.
"The five assassins of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad are a reference to 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."
Here's what those chaps looked like:
Even though their masks all look pretty similar there, they're actually all supposed to be different animals - there's The Centipede, The Snake, The Scorpion, The Lizard and The Toad, and they each use a different kung-fu style (read about them
at Wiki). As is QT's wont, he grabbed hold of that and made it his own with the
Kill Bills.
Leader Bill goes by "Snake Charmer" while his brother Budd is "Sidewinder," and then our vengeful heroine Beatrix is "Black Mamba" of course - memorialized in
an amazing speech for the ages, the Black Mamba's bite can deliver a
GARGANTUAN amount of venom, you know.
Yes Elle, it
is pretty cool. But it's these three other lady-snakes we're concerning ourselves with today, as we take on a
Do Dump or Marry, Deadly Viper Assassination Squad Style. You must choose between...
"California kingsnakes are opportunistic feeders, feeding on almost any vertebrate they can constrict. Common food items include rodents, other reptiles, birds, and amphibians. All kingsnakes are non-venomous, but are powerful constrictors and generally kill their prey through suffocation. The "king" in their name refers to their propensity to hunt and consume other snakes, including venomous rattlesnakes that are commonly indigenous to their natural habitat.
... They are considered harmless to humans, but if handled it is common for this species to bite as well as excrete musk and fecal contents from their cloaca, but this latter habit is usually restricted to the females. Kingsnakes usually shed four to six times per year at which point they go "opaque", meaning the snake's skin becomes dull and its eyes will turn a milky white color, rendering them practically blind."
"When sufficiently stressed or threatened, this species engages in a characteristic threat display that includes vibrating its tail and throwing its head back with its mouth open to display the startling white interior, often making a loud hiss while the neck and front part of the body are pulled into an S-shaped position. Many of its common names, including "cottonmouth" and "gapper", refer to this behavior, while its habit of snapping its jaws shut when anything touches its mouth has earned it the name "trap-jaw" in some areas. Other defensive responses can include flattening the body and emitting a strong, pungent secretion from the anal glands located at the base of the tail."
"Like all pit vipers, A. contortrix is generally an ambush predator: it takes up a promising position and waits for suitable prey to arrive... Like most North American viperids, these snakes prefer to avoid humans and, given the opportunity, will leave the area without biting. However, unlike other viperids they will often "freeze" instead of slithering away, and as a result many bites occur from people unknowingly stepping on or near them. This tendency to freeze most likely evolved because of the extreme effectiveness of their camouflage."
One lady-snake make your Bride, one lady-snake pluck out her eyes and leave to the desert, and one lady-snake slither up together with for a single night. Who's who? Make your picks in the comments!
Previously