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Two things, First, this is an interesting line of thought. One way around the Identity issue is to directly Spike their Identity with a Duralumin Spike, which would give you compatibility with any/all of their metalminds and (assuming you can simultaneously spike more than one thing from a single victim) their Spikes. At the very least that gets you around the WIlling Participant issue, though not the pacifist moral issue. The other thing from the OP, the Kandra arent necessarily dwindling like that. While it's true that the knowledge of how to make new Kanda spikes is all but lost (Harmony knows how, and Kelsier might as well), the Blessings are the only limiting factor so their numbers can remain constant so long as they are not loosing/destroying blessings. The Mistwraiths are (or at least were last time anyone saw them) a breeding race:

Personally Im a big fan of the Loudred DJ's we saw in the Detective Pikachu movie. Healing magic is pretty obvious, would be great for hospitals, anything with the sleep spell (Jigglypuff, etc) would be a perfect cure for insomnia. Pretty sure plant pokemon could do some great things to aid farming production. Teams of Fire & ice pokemon can make all kinds of Power Generators, not to mention actual Electric types. Ghost pokemon raise all kinds of philosophic questions....

I was about to buy a motorcycle off craiglist as a project to give me something to talk to my brother about, but cant because of the Stay-at-Home orders.

Where did you see that? I thought it was just that he swapped the Bondsmith book (Dalinar) for the Szeth book (Skybreakers) in the sequence, but that Kaladin/Windrunners were always the 1st book.

Agreed, it would depend on the method/nature of becoming a Cognitive shadow. The most general way to become a Cognitive Shadow is to get an infusion of investiture at the moment of death that extends the period of time that your spirit/soul/shadow (philosophically debatable) lingers before moving Beyond. That method would generally tie anchor you to the source of the Investiture that did it (Kelsier). Vasher can pull it off, but I think the critical difference is that he's been "stapled" onto a real physical body, rather than being a pure Investiture entity. The heralds's method seems like a bit of both, it locks them to the system even though they have bodies, but I think that has more to do with the Oathpact specifically, and since it's whoel point was to trap cognitive entities (Fused) to a particular place it makes sense that they'd be less free to roam. Especially as compared to Endowment, with philosophically is about /giving/ power that you are free to use, as opposed to Restricting behavior the way Oaths do.

I think with a Leecher taken to the logical extreme, your theory does hold water. What the numbers would turn out to be, and how difficult would be to avoid chromium toxicity on your way to becoming a Savant, that would be hard to say for now (we're getting a Chromium character eventually, so we'll get more info then). But Leechers operate on the same general mechanism as Nightblood, and savantism is weird, so I dont know of any specific reason that it couldnt work. Might not work as fast as Nightblood does (even with duralumin), or so completely destroy in all three realms, but enough to kill might be in reach. One side note: Savantism is supposed to always have a downside, even if they havent always been presented that way. He's said that the Downsides were a very important part of is original intent with Savants, and that he feels like he's deviated from that too much from that original intent and may well backpedal on it some.

I think the question is whether there were any Ducks included in that Import.

Hard to say. There are Birds on Roshar, though they arent native to it, strictly speaking, and are mostly found in Shinovar. They are rare enough that all birds tend to get called "Chickens", even ones that would be more accurately described as parrots, so it's kind of hard to say whether any of them are actual Ducks by our definition. I dont think there has been any specific mention of an aquatic bird yet, but that may change once we get a better look at Shinovar itself.

One more useful WOB:

I missed @Nameless's post somehow. That makes a lot of sense to me as well, and I think is entirely compatible with how Im picturing the classic Order working.

Im with @RShara and @Gilphon, I think there is a Cognitive and/or Spiritual perception aspect of Lightweaving that has been hinted at with Shallan, and which expect traditional Truthwatchers specialize in more heavily. One possibility is that Lightweavers get their Lightweaving skewed more heavily toward the Cognitive because of Soulcasting as their other Surge which is very much a Cognitive Realm thing, while the Truthwatchers lean more heavily into the Spiritual Realm because of their other Surge (Regrowth) being very much a Spiritual thing. Renarin's version lets him see into the Future that has a long history of being associated with Odium/Void, both in Vorin culture and in the Nightform from the Song of Secrets. Separately and for wildly different reasons I doubt that they get much ability to see the Past, purely because the Truth of past events, and the eventual revelations of what that Truth is, has apparently been a longstanding cycle of discovery and fallout, so I dont think it makes as much sense for one of the Orders to specialize in Knowing the Truth of History. In other cosmere examples of Temporal perception there's often been a shard distinction one looking Forward vs Back, so I think it would be fairly simple (from a narrative perspective) to restrict their perceptions to the Present sector of the Spiritual Realm Truth.

I dont think so, Spiritual change and/or damage alone doesnt change your Identity enough to make Metalminds inaccessible, even when they are specifically messing with Identity. Wax is a bad example when it comes to savantism, WOB has it that he's going to recast his abilities as skill-based rather than savantism, which was intended to always have significant downsides and has drifted from it's original intent.

That's certainly possible, though the Pits were specifically made by Leras as a way to siphon Ruin's power away, as part of his whole Atium hoarding plan. I tend to think they will not start producing Harmonium, if only because the Southerners seem to have a source of it so I dont think the old production/crystallization locations are going to play a role. Unless we learn that there was always a second Atium mine on the other continent (which also is certainly possible).

I dont think we have WOB confirmation that The Lost Metal of the title is Atium, but as you pointed out there is strong evidence in the novel. However, we do have confirmation that Atium will no longer be generated, nor will Lerasium, as their formation was the result of those Vessels holding the Shards and they are dead. In their place Harmonium is now being generated. Pre-existing atium will still do what it always did, but Atium is not naturally occurring anymore.

Awesome. Did we see any die?

It's known that people need food and water in the Cognitive realm, so presumably death by starvation is still a concern. Hmm, where the Fused that they fought in Shadesmar there physically in their borrowed flesh state, or where they in some sort of a voidspren form? I got the sense they were there physically which was why they had their normal powers.

No worries at all, I just like to look up the quotes for context when I can.

You most likely can create a spike yourself, in that you should be able to stab yourself with the required Intent and charge the spike with your own spiritweb. While that could allow you to sacrifice yourself to create a spiek for somebody else, it's always severely damaging and almost always lethal. That being said it is possible to use crap-tons of F-Gold to heal and regrow the removed chunk of Spiritweb, so in that sense you might be able to double up on certain attributes. But there's a WOB that says that healing spiritual damage like that is less like Healing/regrowing the spiritweb and more like grafting a patch made of Investiture over the damage, and that there is scarring. Also that it would depend on a lot of other factors, and many cosmere healing methods might not be enough. At best Id say it's not something a sane person would want to do very often, not enough to get infinte spikes or anything. But if all you are after is a single doubling your own Intelligence or Fortitude or something, it might work without too much fallout. Again, assuming you survive the process.

Two things: 1) his exact words were "I wonder if they eat in the Cognitive Realm. Is a food there what it sees itself as being? I’ll have to read and see if anyone has ever eaten while visiting Shadesmar." which implies to me that he's talking about historic travel and not current visitors. 2) Soulcasting will let you peer into Shadesmar, and sort of coexist in both, but as far as I understand it that doesnt transfer you into the Realm in the full physical way that Perpendicularities and/or Elsecalling do, so supplying for your physical needs like Food shouldnt become an issue. I think it's more that they thin the boundary between the realms when they Soulcast (based on how it got so much easier for Jasnah during the Unity fight).

*Outsider watching through the window* Dont Mind me, Im just a curious passer-by

Personally I dont see Syl dying just because it would remove the Windrunner from Dalinar's set of Ten that were present at Thaylen Field. But the core concept of continuing tragedy is a definite possibility, especially depending on what the Windrunner 4th proves to be. If this is in his future, I suspect it would either be a new character (maybe he gets himself a proper girl/boyfriend) or else a broad swath of Bridge 4 is lost. Or something a little more tangential but equally self-blame-y, like him personally failing to protect Rock's family in some tragic circumstance.

A popular theory (that is pretty close to the OP's actually) is that it's all a farce/scheme by Cultivation. Im curious how much impact Renarin will have, and/or how much she could have predicted regarding him, since apparently Odium cant predict his moves anymore (a nice analog to Atium combat). EDIT: @RShara a "plant"...I see what you did there :-P

In addition to what @RShara said, there is no guarantee that linear direction in the Physical realm is going to correlate to the terrain of the Cognitive Realm, even assuming that the 2-D starchart is representative of the 3-D reality. They could appear to be "in the way" from the planet/POV of whomever draw that star-chart and still be lightyears off their real axis. And past that, the terrain of the Cognitive doesnt mirror the topology of the Physical Realm in any reliable way (planar vs spherical planets, inversion effects, etc), so those directions could be easily entirely meaningless when plotting Cognitive Realm travels.

I dont know, the corruption definitely sounds like it involved injecting some amount of Odium's Investiture into the spren, rather than just rearranging the Honor/Cultivation mix. But she doesnt need to be Sacrificing a piece of herself, just acting as a Conduit for Odium's Investiture the same way Ba-Ado-Mishram presumably does to provide Voidlight. That's an angle I never considered. As a test case, was there evidence of them rounding up the Deadeye spren in Shadesmar? If their goal was to actually revive and/or turn the spren, rather than just deny the Humans access to Shards (or to let their singers use them) I would think they would also try to collect them in Shadesmar.

So far the Boons and Curses f the Nightwatcher seem to often mimic other known magic effects, so I suspect they have similar limitations (By the Laws of Sanderson). It also seems to basically amount to Spiritweb manipulation. Lift's Stormlight via food looks basically like feruchemical Bendalloy, Taravangian's seems like a similar slider bar on a couple mental attributes (Zinc for sure, probably some Electrum and chromium too). They are confirmed in WOB to be able to change your species, DNA, and/or Spiritweb. I suspect they could do just about anything that we've seen from the Metallic Arts (Want to be a a Spike-free Kolos?) and probably Forgery, if limited by the Nightwatchers grasp of humanity more than actual Power, and Cultivation herself could almost certainly do anything any other shard can. If we are looking for limits, there are likely some things that would be hard/impossible for broader Realmic reasons: I dont think it could make a Returned a human again I think it would be tough to make an Elantrian-equivalent wihtout a Connection to an Investiture more "sticky" than Stormlight to replace the Dor. They can make a Human more Spren-like, but I suspect they they could not turn a Spren into a true Physical Realm Native (Human, Singer, Dragon, etc). That being said, thhe Old Magic was built to be a Wish-Fulfillment sort of thing that was specifically Not Rule Based the way so many of the other magics are, so the limits might be a lot more about Plot than mechanics.