He is going to sacrifice him to gain favor and it will work. He purposely surrounds himself with lackeys in order to disregard them and gain the higher ground. The lesson in all of this is don’t overthink it. Create what you want to create and let the other stuff go. IRL. That is a thing now. We have been so fragmented and digitized we have to create term when communicating, that does not reference the common state. Which is a fantasy, an illusion trapped in moving forward and looking back. It does not exist.