I love that Nasuada's major flaw is the same as one of Galbatorix's greatest flaws, and that it gets worse and more ingrained throughout the series. And it's so compelling because it's incredibly in character for her and there's every reason for the circumstances to perpetuate and exacerbate it, but that doesn't make her flaw any less egregious. The scene where Galbatorix compares the two of them is so fascinating because his intention is very manipulative and malicious, yet the statement itself isn't entirely untrue.
Because Nasuada treats people like tools. She considers a person's utility more important than anything else, including their personhood.
And it's such an engrossing flaw because of course Nasuada treats people like tools! She is proud and powerful and stubborn and noble and utterly committed to achieving what she has set out to do, by whatever means necessary. She will use whatever she has at her disposal to reach her goal, and that includes using the people around her. Of course, this doesn't make Nasuada inherently immoral; she cares deeply about justice and protecting her people. But her views on the individuals around her are impersonal and self serving.
And the goal she's trying to achieve is to win the war. Nasuada would never be pushed out of her ways by the circumstances because they work, the way she treats people accomplishes exactly what she intends. By its nature, the bloody act of war rewards using people like tools. It demands that, even; to a certain extent, it's an ugly necessity in war, but the thing is that Nasuada doesn't see it that way. She never struggles with or grieves over the need to consider people's individuality as secondary to their function. It comes naturally to her, and it lasts through the end of the books, when the war is already over.
Because I think the most flagrant example of this is at the very end, when Birgit intercepts Roran as he's leaving, presumably intending to kill him, and Nasuada says, "He has proved himself a fine and valuable warrior on more than one occasion, and I would be most displeased to lose him." It's such a wonderful, pointed line that perfectly sums up this aspect of her character. Because what a disgusting thing to say. Especially for the queen of all Alagaesia, perfectly positioned and empowered to stop this confrontation and declare it unjust if she cared to. But her words make no attempt at all to defend Roran as a person, only his value to her.
The way she uses others I find most evident in her treatment of Roran, Murtagh, and Elva. The way she tells Eragon that she thinks of giving Katrina a dowry as a "purchase" of Roran's goodwill and loyalty. In Uru'baen, only at great length, she makes the conscious choice to ignore Murtagh's past and only judge who he is in the present, but disregards any care for what that might say about him as a person, solely focused on if he could be useful as an ally. And when Eragon offers to revert Elva's curse, the one that condemned an infant to feel every piece of pain and suffering surrounding her, Nasuada is so fixated on Elva's utility and value to Nasuada's goals that she goes so far as to ask Eragon to fake his effort to cure her. She sees people as tools to such an extent that she can't recognize that relieving an innocent baby of unimaginable, cursed agony should come before her own priorities.
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