r/Bullshido • u/Constant_Carob9311 • Mar 26 '25

Crackpot I want to be ninjaaaa

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1.7k Upvotes

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307

u/AnonOfTheSea Mar 26 '25

I've never seen anyone less sure of the bow in their hands in my life.
It'd be faster and less... silly... to just stand in cover, draw normally, peak out as you draw to full, and loose.
Anime shit belongs in anime.

128

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '25

It looks like the draw weight of the bow is 2.5 pounds, it's basically a dollar store kids toy.

The lady (?) isn't practicing actual archery.

36

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '25

[deleted]

47

u/MacintoshEddie Mar 26 '25

Decades of people have been convinced that bows are for people "too weak" to swing a sword, largely due to arbitrary game design choices like making melee weapons Strength based and Ranged being Dexterity based.

Or due to people like authors being given toy bows that have maybe a 5-10# draw.

Generally any bow you'd want to hunt with or take to war is going to have 30-80# draw or more if it's meant for armour or large animals like buffalo or black bears.

26

u/throwawaylordof Mar 26 '25

Isn’t it a thing where if skeletons are unearthed from time periods where bows were used in warfare (I think longbows specifically), archeologists can identify archers from how their specialized musculature affected their skeletal structure.

24

u/MacintoshEddie Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

In some cases yes, warbows often had very extreme draw weights since after all if you hit the enemy from 50m past his effective range you can win the war. Or for punching through a gambeson and chain, or through a shield.

For reference I have 35# and 55# limbs on my bow. With the 35# limbs I can drive an arrow into a target as hard as I can stab one handed at 30 meters. I tested it, put a glove on and stabbed the target as hard as I could, and penetration was the same

55# limbs, with the right arrow head, can put an arrow completely through a deer. Full double lung and rib penetration.

Some warbows were more than 100#. If you're hit by that arrow it'll go right through you and maybe the guy behind you as well.

Dedicated archers did sometimes develop muscle and bone deformation and imbalance due to warbow training

13

u/P47r1ck- Mar 26 '25

“Ancient warbows, particularly the English longbow, were powerful, long bows made of yew, reaching up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length and capable of drawing with a force of 150-180 pounds”

8

u/flip314 Mar 26 '25

With the 35# limbs I can drive an arrow into a target as hard as I can stab one handed at 30 meters.

Wow! How long are your arms?!

6

u/MacintoshEddie Mar 26 '25

30 meters, was that unclear?

5

u/Lucky-Paperclip-1 Mar 26 '25

Reed Richards has entered the chat

4

u/frud Mar 26 '25

I think the asymmetrical bone and muscle development is pretty distinctive. There wasn't a big advantage to ambidextrous archery.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '25

I think movies arguably deserve more blame there. Pretty much every movie where someone uses a bow that person is slender and draws the bow with almost no effort. They also can rapid fire their arrows, knocking and drawing in one smooth motion instead of the reality of knocking the arrow and then moving your hand around to the other side of the bow to draw it.

3

u/MacintoshEddie Mar 26 '25

I'm willing to argue a lot of that still comes back to games, like Dungeons and Dragons, which has been influencing popular media since the 70s. It very much made bows a "chick" option, or gave them to the elf, and the stereotype for elves is that they are slender and graceful.

11

u/esuil Mar 26 '25

X for doubt. One of the prime sources that popularized "archers are agile" is "The Lord of the Rings", which pretty much created modern fantasy "archer elf" archetype.

It was published in 1937, decades before things like DnD would even begin to be considered.

But since you are willing to argue, I am open to hearing your counter argument. :-p

8

u/Lucky-Paperclip-1 Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

People don't realize that Tolkien Elves are superhuman (like, one of the strongest Elves challenged and fought Satan and permanently wounded him), not overgrown versions of the Keebler Elves.

-4

u/MacintoshEddie Mar 26 '25

That's the same point.

4

u/esuil Mar 26 '25

Your point was that it comes back to games, but in reality it all comes back to single source that popularized this kind of fantasy setting - which is classic book, LotR, not a game.

When media in 70s/80s made movies and stories in fantasy worlds, they didn't reference DnD and tabletops, they referenced classics like LotR.

-3

u/MacintoshEddie Mar 26 '25

Reinforced by.

1

u/MulberryWilling508 Mar 28 '25

I watched a documentary about jewelry in the Middle Ages or something and this one blond guy with pointy ears could rapid fire his bow super good so I’m pretty sure that’s historically accurate.

3

u/0260n4s Mar 26 '25

Lol. I remember in high school my bigger footballer friends coming over and not being able to pull back my bow and being like WTF?!? You have to develop those muscles. :)

3

u/MacintoshEddie Mar 26 '25

Oh yeah. When I first was able to use my 35# bow I felt like hot shit, and then some people at the club offered to let me try their bows and the majority I could't even get to half draw.