So I'm questing through Tovald's Cave with my snarky, lunkheaded Housecarl Lydia. If this partcular cave sounds familiar to you it's because it has one of the highest concentration of Falmer and Chaurus in all of Skyrim. So we're going about our business as usual killing Falmer and barely scraping by (Lvl 20 on Master) when fate would have it that we stumble across a Chaurus pen. So Lydia being the brilliant combat strategist that she is refuses to help me fight the Falmer in the section of the cave we're in and goes out of her way to OPEN the Chaurus pen and fight them to her the death. And being the Lvl 20 weakling that I am I summarily get my ass handed to me by a room full Chaurus and Falmer.

So taking all of this to account I decide to have Lydia wait so as not to provoke the otherwise locked away and relatively harmless Chaurus whilst I promptly deal with my snow elven enemies. So after earning a hard earned victory against these snow elves I turn around and to my horror I see Lydia in a valiant display of berserking not seen since Leeroy Jenkins himself. In she charges at these 3 Chaurus Reapers (who were otherwise locked away in their pens) to what would be her inevitable doom. After dropping Lydia like a bad habit the Chaurus unsurprisingly turn on me and so once again ends the story of my Dovahkiin.

So I ask you good people of Bethesda Forums, is there a way for me to overcome Lydia's retardedness without turning down the difficulty or back tracking to the entrance of this dungeon?

There is no cure. Do what I did. Sacrifice her to Boethiah

Have you tried breaking her legs?

This is why I love having Lydia along, she is so unpredictable!