We Harvardians are bred to be competitive, of course—to never settle for second best, to climb the ladder until we run out of rungs. We are valedictorians and salutatorians, merit scholars and varsity athletes whose entire lives have been defined by the quest for achievement and success. Here in Cambridge, surrounded by the crème de la crème of America’s future ruling class, we compete for everything—good grades, extracurricular offices, club memberships, summer internships, Law School acceptances, consulting jobs and of course, attractive significant others.

But our competition is civilized, sanitized and oddly quiet. We mutter to our friends about how so-and-so doesn’t deserve that job, office or girlfriend, when the same prize has been denied to us. We sit in coffee shops and carp about how everyone else has a summer job, or won a fellowship, and how terribly unfair it all is.

But we are also slightly ashamed of such talk and the competitive envy that it betokens —which is why, one might theorize, that people never talk about the real pillar of our meritocratic order, namely grades. In my high school, everyone talked about “what they got” on the last history test, or how they were doing in AP Bio. Here, though, save among the closest friends, daring to mention actual letters (B, A- and so forth) will win you raised eyebrows and shocked stares. People will talk about anything, from their sex lives to their private psychoses, before they even come close to mentioning their G.P.A.

It’s ironic, when you consider it. Grades are the arena of Harvard competition, the place where everyone can line up and see where they stand (you, in Group I! you, over there in Group II!)—and we pretend that nobody cares.

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 a vengeance. And it isn’t a pretty sight.

In the end, even with the bitter taste of defeat stinging my gorge, I still think that everyone should play Assassin—for the thrills, the entertainment and the all-too-rare intoxication that comes with knowing that people are out there somewhere waiting to kill you.

But have a care, and remember that whatever the nitwits who run youth sports like to say, there’s really no such thing as friendly competition.