throws an absolute hissy fit when Alex steals the Macguffin required for his plan. His composure never fully recovers from it, to the point that Yassen contemplates just shooting the now clearly off-his-rocker Cray.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He actually did have good intentions, he simply went about them in terrible ways. He has animal testers, illegal whalers, and landmine sellers killed, and launches a nuclear strike on several countries to stop productions of illegal drugs. He justifies the later action by saying he will kill thousands to save millions.
• Would Hurt a Child: Has no problem ordering Yassen to harm a hair on Alex and Sabina. Yassen, however, refuses.

Drevin Industries

Nikolei Drevin

• Abusive Parents: Arranges for his son to get kidnapped and have one of his fingers cut off as a publicity stunt for his fake terrorist group and also to toughen the kid up. That said, he genuinely loves his son, as shown when he went berserk after accidently shooting him with a Micro Uzi. But still, he's a terrible father and thankfully, his son is sent back to live with his mother after Drevin dies.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: He is accidently killed after Alex sabotages his seaplane by tying it to a dock and some boats; Drevin takes off anyways, but the bottom of the plane is ripped out during take off and he goes down screaming as the plane crashes. Afterwards, Alex finds out that the CIA needed to capture him in order to make him stop Ark Angel from destroying Washington.
• Colony Drop: He plans on blowing up Ark Angel and having it collide with Washington D.C., destroying the Pentagon's evidence regarding his illegal activities.
  • Insurance Fraud: Ark Angel was going massively over budget, so Drevin also planned on destroying it to get the insurance.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He runs a major corporation which has significant ties to organized crime. Not to mention his plan to blow up Ark Angel over Washington, D.C. and destroy the city, in order to both commit Insurance Fraud and get rid of the CIA's evidence of his criminal activity.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He does seem to love his son. While he does resort to having one of his fingers cut off after he is forced to take drastic measures, but he suffers a Villainous Breakdown when he accidentally shoots him.
• Faux Affably Evil: Tries to be polite but cracks of his true personality show over time.
• Fiction 500: Subverted. He's established as a multi-billionaire who details how he can buy anything and is helping to fund the first space hotel, but it turns out even his wallet has limits. Ark Angel is starting to bankrupt even him, and his Evil Plan is to destroy it to commit Insurance Fraud.
• Man Behind the Man: For the first half of Ark Angel, Kaspar is made out to be the Big Bad. Guess who it really is?
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: This Russian oligarch who happens to own a Premier League side is certainly not Roman Abramovich.
• Sore Loser: Tries to bump Alex off the track during go-karting. Then, when Alex wins by bypassing a corner, refuses to accept the win and calls it a draw.
• Villainous Breakdown: After his son is shot (he lives, though).
• Would Hurt a Child: He arranged for his own son to be kidnapped as a Force Three stunt, and even arranged for them to cut his finger off just so the threat would seem credible. He shoots him later, but that's an accident (he was aiming for Alex). Still doesn't change anything, though.
• You Have Failed Me: After Stratford East's star striker, Adam Wright, misses a penalty against Chelsea, Drevin has him killed by Force Three.

Kaspar/Magnus Payne

• Bald of Evil: He is bald and very evil.
• Body Horror: The Earth tattoo on his face is... well, not pretty.
• Dragon-in-Chief: He acts as The Heavy to Drevin's Big Bad. He proves more of a threat than Drevin and ends up being fought in the climax after Drevin is killed.
• Eco-Terrorist: Averted, as it turns out. He pretends to lead an eco-terrorist organization called Force Three, which was actually fabricated by Drevin to take the fall for destroying Ark Angel and Washington, D.C..
• In the Back: He gets kicked in the chest and falls on his own knife.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Alex can't tell where he's from, though works out that he's definitely not English.

Crocodile Tears

Desmond McCain

• Ax-Crazy: When he was still boxing, his greatest joy was knocking out his opponents and imagining he had killed them. Later, he revels in describing various ways to cause pain to Alex.
• As the Good Book Says...: Often quotes the Bible as part of his Good Shepherd act. Though his usage of verses tends to be self-serving and out of context.
• Bald of Evil: His baldness is described as very notable.
• Bond One-Liner: Gives one when he kills Harold Bulman and has an excavator bury the corpse in a construction site:
  "Mr. Bulman finally got what every journalist wants: A scoop."
• Career-Ending Injury: A former middleweight boxing champion until he was knocked out with a dislocated jaw and had to go into surgery. By the time he recovered, his manager and the press no longer cared about him.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He preaches that "do-gooders need victims", celebrities are worshipped for their money, and people donate heavily to charities for publicity and to one-up each other.
• Foil: To Damian Cray, in that both are British celebrities heavily involved in charity work. But while Cray wanted to make a positive difference in the world, Desmond only cares about his own wealth.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: He claims to have been a victim of racism, bullying and growing up without parents. Alex thinks to himself that it's just a convenient excuse.
• Greed: Everything he does is in the pursuit of making more money. In his words: "Money is the god of the twenty-first century [...] Why have one house when you can have ten?"
• Heel–Faith Turn: Became a Reverend because "Everyone likes a sinner who repents" and it helped him get an early release from prison. But it was all a ruse.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Twice in his backstory. First as a rising middleweight boxing champion until his Career-Ending Injury. Then as a successful real estate developer and politician until he was sent to prison for Insurance Fraud.
• Insult Backfire: Alex calls him a "common thief". He only objects to being "common" and retorts he'll become the greatest thief who ever lived.
• Line-of-Sight Name: His name comes from the bag of McCain frozen oven chips he was found wrapped in as an abandoned baby.
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • He hired an assassin known as the Gentleman to kill the boxer that ended his career and the surgeon who botched his operation. Said assassin specializes in arranging "accidents" to keep suspicion away from his clients.
  • After the party in Kilmore Castle, McCain tries this with Alex, Sabina and Edward Pleasure while they're driving home, having sniper shoot out their tires. They barely survive the "car accident".
• Man on Fire: Alex kills him by rolling an oil drum towards him with an exploding pen attached.
• Red Right Hand: His jaw was dislocated in his final boxing match and the bungled surgery afterwards only made it worse. He is only able to eat soft foods or liquids since he can't chew anymore.
• Scary Black Man: When he drops the act of politeness, what you're left with is an imposing, black ex-boxer lunatic.
• Sinister Minister: Despite holding the title of Reverend, McCain is pretty much the opposite of a good shepherd, being fully willing to cause widespread suffering to raise funds that end up lining his own pockets.
• Spotting the Thread: He realizes Alex is still alive and Myra is dead after finding her bloody shoe and Alex's bloodless torn-up shirt.
• Synthetic Plague: The key to his latest charity scheme. He plans to activate wheat fields all across East Africa which have been genetically-engineered to produce ricin. And after publicizing the disaster, his charity will bring in more donation money than ever before. Though this time, he intends to abscond with the funds as the poison spreads.
• Unholy Matrimony: Planning to marry Myra after his scheme succeeds and is genuinely devastated by her death.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Like Damian Cray, he is worshipped by the public for his charity work, and even MI6 has trouble finding any dirt on him aside from his past criminal record.
• We Care: His charity, First Aid, exists purely to gain whatever profit it can from the disasters by keeping as much of the donation money as it can. Perhaps taken to its extreme when he starts engineering disasters to get people to donate.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He shoots Bulman after getting the information he needs about Alex Rider and kills Leonard Straik, the scientist who created his Synthetic Plague. Attempts to repeat this with Alex after interrogating him.

Myra Bennett

• Adaptation Name Change: Her surname became "Beckett" in the US version.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: She taught herself to fly an aeroplane using her knowledge of physics.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Forces Alex to hold onto pull-up handles suspended over a river full of crocodiles
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Eaten alive by crocodiles. The same ones she was planning to feed Alex to.
• The Dragon: To McCain.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: She wears glasses and is rotten to the core. Flipping between The Stoic and just plain Ax-Crazy.
• Unholy Matrimony: Intends to marry McCain.

Ravi Chandra

A plant operator at the Jowada nuclear power station in Chennai. He was offered a fantastic sum of money in return for sabotaging the power plant.

---

• Intro-Only Point of View: In Crocodile Tears
• One Degree of Separation: Exploited by the two men who approached him for the job, one of whom knows Ravi's cousin.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He just wanted a better life for his family.
• Unwitting Pawn: To McCain and First Aid. He was told the bomb he was carrying would have a 10-minute delay, more than enough time for him to escape the explosion. They lied.

Harry Bulman

A freelance journalist who happened upon some gossip on Alex Rider and seeks to make a profitable story from the information.

---

• Asshole Victim: He gets disposed of by McCain after telling him what he dug up on Alex. Given his immoral behavior, it's clear the story doesn't intend for him to be missed.
• Bullying a Dragon: Thought he could get away with exploiting Alex when MI6 has a vested interest in keeping him (and their secrets) safe. Then he tries to blackmail McCain.
• Dirty Coward: Used to be in the commandos, but he was found hiding during an ambush and received a dishonourable discharge for cowardice.
• Engineered Public Confession: Has several men pretend to be Winston's Yu's lackeys and attack Alex presumably for revenge. Bulman takes pictures of the encounter and records Alex's responses.
• Intrepid Reporter: Has been tracking down bits and pieces of Alex's spy work since Stormbreaker.
• Immoral Journalist: The majority of his articles are tabloid smut. He's also willing to use threats and blackmail to get any information on Alex Rider.
• It's All About Me: His POV chapter shows his selfishness, Lack of Empathy and tendency to blame everyone else.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Bulman proposes publishing Alex's story as exposing MI6 injustices, not caring that this would ruin Alex's life too.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: All his efforts to (personally) make use of Alex's information come to a grinding halt thanks to MI6.
• Smug Snake: He thought no one could stop him from profiting at Alex's expense. He was proven wrong.
• Unperson: To get him off Alex's back, MI6 erases his identity overnight, framing him as an escaped inmate from Broadmoor Hospital. They let him go after warning him not to try anything with Alex Rider.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Serves to give McCain information about Alex Rider. Afterwards, he's shot and buried.

Sharkovsky

Vladimir Sharkovsky

• Bad Boss: To Yassen, and he happily admits it. He forces the kid to taste his meals for poison, treats him like a slave and happily lets his son abuse him.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: An immensely wealthy businessman who has contacts with the mafia, politicians and the police, and has apparently killed who knows how many people to get to his current position. He also cuts corners at a certain pesticide factory, indirectly causing the events of Russian Roulette.
• Evil Cripple: Becomes one after surviving an attempt on his life, suffering a broken neck in the process.
• Get It Over With: After seeing Yassen apparently preparing to force him to play russian roulette, Sharkovsky flat out refuses to co-operate, telling Yassen that he can kill him if he wants, but he won't play along with him.
• Karmic Death: Gets shot by the kid he kept as a slave for three years, who also happens to be the last survivor of the town that was ultimately destroyed thanks to Sharkovsky's earlier actions.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Judging by his tattoos, he's a neo-Nazi, "politically incorrect" is part of the territory.
• Properly Paranoid: Will only drink water from a glass bottle he himself opened, has a food taster like the Roman emperors, and outright admits the closest thing to people he trusts is his family and even then believes they can be bribed to turn against him. However, considering many of his colleagues have been assassinated, his food taster before Yassen was painfully poisoned, and SCORPIA sends an assassin after him, this mindset is actually justified.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Is implied to be a Nazi or at the very least a sympathizer, having both a nazi tattoo and an anti-jewish one.
• Would Hurt a Child: Specifically, would hit a child, throw him off a bridge and into a river, make him play russian roulette, use him as a food taster if he survives, and have him beaten up by his henchmen when he tries to escape.

SCORPIA

SCORPIA As A Whole

Julia Rothman: "They could have added kidnapping, blackmail, terrorism, drug trafficking and vice, but that wouldn't make a word. Anyway, we've got to be called something, and I suppose SCORPIA has a nice ring to it."

• Big Bad: Featuring in five of the eleven novels^note Scorpia, Snakehead, Scorpia Rising, Russian Roulette and Never Say Die (as well as later being revealed to be responsible for the events of Stormbreaker) and responsible for most of the series' backstory, with their disbanding at the end of Scorpia Rising meant to be one of the big indications the series was now over, SCORPIA are effectively the Big Bad of the entire series.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Averted in Scorpia Rising, as Razim needs Alex alive and without any physical marks on him. He also refuses to tell Alex what he is planning.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: An obvious instrument they use. Played straight in Scorpia Rising with Razim, who wants to create a measurable unit of pain and slowly kills people with various horrific instruments, like knives, syringes and many more, to measure the pain that they feel. He tortures a French spy; the author manages to spare the readers the details.
  • It's later mentioned that he does several more "experiments" with Julius. Again, the details are thankfully spared.
• Conspicuously Public Assassination: SCORPIA's plot in Scorpia Rising.
• Cosmopolitan Council: At the beginning of SCORPIA, the leaders of the eponymous criminal organization are a woman from Wales (their sole female member), an Englishman with a Chinese mother, a Yugoslavian, a man of mixed African and Japanese ancestry, a Frenchman, an elderly German, a one-eyed Israeli man, an Australian man with many names, and a Chinese Torture Technician. In later books they recruit new co-leaders from Ireland, Italy, and Iraq.
• Dramatic Irony: In Scorpia Rising, the reader is aware pretty much from the start that Alex's mission is a trap to deliver him to Scorpia.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Sanity wise: SCORPIA condemned Damian Cray as a madman.
• Fun with Acronyms: SCORPIA: Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence, Assassination. Yes, the P is a bit of a stretch. The narration remarks at one point that whoever came up with the name had probably been watching a little too much James Bond.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: SCORPIA runs an assassination school, so naturally, this is part of the curriculum.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: The plot of Snakehead, where SCORPIA have to destroy a conference aiming to wipe out poverty but avoid the organisers looking like martyrs.
• Man Behind the Man: SCORPIA's admitted to being behind Herod Sayle's plan in Book 1 by selling him the virus strain he implanted in the Stormbreakers. It's very possible that they're behind some of the other villain's actions, if not all of them.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: There's a SCORPIA member named Dr. Three.
• Only in It for the Money: They are essentially an elite terrorist-for-hire outfit that works for anyone who has large sums of money. In Scorpia, Julia Rothman claims to Alex that they are even occasionally hired by the intelligence services for dirtier jobs... though make of that what you will.
• Out of Focus: In Scorpia Rising, six new members are added to SCORPIA's executive board, replacing the ones who have been killed; three of the new members are the Big Bads of the next two books. This means that there are four members of the original board who appear in at least three of the books without even being identified by name.
• The Syndicate: SCORPIA is basically the series's version of SPECTRE.
• Villain Decay: In-Universe example; SCORPIA's credibility is seriously affected when a fourteen-year-old boy destroys two of their operations and (indirectly) kills two of their executives within a few months. The failure of their plan in Scorpia Rising results in the organization being dismantled.

Board Members

Julia Rothman

Julia Rothman

• Beauty Is Bad: Unlike most other villains, Mrs. Rothman has no disfigurements, and her descriptions paint her as being quite good-looking. It doesn't change the fact that she's a terrorist planning to mass-murder children.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Really wants to get even with John Rider and MI6 for outwitting her and she thinks she can do this through killing Alex.
• Death by Looking Up: Killed by the hot air balloon she was using as a platform for her attack. Ironically she would have survived if she knew that the SAS soldiers were actually trying to warn her, not detain her.
• Faux Affably Evil: She appears every bit a polite and generous hostess to Alex, treating him to an expensive dinner at a luxury hotel. This despite planning from the start to use him to get even with MI6 and then dispose of him with Invisible Sword.
• Genre Savvy: She refuses to tell Alex how Invisible Sword works at any point, even after she believes he has killed Mrs Jones, leaving him to try and work it out by himself. Although he does manage to do so, Rothman is the only Big Bad of any Alex Rider book whose plan isn't foiled because they explained every last detail to Alex.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Not uncommon for the antagonists in the series, Julia Rothman is flattened by the satellites on the hot air balloon needed to initiate Invisible Sword.
• Little Black Dress: She wears one in Scorpia, which Alex takes notice.
• Manipulative Bastard: Isn't a big player in SCORPIA for nothing.
• Mrs. Robinson: Some of her comments to Alex are very flirtatious, fitting since she was in love with his father.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Well actually, her skin is more peach coloured but as far as the hair description.
• Shout-Out: Her death is like Alec Trevelyan's, the main antagonist from the James Bond movie Goldeneye.
• Unreliable Expositor: The actual truth about Alex's father, revealed at the end of Scorpia, leaves a question mark over how much - if any - of what Rothman says to Alex is true.
• Would Hurt a Child: She says she'd rather not, but if the money pays well...

Major Winston Yu

Major Winston Yu

• Asian Babymama: His mother had an affair with a British businessman, who promised to take her home with him, then left her behind in China.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: A really bad case, as his plan for Alex doesn't even require him to be alive (aside from sheer sadism). And he may be the only villain ever to out-and-out state the best option is to Just Shoot Him and then not do it.
• Career-Ending Injury: Forced to leave active service after contracting osteoporosis imperfecta.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The earthquake caused by Royal Blue's early detonation hits his boat and breaks every bone in his body. He also apparently inflicts this on henchmen who fail him, as Bill Tanner commits suicide to avoid incurring Yu's wrath.
• Death by Irony: He's killed by the bomb that he would have destroyed Reef Island with.
• Disappeared Dad: His father abandoned his mother after she became pregnant. Yu never found out who he was.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: After she died, he went off the rails. He also bribed a guard into letting him scatter her ashes around Buckingham Palace's garden because he knew she would have liked that.
• Evil Cripple: While he's not technically disabled, he does have osteoporosis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease. This ultimately does him in.
• Evil Old Folks: He's in his 60s and is still an active executive for Scorpia, with all the crime and terrorism that entails.
• Fastest Gun in the West: Boasts that he is, as the Americans say, "quick on the draw". He proves it when drawing his gun on Alex without him seeing it.
• Faux Affably Evil: Exceedingly polite, happily describing his plans to make money by killing scores of people and torturing Alex. He learned from his mother that one should never lose their temper.
• Foil: To Herod Sayle, in that both are foreigners who came from dirt-poor families but, because of extraordinary circumstances, ended up receiving a top-rate education in Britain. While Sayle's experiences led to him despising the Brits however, Yu became a huge fan of British culture.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Faced some bullying in school for being a half-British, half-Chinese illegitimate child. It ended when one of his biggest bullies had an unfortunate car accident, coincidentally after Yu's mother heard about his problems in school.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Quite literally. The bomb he stole for his Evil Plan ultimately does him in when it's detonated prematurely.
• Immigrant Patriotism: Served with distinction in Northern Ireland but when he was consigned to a desk job at MI6, this went out the window. Still loves Britain however.
• In the Blood: His mother was a Professional Killer in the snakeheads. He would eventually join them and take the leadership himself.
• Mama Bear: Had a very dark one in his mother—she did whatever it took, even contract killings, to give her son a better life in Britain. Yu estimates at least 16 men (and his schoolyard bully) died for his education.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Named after Winston Churchill, and even went to Harrow School, which Churchill also attended.
• Smug Snake: He's too confident for his own good.
• Wicked Cultured: He has a very aristocratic behaviour.
• Worthy Opponent: Perhaps more than any other Big Bad in the series, Yu seems to admire Alex's intelligence and resourcefulness, and happily admits to Alex that he has underestimated his capability when Alex reveals he knows about the bomb.
• Yellow Peril: The only main villain of East Asian descent.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: How he felt after being relegated to a Post-Injury Desk Job, leading to him steal state secrets and sell out to the snakeheads.
  • Defied in regards to the plan to disrupt the conference. He makes it so the bomb can only activate with a scan of his fingerprints, ensuring that nobody is able to replace him.

Zeljan Kurst

Zeljan Kurst

• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Earlier, during his meeting with Ariston at the London Museum, he has several SCORPIA agents disguised as civilians or tourists there just in case things turn sour. Sure enough, the police attempt to capture him but most of them end up done in by the various agents.
  • He's fully aware that one of his fellow board members might be considering avoiding the usual punishment for retirement by gunning them down when SCORPIA begins to hit rock bottom, so he has snipers placed on the roof of the Scorpia riverboat to take them out. This is how Kroll dies.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He's the leader of SCORPIA, and the one who orders the Big Bads of Snakehead and Scorpia Rising to carry out their plots, though he never comes face to face with Alex.
• Man Behind the Man: In Snakehead and Scorpia Rising, for Winston and Razim respectively. He comes up with plans, the other Scorpia executives carry them out.
• The Unfought: Despite being a prominent member of SCORPIA, and responsible for setting the events of Scorpia Rising in motion, Kurst never even meets Alex or any other MI6 member, with the final chapter stating that he was arrested offscreen in the aftermath of Razim's failure.

Levi Kroll

Levi Kroll

• Ax-Crazy: He prefers direct violence as a first resort.
• Eye Scream: The result of his Pillow Pistol.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Managed to do this to himself before we first see him. He lived through it, though.
• Pillow Pistol: Until it went off.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He fiercely opposes Razim's plan to bait Alex as part of Scorpia's ploy against MI6, not out of any moral standards, but because he doesn't want to risk another credibility-erasing embarrassment. He doesn't live long enough to see how right he was.
• Too Dumb to Live: Pulls a gun on Zeljan of all people and gets assassinated for his trouble.
• The Unfought: Never comes face-to-face with Alex or any other major character outside Scorpia's executive board, despite appearing in three books and having a minor story arc that impacts on the events of the latter two books.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He knows retiring from Scorpia just leads to early death. Unfortunately, he misinterprets a comment from Razim as a suggestion that they should kill him, and ends up giving them reason to. Probably what Razim had intended, of course.

Max Grendel

Max Grendel

• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He was a commander in the German Secret Police and personally killed a foreign spy during a performance of Beethoven's Fifth.
• Badass Decay: In-Universe example — since his secret police days, he has become a grandfather and has developed an eye condition which means he is nearly always weeping.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite being fairly sentimental in his old age, don't forget he's a board member of SCORPIA, and once strangled a foreign spy during a performance of Beethoven's Fifth.
• Bit Character: Had a fair amount of dialogue in one chapter, before dying at the end of it.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being part of SCORPIA and complicit in many of their atrocities, Julia Rothman's plan to kill thousands of British schoolchildren is a step too far for him.
• Resignations Not Accepted: In the opening chapter of Scorpia he refuses to participate in Scorpia's latest project: a biological weapon that specifically targets children. He is given a "retirement present" of suitcase filled with deadly scorpions.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Harming children, and seeing his fellow board members being completely on board with the idea, is too much even for him. Given he's a grandfather, this is understandable.

Dr. Three

Doctor Three

• Affably Evil: Despite being a complete sadist, he is very polite when talking to Julia Rothman.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He presumably has the title "Dr." for a reason, and from what we know about him his field of expertise may well be torture.
• Sadist: It's said he enjoyed the research he did for his book.
• Torture Technician: Wrote a book on torture called Modern Interrogation Techniques.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He appears in every board meeting of SCORPIA that we see, and usually says something, but after Scorpia Rising his ultimate fate is unknown. Mrs. Jones did remark that all of the board members had either been arrested or were on the run, so we can assume he is one of these.
• Would Hurt a Child: Had no objections when Julia Rothman asked if he minded that Invisible Sword would kill thousands of children.

Brendan Chase

Brendan Chase

• I Have Many Names: Has a number of them which he uses as aliases.
• Land Down Under: He's from Australia and was once the paymaster for its secret intelligence service, before fleeing the country with $400,000 of his agency's money while drunk.
• Would Hurt a Child: Moreso than most other SCORPIA members. In Scorpia Rising, he tells Razim that if he needs a volunteer to kill Alex for his plan, he'd "be glad to fire the bullet" himself.

Razim

Abdul-Aziz al-Rahim (Razim)

• Alliterative Name: His real name is Abdul-Aziz Al-Rahim. That's a lot of "A" names.
• Ax-Crazy: The things he did while he was a child says a lot about how fucked up he was, and considering that the only development in this as he got older was managing to somewhat conceal this so that you won't be able to tell at first glance anymore, still is.
• The Chessmaster: He plays Alan Blunt like a chump.
• Disproportionate Retribution: As a child, he stabbed his nanny in the leg when she told him off for teasing his sister.
• Evil Genius: As a child, he thrived in his studies and learned multiple languages. As an adult, he was the head of Iraqi Intelligence Services under Saddam Hussein and planned terrorist attacks for al-Qaeda before winding up with SCORPIA. He's the mastermind for their latest plan in Scorpia Rising.
• Faux Affably Evil: Always goes with a polite and stoic demeanour, but it's entirely fake and just serves to make him even worse.
• For Science!: Takes no pleasure in his experiments. Supposedly.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Happens to wear glasses, and is downright obsessed with inflicting pain.
• Karmic Death: As one of the most outright sadistic villains in the series, it's only appropriate that he gets one of the more painful, drawn-out deaths.
• Kick the Dog: He had no practical reason to murder Jack, he did it just to get an emotional pain response out of Alex.
• Kids Are Cruel: He was this as a child, strangling his dog and ratting out his parents to the Iraqi police alongside his sister. Then he wanted to join the police himself and start killing. The officer trying to give the "you did the right thing" talk was disgusted by him and considered shooting him on the spot.
• Knight of Cerebus: The series was never light to begin with, but Razim takes it into its darkest moments pretty much single-handedly.
• Must Have Nicotine: Smokes frequently, and craves for another cigarette during meetings. This habit would indirectly backfire on him later on.
• No Sense of Humor: He often kills people for telling jokes about him. One such example was when he killed one of his own henchman for comparing him to Harry Potter.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: We're told his real name at one point, but he doesn't use it once.
• Sadist: He claims that horrifically torturing innocent people to create a unit of measurement for pain is purely for science, though Alex suspects that it's how Razim gets his kicks. He certainly seems very engrossed in his "experiments."
• Self-Made Orphan: Indirectly; he ratted his parents out to the Saddam Hussein government, leading to their execution.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Twice in his backstory. He fled Iraq during the 2003 US-British invasion, joining with Al-Qaeda, then leaving them after being ordered to carry out a suicide bombing.
• Spanner in the Works: He expects Jack to steal a knife when she and Alex are dining with him, as it's part of his plan to cause Alex emotional pain. Alex stealing a cigarette packet at the same meal is not part of his plan.
• The Sociopath: He is characterized by a complete lack of emotions or empathy.
• The Unsmile: At the end when he's fallen into the pile of salt and is pleading with Alex to throw him a rope. It's described as looking more like a hideous grimace than anything.
• Villainous Breakdown: He completely flips out when he finds out that Alex is still alive. In his final moments, he goes out cursing Alex - likely the first and last time he would ever feel emotion.
• White Hair, Black Heart: His silver hair is a defining feature, and he is quite possibly one of the most sadistic villains in the series.

SCORPIA members

Nile

• Death by Irony: He has a fear of heights, and ends up being knocked off a hot air balloon from a height of 100 metres after Alex realises what he's afraid of and uses it against him. To add insult to injury, he gets knocked off by a fireball that Alex sets off by severing the balloon's propane burner. How did he do that? By cutting through it with a sword Nile had thrown at him.
• Failed a Spot Check: He searches Alex head to toe after the assignment to kill Mrs. Jones. He didn't think to look inside Alex's mouth, which was hiding a tracker.
• Foreshadowing: Nile is mentioned as having a weakness that keeps him from being Scorpia's #1 assassin. While talking to Alex at a bell tower, Nile tries to avoid going all the way up, and after Alex jumps onto the Invisible Sword balloon satellite, Nile shows sudden reluctance when Rothman orders him to go after Alex.
• It Gets Easier: He says learning to enjoy the kill is part of the job.
• Master Swordsman: They're his weapon of choice, though he's not above using other things available.
• Professional Killer: One of Scorpia's top assassins who's had successful assignments all over the world.
• Red Right Hand: He has vitiligo, giving him patches of pale skin across his face.
• Scary Black Man: As a Scorpia enforcer, he's scary by default, and skin condition aside, he is biologically black.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: When he kills a researcher, though later averted when he tries to kill Alex because he was crippled by his fear of heights. Though these are swords that are meant to be thrown, not normal swords.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: His biggest flaw is his crippling acrophobia.

Anan Sukit

• The Dragon: Would be this if he lived longer.
• Gladiator Games: Runs one of these, and forces Alex into it.
• In the Back: Courtesy of Fox.
• Red Right Hand: Has no ears.

Dr. Bill Tanner

• Co-Dragons: With Ash, to Yu.
• Driven to Suicide: Possibly; it's known that he kills himself, but why he does is never explained (it's suggested that he was following orders from Yu after Alex escaped, which given the fate of de Wynter earlier seems likely).
• Faux Affably Evil: Remains polite even after threatening Alex with a slow and painful death.
• Mad Scientist: Dissects people to give their organs away.
• Smug Snake: He has to brag about how Alex "can't escape" and gives away how he can escape.

Yassen Gregorovich

• Accidental Misnaming: His name is really Yasha. Sharkovsky misheard it as Yassen, since Yasha had just been beaten up by Sharkovsky's two bodyguards and his face was still swollen. After escaping, Scorpia ran with it. This was likely intended as a Retcon, as Horowitz named the character after someone he knew and was unaware that was not a Russian name.^note There was a well-known Russian journalist named Yasen Zasursky, but it's not a standard Russian name by any means. Zasursky was born in 1929, when new "revolutionary names" were in fashion, and his mother decided to name him Yasen because of his father's bright eyes (the name "Yasen" is sort of a masculine noun formed from the adjective "yasniy", meaning "bright" in Russian).
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: A rare male example, Sharkovsky orders his men to make sure the captured young Yasha has washed himself throughly before being in his presence as was living on the streets at the time.
• Blofeld Ploy: In Eagle Strike, Damian Cray orders to kill Alex and Sabina. refuses, saying he "does not kill children". Flustered, Damian snatches his gun, and instead of shooting Alex and Sabina, turns the gun on Yassen.
• Book Ends: Both Stormbreaker and Russian Roulette end with Herod Sayle's assassination by Gregorovich, but from the perspectives of Alex and Yassen, respectively.
• Bullet Holes and Revelations: The end of Stormbreaker: Sayle has a gun pointed at Alex and two shots are fired. But they went from Yassen's gun into Sayle's chest.
• Crazy-Prepared: Had a backup plan in case Alex escapes from Cray's compound in Eagle Strike, deploying an entire squad of mercs to intercept him in Amsterdam. And after that failed, he had a backup backup plan in the form of I Have Your Ex-Girlfriend.
• Cultured Badass: The fourth book mentions that he listens to classical music and is learning nine languages.
• A Day in the Limelight: Is the focus of Russian Roulette, which delves into his childhood and how he came to be an assassin.
• Doomed Hometown: His home village was contaminated with an artificial strain of anthrax, and later destroyed by the Russian government as part of their quarantine/cover-up.
• The Dragon: For Damien Cray in Eagle Strike.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Yassen is a professional assassin, but even he refuses to kill children and anyone not strictly on his list of targets. That being said, he doesn't have a big problem with maiming them. Considering his role in Stormbreaker (a plot to kill tens of thousands of British schoolchildren), he was likely lying about not killing children and was simply using it as an excuse to not kill Alex.
  • He appears pleased when Alex tells him that Cray has died, and says that he knew working for him was a mistake (and not just because Cray was directly responsible for 's own death).
• Fate Worse than Death: He spent three years working as a slave for Vladimir Sharkovsky.
• Foil: To Ash, Alex’s godfather. They were the two people closest to John, and both worked for SCORPIA. Yassen killed Ian. Ash murdered Alex’s mom and dad.
  • Ash acts remorseful about murdering Alex’s parents, but his remorse is ultimately pointless, as it doesn’t stop him from trying to kill Alex if it benefits Ash’s career. Yassen appears to be remorseless about killing Ian. However, he disobeys orders to protect Alex, and ultimately gave his life to save Alex.
  • Ash didn’t object to Alex working in the business, and will get Alex more involved if it benefits him. Yassen repeatedly tries to convince Alex to stay out of the spy business for Alex’s safety.
  • Ash worked for the good side. Ash was trusted with the info that John was a double agent, and John also chose him as his best man. Despite John’s faith in him, Ash betrayed him, murdered him, and, 14 years later, nearly got Alex killed. Yassen was John’s assassin trainee and worked for the villains. John never trusted him with the truth. Despite discovering John’s lies, Yassen never revealed John to the MI6, and later, died saving his son.
• Foregone Conclusion: Of course he, Julia Rothman and John Rider will survive Russian Roulette.
• Heel–Face Turn: Arguably, in the end of the fourth book when he tried to stop Damian Cray from killing Alex and got shot in the process. He dies in Alex's arms after Damian Cray dies.
• Ideal Illness Immunity: Has never been ill once in his life. He attributes this to his parents giving him an antidote to a powerful strain of anthrax when he was a kid.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: For Alex, since he killed his uncle.
• Killed Off for Real: Dies at Damian Cray's hands.
• Made a Slave: For three years following a burgulary gone wrong, after he was caught by the rich man he tried to rob.
• A Million Is a Statistic: His rationalization of taking jobs for people planning to kill millions.
  The numbers were irrelevant to Yassen. People died all the time. He knew that every time he drew a breath, at that exact moment, somewhere in the world a hundred or a thousand people would be taking their last. Death was everywhere; it could not be measured.
• Morality Pet: Alex seems to be this for Yassen, who in Eagle Strike first arranges him to "die" in a bullfight so that Alex can escape and then tries Please Spare Him, My Liege! on Damian Cray.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Gives one of these in Russian Roulette when he talks about how people who couldn't afford vodka would use shoe polish as a drug.
  • This is close to Truth in Television. In the 1990s, many alcoholics in Russia had to resort to drinking all kinds of dubious ethanol-containing substances when they couldn't afford actual vodka.
  • And earlier, in the late 1980s during Gorbachev's prohibition, people had to resort to dubious substances because they couldn't purchase vodka even when they had the money.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Part of his empathy for Alex probably comes from knowing what it's like to be a helpless kid himself.
• Orphan's Ordeal: His parents died in the plague that destroyed his village. He was a street kid after that, begging and stealing to survive.
• Professional Killer: He's an assassin.
• Punch-Clock Villain: In it for the money, and nothing else.
• Redemption Equals Death: He may have not liked John Rider trying to turn him away from being a assassin but when push comes to shove, he won't lay a finger on Alex and is willing to die instead.
• Retirony: He chooses to spare Damian and go through with the Eagle Strike project because after that, he can retire and return to Russia. Of course, he didn't expect Damian to shoot him later on.
• Rules Lawyer: Doesn't kill kids, but is fine setting Alex up to get killed, and unrepentantly works for an outfit that kill kids all the time. Guess that little bit still counts...
• Russian Roulette: Sharkovsky makes him, as a fourteen-year-old, play it after he is captured. At the end of the book, he returns to Sharkovsky's mansion and plays it again - but this time with five bullets instead of one. He survives, and kills Sharkovsky and his son.
• The Sleepless: His narration mentions that he never sleeps more than four hours at a time.
• Small Role, Big Impact: In the main series, he only actually appears in two of the books, twice briefly in Stormbreaker, and acting as The Dragon to Damian Cray in Eagle Strike before being killed off. Despite that, his actions continue to influence Alex's life for the rest of the series, in addition for being the one indirectly responsible for Alex being railroaded into the spy game from the very beginning (by killing his uncle). Thanks to that, he received his own spin-off novel focusing on his origins.
  • His impact was so big that he was included in the first season of the TV series (based on a book in which he was not even present). In the second season he ends up being Spared By Adaptation instead of being Killed Off for Real like he is in the book Eagle Strike, thereby all but confirming that he will be included in future seasons if the show is renewed.
• Stealth Mentor: Enjoys seeing Alex succeed at things. Also encourages him to get out of the spy game where no other adult in it does. His protectiveness probably comes from having been colleagues with Alex's dad.
• Street Urchin: While he was a kid, he lived as one in Moscow.
• Unknown Rival: Ash devotes a decent amount of time discussing building up his battle with Yassen, where Yassen curb-stomped him when he was only nineteen. He’s rather fixated on Yassen, and seems to see Yassen as his greatest enemy, particularly for his injury and his failed mission in Malta. Yassen, in his narration, doesn’t seem to spare much thought to Ash.
• Unperson: Because of certain events in his childhood, there are no records of his existence anywhere in the world. It's this trait which makes him good at his job, since it's much harder to track him down.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Played with. He has no qualms about working for an employer intending to kill millions of children, but objects to directly killing Alex and Sabina. Though this may be because worked with Alex's dad.
• You Are Not Ready: Scorpia sent him out to assassinate a New York lawyer. He had doubts; a Scorpia sniper killed her anyway. Scorpia knew that this was the case, so he wasn't killed like Grant was.
• You Killed My Father: Was responsible for the death of Ian Rider, Alex's uncle.

Erik Gunter

• Cruel and Unusual Death: Stung to death by a scorpion Alex had hidden in a cigarette packet.
• Career-Ending Injury: Served in the army before he was wounded in Afghanistan and invalided home. He still has two bullets in his body that the surgeons could not remove.
• Evil Pays Better: Joined Scorpia after being medically discharged and unable to find a job elsewhere.
• Failed a Spot Check: Alex's plan to escape would have failed if only he had noticed the cigarette packet hadn't been there before Alex got into the van.
• Fallen Hero: Once a loyal soldier, it is suspected that this happened after leaving his hospital treatment. The suspicions are true.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Gunter is a fairly big part of Scorpia Rising as Dragons go, but he is noticeably overshadowed in comparison to his monstrously evil boss and his primary Dragon.
• Smug Snake: He tells Alex more or less the whole plan.

Julius Grief

• Ax-Crazy: He's rather unhinged as a result of his Clone Angst (and being raised by Dr. Grief didn't help, either). This is someone who enjoys making other people, especially Alex, suffer.
• Back for the Finale: He hadn't appeared since Point Blanc.
• Clone Angst: Double Subverted. He knows his genetic material is the same as his father's, but he doesn't mind, and when neither Julius nor his "father" knew who Alex really was, he was OK with becoming a clone of Alex Friend. But then once he figured out Alex's true identity...
• Demoted to Dragon: If one takes the view that the clones are Grief, which is mentioned several times in Point Blanc.
• Last of His Kind: Last of the Grief clones.
• Look Both Ways: Downplayed. Getting hit by a car doesn't outright kill him, but it does leave him wounded for Alex to finish off.
• Named After Somebody Famous: He was named after Julius Caesar. His "brothers" also have the names of powerful leaders in history such as Napoleon, Genghis, Mao Tse and Adolf.
• Not Quite Dead: Remember the fire in Point Blanc? Yeah, he survived that.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: He first appears and confronts Alex at the very end of Point Blanc. While the narration deliberately makes it ambiguous as to which Alex walks away, the fact that there are more books in the series resolves the issue.

Giovanni Grimaldi and Eduardo Grimaldi

• Ascended Extra: Briefly mentioned in one of the earlier books as SCORPIA thugs, they become the main antagonists of Never Say Die.
• Bad Boss: They have a tendency to underpay their workers and kill them when they ask for more.
• Berserk Button: Trying to separate them. They killed a nanny in their youth when she tried to do this as a way of punishing them.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: They are both the main antagonists of Never Say Die.
• The Dividual: It's mentioned that they almost never spent any time apart during their lifetimes. They were basically the same person, they always wore the same clothes, they always ate the same food, they even finished each other's sentences.
• Identical Twin Id Tag: Giovanni is left handed, while Eduardo is right handed.

Others

Sabina Pleasure

Sabina as she appears in the graphic novels

Sabina Pleasure is a fifteen year old girl who becomes Alex Rider's close friend when they meet at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in the novel Skeleton Key.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the film and the graphic novels, she's one of Alex's schoolmates and is present from the beginning.
• Adopted to the House: Sabina's parents "adopt" Alex, who flies off to America to go live with them.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In the graphic novel of Eagle Strike only. Due to her Adaptational Early Appearance, her breaking off contact with Alex and refusing to believe him couldn't be the same as the original novel, since in the graphic novels' continuity she already knows Alex really is a spy. The graphic novel instead goes with her accusing him of making it up because she can't believe her father would be the target of an international assassin, or that Damian Cray could be involved. Given her involvement in Alex's previous missions in this continuity, it isn't clear why Sabina would completely refuse to believe Alex and assume he must be making it up.
• Big Damn Heroes: Rescues an unconscious, drowning Alex after he wipes out surfing the Cribbar as a result of (though unknown to her at the time) an attack by a Triad member.
• Covert Pervert: Implied in Skeleton Key where it is mentioned that she likes rude jokes.
• Damsel in Distress: In Eagle Strike Damien Cray uses her to get Alex to bring nuclear launch codes.
• Fingore: Narrowly averted. She nearly has her fingers cut off in Eagle Strike.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Has bright blue eyes.
• Like Brother and Sister: Technically, as her father "adopts" Alex in Scorpia Rising.
• Love Interest: Of Alex.
• Pity the Kidnapper: Subverted. During her time as a hostage, Sabina attacks Cray several times. Not that we feel bad for Cray at all...
• Punny Name: "It's been a pleasure." Word of God states that this was a play on the innuendo-laden names of Bond girls.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: At the end of "Never Say Die", the series has returned to the pre-Scorpia Rising status quo, but despite the fact that the Pleasure family are technically still Alex's legal guardians, they're barely mentioned. As if to add insult to injury, they are never mentioned by anyone once during "Nightshade".

Tom Harris

Tom as he appears in the graphic novels

Tom Harris is Alex's best friend from Brookland. He was bullied for two consecutive years before Alex set them straight, but is now the captain of the football team at Brookland, the school which both he and Alex attend.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: His hair is black in the books, but in the graphic novels, it is changed to brown.
• Book Dumb: Isn't good at the academics, but he is the only one able to beat Alex in sporting events.
• Butt-Monkey: For two years he was one, until Alex sorted them out.
• Cacophony Cover Up: Provides these to help Alex.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Described as having blue eyes.
• Kendo Team Captain: Now captain of his school's football team.
• The Reliable One: Does his best to help Alex when needed. He believed Alex about his occupation in MI6.
• Secret-Keeper: For the most part, although he does casually blurt out that Alex is a spy to his older brother. His older brother doesn't particularly care, so it's mercifully not damaging.
• We Need a Distraction: Provides the distractions.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He's heard from only once after he's shot in Scorpia Rising, and it's a passing mention. The final chapter never bothers to mention if Alex ever talks to him once he returns from Cairo or meets him ever again, despite Alex having agonised over leaving him to go to America in an earlier chapter.
  • This is averted by Nightshade. Tom appears in the book, still Alex’s best friend, and plays a significant role helping Alex in the book.

Jerry Harris

Jerry is Tom’s older brother. Alex and Tom visit him in Naples in Scorpia.

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• Mellow Fellow: Very relaxed older brother. Besides a little complaining about his parents, he’s pretty blasé. He’s very relaxed about meeting a 14-year-old spy and is completely unbothered taking him to a potentially fatal activity.
• Nice Guy: Very nice and helpful to his little brother’s friend. Not only does he let Alex and Tom stay with him, but is willing to drive Alex two hours from Naples to Amalfi twice and lets Alex use his expensive equipment. He even offers to do a BASE jump and break into Consanto for Alex.
• Thrill Seeker: He’s into extreme sports. His apartment is littered with extreme sports equipment, including rock climbing, paragliding, snowboarding, and BASE jumping.
• The Unreveal: Complete nonreaction to learning Alex is a spy. Not only does he immediately believe Tom, but his only comment about it is “That’s awesome.”

Paul Drevin

• Fingore: Averted: His would-be kidnappers had no qualms about severing one of his fingers. However, they were unaware Alex had taken his place.
• Innocent Blue Eyes
• Lonely Rich Kid
• Nerdy Inhaler: He has asthma.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Always tries to please his dad.

Rahim

A spy working for RAW, India's secret service. Alex meets him in Crocodile Tears when he is investigating Desmond McCain.

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• Aloof Ally: Doesn't care about Alex's goal to stop McCain's Evil Plan and save thousands of lives, but he does go out of his way to save him.
• Determinator: Running a fever while in Africa but it doesn't slow him down.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He compromises his mission thrice to save Alex and the last one gets him killed.
• Pyrrhic Victory: His rescuing of Alex is posthumously repaid by Alex completing his mission.
• Revenge: He summarises his division's activities as this. His mission is to assassinate McCain in vengeance for bombing the nuclear plant in Chennai.
• Spanner in the Works: His presence foils each of McCain's attempts to kill Alex.

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