Which is why the analogy breaks down. Jaruzelski was already the ruler of a dictatorship. Nicodemus is implicitly threatening secession and insurgency, in conjunction with external war. A scenario where the sides will be more or less evenly matched, unless he can take Arthur out of the picture entirely. Nic is presenting all this as consequences not of his doing, of course. That’s probably partly true, but we all suspect that it’s not entirely true.

I can think of few modern parallels to this alignment. Maybe some of the modern-day events in South America.

With 20/20 hindsight, it appears that whatever was done in Dreamland left neither side with the quite outcome it wanted. Lots more humans in Dreamland, but Nicodemus in charge and Arthur gone. The dragon wins, but it’s an unstable victory. He tries to consolidate it and fix that over time, but… enter Alex…