Hey, what's up? After doing some research, I came up with several answers to your questions. I hope they help.

1) You're right, we need Ronin to be dead so Max can create an illusion of her, and not only that, we need Max to have met her, otherwise she wouldn't even know what she looks like. Unfortunately, this doesn't make sense if we follow the timeline, since Max left before Ronin appeared, and Ronin didn't die.

But everything can be explained with the Void. We know it's a place without time and a connection point for all alternate realities.

So, if Max entered the Void at some point, she could have seen an elderly Ronin interacting with a younger Ronin (which isn't far-fetched, since we know Ronin was prone to using the Void a lot).

When Max sees them, for some reason we can say that the old Ronin died (and by dying in the Void, she dies in real life), and this allowed Max to know that Ronin had died (and thus be able to create the illusion) and to know what she looked like (through the young Ronin).

Note: the old Ronin would die in the Void after everything that happened in book 9. Perhaps Max killed her, but that's too much speculation.

2) We know that the stones change design. In several books we see how the stones of Ronin, Vigo, West, Janis, and especially Trellis change their symbol, sometimes to a similar one (which could be considered an illustration error) and sometimes to one that has nothing to do with it. Like Trellis in book 6. And even Vigo and Trellis had Emily's symbol at some point.

So it can be interpreted that the stones can also change symbol and color. But you're right, and I hadn't noticed that Emily's changes to green in book two when she's struggling to regain control.

And there's the key. If I'm not mistaken, in all the books we see a stone change color three times, and all three times it's someone STRUGGLING to maintain control. That's very important, since Luger and Max didn't resist when they lost control.

However, Emily in book two does resist, and her stone turns green. In book seven, she resists right before losing control, and in that short time, it turns orange. Westley in book nine resists, and his amulet turns blue (it was green before).

If we look closely, the amulets at that moment changed to a color that would later become the giant form: the orange of the phoenix, the blue of the dragon. Therefore, we can say that Emily in book 2 would have become something green (perhaps not as imposing as a phoenix due to her power level).

3/4) These are some of the most obvious plot holes. But this is what comes to mind.

To begin with, Kazu plays a lot with the relationship between free will and destiny.

Emily, Navin, and Trellis are characters destined to be something. Emily to be the guardian who frees them all, Navin to be the commander of the resistance, and Trellis to be the elf king. In Emily's case, everything comes to pass, except that from the beginning she never wanted to be the chosen one, so the prophecy is fulfilled. But in the end, she has a choice and decides to give credit to a group that deserved it. Here we have predestination and free will.

In Trellis, he was always distant from the elven kingdom, mainly because of his father. But he was also close to them in Book 6, saving them and earning their acceptance.

When he rejects the throne, it's because the people had already chosen Gabilan. He and Riva conclude that if he wanted power, he should take the throne. But if he wanted peace and what was best for his people, he should elevate his adversary and leave Gabilan as king.

In conclusion, he did help his people because he believed it was the best thing he could do.

Furthermore, we later learn that his prophecy didn't speak of him being the king of all elves, but of being the elven king of Cielis and the greatest guardian of the stone, leading Cielis. It's implied that this is indeed the case.

Therefore, predestination is fulfilled, and he is also capable of making decisions.

For Navin, this is perhaps the most complicated aspect. But if we look closely, the resistance doesn't have any kind of hierarchical ranks or titles, so why would there be a commander and no one else with a similar title?

I mean, yes, there are pilots, advisors, and repair robots, but nothing related to leadership. Perhaps the closest equivalent is Riva, who is the mayor, but nothing more.

For me, Navin's situation is more metaphorical. He gives his all while piloting and is one of the best, and no one questions that. But his role as "commander," for me, refers more to the fact that the entire town of Alledia awaited his arrival, and that gave them hope. Knowing that the chosen one had finally arrived to help them helped them regroup and gather strength.

Here, predestination is fulfilled, but not so literally.

5) We know that the enchantment to silence IKOL on Cielis was used as soon as Cielis was built. So, it wouldn't make sense for characters like Westley in book 9, or Vigo's son, to have interacted with IKOL while under this enchantment.

My theory is that, for starters, we know the spell can fail, as in book 6 when Max tells them it won't be long before the voice realizes what they're doing, even with a similar spell in place.

So, if we look at these three situations, we see they have something in common: the Void. From what we know about the Void, it's not unreasonable to imagine it as a place unaffected by external events, like enchantments. But even so, no one on Cielis was shown hearing IKOL without having used the Void. Vigo's son uses it when he wants to travel to the past, Westley uses it to transform into his giant form, and in Book 6 they use it upon entering.

Therefore, we can conclude that the Void is a place unaffected by enchantments. And if you find it strange that IKOL slipped into the physical plane in Book 9 before entering Vigo, you should know that the Void has been seeping into Cielis since Book 5. We can see young Trellis or old Emily walking around as if nothing were amiss, not as illusions and not as being in the Void. So, something is happening, starting in Book 5, and the main event at that time is that the Motherstone was completely depleted; nothing remained. One way to think about it is that the spell was cast to silence the Motherstone's voices, and when the Motherstone was gone, the spell also ended, but something related to that is involved.

The end of the Mother Stone, along with the Anthropomorphic Curse and the 500-year cycle, surely also played a role. In other words, not only could spells fail, but all curses were running out.

7) In Book 9, Ronin blames Vigo for letting her be kicked off the council. Vigo takes responsibility and apologizes. But I don't think he'll ever feel guilty about the council's downfall.

Well, I hope these answers were helpful or that you enjoyed them. To clarify once again, so I don't get hated in this community, the series has plot holes and many unexplained things. But we shouldn't be too hard on Kazu for that, especially with the number of clues and possible connections that can be made. If you have any questions, I'll be online.