KageNoOni

He doesn't appear to be acting as a vigilante. When chasing Lift in particular you see he is referred to as a Constable and made sure to fill out the appropriate paper work to ensure his execution is legal. That's not vigilante justice when he does the work to become a legitimate law enforcement officer with the full authority to execute criminals. While there are plenty who might have issues with what he does and how he does it, he goes out of his way to follow the law exactly. It would be hard to get justification to ban some one who never ever breaks the law. The only way to stop him at this point would be to ban capital punishment entirely.

Nahn and Dahn aren't genetic, just a measure of privilege and social standing used within each caste. If you want to raise your Nahn/Dahn, you do so by buying the improved privilege. Also, your children are one level below you. Shardbearer's are automatically of the 4th Dahn, so any children he had would be 5th Dahn, unless they could buy themselves back into 4th. Edit: Did some searching, finally found the details. It turns out that children being one rank lower is only for very high ranked lighteyes. Those same ranks are the kind that can't be bought either. Here's the WoB.

I don't have the book with me at the moment, but there is a scene at the end of TWoK, where Shallan confronts Jasnah about the fact she can Soulcast with out needing a Soulcaster. She ends up showing Jasnah the picture she drew of Shadesmar, then to prove that she actually went there, instead of simply reading/hearing about it, she asks one of the Cryptics following her (possibly Pattern, but it isn't actually stated if it was him or not) to take her back. They reply she needs a truth. She states that Jasnah's Soulcaster is a fake, adding that she's sure of that. The Cryptic then tells her it has to be a truth about herself. That section seems to disprove your theory. The truths that matter are truths about herself. The point of these truths seems to be self-discovery. She needs to accept the truth of who she is, and what her past is. She's told by Pattern that while her lies are what drew him in the first place, she needs to accept the truths about herself as well, because both are a required part of her order.

The book doesn't say that it felt right. Instead it's an internal monologue wondering why such tools weren't available for the common man. He also stated that it felt good to be working in this way, nothing specifically about the shardblade.

And you'd be right.

Why would it not be possible to document it? Some one seeing a spren could clearly state it's there, and then anyone present for the purpose of documenting the fact could easily record who can, and can not see it. It's both observed and documented that way. As for the Nahel bond, I'm not quite sure that fits with what Syl did with Kaladin. Note that Nohadon spoke both of honorspren, and the Nahel bond separately. He spoke of the honorspren as being discerning with who they bond to, while stating those with the Nahel bond weren't granted wisdom. It's possible that it could be the same bond, but it seemed to me like it was a different bond being described for surgebinders who weren't bonded by an honorspren.

From what you've suggested, they pretty much weren't visible at all, otherwise they'd be more well known, so being visible randomly would be unlikely. If they were constantly changing, that would likely have been recorded. Of course, you do have a point about whether they can change when not visible, that's certainly possible, but still seems unlikely. You can record spren on some one else's behalf. That's what happened in the interlude. He may have done the measuring, but it was the wife who documented it. It's very much possible to document on other people's behalves. Edit: It would likely be possible to bind that certain people couldn't see a thing if some people could see it, assuming other spren are indeed affected the same way. You simply note that the spren could not be seen by anyone except who the spren is bound to or the spren decides to show itself to.

That begs the question then, if they weren't visible specifically because they weren't well documented, how did they become visible? They'd get documented as not being visible to most people, so they would remain not visible, assuming they were studied enough at the time to become documented. And with out anyone measuring things like that, they might not necessarily change. Not all spren are in a constant state of change like the flamespren, so there's no reason to assume that all those spren simply got documented during a moment when they became visible, and got locked that way. I just see a few too many holes that need to be plugged.

My point above is that they WERE visible. The spren weren't mentioned much during the visions, but they were clearly aware of them. They were actually noted by Nohadon in the oldest (furthest back in time) vision. This clearly contradicts your theory that they weren't visible or weren't as visible. They were aware of spren that the people of Roshar aren't even aware of now. The result of Nohadon's book was the creation of the Knight's Radiant. The Knights continued to exist until some time after the "last" desolation. Jezrien specifically noted that mankind still had the Radiants as an excuse to why they could abandon their charge. As such, we can't really blame desolations for a destruction of those records, as they would have been around during that time as well, the Radiants were using them. An interesting note on Syl's comment though. I had thought it meant each type of spren being completely identical in terms of who they are and what they do. I hadn't generalized it the way you did. This could mean that all spren come from something greater that they still remain a part of. It's certainly interesting to consider.

I was under the assumption that Odium was indeed causing the apocalypse. In particular, I remember the following Epigraph: Gadol spit up blood, coughing. “They break the land itself!” he hissed, eyes wild. “They want it, but in their rage they will destroy it. Like the jealous man burns his rich things rather than let them be taken by his enemies! They come!” I thought that was referring to their enemies, that is, Odium. He wants the world, and wants it badly, but if he gets it, he'll end up destroying it.

Nohadon stated in one of the visions that "Not all spren are as discerning as honorspren." He wrote the book that the Radiants later used as their inspiration for founding the orders. This was very much during the desolations, so spren did exist then. As far as I can tell, that vision seems to be the furthest in the past of the visions it shows. I'm going off of memory, but the visions, as I remember them are the fight against the Night Essences (Radiants were present), the one with Nohadon, the day of recreance (Radiants abandoning their charge), and the possible future of Roshar being destroyed. Are there any more I missed? Anyway, as far as I can tell, the spren simply aren't mentioned, nothing suggesting they aren't there.