List of Alex Rider Characters - Main Antagonists - Dr. Hugo Grief

Dr. Hugo Grief is the main antagonist of Point Blanc. He was born in South Africa, where he was head of biology department at the University of Johannesburg. He went on to become South Africa's minister for science while still in his twenties. In this position, he discovered how to clone humans, perfecting the process by experimenting on political prisoners. Grief was also racist, disgusted by how black people became the leaders of South Africa, feeling they would run his country into the ground. He thought that South Africa was excellent when controlled by the white men and thus decided to try to rule the world, and reinstate apartheid globally. Grief believed that he could rule the earth if he could control the main industries, such as technology and food.

In order to achieve this, Grief devised "The Gemmini Project". Using money stolen from the South African government in 1981, he bought a castle in the French Alps and, along with assistant Eva Stellenbosch, turned the castle into an underground laboratory where they cloned him sixteen times. Grief then turned the castle into a school, Point Blanc, for the rebellious sons of rich families. He intended to use plastic surgery on his clones to make them resemble the real boys who were sent to him by their parents. Grief would then send the clones back to the parents- assuming that any minor 'differences' between his clones and the originals would be taken as nothing more than the natural changes the boys would have gone through during their time away-, and when the parents died the clones inherit their businesses. However, when two men became suspicious about their sons' (the clones) changed personalities, and contacted Grief, who had them killed by The Gentleman. The possible link between the two deaths, coupled with messages that Alan Blunt had exchanged with one of the fathers- the two men having become friends at university- lead to MI6 sending Alex Rider to Point Blanc to investigate under the name of Alex Friend, resulting in Alex discovering the truth.

After Alex escapes Point Blanc, he fakes his death, and 24 hours later returns with an SAS attack force and raids Point Blanc. Grief attempts to escape by helicopter, but Alex climbs onto a snowmobile and speeds up a ramp. When he is about to reach the edge of the ramp, he leaps off, leaving the snowmobile flying through the air, crashing into Grief's helicopter. The snowmobile explodes upon impact, blowing apart the helicopter and killing Grief. After his death, the clone meant to replace Alex attacks the real Alex at his school, but Alex fends off the attack, resulting in a fire starting and the clone (Julius Grief) presumed dead. In Scorpia Rising it is revealed that Julius had survived, albeit with burn injuries.

When Alex encountered him, Grief was almost sixty years old. He is described as having "white paper skin" and wears red-tinted spectacles. It is quite likely that he is an albino, in order to emphasize his white superiority ideas, and the red-tinted spectacles could be a reference to albinistic eyes. His appearance is often compared to that of a skeleton. He moves as if "every bone in his body had been broken and then put back together again". Despite this, he has "beautifully manicured fingernails". Grief was also portrayed as insane by deciding to kill Alex by using him as a live human dissection in a biology class for the clones. Grief was also an admirer of Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Joseph Stalin.