Deadly Viper Assassination Squad

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Image:Kill Bill Deadly Vipers.jpg The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (or DiVAs) are fictional characters in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 1 and Volume 2.

The members of the "DiVAS" consist of the following:

• Beatrix Kiddo (Black Mamba) played by Uma Thurman.
• Vernita Green (Copperhead) played by Vivica A. Fox.
• O-Ren Ishii (Cottonmouth) played by Lucy Liu.
• Elle Driver (California Mountain Snake) played by Daryl Hannah.
• Budd (Sidewinder) played by Michael Madsen.
• Bill (Snake Charmer) played by David Carradine.

Bill and Budd are brothers who grew up without a father (although Esteban Vihaio, a pimp, acted as a father figure for a time). O-Ren Ishii was left an orphan after her parents were killed by Japanese crime boss Matsumoto for unknown reasons. The origins of the other three assassins are not known.

They are, as their name suggests, an assassination squad, run and managed by Bill. He is known to have had romances, or at the least sexual relations, with Kiddo (who was his girlfriend and protege at the time and whom he impregnated), and Elle Driver. It is implied (though not stated) that they were one of the most deadly teams on the planet, which would fit in both with the style of film, and the training regime and skills demonstrated.

At the time of Kiddo's revenge, the group had largely disbanded. Vernita lives as a housewife with a daughter, O-Ren was running crime in Tokyo, Budd was a bar bouncer, Bill is shown mostly as a retired killer, to whom Elle remains fanatically devoted (though probably as portrayed, self-interest comes first for her). The Bride has just recovered from a 4 year coma, which started when the others gate crashed her wedding rehearsal and killed the wedding party, but mistakenly left her still alive. Bill delivered the coup de grace, in return for walking out on him. Their daughter is delivered whilst she is in coma, and is being looked after by Bill without her knowledge. We never learn about other missions the Squad undertook or its prior history, the film only shows us the squad in the context of the different relationships between the members.

Although never explicitly said, it was widely held that Black Mamba was the most lethal and skilled of the DiVAS after Bill himself, making her probably the deadliest woman on the planet. Many of them wielded katanas and in the case of Bill and Budd theirs were made by Hattori Hanzō, an Okinawan sword maker of legendary standing, who came out of retirement to make his final masterpiece, The Bride's sword. At least Bill, The Bride, and Elle Driver were trained by Pai Mei, a Chinese martial arts master later claimed to have been poisoned out of spite and revenge by Elle Driver. It is not stated whether the others received training from him as well, and of course this became impossible after Elle Driver's time as a student if this story was true. Besides their training in the martial arts, they were also fluent in several languages, well-versed in the use of firearms, and skilled in various assassination, espionage, surveillance, and weapon combat techniques.

Green, Ishii, and Bill were killed by Kiddo in her quest for revenge. Budd was killed ironically by a black mamba which Driver put in his money; therefore, Kiddo killed him in a sense (also, if she had not come after him in the first place, he would not have been killed at all). It is unknown whether Driver survived; she was left blinded and locked up with the black mamba that killed Budd, ranting and screaming in an isolated desert trailer.

Codenames analysis

Template:SectOR The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad use names of snakes that either biologically, symbolically or metaphorically refer to their character and/or abilities as assassins:

• The black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepisis) the largest venomous snake in Africa, and one of the fastest in the world, symbolic to Beatrix's superior skill. It is territorial and becomes very aggressive when threatened, just like her.

• The California mountain snake (Lampropeltis getula californiae) is a snake eater, symbolic of Elle's hostility towards Beatrix. It is also highly resistant to poison, referring to her preference to kill with poison.

• The copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix), a rather anonymous snake, is vicious and strikes without warning; a trait that Vernita shows when she attempts to shoot the bride during their conversation.

• The sidewinder (Crotalus cerastes) gets its name from its unusual movements; a sideways slither, referring to Budd's deceptive appearance and unexpected strikes. Possibly there is also some symbolism in the sidewinder's famous ability to perceive the heat of animals around it, as Budd appears extremely keen to his surroundings.

• The cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorous) is not aggressive and will not attack unless threatened. It uses threat displays and defensive tactics, even biting without injecting venom. This may be a reference to O-Ren's actions in the story, or maybe she wears the name simply because of her conversational ability.

• Bill's codename, only revealed in the credits, is Snake Charmer. One will notice that Bill plays his flute twice in Kill Bill: Volume 2.

References

The five assassins of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad reference the Five Deadly Venoms, a group of five Hong Kong action actors employed by Run Run Shaw in many old Shaw Brothers martial arts films that were part of the inspiration for Kill Bill. The actors first worked together in a movie called The Five Deadly Venoms, and were referred to as such when seen in later movies together. Also in Quentin's other movie, Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace (played by none other than Uma Thurman) states that she worked on a pilot episode of the Fox Force Five, which included five very different women with special talents that are similar to the talents of the DiVAs.