If one has sufficient power to win before the game has begun, what follows is not a game at all. One can be powerful only through the possession of an acknowledged title—that is, only by the ceremonial deference of others. Power is never one’s own, and in that respect it shows the contradiction inherent in all finite play. I can be powerful only by not playing, by showing that the game is over. I can therefore have only what powers others give me. Power is bestowed by an audience after the play is complete. Power is contradictory, and theatrical.
