She is a fundamentalist that tries to be rational, or at least the game tries to portray her that way but the whole charade falls apart when you look at certain things that take place in game. I mean it is quite hard to make hypocrisy appealing, especially if you can see it for what it is:-
1) She disapproves if your human Inquisitor does not worship the Maker or does not believe in the Maker even though she supposedly believes in the truth and the truth is that there is no concrete evidence that the Maker actually exists. Every Chantry member 'knows' that the Maker exists simply because of their faith, not because it is true.
2) She disapproves if your Inquisitor performs the Elven rituals at the Temple of Mythal even though what your Inquisitor is doing is simply respecting the beliefs of the Elven people. I doubt she would be very charitable if the Inquisitor decides to enter a Chantry and give zero f*cks about the appropriate rituals that one must perform.
3) She disapproves of corruption and murder in the Halamshiral questline but endorses Gaspard who is not a paragon of virtue.
4) She disapproves when your Inquisitor does not see themselves as the Herald of Andraste, even though the evidence points in that direction and is in fact, verified at certain points in the game.
5) She disapproves if the Inquisitor allies with the Rebel Mages even though the Rebel Mages were manipulated by Time Magic and the Fiona is Redcliffe is not the Fiona we meet in Val Royeaux, in the same way the Leliana we know and the Leliana we meet in the Dark Future is not the same due to time manipulation which resulted in a different timeline.
6) At the same time, she approves if you ally with the Templars even though the Templars were manipulated by a demon that was put there by the Lord Seeker, which is an internal struggle due to the flaw in Templar administration but that's okay. However, people being affected by reality altering time magics that had never been seen before, even by an Elven "God", need to be locked up in a tower.
7) Cassandra's attitude towards mages in general due to the death of her brother at the hands of blood mages is not an excuse. Most mages we meet in this game with the exception of the Venatori mages are not blood mages.
8) The biggest red flag is how she does not reverse her disapproval if what she initially disapproved of is shown to be wrong. Now you could argue that this is an in-game flaw but its there. She does not change her opinions on mages, magic, templar, nobility, etc no matter the evidence and no matter what our character has to say. Some might say that such behavior is that of a "strong and independent woman" but to me, its the behavior of a person of faith refusing to change their perception of reality in the face of new evidence.
1) This point is utterly ridiculous. Someone with a commitment to the truth has no obligation to abandon religion. What "the truth" is is heavily dependent upon perspective. Faith is faith. It's not something you can simply tear out of a person. Im an atheist who dislikes the Chantry and has argued that the Maker does not exist, by the way. None of my atheist Inquisitors have had trouble getting high approval with Cassandra.
2) An ancient ritual of their gods, sure. One that you know incredibly little about which will take time and effort to do, has no promise of opening the way to your goal, while your troops are fighting for their lives and there is a different way to the goal that is almost guaranteed to be quicker. "Our troops are dying! We must rush to the strategic objective in order to end this battle quickly!" "No, I want to do the elven ritual dance puzzles. Sure, our troops are dying and the last time we did an elven ritual in an old ruin it summoned a demon, but this is their tradition." Being willing to set tradition aside when it is doing more harm then good is one of Cassandra's main character traits. Her position when becoming Divine is to "respect tradition, but not be bound by it". She is willing to set aside Chantry traditions. The ones she was raised with.
3) Gaspard is not a paragon of virtue, but he is at heart a Chevalier. Someone with little patience for the backstabbing politics that are weakening the nation and have led it to a civil war while the worst enemy it has faced lurks in the shadows. Having Orlais united behind a strong military leader to deal with the current crises and steer it away from the murderous cesspit it has become is a perfectly valid outlook. Celene and Briala are far from paragons of virtue themselves and keeping all three keeps the nation weakened by infighting, which is good for the Inquisition but and Orlais' neighbours but bad for Orlais' people.
4) It's proven that Andraste did not lead the Inquisitor out of the Fade, but it isn't proven that the Inquisitor is not a savior arranged for by a higher power. The "god works in mysterious ways" argument is usually a flimsy shield to block good arguments against terrible reasoning, but given that the Maker is at least 80% metaphor for Dragon Age's writing staff at this point, im inclined to give it a pass for once. Her view on this is perfectly sensible. There is no denying that the Inquisitor is exactly what they needed exactly when they needed it. It's not her fault that she doesn't know she is an a power fantasy RPG.
5) And? Im not seeing the problem here. This point is essentially "her politics differ from mine". She disapproves of completely freeing mages, feeling that the inherent dangers in doing so are too great. She is still happy to work with anyone who feels they should be free, even as they go about putting that into action. She fights by the Inquisitors side both before and after freeing the mages and works with Divine Leliana as Leliana frees all mages. Her ability to respect those she fundamentally disagrees with and see their side of the issue without letting go of her own perspective is one of the things I like most about her.
6) The Templars were under the command of the Seekers, an order she devoted most of her adult life to. She was one of the most highly ranked Seekers but left the order due to ethical objections. To find that the man who took over in her absence literally sold the Templars to a demon must be heartbreaking for her. If she hadn't left the order, that likely wouldn't have happened. The same issue as number 5 applies here. This is mostly "she disagrees with my politics". Yes, she favours Templars. hardly surprising as she pretty much is one. She doesn't want mages freedom restricted because they got used by Alexius. She wants mages freedom restricted because mages are inherently incredibly dangerous and she has spent her entire professional life fighting the worst of them after witnessing the only person she loved brutally killed by a particularly nasty group of them. The fact that she is able to get over the rage brought on by this event and come to respect mages, treating them as individuals is a testament to her inner strength and innate morality.
7) Cassandra has no problem with mages in general. The only lover she ever had was a mage and she is angered that the contributions of him and his fellow mages are consistently left out of the tale of how she saved the Divine. Wanting reasonable control placed on mages doesn't mean she has a problem with them, just that she feels they are incredibly dangerous. She lays fault for the mage rebellion squarely on the Seekers and Templars. Instead of hating the rebelling mages she examines the issue from their perspectives and accepts that "her side" was in the wrong. Then she leaves the Order, throwing away her careeer to work on finding a way to make it right. The mental fortitude this requires is incredible.
8) What? Her views are never proved wrong. Mages are never shown to be faultless, magic is never proven to be perfectly safe, Orlais' nobles and their pathetic games are never shown to be worthwhile. On a lot of issues, she is correct.
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