Okay,
time for some game theory... so... been thinking bout Nancy's personality for a bit. I think she's
really a kind mother with a demanding career and an occasional ruthless side, but an alternative reading's possible. WARNING, tho, VERY SPOILER HEAVY:
The fact she threatens to torment and execute the ERE leadership, in a brutal way that'd be totally against Eternum's code of conduct, and takes the threat further than what's considered normal for roleplaying in Semper Invicta, with full psycho style sadistic details, has some pretty strong consequences for her character. Even tho that's like exaggerated actions played for laughs in a comedic relief scene, it's still shown as her behaviour, so I'm gonna go with that it's something she did in-universe... It mirrors her more low level manipulation in the real world too, like with Gertrude, first to pressure an Eternum suit outta her, then to have her inform them on that Clarence "ahegao" Ruiz at Nancy's work. So seems like strategic manipulation is something Nancy does, and that it's part of her genuine personality. She's only not roleplaying in Semper Invicta. And she sometimes takes the ruthless realism to an extreme level. It doesn't even matter if she never intends to make good those threats to the ERE: that she uses ruthless threats of that level, and stands by them confidently, is macchiavellian. Period.
Now that isn't the only genuine part of her personality. Just like threats of gruesome execution as a stick and invasions in other servers are a realist part of her rule, respect for family time, and her liberality to defectors to her, represent something like constructivist core values in her version of the WRE's ideological project. Cross-server imperialism... with family leave. Tho you can read that liberality as strategic too, the carrot with the stick. Nancy genuinely seems to value family, and seems quick to accept Orion and Annie in their family. Penny's memory scene of babysitting Orion and Dalia is pretty good evidence that she's entirely honest in her love for her family. Trying to force a purely strategic explanation for her during her financial problems in the past gives absurd nonsense. And hell, how she got to rule the WRE's evidence for this too. She even seems to see the other group members, and even some WRE subordinates, MAYBE many WRE subordinates, except Jerry, as something as a family. That she seems very empathetic to people who threaten her for reasons she understands, she connects to, like Wyatt's mother who protects her home and is still in, supports this too. So that Nancy's totally real that nurturing family matters to her, it pretty damn probable too.
That leaves us with 2 likely things: Nancy is sincere about nurturing her family, and finds family important in general; and she's genuinely macchiavellian too, sometimes in Eternum, sometimes with colleagues. That means there's way more evidence her nice and kind side is the primary one, and it's honestly a bit extreme to suppose she's completely calculating in her wider social life like at yoga or shit. She doesn't relentlessly pursue Orion after he rejects her either. But that her nurturing side's the dominant one, or that her manipulating side's dominant, are both possible interpretations. That her macchiavellianism goes to extremes opens the possibility she's mostly a ruthless schemer, even in her worklife and social life, who shifts to a kinder side when family's involved. We don't really know how she's normally at work, and that's another important part of her daily life. That she manipulated Gertrude pretty often isn't the most reassuring sign, but she puts up with a lot of bullshit from her too. And a lotta stuff could be reinterpreted to fit the alternative readings. Hell, you could reread that memory scene from Penny as that she was mostly strategising but suddenly fell into her nurturing side too. There are other questions bout her personality too, like if she has 1 mostly whole personality, or a split or a compartmentalised personality. And if the macchiavellian part of her personality is sociopathic or not. And how she got there: that it was always part of her, or a result of a trauma from those past financial problems, or an influence from her work, or from somewhere else entirely, are all possibilities. Finally there's a question how aware she is of the alternative part of her personality when she's one or the other. Sure looks like she has full memory of her past behaviour tho. But these questions are speculative, and each is more speculative than the last. But how far her ruthlessness goes absolutely opens questions what's the bigger part of her.
In short I don't think the alternative reading of her personality is compelling, I think it's the less likely one. But it's getting close to a rorschach blot. And you can say that makes her even more interesting.