Karger

I think he is more of an anti bondsmith actually. Being a bondsmith is about accepting others and coming to consensus. Dalinar's arc has been about learning to convince others that he is a man worth following. Taravangian is an, admittedly enlightened, despot. He has power and uses that for the benefits of others but this means that he feels that he has the right to do what he thinks is right without input of anyone else.

I think that a bit of a leap. Also Taravangian is bound to Braize. Getting antivoidlight to roshar in large quantities seems pretty difficult. More so when you consider that most of his servants would blow up if they touched any. Finally what happens if team honor captures it and uses it on the everstorm? You are also presupposing that antivoidlight will work on the stormfather. Sending an agent with stolen NB to kill the stormfather is a bit more plausible. However fueling NB through the destruction of an entity as large as the stormfather is a challenge in of itself. According to smart Taravangian Urithiru was self sufficient and Navani states it could support a population in the millions. Very few wars have been won on anything resembling a reasonable timeline. If team honor knows no more storms are happening and can figure out at least a bit of the potential ecological devastation then everyone with half a mind is going to run right toward the nearest oathgate city. Team radiant will focus on protecting them. In the meantime most of roshar is going to die. Odium has the theoretical ability to do lots of stuff but he is still stuck on braize and can't. If he could provide food at will then his armies would have a huge advantage in the field.

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.

DS

The death of a radiant might be traumatic but it usually does not do any serious damage. How are you going to generate enough? They have a second source of light with Navani. She can generate towerlight and use rhythms to separate out the lifelight and stormlight. I mean yeah but the end result would be the death of basically everyone except team honor as they still have Navani and no one else can grow anything.

I believe that it was stated that Odium was not helping Raboniel with her anti investiture research. I think he gave her rhythms many years ago because of just how amazing she is at meta-cognition and strategy and she retained this position because she is useful.

This is the first book to fully explore this phenomena. What does it mean to be a shard, or a vessel? How does changing the vessel matter? I have come to some conclusions and would like to hear yours. Firstly investiture wants to be alive. To be effective it has to be directed by a being with some kind of intelligence. Abstract concepts are not particularly effective at accomplishing anything. Secondly having power shapes the vessel. I think the best comparison is addiction although it is obviously not perfect. The power wants what it wants the same way the altered brain chemistry of chemical addiction can put you at odds with what you might otherwise see as your own interests or the interests of others. The longer this goes on the worse it gets. I think this is best shown by the power Odium forcing Rayse to make concessions to Dalinar. Rayse is trying to white knuckle it but he just can't hold on. Thirdly the Vessel helps the power express itself. This is the most complex thing I want to cover so bear with me. Imagine a hypothetical shard of hunting. This shard wants to ID targets and attack them. If given to a human it would probably spend time encouraging such behavior in a way we predict. Find your target and attack them. However what if it were given to a member of a sedentary herbivorous species? Such a being would have no concept of what hunting was. At least initially it would interpret the shard in a dramatically different way. Instead the shard rather then hunting others would become a shard of trapping dangers. Of course the amount of investiture expands the vessel's understanding. This means that the shard would figure out what hunting was and would have a constant urge to align more in that direction. This however will take time. Why Cultivation replaced Rayse is an interesting question. In this way I think we have an answer. Rayse was a conqueror. He wanted everything to go his own way. Taravangian is not like that. In addition to being more prepared to act much more indirectly and cautiously he sees his own actions as essentially evil. He punishes the wicked so that the good might live in peace. He is not for anything he is against the unacceptable.

Nightblood is only marginally aware of what he does when drawn. He can't even be sure that it really happened.

The boring answer is that Renarin saw T's death and was basically saying "you had your chance." The "problem" with being able to see "the" future is deciding how to act based on that knowledge. Renarin had to make a choice and chose to let Szeth enter without intervening. How much more he knew is up to debate.

A really great question. They are probably semisapiant(same as other greatshells BTW). I think the reason is the same as the protection of the larkin. They are ecologists who want to preserve the last group of singers in the area. I personally think it is a tie game. Neither side wins so Odium's bounds do not remain. Navani's light blinded him. Since he internalized the damage and is now reconnected to Odium he can't regain his sight. He is locked in place.

That would actually be pretty interesting in terms of GB plans. You use an aluminum box of stormlight to generate mechanical energy or output a spesific effect through a small hole using a fabrail but if anyone opens the box to see how the thing inside works they just find a bunch of splintered gemstones guaranteeing them a monopoly. You could take your spren off world and even surgebind with them but no shardblades and you have to have a box touching your skin.

Navani's spanreed trick.

So what is the key ingredient? Also how is there a difference?

We still don't know where the unmade come from. Raboniel says she is "unmaking" the sibling so that may be a clue. If it was native to roshar then it may have had an important role. The spren ask what would happen if the stormfather died. I think the radiants got an answer to that question on a smaller scale when they trapped BAM.

I do not recall Nale ever doing such a thing. However... It is possible that they both would die. It may depend on how many oaths the radiant has sworn.

You are correct(Mraize was after all the only GB known for his use of the blow gun but others could have as well). However...

Sorry I should be more spesific. At the end of WoR Mraize and Amaram both go to capture/rescue Taln. Mraize attempts to kill Amaram but Taln catches the dart. Mraize curses and retreats. A sleepless would not have had any real trouble with the two of them. Sure a self aware Taln might be a problem but I really don't see a scenario in which Mraize would retreat so easily unless he thought one of the two of them posed an actual threat to him.

So I was thinking about the Herald madness and this WoB. Then I got to thinking. Heralds are basically spren. One of the Honorspren even says that Kelek is a Spren not a man. Spren can't sense people's reactions when they are behind aluminum. A really easy fix would just be to have them wear aluminum foil hats. Then I went a bit further. If you want to take a spren off world can't you just put it in an aluminum box? The connection could not penetrate that way either. This seems both too simple and too workable. What am I missing?

I do have a question. Why is he "afraid" of Amaram? Even Nale would have trouble killing a sleepless. Mraize would have had no trouble overpowering him and kidnapping Taln.

Unfortunately Taravangian was no longer a king and was in fact a traitor as of his death. They will probably just burn the body. More generally it being useful. You might be able to use the shardic power to learn about the individual's lives and experiences prior to and maybe even during ascension. Sure they are dead but their brain is still around. With effort you might be able to reconstruct some stuff the way the lifeless are semi aware.

VERY nice analysis. It makes me wonder. Felt seems a lot more stable then most of the GBs we have seen. It makes me wonder if their structure and membership is more diverse and complex then we thought(if this is in fact true).

In that case it would be an exercise of anger not cruelty. There is a difference. I would not describe him as clinical. Neither would Lift. He clearly enjoys "the hunt" for its own sake. Either way we are drifting a bit off topic here. Debating Kel's ethics is a highly time consuming and not particularly useful exercise.

I am afraid it is you who need to review era 1 mistborn. The tome left for Spook was the Historica one of the volumes of the Words of Founding in which Saze details the events of the original trilogy for future generations. It is widely published and read by basically everyone in the entire basin although details on hemalurgy are edited out. Late in his life Spook wrote his own book detailing his knowledge of hemalurgy. OK I was being unclear. I meant to say we don't know if he went far enough to give himself actual powers with hemalurgy. You could argue that Wax is spiked which would be a bit misleading although sort of true. Sazed did work to avoid spreading knowledge of hemalurgy. However Spook made his own decisions. He may have been influenced by many people potentially including Marsh, Breeze, and Sazed himself all of who knew perfectly well the kind of person Kelseir was. It is also worth noting that the book was written quite late in Spook's life when he was a functioning adult capable of making his own choices. Kelseir, at least in era one, would not have killed anyone for the thrill of it. Mraize absolutely would. There is a significant difference.

Spook wrote that book himself. We in fact do not know that Spook ever spiked himself. Yes Kelseir did explain hemalurgy to him but Spook already knew a lot about that and seems to have made his own decisions. Some people who survived the remaking already knew about hemalurgy including Spook, the kandra, Sazed, Marsh, and Trell. That really depends what you mean. He is an unquestionably dangerous individual but I would not characterize him as evil either.

Because he does not want to act. He trusts people to do things for themselves without divine power getting in the way.