The thing about Ian Rider is that he could go either way. Did Ian groom Alex Rider into a dangerous life of spying for MI6 from a young age, or was he encouraging Alex's natural talents and trying to give him the skills to survive in a world where very dangerous people were always going to have a grudge against him simply for who his father was? Who knows! Either is entirely plausible!!! MI6 executed an immediate and terrifying level of manipulation and coercion upon Ian's death to get Alex to put his life on the line for them. Is this something Ian could have expected? Did he want it? Was it planned with his input? Did he actually leave Alex's custody to MI6, or was that a lie? Who on earth has the answers now besides Alan Blunt? And we know we can't trust a word he says.
Alex is very motivated in the series by information on his parents, something both MI6 and Scorpia use against him. Did Ian set him up for this by withholding that information in his childhood, or was he struggling with his own grief over his brother and trying to keep Alex safe by staying quiet, since so much of John's story was classified? Who don't know. We can't know.
Ian is a ghost over the entire series. Helen and John Rider are too, each in different ways, but Ian is interesting in that you think you have more of him than you really do. Alex does not seek information on his uncle. Is it because he thinks he knows everything already? Or because he can't face the admission that he doesn't?
We don't even know Ian's real relationship with MI6. Did they blackmail him like they did Alex? Or was that treatment only for Alex, since hiring him is so shady to begin with? Did Ian Rider ever sit in a room with Alan Blunt and give a report on his nephew? Or is he spinning in his grave over everything that his employers did to his nephew once he was no longer there to stand in the way? We don't know! We can't! I'm going insane!!
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