Bows

[beccaelizabeth]

I'm reading a lot of fic with archers, and I have discovered something about my attitude to bows. While the uber high tech shiny ones have clear advantages, I don't feel the same way about them as I do about a proper Robin Hood job. I feel one of the essential features of a bow is that you can take to the woods and make them your own self. All the fancy arrowheads and alloys just seem to miss the point. A bow and arrow is up there with bare handed martial arts, with quarterstaff or bo or escrima sticks. So simple they can never take it from you.

That's key.

Sticking an archer on the same team as a billionaire inventor, making it about being a military sniper... it's just not the same vibe at all. Even the DC Arrow clan have a splash of that, with the trick arrows and occasional richstuff background. But a good bow and arrow is about being stripped down to the basics, letting it all fall away until the arrow falls right into the target.



I don't know what stories I want to tell about the Robin Hood stuff (aside from a strong feeling they are British stories). I'd probably need to watch some actual Robin Hood or attempt to read my Green Arrow collection that I can't currently recall a single bad guy from or something.

But it would not be about the high tech.

Comments

[kickair8p]

Hate to burst your bubble on this, but bow-making almost always requires the resources of some sort of a civilization -- for example, Robin Hood's English Longbow could've been made in about two hours by a skilled bowyer, even out in the forest using nothing but a knife, but only out of wood that had been carefully seasoned a minimum of two years.

A sling could easily come under "so simple they can never take it from you", but I don't think a bow does.

~

[beccaelizabeth]

*shrugs*
didn't say it would be fast.

I take your point, but I don't think it's the decider.
(plus google for 'bows from green wood' and 'bows from sapling' finds a bunch of instructions, which say it's not as good, but it works)

slings are good too.
but more Biblical than British.

[baronjanus]

Beautiful sentiment.

[beccaelizabeth]

:)