Ride the Danger

In the book I recently finished, Alex Rider: The Final Mission: Scorpia Rising, there was a lot of crap going on.  There were many incredibly serious issues being dealt with in the book.

First of all, the book is the last book in the Alex Rider series.  The series is about Alex, who's 14 and British, who does a bunch of missions for one of the British Intelligence Agencies' Secret Services, MI6.  In this last book, he goes to a very intense place called The Middle East, and he gets used by a powerful terrorist organization (that's Scorpia) in a complex plan to get specific items from Britain and make sure they hit Greek soil.  As I said, the themes are powerful and very serious.  A few of them are friendship, terrorism, pain (emotional and physical), ability to cope, secrecy, and the biggest one, the one that I'm going to cover: Danger.

Danger is incredibly noticeable in the book.  There is physical danger, emotional danger, danger of death, unconscious danger, danger of capture—I could really go on with it for quite long.  The point is, there is a lot of danger that goes into the book.  But then again, a lot of danger should go into a Spy/Thriller/Suspense book.  Anyway, Alex is at many times in danger without realizing it.  In fact, he actually thinks he's in danger of something, while he's actually in danger of something completely different.  The main thing he's in danger of is the leader of the project the terrorist organization Scorpia is working on.  He's been testing pain, testing different levels, and he has no emotions or feelings.  His name is Razim, and he could kill someone he loved dearly and not feel anything.  So Alex is in danger in this way.  He is in danger of emotional pain, though he doesn't know it until it happens.  Emotional danger can be intense, as it is here, and I've noticed that and kept track of everything that happens to Alex after he suffers a few major emotional blows.

From the way Alex acts later on, you can tell he's in so much emotional pain, he is not reacting to anything at all.  He's just doing everything he's told by his enemies, and waits to be killed, as he knows he will be.  I can infer that he's probably about 42% conscious of everything that's going on around him.  Of course, it only seems this way.  Of course Alex actually has a plan.  And during that plan, he's forced to suffer another very tough emotional blow: killing another human being (or sort of another human being.  Technically that human being is a clone) intentionally.  I don't think many of us can relate to this seeing as most of us have probably never even killed someone by accident, and the book doesn't show Alex's pain in this, it only mentions it like once.  However, that's enough for me to take the next step.

I really see that most of the danger in the story is unconscious.  Meaning, Alex is not expecting any of the danger that appears.  The danger of a need to kill, the danger of unreal, extreme pain, the danger of being killed (of course), and so on.  You know how when you're reading a book, you go on a trip, a ride, right?  Ok, well what if you're not riding the book or the adventure?  What if you're riding something within the book?  How do you know you're not just Riding The Danger, just like Alex Rider?  No wonder his last name is "Rider".  Anyway, in terms of pain, the book doesn't say much about Alex's second encounter with extreme emotional pain, but you can infer and interpret.  All it really says is that Alex won't soon recover from it, and from this you can guess the book wants you to guess what the strength of the pain is.  The guy, Razim, was creating a scale of pain (which is why he used Alex in a test of emotional pain), and you probably can't help but wonder on what level Alex's pain is altogether.  The pain is all because of the danger.  The danger is the pain; it's a loop.  Also, you may think that Alex is susceptible to pain, but is he really?  Would someone who's barely susceptible to pain feel no pain at all in killing a person in cold blood, or watching a loved one die (Alex's first encounter with insane emotional pain) while not being able to do anything about it at all?  Well, would you?  Would I?  Let me just get this in: don't test it.  Don't attempt to find out the hard way.

Okay.  So, in real life, you've got to be wary of danger.  It's incredibly easy, as shown (or as shown in my eyes) with Alex Rider, to not see danger coming at all, to be unconscious of danger, or to not have the danger you expect to see come, but have worse come instead, or something you're prepared for a lot less.  Danger is serious, and sure it can be a rush sometimes, but there are times when it's not a good thing.  Emotional danger and physical danger can both be powerful, and they can both easily be terrible.  You've probably gotten into danger before of some level.  What kind of danger were you in?  Unexpected, or danger you were conscious of?  Emotional, or physical?  How did things turn out/what were the results?  Don't forget that with danger, things don't ALWAYS turn out badly.  Danger doesn't mean guarantee of pain or something similar.  It just means possibility, or more likely probability, of pain or big trouble.  By the way, don't take anything the wrong way.  Don't intentionally try getting into danger; you may be dealing with more trouble than you realize.

So, in conclusion, you've probably experienced danger before.  And you can ride the danger in books and stuff, but that doesn't mean you can't in real life (of course that doesn't mean you should; again, don't misunderstand me).  Real life can easily hold a hell of a lot of danger.  So be ready.  Are you prepared to Ride The Danger?