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.
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
just finished watching alex rider season 2 and i can’t stop thinking about alex saying to yassen ‘you work for cray now? do what he tells you? like a dog.’ and the parallels between that line and these two lines from russian roulette… wow ok
The mystery of how Alex had gotten here was another problem. Last he remembered, he had been with several MI6 agents debriefing after the crash of Air Force One then he had been bundled into a car allegedly to go back home and now…he took stock of the barren interrogation room again. He doubted he was with MI6 and he had thoroughly crushed Cray and his plan which left very few options of who could have known about the operation and have the resources of stealing him out from under his handlers.
The door opened seamlessly cutting off his thoughts and of fucking course things couldn’t be easy could they? He mused taking in the tall, blonde that strode purposefully into the room then froze when he registered just who was sitting in front of him.
“Oh hey, Dad , fancy seeing you here.”
He didn’t know why he was surprised, Ian had told him his father was “in the field”. Alex hadn’t known what that meant and Ian had refused any attempt of Alex to ask with ‘It’s better for both of you not to know. If you got caught Alex…’ at first he had been offended that Ian had thought he would break so easily under torture. And then he had actually been tortured and he appreciated the small mercy.
“Alex?” It occurred to him that he had never seen his Dad look afraid before - angry, sure, but afraid? John Rider was too prideful for that. Turned out, he didn’t want to see his normally cocky and exuberant Dad scared. The fact that Alex was currently sitting tied to a chair in what was obviously an interrogation room and with his Dad as a potential interrogator probably didn’t help. Combined with the fact that his father had no idea that he was being brought here, wherever that was, and there was no way that could even be remotely considered a good sign.
“What are you doing here?” He hissed, voice tinged with anger. There was the Dad he knew and loved sometimes.
So I was talking to @queenofthesydrianites and I was reading her some funny Alex Rider tags including “Yassen regrets everything” and she came up with ‘Yassen Gregoregrets’ and I love it
Say what you will about the fandom but the one piece of canon we all carry over is the sense of humor.
Summary: The conversation between Alex and Yassen on the rooftop after Yassen has killed Herod Sayle, but from Yassen’s point of view
A/N: The sections in italics have been taken directly from Stormbreaker I wanted to keep their conversation the same but add in Yassen’s thoughts from his point of view.
“You’re Yassen Gregorovich,” Alex said.
Yassen nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Why did you kill him?”
“Those were my instructions.” A lie. “He had become an embarrassment. It was better this way.” That part at least was true.
“Not better for him.”
Yassen shrugged, but was very impressed with the fact that Alex was a) not visibly distressed by the sight of Herod Sayle being murdered before his eyes, and b) not intimidated by Yassen enough to stop his sassy comebacks. In many ways, he was just like his father and the thought made a pang of some unidentifiable emotion run through him.
“What about me?”
He ran his eyes over Alex. “I have no instructions concerning you.” Another lie. His instructions had been explicitly clear. ‘KILL ALEX RIDER’. He remembered the words that he had read on his computer screen just a few hours ago.
“You’re not going to shoot me too?”
No. Absolutely not. Yassen would never kill Alex, or allow him to be killed if he could stop it.
“Do I have any need to?”
There was a pause as Alex seemed to consider the question.
“You killed Ian rider. He was my uncle.”
Yassen’s expression didn’t change but he was surprised. Ian Rider was dead. That must be how the boy had been unlucky enough to end up getting involved. And Alex thought that he had been the one to pull the trigger. It wasn’t true; no amount of money would have been high enough to make him kill Ian, just like he had defied his orders to kill the youngest Rider to cross his path.
His mind worked quickly. He didn’t know who had killed Ian Rider, but right now that didn’t matter. Right now the only thing that mattered was the fourteen year old boy standing in front of him, and preventing him from going on another mission.
He shrugged again. “I kill a lot of people.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it was also definitely not an admission or contradiction to the assassination that he was being accused of.
“One day I’ll kill you.”
That broke his heart. The pang of emotion that he had felt earlier now rushed through him like a tidal wave, and although Yassen Gregorovich was unable to identify it specifically, he knew all of the words that could have been used to describe how he was feeling. Sadness, hurt, remorse, heartbreak, sorrow, lamentation, dejection, grief. He was feeling more emotions than he had felt in years, and it took every bit of his strength and training to keep his face neutral.
Hunter’s son was standing here, full of, admittedly well concealed, rage and grief that was wrongly being directed at him. In another life, Yassen would have been like an uncle to Alex, but here they were, locked on opposite sides of a war that neither of them had wanted to be dragged into. There are always casualties in war, and they were just two more statistics to be added to the final count.
If he could stop Alex from being used by MI6 in the future, their paths would likely not cross again. Yassen Gregorovich decided that it was a price worth paying if it meant that Alex would be safe and out of MI6’s grasp. Alex Rider could hate him for killing his uncle, but if it meant that Alex would find the closure that Yassen was sure that he needed to stay away from MI6, then his own feelings were irrelevant.
“A lot of people have tried. Believe me, it would be better if we didn’t meet again. Go back to school. Go back to your life. And the next time they ask you, say no. Killing is for grown-ups and you’re still a child.”
It was the same advice that John Rider had given him once. He didn’t look back as he turned and walked over to the helicopter. His face had crumpled the second that he had turned away, and climbing in and strapping himself to the seat, he took a couple of seconds to regain his composure. By the time he looked up at the controls, his face was back to being a blank, emotionless mask. He started the helicopter and then, just before he flew away, he raised a hand at Alex who was standing motionless on the rooftop staring at him. The boy raised a hand in return, and then Yassen flew away. Looking back at the rooftop one final time before flying away, he saw that Alex Rider had gone, leaving the lifeless body of Herod Sayle behind.
Scorpia would not be pleased that he had disobeyed their orders; he had left Alex Rider alive and unharmed, but he would be able to deal with them. He knew that they would be pleased that Sayle was dead - he had become an embarrassment and it was better that he was dealt with once and for all. No, they would not kill him, and Yassen would be able to work on the question that was, even now, gnawing away in his brain. Who had killed Ian Rider? It might take him a while, but it was a question that he would find out the answer to, and then, maybe, he would be able to reconcile with Alex.
