The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is an Alex Rider fanfic by pongnosis
which details a What If? scenario where Alex becomes Yassen Gregorovich’s apprentice post Skeleton Key. One of the most well-known fanfics of the Alex Rider fandom, inspiring countless other works. It can be read here.
Tropes
- The Ace: While Alex works hard to obtain this status, he definitely gains this reputation both in the intelligence community and with his Malagosto peers.
- Apologetic Attacker: Alex breaks down several times immediately after assassinations.
- Being Evil Sucks: Very applicable to being an assassin or on the board of SCORPIA.
- Sure, there is potential for good pay as an assassin if you are one of the best. However, the training is absolutely brutal. If you pass, you can’t maintain any close friendships or relationships as it’s a security risk. The hours are brutal, with so little free time that you can’t even really enjoy the money you make. And about a third of Malagosto assassins don’t survive a year. Even if you survive a year, the probability that you’ll live to see retirement is low. You wonder why these people don’t pursue another career. Then again, the type of people who’d be drawn to being a career murderer aren’t known for being good at assessing risk.
- You can never retire from the board, as you’ll be assassinated if you do. You’ll be on the top of terror watchlists, your coworkers will likely assassinate you if it fits them politically or you become complacent, and you have to be paranoid towards everyone.
- Better Living Through Evil: Played with. Compared to the MI6, Alex is paid, he has backup, training, and SCORPIA treats him like a useful asset, as long as he doesn’t make mistakes. MI6 didn’t force him to go against his morals quite so much, but both organizations put Alex through extremely traumatic and dangerous situations, where mistakes are fatal. The one key difference is that in SCORPIA he has Yassen, who’s highest priority is keeping Alex alive.
- Blind Obedience: Required for SCORPIA assassins. Played with Alex’s case. Many, especially the board, think Alex is blindly obedient, as a result of Yassen breaking him. They don’t understand Alex’s loyalty to Yassen, nor his complex motivations for (mostly) following SCORPIA’s commands. Dr. Three did also give Alex a trigger phrase, but it more made him freeze up than made him blindly obedient.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: As opposed to the source material, completely subverted by SCORPIA itself. The characters are extremely pragmatic. Some of their clients can be colorful, but luckily (for them), they have SCORPIA to advise them.
- Children Are Innocent: Played with. Several people at SCORPIA write off Alex’s remorse as due to his age. They believe as he gets older, this will fade. Alex’s involvement in SCORPIA frequently shocks outsiders, as they expect this trope. For example, Rensburg, the client in the Congo, was upset about using Alex due to his age.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: All of SCORPIA.
- Cloak and Dagger: SCORPIA, to some extent in this series, as SCORPIA’s jobs are way more influential (and require much more assassination) than anything in the real world. However, it could also could be a subversion versus the source material, as the projects are a lot more complicated than typical for the trope. For example, the Singapore mission was to reduce trust in the Singaporean financial system. It also definitely doesn’t make the job seem fun in any way.
- Code Name: Orion, of the mythological reference variety.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Malagosto requires trainees to undergo this in order to graduate.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: The story is centered on how Alex gets used to being a SCORPIA assassin.
- The Corrupter: Deconstructed with Yassen. Yassen does teach Alex how to be a killer, and does intentionally weaken Alex’s morals. However, he does it to keep Alex alive. Additionally, his attachment to Alex causes him to warm slightly, and makes him less loyal to SCORPIA.
- Cruel to Be Kind: At least from Yassen’s perspective, this is what Yassen has done for Alex. The worst things he does to Alex are either to protect Alex from the harsher punishment the board would give, increase the board’s trust in Alex (and thus give him a better chance of survival), or to prepare him for the job to come. Of course, it would’ve been better that Alex was never in that situation in the first place, but it’s arguable that that was out of Yassen’s control.
- Darker and Edgier: Darker morality than the source material, although not quite as gory.
- Dead Drop: Employed multiple times, such as in the Miami operation, when Alex leaves materials while he’s in disguise for Yassen to find.
- Deadly Graduation: This was graduating from Malagosto to a T for Alex. However, somewhat subverted for the other graduates, as most already were killers in order to be recruited to Malagosto’s elite training program.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Alex not might realize this, but some of his attachment to Yassen stems from this.
- Destroy the Security Camera: Alex shoots the security cameras in the Sullivan’s apartment.
- Fake Defector: After hearing about Damian Cray, Alex convinces himself he’s this, and that he’ll take SCORPIA apart from the inside. He had no way out, so this was more a platitude he told himself than anything else.
- Freudian Trio: SCORPIA’s three best assassins serve as this.
- Superego: Yassen: Stoic and extremely pragmatic
- Id: While Nile is not emotional by any means, he’s much more expressive than Yassen, acting friendly and confident.
- Ego: Alex learns to be stoic like Yassen, and mostly acts this way at work. However, he sometimes can’t help but be expressive at times.
- Master of Disguise: Many SCORPIA agents. Nile at one point disguises himself as a paunchy white man in his fifties. Alex learns to be this as well, and one of his disguises is a sixteen-year-old Russian girl with a completely different gait as him.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Alex serves as this. He knows if he gets caught acting too moral, he could jeopardize his safety. It’s a difficult situation for him.
- Morality Pet: Alex serves as this to Yassen. Yassen is completely cold in the series, an extremely effective amoral assassin. However, there’s several times where he’s willing to put his life on the line for Alex. For example, when Alex heard about Damian Cray, Alex considered running away, now that with training, he’d have a better chance evading MI-6. Yassen lied and told Alex that he’d be fine if Alex ran away. In reality, Yassen probably would’ve been executed if that happened. During the work, Yassen slowly becomes a little more affectionate towards Alex.
- Motive Decay: After hearing about Damian Cray, Alex decides to take SCORPIA apart from the inside. However, as time goes on, it becomes clear that this is a platitude Alex using for a situation he can’t escape from. Played with, in that he eventually does take care of the aspects of SCORPIA he doesn’t like, although he also becomes SCORPIA.
- Parental Substitute: Yassen to Alex, eventually. Alex lampshades it, even:
Alex: I don’t think ‘Because I said so’ is supposed to be good parenting.
Yassen: I think that I have committed significantly worse parenting sins than that, should anyone keep count.
- Professional Killer: Alex and Yassen, of course, as well as several others. Although, their profession winds up being more complex than usual for the trope, as they typically handle the logistics of their operations. Additionally, while killing is often incidental to their operations, assassination is usually the focus of most of their missions. Eventually, Yassen stops being this entirely, as he joins the board.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Played with. There are times where it looks like Alex is sliding this way, but he doesn’t entirely lose his beliefs.
- Resignations Not Accepted: Played with. Yassen claims that after your contract is up, SCORPIA allows its assassins to retire. However, this wound up not being true for Yassen, as he was essentially forced to join the board. Part of the reason Dr. Three teams up with Alex and Yassen, as he also wants to retire. Board members are usually assassinated before they retire.
- Sadistic Choice: In order to save the lives of possibly millions in the future by taking down SCORPIA, Alex has to act as an obedient assassin.
- The Sociopath: In-Universe, most people view Yassen as this. However, almost everyone important at SCORPIA qualifies as this to varying degrees. In order to do the work they do, they have to be very callous. For the assassins, in order to have chosen (and enjoy) a career that is so dangerous, they have to have limited capability for fear and a lack of remorse. To name a few:
- Nile: Superficially charming and personable, but could kill a child without a second thought.
- Dr. Three: Friendly if it serves him but loves to torture people, including his enemies and even his own students.
- Even the other semi-Sociopathic characters such as Brendan Chase and Nile, seem to view Yassen as this, as he’s definitely the coldest of the bunch. Interestingly, though, he’s probably less likely to be an actual sociopath than the others, as he does have at least one attachment. Additionally, the reason he helped Alex in the first place was in part due to empathy about Alex’s situation. This makes sense with the source material, as Yassen as a teen did not seem sociopathic at all, and couldn’t kill his first assignment. How cold Yassen acts is likely a response to his trauma and John and SCORPIA’s grooming, and he’s not a true sociopath. This explains why he’s capable of slowly growing attached to Alex.
- Spy Fiction: Less Martini Flavored and more Stale Beer Flavored than the original series, as it’s more cynical with morality, and has more detail given to the logistics and less to Saving the World. The fic could also be called Dirty Martini Flavored, as it’s gritty in many international locations. Although this is Justified, as it makes sense that the places that SCORPIA goes are the places that their wealthy clients would care about. Additionally, given Alex’s status as a wanted man, it makes sense to not stay in one country for too long, and to avoid the UK.
- The Stoic: Yassen is famous for this. One of Alex’s key skills in the series is being able to read him.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Most characters seem to think Alex has this, believing Yassen was much crueler than reality. It’s complicated and played with in the text. Yassen thinks Alex does have it to some degree, but Alex and Dr. Three disagree. Yassen did give Alex the choice to join, and gave him the option to leave several times, even at risk to himself. However, Yassen was basically the only adult (with any power) looking out for Alex, and he’s a child, so his ability to make decisions should be taken into account.
- An actual psychologist would probably evaluate Alex for a Trauma Bond, as Stockholm Syndrome in modern psychology is more Hollywood Psychology than an actual diagnosis. Trauma Bonds occur both in military personnel and in children who’ve been groomed. Alex does seem to rationalize Yassen’s behavior, like a Trauma Bond. However, Alex’s self image does not seem to be derived from Yassen. Additionally, unlike in Trauma Bonds, Alex and Yassen’s relationship is not uni-directional.
- The Syndicate: SCORPIA. However, it’s much more believable as an organization than in the original series, as it’s much more fleshed out.
- Torture Always Works: Dr. Three is supposed to be world renown at torture, which is seen as a valuable skill. In reality, psychologists widely concur that torture is extremely ineffective, as the victim will say anything in order for it to stop. Additionally, it impairs memory functions and cognitive processing, so it also prevents the victims from giving useful answers even if they wanted to. However, this also could apply as truth in fiction, as many intelligence agencies and the militaries today still believe torture is useful, despite the large body of evidence to the contrary. It’s also common for militaries to employ a resistance to interrogation course to their elite soldiers, like in the fic.
- Tracking Device: Kurst had a tracking device implanted in Alex as a reminder to never disobey.
- Training from Hell: Training at Malagosto certainly fits this. Many in the fic believe the training from Yassen was much harsher than it actually was, though it certainly wasn’t easy.
- Trigger Phrase: Played with but mostly deconstructed. When Dr. Three uses the same tone of voice that he used in Resistance to Interrogation, it serves as a trigger phrase to SCORPIA assassins. Alex was especially susceptible, being a child at the time. However, it doesn’t make him blindly obedient. More realistically, it just makes him freeze up as it’s associated with very traumatic memories.
- Would Hurt a Child: SCORPIA definitely qualifies. This is a point of contention for Alex, as this is the one line he won’t cross. This causes one of the only times that Alex considers fighting back, in order to save Jacob Sullivan. He doesn’t, when he realizes that he would be killed, and Yassen could be killed as well for Alex’s disobedience. Additionally, SCORPIA would still have Jacob Sullivan killed anyway.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Pretty central to Alex’s character, and the one line he won’t cross. Yassen qualifies to some degree as well, as he did what, in his unique world view, he thought was best for Alex by taking him from the MI6, and giving him the skills for a profitable career.
- Yes-Man: SCORPIA assassins are selected and trained to be perfectly obedient. Alex pretends to be at times, but he slowly begins to exercise his attitude as time goes on.
