Bloodless

Does this mean a normal dead-Shardblade has no ten heartbeat limit either if the owner knows about it?

I always had the problem that Szeth's Honorblade in books 1, 2 was much inferior to a Radiant's blade. If that was the case, why was Heralds supposed to be considered way way stronger than normal Radiants? For example, some epigraph said a Herald (Nale? or Ishar?) threatened to wipe a Radiant order out if they didn't do as he/she said (I don't remember the details, maybe someone more in touch with the lore can give more details). I wondered whether the Honorblade responded much much better (superior to how a Radiant blade responds) to Jezrien's hand than Szeth's or Moash's hand. From RoW I think this is confirmed at least partially. Ishar's fight showed that he could summon the Honorblade without the 10 heartbeat limit. Because in that fight he did something Brandon calls "skepping", which is dematerializing and rematerializing the blade quickly to go past a proper parry. This would be impossible with the heartbeat limit. Nale also dropped the blade before attacking Dalinar, something he wouldn't risk if he couldn't instantly resummon it if things started to go south (for instance, if Szeth drew Nightblood). Maybe Szeth (and the humans) can only ever have a partial bond with a Honorblade. The full bond is always with the original Herald. Maybe the Stormlight efficiency problem also will not affect the Heralds as much as it did the humans. What do you guys think?

While Sibling is alive, Sibling bonding is a very very very real possibility. Kind of obvious, isn't it? As it is exactly what happened. If she believed Sibling dead, then delaying is okay. But she knows they are alive and plotting. Manipulating Navani doesn't have to have the Sibling uncorrupted. There are infinite other lies she could use to keep Navani motivated. Convincing she is okay with killing Odium with anti-investiture, as long as it finishes the war, for instance. Furthermore, being an immortal, Raboniel should be patient. She has other human researchers to work with, and she has years to come up with a solution. There is no time constraint to her quest for anti light (but there is one for Sibling). If there is an answer to be found, science will find it eventually. But science takes years or decades. Her delaying tactics at maximum would only give her weeks before Odium figures something is up. Can she reasonably expect anyone to figure this out in weeks, when she herself couldn't do it for millenia? Specially when she believes an answer is not possible. But my point here is not in-world, but in relation to writing stories. Raboniel is not acting in her best possible interests, in her most logical, straightest route to victory, because then there won't be a story left. The villains have to take round about, illogical paths so that heroes can have their journey. I think TvTrope's "Bond Villain Stupidity" is somewhat similar to what i mean. It is not a clear cut case here, since Brandon is no doubt aware of this. But still it is doubly difficult to build both logical villains and logical heroes. So Odium, Raboniel and Lezian didn't completely avoid this. I think the best villain to avoid this was Sauron from LOTR. At least i can't pinpoint any place where he didn't act logically. Maybe this is because Tolkein had been writing the book for decades.

According to what we know of Nightblood, when it kills Fused, they are completely gone. No Returns. Nothing left over. Nightblood killed the thunderclast Bob in the last book. People in Braize should be wondering "where the hell is our monster-mate Bob?". We can presume everybody, including Raboniel, should be hearing about this too. After all, a missing Fused is kind of a big deal for a bunch of immortals. Shouldn't Raboniel be hunting down Nightblood to help free her daughter? And since it kills Fused, it is logical it will also kill Radiant spren. Another of Raboniel's end goals. Maybe she wanted to get into Urithiru not because of Sibling, but because of Nightblood?

But isn't the second Node fight specifically orchestrated to trap and take care of Kaladin? I remember several characters alluding to it in their internal monologues. Even if Raboniel is trying to delay the Sibling corruption, wouldn't it be better to just mitigate the huge risk of Kaladin running around to the overall plan of keeping Urithiru in Singer hands? And this delaying tactic itself is also kind of iffy, right? Raboniel should know Sibling going online alone means her plans are all stormed, she can't hold Urithiru, she can't manipulate Navani anymore. After that point, if Navani was going to find anti-light, she would find it alone without Raboniel at her shoulder, and Singer's will have basically lost. In summary, losing Urithiru means Raboniel losing, but corrupting Sibling irreversably and consolidating Urithiru means Raboniel still could follow her goals, possibly with Navani, or with other human scholars. (An aside here - Navani being the only scholar Raboniel is so interested in is also one of my lesser "hero's journey" beefs. Why is Navani this uber-Einstein all of a sudden? Just like Kaladin is winning fights left and right, this woman is inventing stuff left and right. Before this point, it was her and her team together which built awesome stuff, with her mainly doing a manager/facilitator role. But now she is doing raw science better than her dedicated scientists, all the while without any help from her team, and with very "impossible" circumstances.) In my humble opinion, realistically, Raboniel's first priority should have been the Sibling, even if her goals were different from Odiums, and playing games with Kaladin should not have been very logical.

Dalinar's side has immortals too. Send Taln as champion. He won't win any of the games, but he won't die either.

First of all, I have to say I do like the book very well. And even the things I dislike may not strike a similar vein with many others. My main beef with the story in RoW is that it has become a very typical hero story. Specifically, the story has become so much about character development, and not about actual realism. I see this most in the Kaladin's arc. To see my point, I want you guys to look at only the story, without his internal dialogues. The guy at this point is like a god, there is no one who he can't outfight in the planet. His only weakness is his internal mental problems. The Pursuer is introduced as this super powerful, super experienced warrior with OP powers. But Kaladin kicks him left and right all the time, without most of his powers. And at the end, the Pursuer is just like a normal foot soldier to Kaladin, dispatched without even thinking about it. This completely breaks the realism that the Pursuer has been fighting for millenia, and has never lost a fight twice. If a level 3 Windrunner could defeat him so consistantly, how did this guy ever outfight a level 4-5 Radiant in the past, a Radiant with full powers and full plate? The only logical answer would be that Kaladin is simply better than any previous Radiant, or that Pursuer only chose weaklings to fight. But in the latter case, how did he ever built respect among other fused? Again with Kaladin, whenever he sets his mind to do anything, he succeeds no matter what the opposition does. The fights for the 3 Nodes all showcase this. Alone against a whole army, without powers, his mind in tatters, he always accomplishes his task somehow, and survives! Not once, but again and again and again. From a character perspective, in terms of how Kaladin is succeding despite his problems, and in terms of the theme of "hope", "determination", "effort", this is awesome. But realism, and genuine surprise in the plot, goes out the window. In fact, everything else in the world precisely aligns to allow Kaladin to go through his 'hero's journey'. For example, Fused routinely lets him fight one on one. Leshwi (who is supposed to be a awesome flyer) just lets Kaladin outmanuever her to get to the well. The Fused only thinks of covering the well after he jumps into it. They know the well has other entrances, but don't secure them also. Raboniel is a soulcaster, but never erects a wall to simply block the passage to the Node. Raboniel gets several chances to kill Kaladin, but lets him go. Raboniel never orders Pursuer and other Fused "to Damnation with your bloody traditions, just kill the bastard, get a crossbow and shoot him from the sky". Simply put, the Fused are not putting their full creativity, full effort to win their interests. These are only some examples, but there are many others. I hope you all get my meaning. What I want to say is the character development is driving the plot, and therefore everything becomes so predictable. The character has a big emotional problem, the character can't function properly because of it, character overcomes said problem, character succeeds, character is a better person than before and all the problems are solved. Where is the realistic situation? Character does all these, but everything goes to rust anyway. Anyway after rereading what I have written, I feel this is too short to fully convey what I want to say. But I hope you get my meaning.

If Szeth trained with all 10 surges, why didn't he react when Nalan said that he will come and train him in division? Shouldn't he already know how to use division?

I think he is one of the most honourable men in Roshar. As Naln said, he follows his personal code (misguided as it is) not matter the cost. There was nothing at all besides his sense of honour, that made him do the horrible things he did. He hated them, it slowly drove him crazy, but he never stopped broke his code, even if it broke him at the end. By being truthless, he lost everything he had but his honour. So he was trying to protect it at all times. Also remember that Szeth knows that all the sins he does will come back to him someday. "I know my sins, I will someday drown in them". In his mind, his choices are protect his honour and face damnation, or give up his honour and escape. But he never escapes. Imagine if one day you run over a guy and he dies. The court orders you to stay in prison for life, being beaten every day. But the prison has no walls, no guards. You could just get up and leave. Think what kind of courage it takes to stay in the prison, without hope, knowing things will only get worse day by day... You could just leave, but everybody tells you 'You are a sinner, you deserve this.'. Who are you to judge? After all you are a murderer. That is the hell Szeth lives in. I think there is much in common between he and Taln. Both had to suffer living hell, but both did not waver in their oaths, both protected their honour, but in the end both lost their minds because of that. Kaladin thinks he has suffered a lot, and he thinks that since he kept his morality, he could judge others. But his suffering is nothing compared to Szeth, he always had parents who loved him, he had Syl, he had friends. Szeth has nobody. So he has no right to judge Szeth as a coward. Hell, he doesn't know anything at all about Szeth. He just yells out 'coward' randomly.