Julius Grief

Julius Grief
Biographical Information
Name	Julius Grief
Alias	Alex Friend (Point Blanc)
Title	--
Date of birth	1987
Age	15
Physical Information
Status	Deceased (shot to death)
Nationality	--
Gender	Male
Hair	Blonde (fair)
Eyes	Brown
Skin	Caucasian
Relationship Information
Family	Hugo Grief (original)
Affiliations	Hugo Grief, Eva Stellenbosch, Razim, Scorpia
Occupation	--
Series Information
First Appearance	Point Blanc
Last Appearance	Scorpia Rising
Mentioned	--

“	Not born but created, given a face that wasn't his own, taught how to kill - and quite, quite insane. His name was Julius Grief and he had been one of the sixteen clones created in a French labarotary by his natural father, Dr Hugo Grief	”
—Julius Grief description

Julius Grief is a tertiary antagonist in Point Blanc and a quartenary antagonist in Scorpia Rising.

About

Julius is 1 of 16 clones of Dr. Hugo Grief and was created for the sole purpose of help the latter to achieve world domination. All of them idolize Dr. Grief and have been raised since birth to share his twisted beliefs and ideals. He had intended to surgically alter all sixteen of his clones to make them identical to the sixteen wealthy boys attending his academy, boys belonging to some of the world's richest and most influential families. After spying on the boys in order to learn how to speak and behave like them, all 16 clones would have taken their targets' places within their families, and would have later gone on to inherit their wealth, and eventually would have used their combined power to seize control of the world.

Julius received plastic surgery and was made to look in every way possible like Alex Friend, who was actually Alex Rider under a false identity. Of course, Julius' looks had in fact been based on someone who didn't exist, so he would therefore gain no power and inherit nothing. As if this weren't bad enough, after discovering Grief's plan, Alex Rider escapes from the academy and returns with British special forces. The academy is shut down, Dr. Grief is killed, and the other 15 clones are incarcerated, thoroughly putting an end to Dr. Grief's dreams.

For these reasons, Julius has an incredible, murderous hatred of Alex Rider. He is very psychologically damaged, due in part to how he looks exactly the same as the person who killed his father and took everything away from him (instead of looking like Alex Friend, the person he believed he would resemble).

Personality

"I need just one thing. I need to see you dead. I'm gonna shoot you. I'm gonna do it now. You killed my father!"

"We would've had everything! We would've had the whole world!...I don't care what happens to me, just so long as you're dead."

-Julius Grief to Alex Rider in Point Blanc

Much like Dr. Grief, Julius is highly intelligent but also ruthless, sadistic and callous. He enjoys killing and is amused by the pain and suffering of other people. It got even worse after Dr. Grief's plans were stopped by Alex Rider.  He is shown to be vengeful, as Julius developed an intense, deep-rooted hatred for Alex for killing Dr. Grief and ruining his life, and this made him insane.

After spending a year with a child psychologist, Julius made absolutely zero progress towards healing and recovering - the twisted morals he was brought up around and his hatred for Alex Rider were too deep-rooted. In any given session with his psychologist, Dr. Flint, he was always the one in control, manipulating and toying with the woman and displaying adamant resistance whenever she tried to help him. Even Dr. Flint, who usually only saw the good in other people, found that deep down inside she had a deep, seemingly unreasonable dislike for Julius.

He killed first at the age of eleven, and dreamed of killing Alex Rider. This is mainly because of the amount of people his father had killed, and such a bloodlust being transferred to Julius. He is also ignorant and snide, as shown when he ignored Razim's demand for Alex Rider to come unharmed.

He possibly has his father's white supremacist factors and his extreme idealism. He displays signs of psychopathic behavior, such as being ruthlessness, social detachment and potential self-dependence. But, also, he shows various indications of a complete personality disorder such as egomania, sadism, violence and misanthropic behavior.

However, Julius is still a child in an adult world, and this shows in his behavior. He has a quick temper and tends to make rash decisions when he's angry. He speaks like a small child and displays childlike amusement at the suffering of others, especially Alex, often laughing and giggling.

Role in Series

Point Blanc

Julius Grief is first seen in Point Blanc, though in this novel, he is not named. He is first seen watching Alex talking to James Sprintz at the Point Blanc Academy. He had only recently had the surgery at this point and his face is covered in bandages, hiding his true identity.

He later appears at the end of the book, having somehow managed to escape the assault on the academy and track Alex back to his home in London. Julius impersonates Alex's principal, Mr. Bray, and lures Alex to Brookland High. Despite numerous hints, Alex Rider falls into his impostor's trap, and is chased through the science laboratory at gunpoint, where a stray bullet ignites some of the gas and causes a fire. The two Alex Riders fight on the rooftop until Julius, in an attempt to grab his weapon, falls through a large hole caused by an explosion as the science lab's various chemicals ignited. He lands 2 stories below and is thought to have died in the fire.

Scorpia Rising

Julius Grief is seen again in Scorpia Rising, and it is revealed that he survived the fire and is now being held by MI6 in an maximum security prison in Gibraltar, heading towards Dr. Rosemary Flint's office for another psychiatric session. During the session, it is revealed that Scorpia has contacted him and wants to break him out. They first leave a note under his bed, which he reads and swallows with a cup of water. Julius later goes to the library and finds a hollowed out book containing a Mauser C96 handgun, which he uses to take Dr. Flint hostage and escape, hitting her on the head. He then drives off in a Suzuki Jiminy provided by Scorpia, and is chased into a barn, where he encounters a team of Scorpia agents who hide him and fake his death by driving an identical Suzuki Jiminy out of the barn and off a cliff.

Julius is seen again at Razim's desert fortress in Siwa, doing target practice with pictures of Alex's head. A while later, he spies on Alex from inside Erik Gunter's office at the Cairo College of Arts and Education, but hides before Alex has time to recognize him. Alex then receives a message on Facebook stating that a 'Julius G' wants to add him as a friend. Sensing a bad feeling about this person, Alex ignores the request.

Later, Julius is encountered in the City of the Dead, waiting to take Alex to Razim's fort. There, Julius listens as Razim explains his experiments to Alex while Jack Starbright tries to escape. To Alex's horror, Razim reveals that Julius is holding the detonator for thirty pounds of explosive in Jack's getaway car. Julius holds the detonator in front of Alex's face and pushes it, (falsely) killing Jack. Alex goes mad before blacking out, much to Julius' amusement.

Julius is then seen in a sound room overlooking the stage where the US Secretary of State gives her speech. He is about to kill the Secretary of State when Alex shouts his name and distracts him. Julius kills the guard posted outside the door and runs away. Alex chases him through the streets of Cairo with a stolen Tokarev TT-33, where Julius is hit by a taxi and knocked off the road. A wounded Julius taunts Alex, saying he is too much of a "good-boy" to kill him. He also says that he isn't strong enough to pull the trigger, despite the fact that he murdered Jack. Alex tells Julius that he is nothing and begins to walk away, when Julius suddenly reaches for his gun. In self-defense, Alex spins around and shoots Julius in the head.

His death is a turning point in the Alex Rider series, as it alters Alex Rider's personality entirely, adding much of Julius' sadism, sociopathy and megalomanial attitude towards others, namely Razim and Joe Byrne. Alex's sociopathy stretches to the level of complete reclusive nature when surrounded by others. Although he is not named in Point Blanc, Julius' name ironically suits the fact that he was killed by somebody who was his considerable equal, liable to the fact that Julius was killed by his physical equal.

Abilities

Julius Grief was very fit, competing with his brothers in two-mile runs across the snow in the Alps whilst under training, and able to outpace the prison guards during his fierce escape. He was a very fast runner and has incredible reflexes, shown many times, namely during both duels with Alex Rider.

Julius was an expert marksman, specialising in long-range targeting, although it did him no favours during his first encounter with Alex, as only one of his bullets managed to even scratch him. Nevertheless, he was highly trained in weaponry and a crack shot with sniper rifles.

Julius was, additionally, an extremely capable warrior, trained in hand-to-hand combat and martial arts by Eva Stellenbosch herself, who was also a talented fighter. He commonly used his hatred as ammunition during his fights and applied in, mainly, grapple movements and in pressuring an opponent. He shows skills in Ninjujutsu such as stealth, cunning and ferocity.

Julius was also hinted to be a skilled tactician, shown in his prison break and again in the duel in the Cairo storm.

It is hinted in Point Blanc that he spoke Afrikaans.

Trivia

• Just like Dr. Grief, Julius Grief is albino.

• Julius was originally going to die in the fire at Brookland High, but Anthony Horowitz decided to bring him back due to several requests from the fans.
• He is a scientific miracle, as one of the first cloned human beings.
• He is named after Dr. Julius No from the first James Bond movie and also shares Julius Caesar's first name.