Can someone tell me everything we know about Yolen Lightweaving?

[IcedOutPenguin He/Him]

Yolen lightweaving has always confused me. How does it work? What manifestation of investiture does it use? Do we even know anything about it? 

Also, what's your favorite Hoid quote? mine is "Shoot for the moon, that way if you miss the arrow will land far far away and the person it kills will likely be someone you do not know." (that quote is probably not correct letter by letter)

[Treamayne]

8 hours ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

Yolen lightweaving has always confused me. How does it work?

BLUF: We don't know.

Yolish Lightweaving was only featured in Dragonsteel (Prime), which is not canon (but is available to be read and has it's own discussion board here). However, even in DP, we see some examples of Yolish Lightweaving being used but it is never explained*. We could ask that this thread be moved to the Curiosities section if you would like more detail, but non-Canon (AoN, TWoKP, DP) works should not be discussed in the Canon book sections, to help prevent confusion amongst new readers.

* Minor Spoilers

Spoiler

We do know it has some connection to MicroKinesis and likely involves manipulating photons directly.

Hope that helps

[Quantus he/him]

We know very little about any of the manifestations of Investiture from pre-shattering, and most of that comes from vague WOBs.  We don't really know where any of the magics came from, if they were fueled directly by BigA the same way Shards do now, if BigA needed to Invest in a world the same way, etc etc.  We know the Aethers and Dawnshards were around and that they dont really count when it comes to BigA's power, we know Dragons had access to Investiture to some extent, and we know that Roshar had weirdness with a Highstorm and with Investiture-in-gems.  

Hoid mentions that by comparison Radiant Lightweaving is so easy that it feels like cheating, but that might be referencing original Yolish Lightweaving or just a potential lesser version that Yolish Lightweaving became after the shattering (the sort of more "suggestive" lightweaving he was using in Warbreaker, for example, with all the colored sand, etc).