Laudna really made Pâté a combination of a sort of whole looking rat with the skull of a raven as the head, puppeted by her, and says whatever he wants as crass as possible and she is just getting away with saying that much about herself because he is so crass it must be a weird macabre joke
I don't know man, i'm constantly torn between two opposites. On one side, i think Paté can be a good analogy for the need of company when you're at your lowest. What do you do, when you're alone and you have a voice in your head telling you things you hate? You make another voice and make it tell you things you like. If you can't stop it, you gotta diminish it with something else. Puppeteering Paté and making it ridiculous is a roundabout way of putting some derision and humour on a scary situation. It's making a caricature of the woman puppeteering you to take back some of your power and autonomy, of your sense of control on your own life.
Paté saying all those comments about love and sex could be a projection of Laudna's thoughts. She doesnt have a high esteem of herself, so even if/when she does experience attraction, romantic or sexual, i don't think she would ever believe she could actually have that. Who would want a dead woman, after all? So Paté can express that longing for a relationship in a way that Laudna can't let herself speak about. Being aroace, i can't exactly relate, but i can imagine that there must be a type of loneliness in not having a partner for all the years she's been somewhat alive.
Paté is a way to connect with people, to make them laugh. Being with people when you're used to being on your own is hard, and having a middle-man helps with that stress. It's like bringing your animal to introduce yourself to your new neighbours. It gives you something to connect with, something to talk about that's easier to answer than "where are you from?" and "why are you like this?".
Paté is her routine, every night and every morning. He sleeps near her, to make sure she's never really alone. It gives her something to wake up to, and someone to say goodnight to. Maybe waking up in the morning is actually worth it when there's Paté waiting for her.
On the other hand, Paté is a dumb idea Marisha had, way before Laudna even had a name. Her rat being horny was entirely improvised, and Marisha confirmed in interview she still doesn't know why she said that, why it became a thing. So as fun as overanalyzing that dead horny rat is, it's still just a character design thing that happened because Laudna needed something dead and crafty to complete her character.
