Kolten

That could make sense. Syl seems to have some memories of the days of the Knights Radiant, but those could have been from some older "retired" spren who were able to pass down the knowledge . . . When Jasnah returns she talks about how none of the spren would trust her. That they still felt greatly betrayed by the humans, some sort of record must have been preserved of what happened on the spren side of things Also what is special about the Stormfather that allowed him to not be broken like the other spren? It does talk about bondsmiths being around before the day of recreance . . . Is he also a "new" Stormfather maybe? That was not the impression I got

Yes I am pretty sure he called it a robot spren. From what I understand, Vasher was attempting to create a shardblade artificially out of breaths. The result was certainly not perfect though. As far as we have seen, Nightblood has to remain in the physical realm, not to mention certain other inconveniences in trying to actually use him. Brandon Sanderson has also called him a sort of "Frankenstein" spren, I kind of like that description better. Whatever the specific mechanics of how the girl forgot her captivity, I am pretty sure she was the one who had to say the command. Didn't Vasher say something along the lines of "repeat after me, and think about what you are saying?" Also for some reason I remember there was a scene where Vivienna suspects that Vasher was able to get some dogs to like him. Did anything like that ever happen? Found it! quotes from warbreaker So that makes me think it is some sort of self inflicted use of breath to change your own cognition? Maybe that is how Vasher is able to control his divine breath so well, he can say a command and sort of "forget" that he is divine? Did he modify his Connection to the dogs somehow? These seem like fairly spiritual effects. Maybe in a similar way you could increase your connection to a shardblade? Maybe to the point where you could re swear the oaths and "fix" it?

Also assuming they could get over the whole you killed our king drama. Dalinar was pretty much the only person who saw peace as a viable option. If a peace accord had been worked out, I am almost certain Sadeas would have split the kingdom over it. Good question about the spren though. The parshendi seem farther along in this regard. I can't remember, do the fabrial engineers realize they are bonding different spren to the gemstones? Maybe when you leave the gemstones out to charge they pick up whatever compatible spren is closest

I thought syl meant all of the thinking spren in the physical realm. I mean we know there are populations of these spren in shadesmar. I am guessing that any spren that might have "retired" would have gone back to shadesmar. Either that or after their radiant dies they go mindless again and begin losing memories until they bond someone else. Not sure about immortality, but I bet they age. Maybe more slowly though.

Yeah, very true. If this could work, it would be much closer to whatever Vasher did to get that girl to forget than to awakening a corpse with breath.

Hmm good point! I wonder would happen if you tried to awaken a dead mistborn, I highly doubt the resulting lifeless would be be able to use allomancy (though as far a sheer awesomeness goes, that would be be pretty cool, zombies that can riot fear? Pretty sweet). But yeah I guess investitures do not always mesh well, so it might not be so simple as saying a single command. As for the human thing, I thought that the point of making things human shaped, and using organic materials and whatnot was just to make it seem more like it was once alive, or at least making the association between it and a living thing stronger. In a sense the shardblade was once alive, and so maybe its memory of having lived would make it organic enough to lower the number of breaths. I mean the lifeless squirrel vasher awoke only took a single breath if I remember correctly. In any case a once living shardblade seems closer to "life" to me than a sword shaped hunk of metal that has never actually been anywhere close to living before. I think what would matter more would be how much awakening would be able to affect the cognitive and spiritual realm, as a spren's presence in the physical realm is not really that strong. I mean it would not have to replace honor/cultivation's investiture at all, just shift the nature of what it thinks its bond is. (I believe the bond is "found" in the spiritual realm, seems the most likely place at least, as a hemalurgic spike can steal the bond according to WoB).

Could you create a lifeless shardblade? I know that there is not enough information on how different magic systems interact to really answer this question entirely, but the concept intrigues me. Spoilers follow . . . I figure there are two ways it could work 1) It would act like an awakened corpse, and follow your vocal commands. Maybe it would not be much more than a dead shardblade except now it can change to the shape you tell it to take. 2) You can somehow shape the command to try and fix the bond the shardblade had (this time to have it bond to you of course). This would obviously be cooler cause now you can use surges too! I like this as well for the symmetry it has. Normally spren find broken humans and fill in the cracks of the humans soul with their investiture. Now a human finds a broken spren in fills in the cracks of the spren's soul with their investiture. Also this would totally line up with Endowment's intent for whatever that's worth. Would this have an effect on the sprens intent as well? Would they become more endowmenty? Warbreaker Spoilers *note: I am kind of new here, so if I need more or less spoiler tags let me know . . .

Where was this confirmed? I have always thought as much, but I did not know that anything was official . . . As for the subject at hand, it would certainly have interesting implications. I believe there is a WoB out there that says you do not have to necessarily have the metals in your stomach to burn them, so long as they are in your body. Does this mean you could burn a shardblade as it is slicing you? Could you burn away someones spren and effectively kill them? A living spren could probably resist being burned, but could a "dead" one? hmmm . . .