Free at last

[Bearer of all agonies]

I am glad that Jasnah freed the Ardents. I know, they almost took over the world, but the next generations were paying for their parents mistakes. I was just wondering about this and wanted to see your thoughts. What do you think will happen? Is it good or bad that they’ve been freed?

[LuckyJim]

I think it's generally a neutral thing. Ardents were basically slaves, but that's mainly due to the fact that they can't own property, otherwise they were well respected and taken care for, especially in Jah Keved. Additionally, people could only become ardents voluntarily, and it seems like they can leave the ardentia easily enough (although it would probably be difficult to create a new life from scratch).

[Karger]

Ardent slavery was largely symbolic in the modern day an age.  It symbolized their subservience and humility as well as their devotion to the communities they represented.  Also ardents can leave the ardentia at any time.

[Shard-Hammer]

I thought it more like, a side effect to abolishing all forms of slavery. As others are pointing out, ardents didn't live through the hardest conditions, and their enslavememt was likely symbolic at this point. Time progresses and things change, even if some changes aren't as meaningful as others. Might imply some cool character development with the ardents in the books 6 to 10 tho

[Seloun]

Ardentia doesn't appear to be hereditary, and since people can leave it when they choose, not even permanent. (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Vorinism#Slavery)

As such, the ardents will almost certainly find this proposal to be offensive, since it's really part of their religious doctrine and intentionally assumed rather than something that's being forced on them. This proposal is definitely not for the benefit of the ardents in any practical form.

[earthexile]

I think Jasnah is yanking a big old rug out from under the Ardentia with her abolitionist plot. They have huge influence and power in Alethi culture, most notably in their control of Soulcasting, but also education, moral instruction, science and history and art, etc. Their religion is absolute garbage, encouraging things like wholesale civil-war slaughter as a noble expression of faith. If there's anything good in their teachings, it barely matters, because the highest ranked people in Alethi society just pay the ardents to do their religion for them. All the apparently intentional cultural handicaps placed on Alethi people don't apply to them. They are free to pursue their own interests and research, at the expense of their 'owners.' 

I think they get away with a lot of power and privilege by ostensibly being slaves. It's a very weird system.