Alex Weiss

"How often does a guy like me get to be a hero? The others are counting on us. Go! Now!"

- Alex's Last Words

Alex Weiss is a character in Tomb Raider (2013) and is the 24-year-old American technician of the Endurance before its destruction. He is also a very skilled hacker and electronics geek.

Background
He has made a living largely through legally-dodgy and flawed avenues, but only doing things he considers "victimless crimes", although his definition is wide. Alex is interested in hacking, specifically defacing websites for kudos or hacking online gambling sites for fun and profit. He enjoys reading about new tech, bit-torrenting everything and gaming. He is also an avid conspiracy theorist. Alex is the Endurance’s technician, handyman, and all-around “radio-shack genius.” Despite his impressive technical and scientific background, Alex is the most “out-there” member of the crew. Alex’s MacGyver-like talent for jerry-rigging technical devices and being somewhat of a "machine whisperer" is very useful to the survivors. He’s a bit of genius and could probably be enormously successful in the technology field if he applied himself properly.

Alex knows this about himself and thus tends to do the very bare minimum amount of work needed to do a job and always “just squeaks by” as a result. Alex is a bit of a joker, and although he’s quite witty, he can be pretty crass and often rubs Joslin Reyes the wrong way. He also has a charming side and is more sensitive than he likes to let on. Alex has a fascination with conspiracy theories, alien abduction stories, and urban legends of all sorts.

In one of the "documents" found on the island, written by Alex, it is shown that he had a crush on Lara and wanted to impress her by making a significant contribution to the escape from Yamatai by getting Reyes' tools.

Alex has a sister named Kaz.

Death
Alex attempts to sneak back on board the Endurance, which is being stripped by the Solarii for salvage, to recover Reyes' repair tools for the PT Boat. In the process, he is discovered by the Solarii and retreats into the engine room. Lara makes her way through the Endurance to find Alex. In the partially-submerged stern of the ship, she discovers Alex with the repair tools, but his leg has been badly injured and he's pinned beneath debris. Solarii attack them as the room fills with gas, and Alex manages to kill the initial attackers by shooting a gas line. More Solarii converge on their position and Alex orders Lara to flee with the tools, knowing they won't survive if she attempts to save him. After receiving a kiss on the cheek, Alex provides cover fire as Lara escapes with Reyes' tools, shutting the hatch and sealing him in the room with his attackers. Seeing the hatch shut, Alex turns and fires a pistol round into another gas line, causing a massive chain reaction of explosions that kills him and causes the quarterdeck of the Endurance to sink below the water as Lara escapes. Lara is very distraught about Alex's death, as a result, she vows to not let anyone else from the crew die.

Trivia

 * On the right side of his neck, Alex has a tattoo of the chemical structure of caffeine. It can be seen clearly during the cutscene where he made his last appearance.
 * He has the keyboard button of "Esc" on his shirt, which plays along to the Endurance crew's goal - to escape Yamatai alive.
 * The word Weiss means 'know' or 'white' in German.
 * In the fifth issue of the comic, a hallucination of Alex mentions that he has a sister and asks Lara to give her his pocket watch. In the seventh issue he appears in another hallucination, asking Lara to save his sister, claiming "they" are after her. It is revealed his sister's name is Kaz
 * It is never explained how Lara actually got the watch, or how Alex was able to give her information about his sister. It is unknown if it was actually Alex's ghost or not.