I agree with the folks saying Thaniel is a glorified plot device. Genuinely, if you turned him into an inanimate object, nothing substantive would change. He's not a character. Dame Aylin? She's a character. You have meaningful interactions with her, she makes choices that have impact upon the plot in some ways, she does things. You may not like her character, but she's a character. Thaniel isn't, and that's a problem because then all the stuff where we talk to him is pretty much a waste of time. He doesn't even reinforce the themes of the act, really.
Aylin literally forgets you were just responsible as DU for the death of her beloved and helps you anyways, or immediately forgets you let her get abducted by Marcus. She's as non-sensical character as one can get besides her "HULK SMASH" writing. She starts very well with her encounter with Shadowheart but quickly goes downhill as a caricature after that.
