Controlling Inquisitors

[King Cole]

I've been wondering why VIn/Elend couldn't take control of an inquisitor with soothing/rioting. They had so many more spikes than a Kandra or Kolloss but they couldn't be controlled, why is that? 

[cloudjumper]

Pretty sure Ruin always maintains a firm control over them which is way more powerful than either Vin or Elend.

[Calderis]

23 minutes ago, cloudjumper said:

Pretty sure Ruin always maintains a firm control over them which is way more powerful than either Vin or Elend.

He was speaking generally. Not after Ruin takes control. 

I think it would completely depend on what powers they were spiked with. Spiked powers are weaker than those stolen, and TFE era Soothers/Rioters are too weak to control Koloss/Kandra when not working in groups. 

Spikes can be stacked though. We know from the annotations that there were inquisitors that would control Koloss bands for TLR. 

I think it's likely they could 

[asterion137]

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

He was speaking generally. Not after Ruin takes control. 

I think it would completely depend on what powers they were spiked with. Spiked powers are weaker than those stolen, and TFE era Soothers/Rioters are too weak to control Koloss/Kandra when not working in groups. 

Spikes can be stacked though. We know from the annotations that there were inquisitors that would control Koloss bands for TLR. 

I think it's likely they could 

They didn't know about the ability to take control of hemalurgical creations until right before Ruin was released though right?

[Calderis]

3 minutes ago, asterion137 said:

They didn't know about the ability to take control of hemalurgical creations until right before Ruin was released though right?

Well, TLR did... I don't know if the inquisitors did... That's a very good question. 

Regardless, I think they could do it, but now I have to go dig through that portion of the annotations to see if the inquisitors had to command the Koloss by force. 

[Yata]

This is a doubt I had for a long time.

An Inquisitor (or to be more precise everyone with a number of Spikes comparable to an Inquisitor) would be easy controllable by Vin's era Allomancers. The only solution I found on this is that the Copper Allomancy boosts the mental resistence (or if you prefer it mitigates the Hemalurgy weakness) and therefore Inquisitors were able to resist it in the case.

It also to be noted the Inquisitors were not "free" for a long time. In the First book they are under TLR's control and in the Third under Ruin.

Steal them from their master is a harder feat than simply take over them while they are free willed (as it was showed with the Koloss in book 3)

Edited September 2, 2017 by Yata

[btcannon]

This is a tough one.

First thought - As was mentioned before, during TFE the Lord Ruler controls the Inquisitors and Ruin controls them during HoA. Absent those controlling agents, Vin or someone else may well have been able to step in and assume power over them. BUT, if that is true, how was Marsh uniquely able to resist TLR's control long enough to assassinate the other inquisitors at the end of TFE? Maybe becuase TLR was distracted enough to allow him the wiggle room to do it, much like Ruin was distracted long enough in HoA to allow Marsh to pull out Vin's earring. Or maybe TLR never absolutely controlled the Inquisitors, and they obeyed him out of mortal fear/respect rather than being controlled like puppets. But if that was the case, why couldn't Vin or someone else control them before Ruin took over dominating them later on?

Perhaps the nature of Inquisitors is such that they were powerful enough that only Ruin or a similarly powerful being could ultimately control them, and they simply obeyed TLR freely.

Tricky. 

 

[+hwiles]

Easy, copper makes people basically immune to emotional allomancy, which ought to make them immune to mind control via allomancy. Bleeder couldn't use copper allomancy to resist Harmony though, so it stands to reason that copper can't stop a shard from controlling sufficiently damaged hemalurgic constructs.

My theory, emotional allomancy attacks constructs via the CR, Shards attack via the SR, and copper protects against CR based influence.

[The One Who Connects]

On 9/1/2017 at 9:22 PM, asterion137 said:

They didn't know about the ability to take control of Hemalurgic Constructs until right before Ruin was released though right?

The Inquisitors did. It's from the HoA annotations about how "Human" came to be.

Quote

He’s quite a bit older than most, his creation running all the way back to before the Lord Ruler’s death. Human, then known as Vershad, was one of the more successful leaders of the wasted men—those who live out in the desert outside the borders of the Final Empire, but come in to raid and steal supplies from outlying villages.

The Lord Ruler tired of such games and eventually sent his Koloss against Vershad and his men. As clever as they were, they weren’t able to stand against a well-laid betrayal and ambush set by an Inquisitor—one who controlled a troop of Koloss. The raiders were slaughtered, and Vershad himself was turned into a Koloss for his crimes.

I think these set up the time period up quite nicely.

On 9/9/2017 at 0:22 PM, btcannon said:

First thought - As was mentioned before, during TFE the Lord Ruler controls the Inquisitors and Ruin controls them during HoA. Absent those controlling agents, Vin or someone else may well have been able to step in and assume power over them. BUT, if that is true, how was Marsh uniquely able to resist TLR's control long enough to assassinate the other inquisitors at the end of TFE? Maybe because TLR was distracted enough to allow him the wiggle room to do it, much like Ruin was distracted long enough in HoA to allow Marsh to pull out Vin's earring. Or maybe TLR never absolutely controlled the Inquisitors, and they obeyed him out of mortal fear/respect rather than being controlled like puppets. But if that was the case, why couldn't Vin or someone else control them before Ruin took over dominating them later on?

I'm having a little trouble finding it, but Brandon has specifically said that "TLR kept too tight a hold on the Inquisitors for Ruin to take control of them while TLR was alive."

That is all the explaining that I think is needed. TLR was powerful enough to keep them from being taken over by a Shard(trapped as he may have been). Vin/Elend simply aren't that powerful, as Ruin demonstrates when he rips all the Koloss from Elend's control in book 3. I don't think TLR fully controlled them like the Koloss, merely came close enough that Ruin couldn't get a grip on them in his weakened state. If TLR used a Duralumin Soothing on the Inquisitors though... all bets are off.

As for why he "let" Marsh kill the other Inquisitors, I see several things that could contribute to this. Marsh was a new inquisitor, and we know TLR gave them enough autonomy to choose their own subjects to convert. Marsh may have simply been new enough that he wasn't aware of him yet. He could be distracted by the issues with Vin. He could simply have not noticed them die(he's got connections to ~50k Koloss, so I can forgive him not noticing a few lives pass away, especially given how Koloss are. A few dropping out here and there wouldn't be uncommon)

On 9/1/2017 at 4:46 PM, King Cole said:

I've been wondering why VIn/Elend couldn't take control of an inquisitor with soothing/rioting. They had so many more spikes than a Kandra or Koloss but they couldn't be controlled, why is that? 

There's no taking them back from Ruin, as Vin tries it on Marsh in book 3, only to fail even with Duralumin. I doubt she could take over one without Duralumin, meaning that she can't overpower TLR's grip in book 1 either. She doesn't really encounter Inquisitors in book 2, at least to my knowledge, and she only gets the idea to try near the end of book 3 when she tries it on Marsh. This is why they never did it.

You should also keep in mind that the subjects mental fortitude makes it more difficult to take control, which is why the eternally stubborn Marsh was given eleven extra spikes, putting him at 22 compared to the average Inquisitor's 14. More spikes, more soul crack for Ruin to use while taking over.