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Legion Release Party ()
#1 Copy

Questioner

Shallan's Lightweaving. How does she make those physical? Is it light becoming matter?

Brandon Sanderson

So I'm not going to answer this one either, so you get another RAFO card. But I'll tell you which way to think. Here, energy and matter are basically the same thing. Investiture, energy, and matter are the same thing in the Cosmere.

In our world, when we touch, we are touching energy, right? We are not actually touching. The atoms are repelling each other or whatever. I'm not a physicist. I'm sorry, physicists!

Contact is a weird, weird thing. Keep in mind, investiture is another state of matter and energy in the Cosmere. It's not really that hard to extrapolate along.

Orem Signing ()
#3 Copy

Wyndlerunner

Hoid, he already has his Cryptic by Era 2, if I'm correct on the timeline. So have we seen him using his new fancy Lightweaving in action? Has he spoken his fifth Truth?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that for now. I'll RAFO both of those. Those are two separate things, but I will RAFO them. You have seen Hoid Lightweaving, but whether you have seen him use his fancy new Lightweaving... we'll leave that off for now. Let's just say that he knows that certain uses of Investiture are easier to detect than others, and if you don't want to be seen, there are certain things you don't do.

Alloy of Law York signing ()
#6 Copy

callumke (paraphrased)

You have said previously that The Stormlight Archive will include Lightweaving. Is that still the plan?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. 

callumke (paraphrased)

Have we seen a Roshar native in The Way of Kings who can use Lightweaving?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, we have seen someone who has potential.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 ()
#7 Copy

Questioner

Lightweavers are radios, aren't they? Lightwaves are radio waves? Light and-- they're the same thing, aren't they?

Brandon Sanderson

...They can do sound too, yeah. So you're saying lightweaving with illusion, can it?

Questioner

Can transmit radio waves? As in, communicate over long distances, it's one of the most important things in battles, right? In war...

Brandon Sanderson

I had someone in one of my very early books irradiate someone with Lightweaving, I think.

Questioner

Oh that's right you've got multiple kinds of Lightweaving.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Shardcast Interview ()
#8 Copy

Comatose

Kind of a similar question about the Midnight Essence, now that we have seen that crop up in Tress as well as in Stormlight Archive. Is something similar happening with the Midnight Essence? We have also the nightmares, in Yumi, that appear similar, they're also mimicking things.

Brandon Sanderson

So, there's a couple of things getting interwoven here. The actual idea of Midnight Essence is a concept like Lightweaving that predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, that various magic systems are basically "borrowing" a law of the cosmere and creating a parallel effect from the same basis, if that makes any sense.

Yumi is a little distinct from that. It's feeling similar; I would not call it true Midnight Essence. It's an awful lot more like a Lightweaving that has--because Lightweavings can have mass to them, because investiture can have mass to it--so you're looking a little bit more like... imagine a bunch of Stormlight becoming tangible, you can touch it, because of a powerful Lightweaving or something like that. Of course, these things all bleed together because I'm using the same fundamental principles to make them. But, for me, Midnight Essence has this personality that comes prefixed. What the Midnight Mother is making, what you're seeing in the Midnight Sea and things like this, you're gonna get some similar personalities to these things, and not necessarily the same with the nightmares.

Comatose

So it's more of a autonomous-- a Lightweaving that's become autonomous and has kind of broken down a bit?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah...  the problem is it's also got the Cognitive Shadow, right? It's a really invested Cognitive Shadow that is borrowing this Investiture to interact with the world. Because these are their shadows; these are their Cognitive Shadows, all of these people's Cognitive Shadows. But the power is not themselves. Remember, a Cognitive Shadow is a little bit like a fossil, like Vasher describes it. You've got this pattern there, and then the power kind of makes it manifest and be able to interact, and things like that. And, when that personality asserts itself with that power in the right place, you end up with a person that is the shadow running it. But at the same time, you've got this mass of power and energy that the machine is kind of controlling, which pulls back and overrides the personality sometimes. You've got a very weird set of circumstances going on here.

But it was very fun to figure out all the backstory and the behind on it, and get it all working. This one was a little complex, to get these things all working behind the scenes. I like how they turned out. Yumi, if you dig into it, it has both pluses and minuses. The minuses is - from the beta readers and the alpha readers - the ending for non-arcanists was really overwhelming, which is why we have those Hoid scenes where he's like, "Okay, let me explain." It seems pretty obvious, I would expect that this is, like, "Alright, Brandon needs to do better explanations, Hoid's just gonna do it." But, because of all the work I did behind the scenes on Yumi, Yumi matches kind of cosmerological magic system stuff in ways that a lot of the side projects that I do just don't. Yumi is very deeply intertwined and following all of these processes in a way that works really well for me. But it also gets you into where you start to need a master's degree in the cosmere to figure it all out, which is why to make it easier, we have Hoid just spell it out for people. It is a little clunky; I prefer the clunkiness to the previous version where you needed a master's degree in the cosmere to understand even what was going on.

Oathbringer London signing ()
#9 Copy

kalamitous_emoashions

With Hoid, we know that he's got some sort of Lightweaving, Yolen magic. If we're gonna hypothetically say that he bonds with the Cryptic, at the end of Oathbringer. Talking about resonance between magic systems, what are we going to see if he tried the two together? Would they be separate? Or would they form some sort of resonance magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'm gonna go ahead and RAFO that.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A ()
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TheHotze

IRL there is a condition called aphantasia where someone doesn't have the ability to use their visual imagination. How would that affect Lightweaving, and possibly other forms of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

It's actually something I've read up on, and something I find fascinating. Like face blindness, it asks some very interesting questions. It would affect Lightweaving, but not really handicap it. Just make it different.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing ()
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Wetlander

When Shallan does Lightweaving, is that a combination of Illumination and Transformation, or is Lightweaving just of Illumination?

Brandon Sanderson

Lightweaving is just of Illumination. Lightweaving is a long-established power in the cosmere. Very early books, in fact one of the very first stories I ever wrote, Lightweaving was the magic. (That story is unpublished, written long ago - long before Liar of Partinel) And so, this stems from my own personal affection for illusion and my feeling that it had not been used as well as I wanted it to be used in fantasy fiction. So I consider it only Illumination truly in The Stormlight Archive.

Oathbringer Chicago signing ()
#12 Copy

Questioner

...At some point in the novel, there is a character who gets a certain, shall we say, powerup that falls in-line with many things that he, or she, already has. Is there, from an Investiture standpoint, is there a Compounding effect?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there will be. *laughter* If we're talking about the same individual.

Orem signing ()
#14 Copy

Questioner

So Hoid, was he considered a Lightweaver pre-Shattering?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that would be an appropriate term. There are lots of different terms that would also be appropriate.

Questioner

But was it basically the same thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, no Stormlight. No spren. So, not a Knight Radiant. But, similar magic. But you've also seen Elantris magic do this. So there are-- there are certain things that-- I'll just stop there.

Prague Signing ()
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Questioner

Lightweaving on Roshar, is it more of a Physical thing or Cognitive Realm thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Lightweaving? I would say it's a hybrid between the two.

Questioner

So there's a Physical effect, but also a Cognitive component to that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, and then even a little bit of a Spiritual component. Lightweaving tends to involve, I'd say it's mostly Physical. Mostly you're not changing what someone's mind is, but you're actually changing light. Mostly Physical, but Lightweaving in particular has a lot like- you'll see weird things happening with Lightweaving on occasion, that are kind of a little bit of Cognitive and Spiritual influence that's happening. So keep your eyes on that. Yeah, I would say, if you're asking is light actually being changed yes, it is.

Oathbringer release party ()
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Questioner

In the chapter about the Wandersail, when Hoid is telling the story, is he using Lightweaving?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not completely natural what you are seeing.

Questioner

Is the smoke in any way related to Rosharan magic systems?

Brandon Sanderson

In any way related, yes? I'm good at wiggling out of these. It's a part RAFO, it's not completely natural. I'll leave it at that. I can't say too much, otherwise I'll give away all my secrets.