"Thomas Edison" at the Institute.. (finally caught

[euthanatos]

Remember that guy at the Institute, in his chair? and as you approach, a Rakari dissolves right behind him and he begins sobbing

He basically implies he found an idea to carry electricity over power lines (or something similar), but he's "forgotten it" and now needs to stay at the institute longer to think of it again

this was really grim when I thought more about it---clearly humanity still has the potential to drum up higher-tech ideas (relative to the world's current technology), yet the Rakari are mindwiping those with the entrepreneurial talent to make such technology, keeping humans in a simpler state

and a second instance of rakari stuff, that ties in w/ the Black Death sword, too, is:

very early on when you reach the trader camp
there's "artie" ranting and raving how there's too many humans for the rakari to control and how they keep humans down... and then obviously a rakari comes and spirits him away

but what the townspeople say after artie departs is really interesting, "he never was the same after he visited the Spirals"

the Spirals are the same mountains that the demon in the black death sword keeps urging Kaltos to visit to grow in power..

[Mark Pay]

There is something innately unsettling about beacons of false hope which turn out to be traps set to deliver the grim opposite of what the seeker desired. The same device is used in Chapter 3 with the cultists.

In a modern context, the golden age of the lone inventor is largely over. If you want to be involved in cutting-edge research now, you have little choice but to join a business or academic insitution. The fear of personal creative spark being devoured by the mundanity of a large institution goes beyond science I think.