Let’s just examine the much-discussed, much-maligned, and much-awesome rivalry between The Game and his so-called friend, 50 Cent.

Just another rap squabble, you say?

That’s too easy. Too simple. This is the Ivy League. Put those Expository Writing 20 and English Language and American Literature skills to good use. Look deeper, past the façade.

Couldn’t it be that this media-hyped conflict is all just metaphorical theatre? That Game and his former mentor are merely stand-ins for the prominent characters in the larger historical genesis of the struggle of Harvard and Yale—a metanarrative setting the stage for the actual The Game?

Clever, Jayceon. Clever.

Just think: The Game, playing the role of ministers James Pierpont, Thomas Buckingham, and Gurdon Saltonstall: three of the five Connecticut ministers credited with the founding of Yale University. And 50 Cent, playing the role of John Harvard, the spiritual leader responsible for us, that “unsatisfactory” educational monopoly in the Northeastern American colonies.

After all, you did know that Pierpont, Buckingham, and Saltonstall—all legendary founders of Yale—were actually Harvard graduates before they went to New Haven, right?

Wait, you didn’t?

And what? Who was once coincidentally under the tutelage of 50 Cent before they fought? Before a “rivalry,” emerged, perhaps? A certain alcohol-laced rivalry celebrated by many?

Oh, that’s right. The Game.

Eerie, I know.

I ultimately envision this as a senior thesis project wherein the later figure of Elihu Yale is played by Lloyd Banks and the guy who founded Princeton is Tony Yayo.

--Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.