Hot Iron & Cold Iron
There is a very cool concept about the ways individuals conduct themselves in combat in Steven Erikson’s fantasy book House of Chains. The general concept is that leaders are either hot or cold iron.
The differences between Hot & Cold Iron:
There is this thread on Reddit, where someone posts…
Leaders who are ‘Hot Iron’ are terrible enemies because they inspire fanatic followings, but do not balk at the prospect of throwing away countless lives to achieve victory. A ‘Hot Iron’ commander on the battlefield will prove to be an unpredictable, unstable foe. You must defeat them utterly to be certain that they are defeated.
Cold iron leaders, conversely, are consumed by singular purpose and conviction. They are not necessarily charismatic figures, but people will follow them into the maw of death itself. Their resolve, as opposed to their ideology, is the backbone of their command. Cold iron leaders are terrifying foes because they are, …, calculating and ruthless. They strategize on an entirely different level, and if you cannot out-think them…
From the Malazan Wiki there is this:
Cold iron and hot iron were expressions used by veterans to describe a certain aspect of a leaders (or other entities) temperament. … It was thought that historically, cold iron defeated hot iron by three or four to one.
My thoughts:
I see hot iron as people who respond to symbolic-castration by getting very angry and then working to castrate others. Cold iron, on the other hand, are people who see they are castrated, and also see that everyone else is castrated too. Rather than becoming enraged they find a way to make the castration work for them as much as it works against them. In a sense cold iron can render the effect of castration null by seeing, acknowledging, and experiencing it. Hot iron attempts to deny castration’s effect on them, and in this denial they become even more castrated.
To put it even more succinctly:
- Hot Iron = The jouissance of proving to others and the self that they are not castrated is running the show.
- Cold iron = The jouissance is experienced, but seen as the addictive castrating thing it is. In effect jouissance is not able to offer the same sort of enjoyment that it does to hot iron… the cold iron knows that just as much as jouissance can aid in the castration of another it also castrates the castrator.
