Word: assassination
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...aftermath of my team’s defeat, I am beginning to wonder if the red-in-tooth-and-claw competition offered by Assassin is really such a good thing after...
...such inglorious fashion ended my week of playing Quincy House Assassin...
Originally, before my death—and the subsequent deaths of my valiant teammates in Sunday’s final shootout—I had intended to write a column singing the praises of Assassin, that much-ridiculed and frequently-banned adornment of Harvard’s house life. I planned to point out how the game encouraged house spirit, how it expanded one’s circle of friends and acquaintances and how it encouraged a spirit of martial solidarity rivalled only, I imagine, in the fraternal order of final clubs and the rabble-rousing ranks of the Progressive...
...intended to point out, too, how Assassin offers the cosseted Ivy League Last Man a chance to experience what a real man should experience, albeit in an artificial, nerf-dart sort of way. I speak, of course, of the thrill of the hunt, the delicious paranoia that comes with knowing that every dark corner, every shadowy alcove might conceal a killer and that one’s life hangs by an ever-so-thin thread. I speak, too, of the great struggle for mastery, in which one establishes one’s superiority by force of arms, without recourse...
That’s why a game like Assassin is so dangerous—because it’s meaningless, because it’s just a bunch of guys and girls with nerf guns running around shooting each other, it suddenly becomes okay to care, to behave as if the game is life and death, rather than just “life” and “death.” The real, academic competition that defines Harvard life, and that we so assiduously sweep under the rug for the sake of social peace, spills out with...