Alex Rider

Alex Rider is the main character of the series, his name being the title for the franchise. Alex's parents were killed when their private plane crashed - later revealed to have been caused by a bomb planted by Ash - and he was subsequently raised by his uncle Ian Rider, until Ian himself was killed when Alex was fourteen years old. After his uncle's death, MI6 allows Alex's best friend and housekeeper, Jack Starbright, to become his legal guardian and after that he was working for MI6.

His father and uncle were secretly spies for MI6, and Ian Rider had been, unbeknownst to Alex, training Alex his whole life for a career with MI6, teaching him several languages and enrolling him in karate classes. After his uncle is killed, MI6 send Alex on his first mission. He is trained with the SAS and codenamed "Cub". Alex is repeatedly used by MI6 on assignments, and has also been used by the CIA and ASIS. He is very reluctant to take on these assignments, even though he is very capable of successfully completing them, and usually has to be blackmailed into them.

"Most schoolboys dream of being spies, with Alex, we have a spy that dreams of being a schoolboy," said MI6 chief Alan Blunt. Through his adventures, Alex discovers new things about his uncle, his parents, and his godfather, Ash, who were all involved in secret services, with the exception of his mother, who was a nurse.

His assignments often affect him mentally, his eyes often being described as "having seen too much", and he has few friends left at his school, his classmates viewing him as strange because of his long absences from school.

Alex speaks German, French and Spanish (as well as Japanese in the film adaption) and also has a limited grasp of Italian. He is a black-belt in karate. He is an accomplished diver, and has experience in several extreme sports. He is described as having "fair hair, cut short except for two thick strands hanging over his forehead", "the body of an athlete" and having "a face that would attract plenty of girls" as well as "thin lips", and a "slightly chiselled nose and chin". After the novel Scorpia, he has a bullet wound, as well as several scars and bruises from previous assignments. Alex is fourteen years old in the first seven novels, and will be turning fifteen after the end of Crocodile Tears, the eighth novel.

Other Results: 5 Challenges, 7 Series

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