nehalem

You mean she didn't want to have the giant entity that kills people(and dragons!) by touching them touch the manacles on her wrist... yeah that seems pretty smart to me. Seems like it would be at best trying to perform open heart surgery with a chainsaw.

I am thinking that by "more refined" it also means less powerful. I don't think you would want more nightblood-level shardblades floating around

I think Vasher is just wrong. At this point we have 2 major characters that were originally human for us and have now become cognitive shadows. And I think especially Kaladin can't be a copy. Kind of a let down if Kaladin returns in the 2 arc of Stormlight, but wait its actually not the *real* Kaladin but a copy of him that is exactly like him. Also interesting what impact having a copy of Kaladin would have on Syl and their bond? Shouldn't Syl notice if Kaladin is replaced by a copy? Its also pretty funny that Vasher had whole fossil-soul CS conversation with Kaladin who ended up becoming a cognitive shadow.

Could there be a really simple explanation. Shardblades are formed from one spren. So if it shattered that would be really bad for that spren I imagine. Whereas shardplate is formed from many spren. And is therefore inherently more easily divisible.

I think the difference is that we never knew original Yumi.

I am going to go with Zahel is wrong. It would suck if CS-Kelsier was just a copy the real Kelsier. Who would want to read stories about a copy of a character?

Considering the planet was built together by Ruin and Preservation it seems plausible there was a restriction against smiting people from the planet in place. Preservation would pretty clearly not want Ruin to go around smiting people.

I mean the same basic thing was stated about Odium in a prior book "He bears the weight of God's own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become." Why would Honor without context be good either? You can see the same thing with Preservation as well. Preservation without context is basically stasis. Probably all the shards if you look hard enough.

This is incorrect. Taking up Honor made Todium twice as strong AND made him a clear threat to all the other shards. This would make it so that the others shards would ally an oppose him. If Odium by himself was NOT considered a biggest enough threat for the other shards to oppose.

I feel what you are saying. But I am going to give a completely different answer. The first 2 books were simply more relatable in terms of the world and the problem people faced. Basically we were given a world that maybe it had a weird ecology and shardblades, but was similar to our world maybe a couple hundred years ago. In the next 3 everyone had magic powers and was facing off against demigods or literal gods and going to the cognitive realm and spirtual realm. Also we lost a lot of the culture that was around due to the apocalypse. Maybe Adolin put it best in book 5 when he kept talking about how it was the end of the time of shardbearers. Things changed.

So the Heralds are cognitive shadows right? So its been an open question whether a cognitive shadow is actually the original person or merely a copy of them. For instance Vasher tells, I believe Kaladin(which is actually hilarious now), that cognitive shadows are basically a fossil of the original person. Well guess who just became a Herald, and hence a cognitive shadow: Kaladin! So if Vasher is right that is super awkward, because that would mean Kaladin is now dead And we would only get a fossil Kaladin in the back 5. Also awkward for Syl. Do you think Syl would realize the real Kaladin is dead? So basically I think the simpler explanation is that a cognitive shadow is the original person, and Vasher was just wrong.

So exactly what the title says. Did I miss where this is mentioned? Or is El his own special type of fused maybe?

You kinda have to don't you

I think the better explanation is that they were on a COVERT mission. Bringing along a bunch of shard plate doesn't fit with that kind of mission. Where are you going to store it when you get to Kholinar? What happens if you have to leave suddenly and can't get back to where you stashed it? Or have to leave in such a way you can't walk out with it. So maybe the initial reason was you can't lash shardplate. And then they came up with a bunch of other practical reasons, so didn't both to think up anyway to get around the whole lashing issue.

Samuel L. Jackson is like exactly the opposite of the actor you want for Nale. And honestly they would never cast him as Nale. He is obviously Dalinar.