Koloss questions

[Grubfriend He/Him]

Koloss have certain attributes that don't seem to match up with H-iron.

1. They can survive off of dirt

2.They have reduced senses and "mental and emotional capacity"

Their other attributes like cold resistance match with A-pewter, and i can reason that, but eating dirt makes no sense. They would need so many calories, but I have no idea if dirt and ash will sustain them. And why do they have less mental and emotional capacity?

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 minutes ago, Xiahida said:

Koloss have certain attributes that don't seem to match up with H-iron.

1. They can survive off of dirt

2.They have reduced senses and "mental and emotional capacity"

Their other attributes like cold resistance match with A-pewter, and i can reason that, but eating dirt makes no sense. They would need so many calories, but I have no idea if dirt and ash will sustain them. And why do they have less mental and emotional capacity?

My guess is that it's mostly due to physical adaptations to the changes in their Spiritweb structure; it's not like tapping pewter, but a reprogramming of what you are on a more fundamental level, which can include a broader spectrum of changes. 

Furthermore, H-iron has demonstrated more abilities like A-pewter in the Blessing of Potency, such as physical speed and endurance (TenSoon comments on this in HoA). I think it's likely that Koloss have a magically enhanced fortitude on top of their anatomical changes. 

As for reduced mental capacity, pre-Catecandre Koloss had even less mental ability than post-Catacandre Koloss, possibly because Hemalurgy was more virulent and destructive to the Spiritweb at the time (i.e. Inquisitors bearing more spikes due to the Investiture's lack of care for the Spiritweb of the Hemalurgist as well as noticeable pain that never ceases). So trauma from the transformation may have played a part, though I suspect it's also simply another adaptation made to fit their specific Spiritweb model (and it's possible that Rashek and Ruin wanted this as well, as a dulled mind is more susceptible to control).

[Quantus he/him]

A recent WOB implies that we've been misunderstanding what A-Pewter does this whole time, that it unlocks a Mind-Over-Matter state more like a Returned.  If that's true then the H-Iron Spike might be stealing significantly more than just Strength, it could be stealing "Interaction with the Physical Realm", something closer to Stealing "Physical Traits", and being able to gain Nutrition from less nutritious Sources could fall into that category.  It would be the Spike of Choice to steal things like a Horneater's ability to digest shells Iron.

And I think that makes sense, since we knew that physical traits like a Gemheart could be stolen with Hemalurgy, and Iron is the only metal that would fit.  

[Through the Living Heir he/him]

I had an old post theorizing that several spikes of hemalurgic iron increases strength, speed, wakefulness, warmth, health, and determination (all the pushing ferruchemical attributes other than spiritual, although I can think of some arguments for Connection too), while reducing senses, emotional stability, and intelligence (the other three hemalurgic non-MoI attributes). Potentially some of the spiritweb is overwritten with more strength and related attributes, decreasing the other human attributes. I think hemalurgic constructs in general could be understood much better than they are; we need more examples. 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

Koloss have certain attributes that don't seem to match up with H-iron.

<snip>

Their other attributes like cold resistance match with A-pewter

Keep in mind that Hemalurgic Iron does not steal or bestow anything Allomantic or Feruchemical. H-Iron steals Physical Strength, more specifically, it steals part of the portion of Preservation inside of people - attached to the Spiritweb portion of Physical Strength. Also, when using Hemalurgy with these raw portions of souls, the physical changes caused are increased.

HoA Annotations/WoB:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The Mechanism of Hemalurgy

The Blessings and the workings of Hemalurgy gave me some trouble as I designed the second and third books of this series. On one hand, I liked the way Hemalurgy worked by stealing powers from Allomancers or Feruchemists and giving them to other people. However, if I was going to limit myself to sixteen metals and be able to steal both Allomancy and Feruchemy, that meant I needed a mechanism to determine which power got stolen. If, for instance, you drove a pewter spike into a person who was both an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, then how would that spike know which power to suck out and grant to the one who would gain it?

As I was toying with how this would work, I realized that I needed to work the kandra and the koloss into this as well. Only, it was ridiculous to assume that the Lord Ruler would kill Allomancers to make koloss. There weren't enough Allomancers, for one thing—plus it would be foolish to lose the power of an Allomancer to gain an inferior tool in a koloss.

So that meant koloss had to be made out of regular people, not Allomancers or Feruchemists. Suddenly I had another set of abilities that Hemalurgy had to be able to steal—the basic pieces of Preservation inside the souls of all men.

Hence the decision that where the spike was placed in the receiver, and how it was used to kill a person, influenced how the power was shaped. Now a pewter spike could steal any of a number of powers, based on how it was used. And regular people could be used instead of Allomancers—however, when that happened, the receiver was twisted much more than if an Allomantically charged spike or a Feruchemically charged spike was used.

My rationale for this is that if the spike is pulling out the pure power of Preservation—part of the power of all creation—and twisting it, it would change the body of the recipient greatly. Twisting them through use of the twisted power.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 17, 2009)

In the case of Koloss - they are receiving four stolen portions of the raw souls - and the changes caused by such a twisted spiritweb are. . . well, we see in Era 1 how profound the changes become (sterility, sloughing skin, changed nutrition, unstoppable growth, early death, mental stunting, etc.). They are a "new race" for a reason, and nothing human-centric should be assumed as applying to a spiked Era 1 Koloss (and we don't know enough about Harmony's changes post-Catacendre).

[Grubfriend He/Him]

6 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Keep in mind that Hemalurgic Iron does not steal or bestow anything Allomantic or Feruchemical. H-Iron steals Physical Strength, more specifically, it steals part of the portion of Preservation inside of people - attached to the Spiritweb portion of Physical Strength. Also, when using Hemalurgy with these raw portions of souls, the physical changes caused are increased.

 

Thanks for the clarification on that, I was making weird connections in my head that don't make sense now that I think about it (Specifically just Investiture helping resist temperature)