In theory, Elthina had Legitimate, or 'positional', power due to her rank in the Chantry Hierarchy. She was, technically, Meredith's superior. However, by Act 3, that became meaningless as Meredith had entirely tossed out her willingness to abide by such power structures, as evidenced in her usurpation of the Viscount's authority. Elthina's positional power mattered little.
She also, in the eyes of many, including Meredith, possessed Referent Power, which is built on personal loyalty and respect. This was the only thing really keeping Meredith in check in Act 3. While the Templars may have obeyed Elthina out of respect, it was Meredith who really controlled them, and she could have ordered them to ignore the Grand Cleric at any time and they would have. It was only Meredith's loyalty to Elthina that allowed the Grand Cleric any say at all, and had Elthina pushed too hard, damaging that respect, Meredith would have run over her in a heartbeat.
So, Elthina may not have been completely powerless by the time Act 3 came around, but she did have to use a very, very light touch.
This is a view I've always held, and was one of the reasons I always viewed Act 3 a bit more positively than many BSNers after DA2 came out. A great many people hated/condemned Elthina as a useless/incompetent/lazy person who wouldn't excercise her power to remove Meredith/bring her into line because -reasons-, but I always found it far more interesting to view it in the context of someone who holds a broken leash. She only had as much power over Meredith as Meredith allowed her- and the only way the pretense could be maintained is if she didn't break the illusion. So everyone, in and out of universe, was proscribing her with far more power than she actually had available.
It's interesting, even fascinating, and it makes the common argument of 'a Seeker should have come along, seen the obvious problem, and removed Meredith' far more interesting when you ask the question of 'When?' Meredith wasn't a loose canon for the entirety of the time period, nor was the Circle unbearable (Anders aside) and systemically broke. If a Seeker were to come by before the problems got big post-Qunari... why would they view Meredith as the problem?
Elthina is an idealist, or at least driven by morals, but she was also a politician. Her handling of Petrice, in either scenario, is one of my favorite moments of the game. But it also begs the question of the unexplored personal history between her and Meredith, as well as the question of why the Chantry allowed the Templars to have so much influence. To me, the obvious answer would be because the Templar influence benefited the Chantry in many ways... and that's a story I wish had been told, because it could have cast Meredith in a different light.
Imagine this perspective for a Seeker who comes by Kirkwall in the time before the Qunari invasion- before the idol and the insanity and the seizure of power.
We have a woman. A strong, steadfast, and loyal woman, who holds both herself and her followers to high standards. When a Viscount directly attacks the Chantry by executing the Knight Commander and attempting to cast out the Templars (from a city with a Circle no less), this woman leads the charge to secure the international order. She places a decent man, and one sympathetic to the Chantry and its interests, as Viscount, and returns to her duties and enforcing the laws of the Templars, laws that have been allowed to lax. She tackles corruption, cracking down on Templar blind eyes and greedy palms to the point that the difficulty (and the cost) for apostate smuggling in and out of the city to the point that only the nobility can reliably safeguard them. She appoints a promising and implicitly capable veteran of the Ferelden Circle incident as her second, and he soon shows initiative and insight by investigating and helping stop a maleficar plot to infiltrate the Templar ranks with demons. When approached by a radical senior Templar about invoking and illegal and extreme Tranquil Solution, she categorically rejects it to the point that his subsequent actions are done in total secrecy and through the blackmail of other Templars to avoid her attention. When a neighboring Circle burns down, she enables and assists the sudden and unplanned incorporation of the mages into her Circle, while sending Templars to successfully track down would-be apostates (led by a maleficar, no less). When racial tensions with Qunari visitors rise, she properly and helpfully remains discrete and neutral, helpfully not flanning the flames and tensions but also maintaining a capable and ready force to rapidly intervene and protect the city should tensions boil over.
What, exactly, would a Seeker (or Elthina, or anyone in the Chantry) remove her for at this point? Because she and her First Enchanter don't like each other?
Come Act 3, things have certainly changed, but there also remain a number of points that could be argued in her favor before any investigator comes to remove her... assuming that they could remove her without igniting the powder keg such a removal would be intended to prevent.
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