Yeah, I don’t think Xe’ra’s brainwashing/controlling people in that she can’t simply dictate others’ actions on a personal level/puppet on a string sort of way. But she’s definitely manipulative, engages in coerced indoctrination and has great tools for doing it.
BUT, she can also grant visions to people, like she did to Turalyon and Alleria when Turalyon went through his Lightforging process. She can forge mental connections with people so she can watch them at all times and-when they do things she doesn’t like- pop into their mind and go, “I know what you’re doing/thinking. You’d better not.” She forges a similar mental bond with the player.
Then, when Alleria did disobey her and she was still mulling over her options, she looked into Turalyon’s heart/mind and read it before she actually bothered to explain what she was even going to do. Turalyon, fearing what Xe’ra might do, could only think to beg for mercy in the face of some unknown punishment for his wife, only to go about carrying out Xe’ra’s orders when it eventually came down.
Turalyon never “challenges” Xe’ra. He begs for mercy-even though he has no ide what the punishment is. Xe’ra looks into him delivers a punishment and he goes along with it.
Because she doesn’t control him directly like a puppet with direct control over his mind and body, but she absolutely does play mind games, hide information from him and manipulate him in a way that makes him loyal to her in a way that he probably wouldn’t be if he knew the full truth of what she’s doing.