There was this exciting sport which used to be practiced by Italians, more specifically attributed to the Sicilians, called the Vendetta. Apparently, if some chappie took it into his head that another chappie was just the person needed to complete the Heavenly Harpists group and decided to send him there with the benefit of the lupara or some such...well, the entire family of the newly-made Harpist would take it upon themselves to add this guy too to the Heavenly Choir. Some families, apparently, took a more wholesale view of the issue. They would feel that the maker of Celestial Harpists would do a better job of being a Harpist himself if he had his entire family along with him. Accordingly, they would pledge to send all of them to join their own dear departed in torturing the Harps of Heaven and sending angels flying in every direction to avoid the cacophony.
Legal luminaries across the world, either because they are not musically inclined or because they prefer the music to be played here rather than up there, frowned upon this sporting endeavor. Or, perhaps, it was a problem because it could not be marketed like other sports. After all, the other sports worked, eventually, on the basis of personality cults. I mean, come on, if every tournament threw up a different winner and, even, had a wholly new set of participants do you really think that you could get to be interested in it? Where would tennis be if Federer could win only one tournament in his lifetime, as would Nadal, as would...you get the point. This Vendetta game is somewhat like that...you win one, you become the target of your victim's family...till you are dead and your killer becomes the target of your family...well, where is the fun in that? And all that the players would be good for is to endorse coffins...so how much funds can you raise from endorsements from Undertakers alone to keep the sport going?
So, for whatever reason, legal luminaries sort of stomped down on the sport. Apparently, though, it still thrives in secret but...well, if it cannot be televised or discussed threadbare on social media, it may as well not exist, right?
But you cannot keep a good idea down, can you? Even if it has to morph a bit in order to keep in with pesky laws.
So...
"This idea is unsound and illogical..."
There goes that vile chap who just attempted the murder of the idea that you and your friends espouse. "VENDETTA", we all scream and...
"It is a pity that your father and mother met the one time they did..."
"A face so ugly that even a mother cannot love..."
"What did you use to blackmail your teachers into passing you out of school?"
"You have friends? Which gutter did they crawl out of?"
"So you took time out from beating your wife and raping your children and came here to talk nonsense about our ideas?"
The Italians and Sicilians were milksops. I mean, come on, their son is killed and all they can think of is kill the killer or at best his whole family. We, if he even dares touch our ideas, can convert him into a bastard born of a one-night stand, ugly as sin, blackmailer from childhood...we rewrite his entire history from birth onward; vilify his whole family and friends and neighbors and servant maids and the person who takes out his trash; denigrate his clothes, his car, his choice of pet and even the lamp-post opposite his house; in short, we can make him know what a fate worse than death really is.
Those guys who lay claim to the parentage of vendetta would do well to take our correspondence course on the subject.
THIS is real VENDETTA.