By Hannah Kebede
Elm Staff Writer
As you probably already know, the popular movie “The Hunger Games” (based on the equally popular book trilogy by Suzanne Collins) is about a tyrannical government that controls the post-apocalyptic former United States by forcing children and teenagers to fight each other to the death.
In a less lethal, more politically correct venture, Washington College is hosting its own Second Annual “Hunger Games” in the form of Spoon Assassin. And this time, it is campus-wide.
How does it work? Students signed up over email with their name, class and photo and then those selected received the names and pictures of their targets over email as well. Each class (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) is a ‘district’, and each player is a ‘tribute’. Their names and pictures are also displayed in Hodson Dining Hall in front of the Egg, listing who has been eliminated and how many people they have knocked out of the game.
How do players go about knocking their targets out of the game? By tapping them on their backs with a spoon they received at the beginning of the game from the Martha Washington ‘Cornucopia’ which was arranged to look like a plastic cutlery box that had spilled out the mass of spoons all over the square. Once the tapped player is out of the game, the player that eliminated them gets the tapped player’s target.
This year’s game began on April 8 and lasts until midnight April 21. The player with the most eliminated targets wins the competition and $200 cash.
And just who is the mastermind behind “Hunger Games” Spoon Assassin? Sophomore Rachel Dilliplane, head Game Maker and director of Collaborations for the Student Events Board. She organized everything and is always on-call for the next two weeks until the game ends. On a detailed spreadsheet, she keeps track of all the players, how many other players they have eliminated and those who have been eliminated.
“The omniscience and manipulative power the game gives me goes to my head,” joked Dilliplane. “I love sitting in the dining hall knowing someone’s assassin is inches from them.”
More seriously, she added that “the game is based on the honor system” and so players must be honest about whom they have eliminated and if they themselves have been spooned. She then went on to explain the origins of Spoon Assassin on the WC campus.
“As a freshman I joined a committee of first years organized through the Student Events Board to create a few first year events for the spring semester. The director of student activities at the time was trying to organize freshman events to make up for the fact that the Class of 2015 didn’t have an orientation,” Dilliplane recounted.
“While trying to come up with a low budget event I remembered the Spoon Assassin game I had played with my friends in high school. Our tournament was orchestrated entirely through a Facebook page. It was a lot of fun so I decided to bring it to WAC. What better way to bring the freshman class together than to have them all stab each other in the back with plastic spoons right? The ‘Hunger Games’ movie had just come out so I called the game ‘Hunger Games’ Spoon Assassin to help raise publicity.”
Because of last year’s success, the Head Game Maker decided to bring it back in Spring 2013, modifying it to embody the recent movie. Again there are around 50 players, some of whom have already been tapped out.
“As a spoon assassin, I have developed an unhealthy degree of watchful paranoia,” said tribute James Chillog, a sophomore.
Tribute Alexander Lucas, also a sophomore, said, “It was really fun and I’d love to do it again next year.”