Maven Black-Briar is, to me, easily the most despicable person in all of Skyrim (and I say that as an acolyte of the Dark Brotherhood). Unfortunately, I also have obsessive-compulsive questing disorder so I cannot just leave the quest “Dampened Spirits” lying around.
Is there a way to turn this quest around and betray Maven, bringing her to justice?
(I should have never started the Thieves Guild quest line but I desperately wanted to find out about the “Unusual Gems.”)
62 Answers
As per the comments, Maven Black-Briar is an "essential" character, meaning there is no way (outside of console commands) to kill her off.
She plays a part in several other quest-lines, namely the Thieves-Guild and the Dark Brotherhood, aligning herself with the "darker" side of Skyrim.
The only quest that causes any harm to her persona is to go see a man about a horse.
Additionally, the Black-Briar Lodge also contains some hefty loot, and an Unusual Gem, so I'm sure you can have some fun beating up her henchmen and stealing her stuff. But even then, when you talk to her after this, there is no difference in her interactions so she either
doesn't give two hoots, 'cause she's rich and powerful and has her head stuck up her own butt
or (more likely)
The dev's didn't actually allow any differences to be made to her AI, so anything that you can do is entirely for the player's benefit only, with no outside effect on the rest of the game.
Try doing the the second main quest first which is the dragonborn quest. When you call everyone to the meeting at the grey beards HQ, you get the chance to make Maven Black-Briar into the Jarl of Riften which in theory should make her vulnerable to exploitation.
When you go with the first main quest which is to kill Ulfric Stormcloak and do the quest where you get evidence that Laila Law is corrupt, instead of removing her in theory you should be able to get rid of Maven Black-Briar for good (if the emperor has any sense) because she is worse than Laila Law. Other than that I don't think you can.
