It wasn't useful. It wasn't that Ericka didn't know anything about the Empire's political structure, it was just that the dragon firmly believed that everything was held tightly within the Emperor's claws.
Rafaela didn't believe that a single person could control even a fraction of what Ericka believed the Dragon Emperor controlled. Not even a being who had lived for millennia and had a brain larger than her own body. For all of his differences, the Emperor was still a single individual subject to the limitations of time.
She could only guess that people yielded to the Emperor whenever he put forth an opinion, or wanted to make a change, but that they performed all of the day to day operations themselves. It didn't take much speculation to guess how the Dragon Emperor could have gained enough stature to make that work, he had simply lived long enough. Experience would eventually help make most of his choices successful ones.
