Alex Rider



"Alex Rider – you're never too young to die..."

Before Charlie Higson sat down to write the Young Bond books, this was the answer to the question "What was James Bond like as a kid?"

The series, written by Anthony Horowitz, follows the adventures of Alex Rider, a fourteen year old boy who lives in Chelsea, who is coerced into working for MI 6 after his uncle's death. His uncle, Ian Rider, told him that he worked for a bank but was actually a spy. Alex is looked after by a housekeeper, Jack Starbright, who is American. When Ian dies, MI 6 gives Alex a proposal; either he works for them or Jack is sent straight back to America and Alex goes into care.

There have been nine books in the series; the most recent, Scorpia Rising, was the final 'regular' novel, with a Prequel focusing on the character of Yassen Gregorovich in the works.


 * 1) Stormbreaker - released 4 September 2000. Adapted as a graphic novel, released 3 July 2006.
 * 2) Point Blanc - released 3 September 2001. Adapted as a graphic novel, released 27 December 2007.
 * 3) Skeleton Key - released 8 July 2002. Adapted as a graphic novel, released 7 September 2009.
 * 4) Eagle Strike - released 7 April 2003. Adapted as a graphic novel, released 6 July 2012.
 * 5) Scorpia - released 1 April 2004. Adapted as a graphic novel, released February 2016.
 * 6) Ark Angel - released 1 April 2005. Adapted as a graphic novel, released May 2020.
 * 7) Snakehead - released 31 October 2007.
 * 8) Crocodile Tears - released 10 November 2009.
 * 9) Scorpia Rising - released 21 March 2011 in Australia, 22 March 2011 in the US and 31 March 2011 in the UK.
 * 10) Russian Roulette - released 12 September 2013.
 * 11) Never Say Die - released 1 June 2017 in the UK and 10 October 2017 in the US.
 * 12) Secret Weapon - released 4 April 2019.
 * 13) Nightshade - released 2 April 2020 in the UK and 7 April 2020 in the US.
 * 14) Nightshade Revenge - to be released 7 September 2023 in the UK.

There are also two supplementary materials, Alex Rider: The Gadgets (featuring blueprints of the gadgets Alex uses), and Alex Rider: Mission Files, featuring assorted correspondence, diagrams, blueprints and miscellanea from the first seven books. Stormbreaker was adapted as a movie in 2006, and the first three books have been adapted as graphic novels that form a different canon to the books.

"Desmond McCain: "Get. Out. Of. The. Plane.""
 * The Ace: Alex's father, John Rider falls into this territory, although he's also a Posthumous Character. Every description of him and his work as a soldier/spy/assassin is full of practically nothing but praise, and even Alan Blunt is described as having a soft spot for him.
 * Affably Evil:  and General Alexei Sarov.
 * Yu is also pretty affable. When Alex suggests how he killed his boss he says "actually he drowned but good catch".
 * Amazonian Beauty: Inverted in Point Blanc with Eva Stellenbosch. Eva dresses formally in public to make herself look beautiful, but due to her overly masculine appearance, she fails. Miserably.
 * And I Must Scream: Major Yu's plan to dispose of Alex:
 * Anti-Hero:
 * Alex Rider: Type I -> Type II/III
 * MI 6: Type III/IV
 * Anti-Villain: Yassen has elements of this.
 * General Alexei Sarov is also a good example.
 * Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word: Blunt blackmailed Alex into being a spy.
 * Black and Gray Morality: Although Alex has strong morals, MI 6 (the people Alex serves) are cold and calculated, and black-mailed Alex into their service instead of actually letting him decide whether he wanted to serve or not. It's made even more appropriate by the fact that Alan Blunt, head of MI 6 until the last book, is portrayed as being almost emotionless and entirely colorless; gray suit, gray hair, gray lips, gray eyes, gray life...
 * 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.
 * Big Bad: in order, Herod Sayle, Dr. Grief, General Alexei Sarov, Damian Cray, Mrs. Rothman, Nikolei Drevin, Major Winston Yu, Desmond McCain, Razim.
 * Big Damn Hero: Happens all the freaking time.
 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Damian Cray.
 * Bittersweet Ending: By the end of the series,  Had it not been for   this would've turned into a Downer Ending.
 * Bond One-Liner: Alex's development into Darker and Edgier is shown by some serious abuse of this trope.
 * Bond Villain Stupidity: Almost every book has Alex found out by the bad guys, but not killed or forced to make his way through a death trap that he also beats.
 * Yu wastes precious time allowing Ash to explain his betrayal, giving Alex critical time to wait for reinforcements and thwart his plot.
 * That and every single villain seems to be chomping at the bit to spill their plans to Alex in minute detail whenever they get the opportunity.
 * Alex lampshades this in Snakehead by saying in the narrative that the worst part about being a criminal is not being able to tell people about your crimes. And the villains usually bust out the Bond Villain Stupidity when they think that they're about to kill Alex.
 * This is however 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- Alex only finds out from one of his subordinates.
 * Subverted with Skeleton Key, at least for the main villain, who actually wants Alex to be his son.
 * Butt Monkey: Poor Alex can hardly take a breath of fresh air without being whisked away to another life-threatening, trauma-inducing mission.
 * Casual Danger Dialog: Alex is quite nonchalant sometimes about the various deathtraps and problems he faces....
 * Chandler's Law
 * Chekhov's Gun:  And that gadget is
 * There was another example of this in  where Alex
 * There's also one in  . At the end of the novel.
 * : The plot of the second book, Point Blanc.
 * And guess who's back in Scorpia Rising.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: Subverted several times. The bad guys seem to prefer bragging about what they're going to do to their victims instead of actually doing it (see Bond Villain Stupidity).
 * 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 though. ...Unless you want to read about that stuff...
 * It's later mentioned that he does several more "experiments" with Julius. Again, the details are thankfully spared.
 * And later on  actually waterboard Alex, though he is later  . The same people use torture for..."good" later to obtain a password so they can.
 * Collapsed Mid-Speech: One victim goes out this way.
 * Comic Book Time: The first book was released in the year 2000 with Alex aged 14. As of Crocodile Tears, Alex is just 15 and all eight books have taken place within a year, despite the gadgets moving from Nintendo Game Boys to iPhones and Snakehead explicitly making reference to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake (giving the exact date). The same book still lists Alex as having been born in the 1980s.
 * It Gets Worse. Crocodile Tears has references to the iPhone (January 2007), Assassin's Creed II (2009), and the Great Recession (started in 2007 but didn't really get going until fall '08).
 * And in Scorpia Rising the BP Oil spill is mentioned, bringing it around to 2010. He also has an iPhone 3GS.
 * Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Inverted in Crocodile Tears.  saves Alex from near death on more than one occasion. After rescuing Alex for the third time, he starts complaining about how Alex was simply screwing up his own personal mission against McCain, even though Alex himself was very grateful for the rescue.
 * Contest Winner Cameo: Ark Angel and Scorpia Rising both featured gadgets designed by competition winners (the sleeping-gas-exhaling/exploding inhaler and the ).
 * Cool Big Sis: Jack is actually Alex's housekeeper, but he appears to think of her more as one of these.
 * Compromising Memoirs: Discussed briefly after
 * Conspicuously Public Assassination:
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Happens to the Big Bads a lot. Special mention goes to  and.
 * Dr. Grief wants to perform an unanesthesized vivisection on Alex. In layman's terms, he wants to perform surgery on Alex while he's still awake. You may now vomit and shudder.
 * How about Major Yu's plan to ?
 * And don't forget Invisible Sword....
 * Razim gives lots of absolutely horrible and disgusting deaths to innocent people in his sadistic "experiments".
 * And of course he later receives probably the worst death of all,
 * Nadia Vole is killed by
 * A non-major villain example, Charlie Roper, an ex-CIA agent
 * Cultural Translation: The US editions persist in including Americanisms despite the fact that books 3 and 6 actually take place in America . Among other things, the exploding keyring of Michael Owen in Skeleton Key becomes one of Tiger Woods.
 * Darker and Edgier: As the series progresses, Alex becomes this.
 * The series as a whole becomes this; initially at least, Alex is generally threatened and held captive by villains but they never actually follow on any of their nasty fates because he escapes first. By the time of the final book, he
 * Deadly Delivery: In Scorpia, Alex does this to try to kill Mrs. Jones.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Alex makes it a point to casually make jokes and insults about the Big Bads just to make them angry. By Scorpia Rising, however, he seems to have stopped.
 * Death by Irony: Nile from Scorpia has acrophobia. Take a wild guess how he dies.
 * Out of all the ways for  to die, it was his   that got to him.
 * Death by Looking Up:
 * Death by Materialism: Literally played straight in Eagle Strike when Charlie Roper is trapped inside a bottle-shaped room and then killed when  fills the room with two million dollars worth of nickels (the two million dollars Roper was due to be paid for betraying his country). In other words, 40,000,000 nickels.
 * "Blood Money!"
 * Deconstruction: Despite not being Horowitz's original intention, the series gradually becomes a deconstruction of the entire idea of spying being a cool or desirable occupation.
 * Despair Event Horizon: In the final novel, Razim makes Alex cross this  Alex spends a good chunk in a Heroic BSOD before bouncing back to win the day, but the end of the novel shows that he's still traumatized by that (which is really understandable).
 * Did Not Do the Research: There is a measuring unit for pain. The Dol (from the Latin dolor) was invented by James D. Hardy, Herbert G. Wolff, and Helen Goodell of Cornell University in the 1940s. In all fairness, however, it is not a very well-known or commonly-used unit, and Razim may not have known about it. Or, given the series' Comic Book Time, this may be an alternate universe where the Dol was never invented.
 * There's also a scene where Alex is learning to impersonate an American kid, and is told that Americans always say "jelly" and not "jam." Brits may always say jam, but in America, they're both two different things (jam usually having fruit still in it, and jelly more artificial goo).
 * Disney Villain Death: See Death by Irony. Didn't help that he was on fire when he fell either.
 * suffers from a variation. He survives the fall, but dies immediately afterwards due to.
 * Don't Explain the Joke: Point Blanc was retitled Point Blank in the US, presumably to make the Punny Name more obvious.
 * Downer Ending: Scorpia
 * The Dragon For the books in order: Yassen Gregorovich  , Mrs. Stellenbosch, Conrad, Yassen Gregorovich (again,  ), Nile, Kaspar , possibly either Captain de Wynter (although barring Yassen, ) or  ,  , and.
 * Eaten Alive:.
 * Even Evil Has Standards:
 * One of Scorpia's senior members is disturbed by them developing a bioweapon, and makes plans to retire from the organization.
 * Scorpia condemned Damian Cray as a madman.
 * Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Four Mooks from Ark Angel were always referred to as "Spectacles," "Steel Watch," "Combat Jacket," and "Silver Tooth."
 * Expy: The series contains several expies (ranging from thinly-veiled to better concealed) of celebrities and politicians. It can be said that Damian Cray is basically an evil Elton John. Due to his penchant for vivisection and his admiration of Hitler, Dr. Grief may be an expy of Josef Mengele.
 * Eyepatch of Power: Subverted in Eagle Strike with Marc Antonio. Not only is he a mere photographer, but he's killed in the first and only chapter he's in.
 * Played straight with Levi Kroll, whose gun went off while he was sleeping and shot him in the eye.
 * Feed the Mole: It's implied this was ASIS' true aim in using Alex with Ash in Snakehead.
 * Femme Fatale: Mrs Rothman.
 * The Film of the Book: Was subjected to an unusual variant of Executive Meddling, in that one of the executives Horowitz worked with turned out to be a crook, resulting in the film not being as widely screened as it should have been, ensuring there wasn't enough profit for a sequel.
 * Finger in the Mail: Invoked. Alex swaps rooms with a friend he made in hospital to protect him from kidnappers (the friend's father is rich). The kidnappers then threaten to cut off Alex's fingers and mail them once they finally show up, forcing him to admit the truth.
 * Fun with Acronyms: SCORPIA: Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence, Assassination. Yes, the P is a bit of a stretch.
 * Gilded Cage: Sarov keeps Alex in a very nice place during his captivity. Sarov even comments on this.
 * Glasgow Grin: Sayle's Dragon, Mr. Grin, has one.
 * Guilty Pleasure
 * Good Is Not Nice: MI 6 can act like this at times.
 * The final novel goes Up to Eleven when it's revealed at the end that
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * He Who Fights Monsters: . He even recites the quote.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard:
 * I Just Want to Be Normal: Alex.
 * Internal Reveal: In Scorpia Rising,
 * Just Between You and Me: Every book. The exception is Scorpia, where Alex and the Cobra cabinet manage to work out the plan themselves.
 * Just in Time: Occurs at least once in every novel, most notable in Crocodile Tears when
 * Karmic Death:
 * Kindly Housekeeper: Jack is a bit younger than most examples of this trope, but she still fits.
 * Knight in Sour Armor: Alex Rider.
 * Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: The Prime Minister in Stormbreaker. Whilst never named, the tie-in book Alex Rider: The Mission Files states that "Education is at the heart of his government's manifesto".
 * The newly-elected, incompetent Prime Minister in Crocodile Tears (released a few months before the 2010 General Election) is, if not David Cameron, clearly intended as a Conservative.
 * And the US secretary of State from Scorpia Rising is obviously Hillary Clinton.
 * Literal Surveillance Bug: Scorpia Rising, when
 * Look Both Ways:
 * 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.
 * 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 organizers looking like martyrs.
 * Man Behind the Man: Scorpia's admitted to  It's very possible that
 * Minimalistic Cover Art: The UK edition of Scorpia Rising.
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr Hugo Grief. There's also a Scorpia member named Dr Light.
 * Narrative Profanity Filter
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Doctor Grief, anyone? Or, y'know Herod Sayle? Or Damian Cray?
 * Nebulous Evil Organisation: Scorpia. They're the villains of three books.
 * 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,
 * No One Could Survive That: Said after  drives a jeep off a cliff which then explodes and falls into the ocean. While a lowly guard might buy it,   really should have known better.
 * Not Quite Dead: At the beginning of the sixth book.
 * Not So Stoic: Razim feels emotions for the first time in his life during his Villainous Breakdown.
 * Obviously Evil: If a villainous character is NOT this, they almost immediately cross the Moral Event Horizon. Just in case there was any confusion whatsoever.
 * 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 MI 6 organizing 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.
 * It is noted in Crocodile Tears that Alan Blunt disapproves of the fact that Alex has gotten taller, because as he loses his youthful features he steadily becomes less useful to MI 6 in this way.
 * Piano Drop: Herod Sayle from Stormbreaker was a street urchin until he saved some rich tourists from a piano dropped from a fourteenth story window.
 * Politically-Incorrect Villain: Amongst other things, Hugo Grief is also an utterly unrepentant White Supremicist.
 * Post-Climax Confrontation: Alex's fight with his clone at the end of Point Blanc.
 * It happens again in.
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: McCain does this is a surprisingly calm way while speaking to Alex during his Villainous Breakdown:
 * Post-Climax Confrontation: Alex's fight with his clone at the end of Point Blanc.
 * It happens again in.
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: McCain does this is a surprisingly calm way while speaking to Alex during his Villainous Breakdown:

"Alex sighed. It was just his luck to get a Virgin train that arrived on time."
 * Quicksand Sucks: This is basically how  from Scorpia Rising goes out.
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: The four henchmen whose real names were never once mentioned in Ark Angel.
 * Race Lift: In the movie version of Stormbreaker, Herod Sayle becomes a kid from a redneck "trailer park" family who moved to England.
 * Railroad Tracks of Doom: In Point Blanc.


 * Red Right Hand: All but two novels have one.
 * Stormbreaker has Mr. Grin, who has a Glasgow Smile.
 * Skeleton Key has Conrad, who... Let's just leave it as Body Horror.
 * Scorpia has Nile, who has vitiligo, resulting in having various blotches of white skin.
 * Ark Angel has Kaspar, who had his entire head tattooed to look like Earth.
 * Snakehead has Major Yu, who has osteoporosis.
 * Crocodile Tears has Desmond McCain, who has a misaligned jaw.
 * Averted in Scorpia Rising. The Dragon
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran: Alex. He's been shot at, forced to watch people die, and stood face-to-face with pure evil. To add insult to injury, . All this has profoundly psychologically damaged him.
 * Shown Their Work: The author often goes into unnecessary amounts of detail, most frequently to describe the model of gun that a soldier/guard/assassin is using or the amount of liters per hour the engine of a vehicle uses.
 * Sometimes falls into Did Not Do the Research. Aside from misspelling Browning Hi-Power as High Power, in the first book he refers to semiautomatic machine guns.
 * To be fair, it's incredibly hard to get even semiautomatic weapons in the UK, let alone full-auto.
 * Anthony Horowitz does a great deal of research to get specifics right; he notes that the only things he's been unable to do are visit space and go on board Air Force One.
 * Space Is Slow Motion: The end of Ark Angel makes a point of avoiding this.
 * The Stoic: Alan Blunt. The only time he even shows a little bit of emotion is in Crocodile Tears.
 * Myra Beckett is described as being a robot, and at times acts like she physically can't smile.
 * Strictly Formula: After about the first 3 books you can pick out the main villain as soon as they enter. This is particularly evident in Crocodile Tears, the most formulaic so far. Anthony Horowitz has likely noticed this, because in the ninth book two of the three villains are revealed nonchalantly without even bothering to surprise the reader. Also, did anyone else notice that Alex tends to always beat the grownups in some game, then they try to kill him?
 * Stuff Blowing Up: Several of Alex's gadgets; Smithers notes when giving him the exploding pens in Crocodile Tears that he "likes his explosions".
 * Lots of explosions in the books. Particularly the.
 * Stuffed Into the Fridge:
 * Symbol Swearing: In Scorpia Rising, Alex tells Lewinsky, his abductor, to "go and - yourself".
 * Tagline: Originally the series' tagline was "Alex Rider, the reluctant teenage spy" (which gets dropped in context in Scorpia Rising). More recently this has changed to the original tagline for Stormbreaker, "Alex Rider - you're never too young to die".
 * Teen Superspy: Alex, obviously.
 * Title Drop: Happens Once an Episode.
 * Stormbreaker: It's the name of the computers Sayle is selling.
 * Point Blanc: The Place title. Namely, the academy Alex is sent to.
 * Skeleton Key: The Place title again. This time, it's the island Alexei Sarov lives on.
 * Eagle Strike:
 * Scorpia: The name of the Nebulous Evil Organization introduced in the book.
 * Ark Angel: The Place title yet again. In this case, the name of the hotel IN SPACE that Drevin is working on.
 * Snakehead: Type of Chinese gang involved in human smuggling, one of which Alex investigates.
 * Crocodile Tears: A slight break in tradition, as it isn't the name of a plot element; rather, the book defines the term "crocodile tears" at the beginning, and the Big Bad refers to them later.
 * Scorpia Rising is the exception to the rule; it basically describes the book's entire premise, but is never dropped in context.
 * Tonight Someone Dies: Anthony Horowitz's description of Scorpia Rising promised the death of a major character, one who had appeared in each and every book so far. As it turns out,, but.
 * Inverted by Scorpia, where the reaction to the ending required Horowitz to publicly confirm that Alex was not dead and begin work on Ark Angel straight away.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Max Grendel resigning from Scorpia is seen as this by the rest of the executive board.
 * Torture Always Works: Averted many times. Torture isn't even used much in the novel, and is usually avoided or interrupted.
 * Except for the time in Ark Angel when
 * And the time in Crocodile Tears where
 * And then there was the time
 * The Triads and the Tongs: In the beginning of Skeleton Key.
 * The Sociopath: Abdul-Aziz Al-Rahim ("Razim"), and how. He has all the telltale symptoms of a bonafide psychopath - particularly his utter lack of emotions or empathy - and has committed various acts of evil from the day he took his first steps. As a toddler, he stabbed one of his nannies in the thigh because she told him off for teasing his sister. At the age of twelve he nonchalantly strangled his own dog. At fourteen he arranged the death of his own parents, who were conspiring against Saddam Hussein. Now, after spending time in Al Qaeda, in his spare time he inflicts unbearable amounts of pain upon random people in an attempt to create a measurable unit of pain, using a variety of horrific instruments like scalpels and syringes. Possibly his worst act of evil involves this,
 * is a much more unfortunate case. He was raised and conditioned by a father with a sick mind, and as a result had absolutely no morals.
 * Trauma Conga Line: Alex's entire life, especially after becoming a spy. By the end of Scorpia Rising and is unlikely to ever really recover.
 * Unholy Matrimony: Desmond McCain mentions he plans to marry Mad Scientist henchwoman Myra Beckett after his plan succeeds in Crocodile Tears.
 * Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Some of Alex's escapes. In Scorpia Rising, he escapes
 * 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.
 * Villainous Breakdown: in Ark Angel after.
 * Desmond Mccain goes through this at the end of Crocodile Tears. After  Some people just can't handle having a kid get the better of them.
 * It was mentioned in Scorpia Rising that  suffered from this a few times, and at one point tried to destroy his face with his own nails.
 * 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.
 * Villain Opening Scene: Skeleton Key and  Point Blanc, Ark Angel and Crocodile Tears all open with acts of murder arranged by the villain.
 * 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".
 * We Care: Desmond's company First Aid. Not only do they not care, but
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic:
 * appeared first in Point Blank, but this trope applied better in Scorpia Rising as his
 * 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.
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Alex's been through a lot of crap, but he still manages to be Bad Ass.
 * In Scorpia Rising,
 * Worst News Judgment Ever:
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One: The climaxes of at least half of the books.
 * Then in Scorpia Rising it's
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One: The climaxes of at least half of the books.
 * Then in Scorpia Rising it's
 * Then in Scorpia Rising it's
 * Then in Scorpia Rising it's
 * Then in Scorpia Rising it's