Maven Black-Briar is, to me, easily the most despicable person in all of Skyrim (and I say that as an acolyte of the Dark Brotherhood). Unfortunately, I also have obsessive-compulsive questing disorder so I cannot just leave the quest “Dampened Spirits” lying around.
Is there a way to turn this quest around and betray Maven, bringing her to justice?
(I should have never started the Thieves Guild quest line but I desperately wanted to find out about the “Unusual Gems.”)
Best Answer
As per the comments, Maven Black-Briar is an "essential" character, meaning there is no way (outside of console commands) to kill her off.
She plays a part in several other quest-lines, namely the Thieves-Guild and the Dark Brotherhood, aligning herself with the "darker" side of Skyrim.
The only quest that causes any harm to her persona is to go see a man about a horse.
Additionally, the Black-Briar Lodge also contains some hefty loot, and an Unusual Gem, so I'm sure you can have some fun beating up her henchmen and stealing her stuff. But even then, when you talk to her after this, there is no difference in her interactions so she either
doesn't give two hoots, 'cause she's rich and powerful and has her head stuck up her own butt
or (more likely)
The dev's didn't actually allow any differences to be made to her AI, so anything that you can do is entirely for the player's benefit only, with no outside effect on the rest of the game.