WTF is "cold iron", and why's it so special?

[Maxperson]

The reaction that happens in nuclear bombs is perfectly natural. Indeed, there have been identified "natural nuclear reactors" in which sufficient amounts of fissionable materials existed in the presence of water sources as coolant and moderator to support sustained nuclear fission chain reactions over time - in like a several hour cycle for hundreds of thousands of years. And, of course, fusion reactions in the sun make your life possible.

Okay. There are natural nuclear reactors. How many of those involved poured cement, water piped in through metal piping to provide the cooling, power supplied through wires, plastics, rubber, various worked metals, etc.? I'm going to guess none, since the man made versions don't occur naturally. The same with nuclear bombs.

A problem you face here is that the idea that what mankind does is not natural is grounded in pre-Darwin philosophy, when folks thought of human beings as something strictly separate from the rest of the natural world. The theory of evolution and further research has placed humankind firmly within the natural order, putting a big hole in that idea.

I'm not using pre-darwin philosophy. What I'm using are my personal reasons for the existence of those two categories. I view humans as natural, but I don't view what they do that doesn't occur naturally as natural. If a human bites someone or something, well biting is natural. If that same human smelts metal and forges a sword and then stabs something with it, well that sword is not natural. Forged swords don't occur naturally. You aren't going to just find one deep in a mountain.

Now, given that the whole idea of "cold iron" being relevant is also pre-Darwin, you now should now see your way out of the conflict.

This whole argument about whether human action is natural is irrelevant. You need to discuss the historical attitude, not present understanding.

Yeah, I get that. The discussion sort of moved away from cold iron and into what was natural, though.

 

[Umbran]

What does formal logic have to do with whether limiting the word "natural" to its broadest possible (and least useful) definition is required?

Ah, formal logic isn't about the particular definition. It is about how you proceed with presenting a proposition.

Taking a more formal look at it requires one to actually lay out the assumptions, and the steps from those assumptions to the conclusion.

EDIT: In a context of a discussion thread on an elfgame forum, which is decidedly informal and not always all that logical....

Yes, well, accepting the status quo never improves things.

 

[Umbran]

Okay. There are natural nuclear reactors. How many of those involved poured cement, water piped in through metal piping to provide the cooling, power supplied through wires, plastics, rubber, various worked metals, etc.? I'm going to guess none, since the man made versions don't occur naturally. The same with nuclear bombs.

I'm sorry, but you're still leaning on the definition that I've previously rejected as circular - assuming the conclusion.

I'm not using pre-darwin philosophy. What I'm using are my personal reasons for the existence of those two categories.

Do you assert, and you can establish that your "personal reasons" should 1) apply to anyone other than yourself, and 2) are not significantly influenced by the pre-Darwin position that still pervades the culture in which you reside?

If you want to just say, "This is my personal position, and I have no intention of yielding," that's fine. You have every right to do that. But it leaves you with no real ground to discuss it further.

 

[Irlo]

I get it. It's important to acknowledge that people and our artifacts are in the world and of the world and, in that sense, natural. Placing people and our creations outside of (and above) nature can lead to devastating effects. Also, some people also tend to categorize sexual behaviors and actions that they don't approve of as unnatural -- another way of putting ourselves above others, with similarly devastating effects.

Even as we acknowledge the people are in the world and of the world, we can use the terms natural and artificial in meaningful ways, to separate the actions and creations of people from the actions and creations not attributable to people. It's a common usage of the term natural that seems particularly apt when talking about cold iron and fey.

When your new doctor asks about your health history and you disclose that you have an artificial heart, the doctor will NOT lecture you that your heart is just as natural as the one you were born with, because we are all natural creatures and nothing we do is outside of nature, and doctors will NOT treat you as they would if you had your own biological heart. It's a useful and meaningful distinction with real-world consequences.

The distinction in language between natural and artificial conveys useful, actionable information. It's what allows an archaeologist to sift through debris to determine that some are natural rocks and others are artificial tools, which tells us about the people who lived among those rocks. River otters use rocks to open shellfish. We'd have a drastically different perspective on otters if they ran a shellfish processing plant on the beach. There's a difference between Hoover Dam and a natural dam of fallen trees and boulders. There's value in acknowledging that human activity has effects on climate patterns.

 

[Mannahnin]

Even as we acknowledge the people are in the world and of the world, we can use the terms natural and artificial in meaningful ways, to separate the actions and creations of people from the actions and creations not attributable to people. It's a common usage of the term natural that seems particularly apt when talking about cold iron and fey.

I have a great of sympathy for your post and position. Well and thoughtfully expressed, thank you.

In terms of the cold iron and fey interaction, I'm still not convinced that the relevant magical significance rests in the natural/artificial dichotomy. I think it may, conceptually, have more to do with the Good Folk being creatures of air and darkness and insubstantiality, visiting from the Otherworld, and of only partial connection to the solid human daylight world. Where iron is in essence a solid, grounding, hard, pragmatic element.

The 3e-era invented definition of Cold Iron as a special form of iron mined deep below ground and worked at lower temperatures, or Starglim's definition of "iron that was found in a pure state (either meteoric iron or an especially rich ore) and hammered into shape without being smelted" both seem to instead rely on conceptualizing this special metal as less "artificial" than regular iron, which would seem contradictory to the idea that iron or steel being "artificial" or "unnatural" is what makes them particularly baleful to the fae.

 

[CleverNickName]

For me, it's not that Cold Iron is "less artificial," but more like it's "less changed." In my mind, the melting and refining of materials is a very intensive process that strips out a lot of trace metals and other ingredients. And in my D&D head-cannon, it's those trace metals and other ingredients that make Cold Iron special.

It's sort of like white sugar vs. brown sugar: the former is very good for industrial processes that need reliable, repeatable results (like a candy factory) and the latter is very good for specific, small-batch applications (like a local artisanal bakery). Both are sugar, and both are natural--organic, even--but those impurities (molasses, in this case) make a big difference.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Adventurer: "Would Cold Iron to the heart kill you?"

Fey: "Yeah, well, who wouldn't that kill?"

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I don't think this has been gone into in detail in this thread but a bit of history of iron.
Iron ore is more common and in almost all places easier to mine than copper also unlike bronze you don't need to sail to the mist enshrouded ends of the world and talk to Cornish people to get your tin to make it so really should have been invented before the bronze age.

The issue was, iron was complicated to work (ironically the main issue was it's melting point was too high so screw you "cold" iron) so for centuries the only iron that could be worked properly was meteoric iron as it was already a kind of insta-steel mix from burning through the atmosphere.
It was of course stupidly rare and valuable. The Pharos had like one dagger of it that was one of the most valuable things they possessed and has been traced down through generations.

The goal of cracking the code of temperature, oxidation prevention and carbon content was like the fusion energy of the bronze age and was finally cracked by the Hittites (also separately in Nigeria at around the same time apparently) in Turkey and let them be the Mediterranean badasses for a while and roughed up one of the Rameses a bit (Rameses II I think so one of the main ones). When they collapsed the secret slowly proliferated but was still difficult and very specialised, secretive and hard to recreate.
The technological advantage that iron weapons and tools gave redrew the cultural and political map.
In Africa it led to Bantu tribes conquering huge swaths of land. in Europe the secret of iron possessing Celtic tribes moved west from their Swiss homelands spreading iron weapons and tools through the medium of interpretive dance stabbing.
Interestingly the Celts when they colonised Britain and Ireland and brought iron to these fabled isles for the first time they in part probably nobbled the bronze age fairy mound round barrow building existing cultures. And it has been theorised (only an idea, completely unproven alas) that legends of iron being anathama to fae and magical properties was just a cultural memory of the Celts negotiating alternative land possession stabbing the non iron welding previous inhabitants of the British isles.
Cold iron though is just a made up poetic phrase. like someone said earlier the same way we say cold steel but it just means steel. Even wrought iron needed temperatures as hot as molten bronze to work due to the higher melting point

 

[Ixal]

I don't think this has been gone into in detail in this thread but a bit of history of iron.
Iron ore is more common and in almost all places easier to mine than copper also unlike bronze you don't need to sail to the mist enshrouded ends of the world and talk to Cornish people to get your tin to make it so really should have been invented before the bronze age.

The issue was, iron was complicated to work (ironically the main issue was it's melting point was too high so screw you "cold" iron) so for centuries the only iron that could be worked properly was meteoric iron as it was already a kind of insta-steel mix from burning through the atmosphere.
It was of course stupidly rare and valuable. The Pharos had like one dagger of it that was one of the most valuable things they possessed and has been traced down through generations.

The goal of cracking the code of temperature, oxidation prevention and carbon content was like the fusion energy of the bronze age and was finally cracked by the Hittites (also separately in Nigeria at around the same time apparently) in Turkey and let them be the Mediterranean badasses for a while and roughed up one of the Rameses a bit (Rameses II I think so one of the main ones). When they collapsed the secret slowly proliferated but was still difficult and very specialised, secretive and hard to recreate.
The technological advantage that iron weapons and tools gave redrew the cultural and political map.
In Africa it led to Bantu tribes conquering huge swaths of land. in Europe the secret of iron possessing Celtic tribes moved west from their Swiss homelands spreading iron weapons and tools through the medium of interpretive dance stabbing.
Interestingly the Celts when they colonised Britain and Ireland and brought iron to these fabled isles for the first time they in part probably nobbled the bronze age fairy mound round barrow building existing cultures. And it has been theorised (only an idea, completely unproven alas) that legends of iron being anathama to fae and magical properties was just a cultural memory of the Celts negotiating alternative land possession stabbing the non iron welding previous inhabitants of the British isles.
Cold iron though is just a made up poetic phrase. like someone said earlier the same way we say cold steel but it just means steel. Even wrought iron needed temperatures as hot as molten bronze to work due to the higher melting point

Thats a bit reductive. Iron is not automatically better than bronze. In fact for a long time iron and bronze working coexisted with iron being used for cheap, mass produced items while everything that needed to be of high quality like weapons were made out of bronze when possible, simply because bronze working was better understood.
Only when steel making became more advanced did iron surpass bronze also in quality.

Also meteors was not the only source of "ready made" iron. Much more common and already used in pre roman times was bog iron which naturally accumulated in swamps when the condition was right.

 

[Mannahnin]

Thats a bit reductive. Iron is not automatically better than bronze. In fact for a long time iron and bronze working coexisted with iron being used for cheap, mass produced items while everything that needed to be of high quality like weapons were made out of bronze when possible, simply because bronze working was better understood.
Only when steel making became more advanced did iron surpass bronze also in quality.

It's a fair point that the advantage of iron wasn't primarily that, say, an iron helmet or sword is better on a 1 to 1 basis compared with a bronze one. IIRC iron might even be inferior, and as you say you need actual steel to have significantly better material properties.

The advantage is more one of production, scale, and availability, as I understand it. Once a people had the technology to work iron, they could mass produce such items much easier and more cheaply than they could bronze ones, because of the greater availability of the element compared to the ones that go into bronze. And thus arm and equip a much greater number of fighting men quicker and more cheaply.