#also there's a ridiculous amount of pettiness but that's not advertized like the crazy or the Quality

[insanescriptist]

Varia Hierarchy, thoughts?

Didn’t I answer this in another ask?

No, wait, that was Varia Ranks wasn’t it?

Okay, Varia Hierarchy is politics at it rawest. Work has to get done and organized and people put to work they’re good at, get training to be better and more. People need supplies, food, weapons, training tools. There’s vehicles to maintain, equipment to keep track of and of course managing people.

Assassins are creatures of politics. If you’re important enough to get assassinated, it involves politics. Sometimes it is just personal politics between a few people. Sometimes it’s economical politics like taking out a rival businessman. Sometimes it’s just business to remove an embarrassment. Generally assassination is a matter of influence of the victim; otherwise it’s just plain ole’ vanilla murder.

So most Varia are pretty adept at politics, even if they couldn’t care less about them. One of those ‘just because you know how it works, how to fix it or how to do it doesn’t mean you want to.’

It might come across as lazy that the Varia have a kind of ‘kill and be promoted for it’ but it’s more of a matter of efficiency.

The Varia likes their efficiency. It’s why they can afford to be so extravagant. Custom uniforms, custom weapons. Private jet remember? Private jets are practically money sinks. It’s why they’re a status symbol.

So mission squads are set up in small groups; a couple of people means taking shifts, more hands and bodies to move stuff with, more support for those doing the killing by being eyes in the sky, watching the road or the desk or whatever. Is it really needed to have a full squad to kill one person? No, but it reduces the likelihood that the assassin would die in doing so or get caught or whatever. (The Varia’s secret to success is teamwork.)

Anyway, mission groups tend to end up as friends; that’s human nature to bond with those around you, especially in stressful situations. But also it’s likely to have people bicker over plans, so Squad Leaders are needed. They say how it is going to be and that’s how it is.

Now who decides who is going on what mission and where? Sure it can be done by each individual Squad Leader but it’s honestly easier to have a set list of missions available which means having standards set for accepting them. So Varia’s got to have Information people who analyze the requests, do digging for more information and so on.

Okay so who decides on Squad Leaders? The Squad? Yeah, that works. Sometimes. What happens when a job needs doing and you’ve got strangers to work with? Need someone above the Squad Leader.

Need some sort of manager or officer position. So what would they do and how? The Varia still needs to run efficiently. So other than riding a desk, what else do they do? Assign training, approve training, move people around, smooth issues out with other people... other over reaching duties that individuals cannot do like source and maintain equipment, run finances, see to recruitment and more. Higher position means more work.

Okay so if you’ve got people that are now above the Squad Leaders, how are you dividing the people out? Preferred killing method? How they’re cross-trained? What? In KHR we’ve got this handy thing called Flames, so it’s easy to sort people out by Flame-type. Which makes Flame-training an Officer responsibility, because Squad Leaders don’t have to share a Flame-type.

So now you’ve got Officers but who’s in charge of the whole organization? Who represents the Varia to the Vongola? Why the Head of the Varia. Who is that? One of the Officers or someone appointed to that position.

Yeah, Varia Hierarchy doesn’t seem like raw politics but it is; it’s walking the knife’s edge around other professional killers who might take offense to what you do, what you say, how you say it or to any of your decisions. It’s a personal choice to use administrative authority or personal ability to deal with this person. It is using charisma to gain respect, ability to earn it and quick-thinking to keep it. Otherwise... you might end up dead.

Statistically most Officers die at the hands of their subordinates in war. Just sayin’ that as a reminder.

Roughly put: Officers are scary impressive people even for those with Varia Quality and Izzy headcannons that more Varia Officers have died due to internal issues than missions. Most Varia would like to avoid Officer positions because retiring to the grave becomes more likely to happen that way.

Addendum: It never stops amusing Izzy that Xanxus has a position in the Varia because Squalo said so and gave him the work. Which technically makes Xanxus the subordinate. Except Squalo then promoted Xanxus above him by giving him the Head of Varia position