Loid's Mission is Fake[]
Spy x Family is a popular manga series that has received an anime adaptation. The main premise of the series is a nameless spy (codenamed Twilight and later “Loid” to masquerade as a psychiatrist) is given the assignment “Operation Strix.” His target, Donovan Desmond, is the leader of the National Unity Party, a political party that could threaten to escalate tensions between Westalis and Ostania.
But seeing that Donovan was a recluse, Loid has to adopt a child to enroll them into the esteemed Eden Academy (while unaware that his adopted daughter has telepathy) and later “marries” Yor who herself hides a dirty little secret: that being a professional assassin. With that being said, there appears to be something off about the mission. For one, while Donovan is billed as being the main antagonist of the series, he rarely appears despite being a crucial person of interest. In fact, he is never actually shown performing “nefarious” acts. At best, it could be said that he is a neglectful parent who seemed to not really care much that his second-son Damian got decked across the room by Anya. Later chapters in the manga have him outright say that he finds his family strangers.
Where I am getting at overall is that while Donovan looks like someone dug up Edgar Allen Poe’s corpse, dragged it through the mud, and left it to dry for ten days, it is more than likely that the organization Loid works for is overplaying his threat level. But the question, obviously, would be why?
I am suggesting that WISE fabricated Operation Strix so Loid could get a life outside of his spy work by settling down. Sounds ludicrous, but thinking about it, it does make some sense. I always thought Loid had to specifically get a kid (and later saw that having a spouse would be mandatory for the interview) was odd as why did he have to get close to Donovan? But considering how Donovan himself isn’t close to his kids since he viewed them as “strangers,” it makes getting intimate with him for the mission more implausible. So what if Loid adopting Anya was actually NOT really important?
You may ask when they decided to fake the mission? I believe we’ve been clued into it from the beginning. As you may recall, Loid was doing one of his missions until eventually he outright goes “screw it” and tells his date they should break up. So, once that plan goes wrong, they decide to do the next best thing. As for why they are so preoccupied with getting their best spy hitched and/or adopting a child? Would have to go with his backstory: in the manga series, Loid did not have the best upbringing: his home was attacked by Ostania and his mother was killed. He was left all alone to fend for himself undoubtedly giving him a good bit of trauma. That’s pretty much the reason why he becomes attached to Anya: because he would see some of himself in her especially after finding out she was consistently taken back to orphanages.
But it is also because serving WISE would be a long-time commitment. With all that pressure, it is really another ploy by the organization to ultimately get Loid to retire.
The biggest piece of evidence that Operation Strix is really just a front comes when Anya finally does get into Eden Academy after being placed on the waiting list: to commemorate it, Loid has to pull a few strings to recreate the scenes from Anya’s favorite spy show. Of course, several agents are in on it largely because they were fanboying over being in the same room as Loid, but what if they were also informed about the true purpose of Strix and are playing along? Could also explain why Handler is ticked off: because they are putting in such a MASSIVE budget just because they can’t just be outright and say “Hey, Loid, we appreciate all the work you’ve done for us for years, but we feel you need your own life so maybe retire please retire?”
Loid would obviously not take the bait if they were upfront with him. So, what better way to get him to “retire” and settle down than to create a false story by claiming that this guy Donovan is dangerous so you need to get a kid and put them into Eden Academy. That is not to say that the political party is NOT dangerous or threatens the peace, but they could be deliberately demonizing Donovan just to make the lies stick.
So, in short, the mission Loid thinks he is in is not real and was an elaborate ploy to get him to retire and have his own family after suffering trauma and things no man should ever suffer when he was a kid. He would take the bait hook, line, and sinker, but not realize that by doing so he would actually grow attached to his “fake family” until he could no longer tell the difference? UPDATE: So while thinking more, while I believe that this is one of the main reasons for the “family” operation, I also think that it was a contingency plan WISE devised just in case they were compromised. So, what better way to “keep tabs” on him than to concoct the “you must start a family for the mission” scheme?
To avoid him questioning anything, they would still routinely check in to see how his mission was going whilst allowing him to do things like do a recreation of Anya’s favorite spy show which would STILL be a blow to their budget.