Alex, Villainy, Heroism, and You - Part One

“Everyone is the hero of their own story. Everyone is also the villain of at least one other person’s story.”

When considering Alex’s “motives”, per se, they largely come down to just pure spite and revenge. His actions are mostly justified through circumstance, Team Plasma, Terrorfive, the King’s Party, they’re all evil people with malevolent goals that need to be stopped. Of course, not everyone involved is at the same level of evil, but in Alex’s head there isn’t much distinction between the BBEG and his henchmen, which leads to some pretty fucked up shit happening to people that might not entirely deserve it. Again, he gets away with it because of circumstance, as well as the fact that nobody is really competent or present enough to keep him in check. He never really faces consequences for his actions. As if that isn’t enough, Alex has been shown to have some pretty dark goals and methods of his own, such as when he goes after Stakataka, he’s almost entirely within the position of a criminal with what he does in order to get his hands on the UB. He’s also perfectly willing to collaborate with awful people if their goals align and he gets something out of it, the only reason he actually defects from Team Plasma is because his mother ended up being a casualty of the ice bombing of Opelucid City.

“All I do is destroy, destroy, destroy. I’ve destroyed a lot of things. I’ve destroyed a lot of evil things, but that’s not because I’m good, it’s because they simply struck me first. I’m not the good guy. Those kids [game/manga protagonists] are.”

Alex is not a hero, he isn’t exactly an antihero either, but I still wouldn’t go as far as to call him a villain either. He’s in an odd space between antihero and villain. He follows his own will and sometimes that coincides with goodness and other times with evil. His main motivation for anti-authoritarianism is that it’s bad for the family business, and makes it harder to get away with things under the table, as opposed to Dasein who genuinely wants to see the Graxum region become prosperous and potentially reunite with the Ferrum Region. It’s implied that the Heriot conglomerate benefits from the opening of the Graxum region to free trade, which begs the question: Does the Graxum region owe Alex its natural resources in exchange for him liberating it?

“You would think that those c*nts [team leaders] would have learned not to try to take over the world after the fourth or fifth time somebody before them failed, but they still keep going at it.

I think that what distinguishes Alex from a villain in the traditional sense is that he doesn’t have the megalomania associated with them. He wants money and power but is smart and controlled enough to not go overboard with his methods or goals. He’s learned from the mistakes of others that he’s worked with and seen and is smart enough to not think that he will be any different. He is simply self-serving and also a sadist.

“My side is myself and nobody else.”

Alex has formed alliances before and will do so out of shared interest or common enemies. He’s not exactly traitorous, but can be prone to abandoning people if he thinks he’s going to get hurt by staying with them or if he just isn’t getting anything out of it anymore. That being said, he’s never not been open to betraying someone, he’s just never done it before. That being said, such is a rare occurrence and is almost always temporary. His only true weakness is that his friends are few and would have no interest in his violence. HSS and HPIS can only get him so far, and while Overlord-1 and Lack-2 are a fierce duo, he’d basically never call upon Nate/Blake as most of Alex’s actions are outside the law. Dasein stays behind in Graxum, so he can’t call upon him either. Steven Stone and Rika would have no interest in Alex’s madness, and he probably even has a vested interest in keeping them unaware of who he really is, same thing with his dad.

"He who serves only himself is destined to fight everyone else."

Despite having similar motives and ideals, it seems that Alex, Hemlock, and Tesoro will still butt heads due to their competitiveness and untrustworthiness. Alex is well aware that he lacks any form of moral convictions, yet still can fall privy to squabbling over who gets to be number one. Only one can have it all, and it will be a miracle if nobody backstabs each other.

“Nobody remembers the means. Only the ends.”

Alex’s villainy for the most part comes from his actions, not his goals. The worst goal he has is just enriching himself. That being said, his actions towards people who harm him are often very severe, and he’s not above hurting innocent people to get what he wants, although he does try to refrain from it. Ultimately, whether what he does is justified or not will be left up to the reader.

“Ultimately, everything I do is just self defense and self preservation.”

Alex would never instigate a conflict, as his actions would make it clear to anyone involved that he is the bad guy. Instead, he’ll wait for someone else to make the first move, so that he can justify his actions to himself and others. He doesn’t actually care about that, but he recognizes that it’s important in order to obtain legitimacy. If everything he does is just in retaliation, then he can always obtain at least a little bit of sympathy.