#anthony horowitz
Anthony Horowitz - the house of silk
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This hit me right in the feels
One thing I really do love in the Alex Rider TV adaption, both in season 1 and now in season 2 is the constant subtle hints that Alex is actually not your usual kid, despite still being very early in his character arc.
And I’m not talking about the flashy parkour sequences or fight scenes. I mean the offhand comment that Alex knows about the law, or is extremely involved in multiple outdoor activities. His character is shown to have an intelligence and ambition above his peers, be proficient with a gun and competent in tasks that while as simple as pitching a tent, highlight he’s already a class above his own and most likely has extensive knowledge on other useful topics too.
While it’s nice to see him show off a little in the bigger scenes and get a glimpse of the spy extraordinaire to come, it’s also brilliant to see the impact of Alex’s upbringing with Ian included frequently in seemingly mundane scenes and is something I’ve enjoyed picking up on.
Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher just being absolutely…astounded by the amount of knowledge this kid has on not only the socio-economic climate of literally every freaking country but the most freakishly good instincts of how each new politician that comes along is going to fare. It’s at the point he now has a secret cabinet of sticky notes on Alex’s off hand comments of each new public figure because God Dammit he always turns out to be right.
Give me Alex’s Riders politics teacher who stands up for him against others in the staff room because his essays provide the freshest viewpoints he’s seen in over 20 years. Ethics, politics, morality, social structures, negotiations, public figures, military influences and ulterior motivators; Alex Rider handles each topic with a grace and insight he hasn’t seen since university. Quite frankly he doesn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. He settles on curious.
Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher who’s family served in the army, who recognises the shadows of war in those dark brown eyes even if he can never understand why. The only one that seems to notice that seeing Alex’s controlled, efficient steps through a boisterous crowd of school children is like watching a ballet dancer glide through a swarm of drunk seagulls.
Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher who let’s the poor kid take a nap in class or snack when he wants to (partly because 50% of the time he looks ready to drop) but mostly because deep down they both know there’s nothing that he can teach him here. Alex had an already pretty unusual and impressive grasp of foreign affairs before his uncle died and in the years since then? Well, he’s pretty sure Alex speaks more languages fluently than he has fingers.
Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher whose subject gives him more of a glimpse into his talents than most people are allowed to see; who takes one good look at his extra little piece of the puzzle and thinks yeah. This kid is brilliant.
My favourite personal theory for Alex Rider that could semi-realistically be cannon and fits a lot of fic the fandom has made is that Alan Blunt arranged Ian’s death and only blamed it on Yassen.
- My most important evidence is that Blunt is simply a Bastard and the real villain in the whole series. I will not elaborate.
- Ian’s death would have been highly beneficial to Blunt when Alex was old enough to be sent on missions, but young enough to be impressionable and controlled while being indoctrinated into the agency. If Blunt had caught wind that Ian was training Alex all he would have to do was remove Ian and the boy was his.
-Semi-related to that point, Ian may have been pretty abesent but he 100% did not leave Alex’s custody with the bank. He would have known there was a chance of being killed in a mission and had better contingency plans for that. Blunt faked the documents which a 14 year old Alex would not have been able to argue with.
-Blunts actions towards Alex and easy control over him also suggest he’s been watching him for a while (possibly just due to his bloodline) but nevertheless would have had time to plan it all out.
-Next is that the multiple shots to the car don’t fit Yassen’s style and although Ian isn’t the same as John or Alex, I still feel Yassen killing Ian wouldn’t have been as simple as that. By blaming Yassen though, Blunt would have been preventing Alex from getting in contact with him and covering up about his family history right from the start. The Assasin was also an easy scapegoat for why Ian’s death would have looked a little too clean.
- We see that by the end of the series, Blunt methods are too extreme even for MI6’s own employees suggesting he was 100% capable of pulling off something like this.
-Even more, writing Yassen and Alex getting on so well when Yassen literally killed his uncle is something I’ve seen the fandom struggling with a lot. The whole narrative that Yassen killed Ian doesn’t really fit well to readers (especially knowing his past with Alex’s father) and it’s one of the main obstacles that stops them being closer in canon. I feel like they’re so similar to each other and the family like dynamic the fandom creates around them is just so fitting, Blunt blamed Yassen to avoid anything like this manifesting
-Final point, did I mention Blunt is a bastard? If not, Blunt is a Bastard and would 100% do something like this
Are you really in the Alex Rider fandom if you haven’t gone through the big milestone of reading ‘the devil and the deep blue sea’ by pognosis?
I just love the idea of people finding out about all the crazy stuff Alex Rider has done.
Shot the priminister? Obviously
Been in a shoot out on Air Force one? Average Monday
Actor Rupert Everett in a conversation with Novelist and screen writer Anthony Horowitz. //// Date: Thursday, February 27th.//// Time: 15h30 - 17h00. //// Venue: Riad El Fenn ////
Actor Toby Stephens, who plays Damian Cray, a tech mogul, in the series “Alex Rider”, talks in an exclusive interview with News.co.uk about “extremely interesting espionage, by nature secretive”, how series writer Anthony Horowitz created a “more complicated and nuanced version of what it means to be a teenager” and what it was like to film.
Season two of the spy thriller “Alex Rider” airs every Monday night at 10pm on AXN.
The series follows the story of Alex Rider, a London teenager who has been unknowingly trained for the dangerous world of espionage since childhood. After the death of his uncle and the near-death mission to destroy the Point Blanc boarding school in the first season, Alex is eager to put the past behind him, resume his normal teenage life and heal his trauma by enlisting the help of a therapist.
His plans to put his life back together are turned upside down when a close friend is the target of a horrific attack. So Alex finds himself drawn back into the world of covert missions, where he must stop a sinister plan afoot that aims to destroy the US defense system.
“Alex Rider” is produced by Eleventh Hour Films and Sony Pictures Television. Otto Farrant (“The White Queen”), Brennock O'Conner (“Game of Thrones”), Vicky McClure (“Line of Duty”), Ronkẹ Adékọluẹjọ (“Doctor Who”), Marli Siu (“Dixi”) and Stephen Dillane (“Game of Thrones”) reprise their roles, while Toby Stephens (“Die Another Day”), Rakie Ayola (“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”) and Charithra Chandran (“Bridgerton”) join the cast for season two.
Toby Stephens is Damian Cray, a tech business mogul and the main villain in the new adventure in the young spy’s life. Damian has created hugely popular online games that have made him rich. With a strong motivation rooted in a trauma he experienced when he was the same age as Alex, Damian is, in fact, a lonely person who sets out on a desperate search for his own catharsis.
Why did you accept to be part of this project?
Toby Stephens: My son is a big fan of the books and I know Anthony quite well through Jill, his wife, who I’ve worked with several times. It was nice to do something that my son enjoys. I also played a level-headed, solid dad on Lost in Space for three seasons and found it fun to play a sociopath.
When is it not fun?
T.S: Well, yes! He’s a misunderstood sociopath. It just seemed like a fun thing to do. And also, I had spent a lot of time working away from home and it was really nice to do something here.
Why do you think books are so popular too?
T.S: They’re pure action. The plots are complex, but not over the top. They’re very, very gripping. I would have loved it if I was a kid. I mean, I enjoyed reading them as an adult. I like that Anthony Horowitz ups the stakes and builds the villains quite truthfully. There are real stakes and people die. Alex Rider’s uncle died and there are moral ambiguities and complexities there. I think a lot of books in the children’s fiction area go in that direction. It’s not a super clean, sterile, kid-friendly world. It’s slightly edgy and paints a picture of a violent and morally complicated world, but without it being too adult. It’s like a half-way nice house.
The fact that we see Alex doing therapy seems like a very modern way of looking at teenagers.
T.S: It’s definitely contemporary. We live in a very complicated age for young people. It’s great to show kids that this is okay, that it’s part of life and that you can reach out and get help for things. If Alex Rider can do it, then anyone can. Anthony Horowitz has created an inspirational guy rather than a stoic man. He’s a more complicated and nuanced version of what it means to be a teenager.
Tell me a bit more about the character you play in this show. Who is he?
T.S: Damian Cray is a tech mogul. He has created online games that are extremely popular and has made a huge amount of money from them. Hyper-intelligent and incredibly driven, obviously. He draws his strength from a tragedy that happened to him when he was 17, around the age of Alex Rider, and that shaped his world. He was a pretty lonely kid; his parents were pretty absent. This tragedy then leads him on a search for catharsis.
How does Alex get to meet Damian Cray?
T.S: Alex gets to know this journalist who is injured in Cornwall and realizes that he was writing an expose on Damian Cray. Alex tries to find out what Cray is doing and whether he was, in fact, responsible for the journalist’s injury. Cray doesn’t really know who this kid is and mistakenly thinks he’s the world’s best player, an anonymous player named K7.
How did you find working with Otto, Brenock and Marli?
T.S: I loved it. It made me feel very old though! I love working with young people, it keeps you in touch with things. Actually, they are much more mature than me, more “together”. I love doing this job, period. It’s so much fun. I feel very lucky at this point to be working in this climate. Fortunately, people need entertainment. I’m very fortunate to be able to make a career out of it at the best of times, but even more so at this time.
How do you prepare to play a billionaire, do you draw inspiration from real life?
T.S: I didn’t want to build it based on anyone specific, but yes, the way he dresses, the way he is, there’s a kind of - not arrogance, but the assumption that everyone works for you. It’s about control. These people have massive control issues. Part of it is assuming that everyone is there for your benefit, to be used by you, and that everyone is a tool that you can use. There’s a very specific mindset you have to have to be that successful, and when they lose control, it’s huge for them. It’s devastating. So I didn’t want to mimic the physical aspects, but rather what drives them, what gives you solid ground to work on.
Have you played any video games to understand this world?
T.S: My son plays a lot and I like to observe him. It’s incredible stuff. However, I don’t think Cray spends that much time playing games. He designs them all, but they’re there for a greater purpose. He wants The Feathered Serpent to be the best in the world, but I don’t think he spends a lot of time playing it. Other people do that for him.
In terms of it being an action show, did you personally get involved in any of the scenes?
T.S: Cray is simply telling people what to do, being extremely bossy and obsessed with being in control! Towards the end of the show I have a big action scene, and I’ve done that in other productions, but my body is less forgiving than it used to be. It certainly pleased me that I didn’t have too much action in this production!
Why do you think the spy genre productions still remain so popular?
T.S: It’s interesting because all these professions like detective, spy, doctor, have a built-in drama. In real life, there’s probably a lot of boredom, so obviously these are romanticized versions of what really happens. But espionage is extremely interesting, because of the secretive nature, because of these shadowy organizations, these powerful villains. All of that creates these very compelling worlds. It’s fantasy, but it’s also fun. Violence, suggested violence or danger is always great when you’re sitting by a fireplace, reading a book. It’s the same with crime novels, Agatha Christie or whatever. It’s that slightly tame version of something that is, in fact, horrible. It’s somehow safe in the pages of these books, so you can curl up and discover it. They’re great stories, especially since they tend to be quite labyrinthine.
Would you make a good spy, Toby?
T.S: I’d be terrible. I just couldn’t keep any secrets. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m on this secret mission!”. I guess I could carry off the disguise part or pretend to be someone else. Otherwise, I’d be terrible.
Con motivo del 113 aniversario del nacimiento de Ian Fleming, sus herederos y agentes literarios han anunciado hoy que en mayo de 2022 podremos leer una nueva novela de James Bond, nuevamente escrita por Anthony Horowitz, autor de Trigger MortisyForever And A Day, de 2015 y 2018, respectivamente.
Estos títulos transcurren en períodos entre novelas: Trigger Mortis comienza poco después de los eventos de Goldfinger(1959), mientras que Forever And A Day tiene lugar poco antes de los eventos de Casino Royale (1953), con James Bond asumiendo el número de 007 tras la muerte del misterioso agente británico que poseía dicha designación. Lo mismo sucederá en esta nueva historia, que aún no tiene título, pero que estará ambientada a finales de los años sesenta, tras el enfrentamiento de Bond con Francisco Scaramanga en El Hombre Del Revólver de Oro (1965). El autor apenas indicó que “volverá un viejo enemigo”, manteniendo el misterio.
Este libro se publicará por Johnatan Cape en el Reino Unido y Harper Collins en los Estados Unidos. Se desconoce si tendrá una versión en español, pero es difícil ya que los dos últimos títulos no se editaron en España tras la poca repercusión del Bond literario en Iberoamérica.
Alex Rider
Percy Jackson
Anothony Horowitz wrote another Alex Rider book and omgosh guess who’s about to binge read the series yet again
Bit of Tia and Eddie chaos
Listing off characters sexualities
Tia: doesn’t use lables
(Tia’s offspring)
Evan: been Questioning for the last 10 years
Alice: Bisexual
Lemony: Acesexual
David: Straight
Danny: doesn’t use labels
Igna: pansexual
(Band mates)
Robert: straight
Eddie: Gay
Shakyl: straight
(Tia’s parents)
Regina: straight
George: straight
(Siblings)
Crissi: omnisexual
Kevin: straight
Nolan: gay
(Uncle and aunt)
Maria: lesbian
Edmund: doesn’t use labels
(Ignas gang)
Jack: omnisexual
Apollo: Bisexual
Tonttu: midjet
Gizu: Queer (he doesn’t know he just knows he’s fruity)
Lemina: Also Queer
All I can think of at the moment
Alice: what’s ur type
Tia: a straight white man
Alice: …
Tia: *manic laughter*
*4 year old Elsie just existing*
Tia (dumbass grandma): “Hmm… want a bear?”
Igna (Elsies milf); “SHES FOUR”
Tia: “IDK WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO WITH IT-“
Rick and Morty edits but with Tia, Holly, Alice and Jason ♂️
