I suspect the elves, being elves, would have far less problems holdings bows at full draw. Especially since they'll be elven bows, which you can reasonably expect to be on par or even superior to human bows in terms of power and distance while being lighter and putting less strain on the elf in question holding the draw.
@@sorrowandsufferin924doesnt work like that though. 120 pounds is 120 pounds. The only way to hold that at full draw casually with no straining is to have super human strength, which the elves dont have. Its a movie trope. Thats all. No need to cope about it
@@trolltalwar it can work like that though, when you have the "a wizard did it" explanation at your disposal. Just like the elven Lembas bread can fill a grown man with just a bite, elven bows can be lighter to pull while being more powerful because magic.
@@maximilienrobespierre7927 its a good concept that i like and would be cool in a fantasy setting. However, until you find me proof within lord of the rings lore that thats how elven bows work, we have to assume they function like any other bow
Assuming they spend 8 hours sleeping in their back yard, 8 hours working in their back yard, and 8 hours cooking, eating, and relaxing in their back yard, I'd still say the risk is minimal considering there are barriers between yards and he seems to be aiming at targets instead of their livers.
I used to be an archer and I loved that scene in the Lord Of The Ring. Because despite how ripped you were, those tradional bows were really not meant to be used to hold your aim, so it's nice to see that one of the archers couldn't hold his aim anymore because of how it was straining him. I've never tried a compound bow. However, I've heard that at first, it's hard to pull. But once you pulled it halfway back, it gets much easier which is why you can hold your aim for much longer. And that made me understand why it's often used in bow hunting.
@@V_2077 He wanted the orcs to get closer and grantee hits to vitals most likely, because most of them are armored even if just 10% of the arrows did not find flesh to get stuck in the archers would not have served as big a deterrent as they should. Plus the longer they kept the stalemate the greater the chance pf receiving aid from others like what eventually happened anyway.
@@V_2077 that's the thing he forgot everyone is not some genetically alter human(Númenóreans) like him that is also a ranger trained by elves. He is out of his depth being a commander here, he wasn't even the first or second leader at this place, but thanks to the story he wound up in command, something that served as a learning experience for him on his way to becoming king.
Team Fortress 2 did a really interesting take on this. The Sniper can hold his bow at full draw for an indefinite amount of time because that makes the most sense for game mechanics, but after about 5 seconds of it his grip starts to waver from the strain and the accuracy of the shot goes way down.
Chivalry 2 does this as well; bows shoot their max strength right at full draw, where holding gradually reduces damage and adds inaccuracy until your stamina is drained. Can't remember if it forces the shot or if it cancels it completely upon exhaustion.
In competition archery, you usually have a little device on your bow called clicker. It's a metal plate that slides along the arrow and snaps back against the bow when you're at your desired draw length, making a distinct *click* noise. Most competition archers are hard wired to let go when they hear that noise. I once dropped my phone bc the guy next to me had his clicker go off lol
If you notice they release the moment it snaps .....this has more to do with making sure of an expanding release rather than a static or worse a collapsing release
@@jareth7456 it's also just so mechanically you eliminate or reduce the force variable when you pull a bow. The more consistent your draw length is, the more consistent the force you apply to the arrow to make it fly, the tighter your grouping is. And well hey, if you are so conditioned to the point that you hear a clicker going off and you started to drop your stuff you might want to recondition yourself. Idk about you, but in open competitions there's just so many clickers going off, it may be hard to discern yours vs the others which may causes you to prematurely fire and missing your target. Getting to feel the vibration of the clicker going off is a good way to recondition and I used to just blast music in my ears with some bluetooth earphones and train that way. Bad part is, you can't hear the arrow hitting the target lol.
@@J-sv9dphe's not an archer, but he is so experienced in battles by his 140 years of living, and really the main problem is... It's not in the books, so moviemakers just did a mistake)
@@kaDOA-xg6tfI'm rationalising the movie clip - I like to suspend my disbelief during movies. I realise that my fictional explanation of a fictional event was not the intention of anybody involved 😁
I like this in Avatar frontiers of pandora, in the game you're also supposed to shoot fast, because your character can't pull the bow too long, loved the detail and learned to aim faster in games 😁
Just after this video I realised how much work was put into red dead redemption 2 and ghost of Tsushima. I'm sure there's more games like these, but it's the two games that I love, that put so much work into realism
In Ghost of Tsushima, you're actually unable to hold your bow drawn indefinitely. Your aim will gradually shake more, until the arrow slips from your grip.
@@bottomless_pit check out Gotham Archery in NYC. I haven't worked there in years, but that's where i taught. My boss made me do the math and i instructed over 30,000 people in my 3.5 years there
I did archery at my summer camp as a 5 year old. No wonder I couldn't use any of the bows or launch any of the arrows. I couldn't exert 50 pounds of force on anything
Red dead redemption 2 portrays this perfectly, the bow starts creaking if you hold it at full draw for a long rime and the shot is incredibly inaccurate. Great detail 💯
I've got a 105lb English longbow and my bowyer says to draw no more than 5 seconds, just to be safe. You run the risk of it exploding after 10 seconds, not that I could even if I wanted to.
@@macklinillustration The potential energy wants to throw all the debris forward, so you're mostly safe. I've also seen warbows break arrows, which can slam into your hand. My bowyer jammed his thumb for a week once.
@@macklinillustration I've had that happen, though not due to holding it back for too long (it was a new bow, 100#@32", and the wood had a flaw in it that wasn't apparent from the outside).
You should! I havent practiced in a while but from my experience archery guilds (yes, theyre called that instead of clubs) tend to be fairly chill. At least at mine, training was basically freeform, ours started at 7pm but you could basically arrive whenever you wanted after that, and keep going for however long you liked and take breaks whenever you wanted too. The one thing theyre pretty strict on is when youre allowed to string an arrow, not as long as theres anyone still in front of the shooting line, for obvious reasons.
This makes sense. I trained in archery for HEMA and was taught to knock, aim, draw & loose. No holding. But another RU-vidr said the opposite. Thanks for clearing this up.
I do more larp than hema, but with a heavier bow i just listen to flanagan from ranger's apprentice, and draw from the shoulder you can hold an 80 pound bow back for minutes at time once you've anchored at your shoulder and relaxed the grip in your bow hand, then to release either trust your arm guard if you have one, or rotate your wrist out of the way, and release.
War bows were meant to punch through armor. If you look back into old trick archers from the 50s, some of them were doing shots with 150lb English long bows. Most common bows are like 60lb in today's world.
I remember playing games that have a timer for your character holding a bow at full draw and if you hold it for too long, you’ll just automatically shoot. I also recall games that have a mechanic where your shot does bonus damage if you shoot at the moment when you reach full draw and games that have a mechanic where your shot, if you hold full draw for too long, becomes less accurate as your character loses strength from holding it.
I didn’t realize bows that weren’t compound were that much harder to hold at full draw. I’m an archery hunter and use a compound bow. Holding at full draw is definitely not easy but there’s a point right before you hit full draw that kind of eases off some of the draw weight. I really enjoy your videos. My family always talks about how they used to hunt before compound bows existed. I’ve learned a lot from your videos about what exactly they are saying.
@@stevess7777 No, but its 2024. The vast majority of people who were alive and hunting before compound bows were invented are dead already. Compound bows were invented during the space race. My grandpa is only about 9 years older than compound bows, and im in my mid 20s. Theyve been around so long, and theyre not really that complicated compared to other things we had literally centuries before them. Until I got interested in archery myself, I assumed compound bows were probably hundreds of years old, and thus a story like this would have seemed fake.
But they also have a scene where the Night Watch is defending the Wall, and after drawing their bows the archers are commanded to hold. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this short.
I believe way back in the day in that time frame they were a lot stronger physical and mental that time period was rough always war or just getting slaughtered in a yard fight let’s not forget just alone I’m sure a Steele sword weigh at least 40 pounds and having to wield that around while probably having armor on men has evolved from wat men used to be back in that time period
I've heard, I don't know if it's true, that archeologists can identify an archer from the Middle age from their arm bones, given the strength needed to pull the cord.
For the English longbow archers in the middle ages, absolutely. They were those super-heavy bows he was on about. All men aged 14 or above were required to do at least 2 hours of longbow practice per week, by law (technically, they still are - law's never been repeale, but you don't generally see it being observed, except by BluminEck here). When the weather was just too crap for longbows, peasants would do target practice instead, which ended up making its way inside to the pub... and is the origin of darts
@@hippymad1muscles can actually change the shape of your bones. I once held a skull where you could tell the guy had just had absurdly developed nuchal muscles.
@@hippymad1yea, it's not like the bone builds layers to make itself stronger when the muscle is used. The best way to keep from breaking your hip (a bone) certainly isn't exercise
That's why crossbows took over. You did not need 5-10 years of dedicated training to be able to effectively use a crossbow. Just being strong is not enough, you have to specifically train those muscle group in that movement. Joe Gibbs is an excellent example of what it takes.
I love that i went into this thinking i would learn something new about bow durability and left learning a new fact about how awesome LOTR is! Good on ya mate
Funny, I'm thinking of making this a mechanic to, after a turn, you have to use your action to un draw the string or take a shot at disadvantage regardless die to shaking and strain This could be used against enemies to though, as if you take cover and they are drawn, you get a turn to move closer after cause the action is now null or disadvantage😂
@@thescouts4734 I cannot be certain, but I assume your comment is in reference to a readied action with a bow? I would argue the following: 1. Letting go of a string is very easy and I see no possible valid reason for it to cost any kind of action. 2. I don't think readying an attack with a bow necessarily means you've drawn it, you're just looking for that trigger and then you draw, aim, release. 3. My opinion, but I would say any magical bow (which is pretty much the only kind DnD PCs use) would have some kind of ease of draw enchantment helping the wileder, thus negating this houserule from ever actually seeing use. If you weren't talking about readied actions then ignore me.
Fun fact: during sieges crossbows were preferred because they could be held at full draw for extended periods of time, allowing for greater accuracy compared to bows, as the operator wasn’t expending their energy drawing.
It's always good to learn new things and incorporate those elements into your stories as a writer. It's nice that you found this information fantastic. Keep writing stories!
If it's fantasy, it wouldn't matter about real life. We don't have people riding dragons or conjuring fire with their finger tips. Keep in mind fantasy mainly works with the premise of "suspension of belief" Whatever rules you set in place, they HAVE to be maintained. You can disregard this entire video as long as you maintained that, but the moment you introduce a character struggling to hold a bow at full draw while no other character/scene did, it destroys everything. So make the choice early. There can be exceptions but there needs to be a reason for exceptions.
Lowkey loved GoT for this. They had their archers ready - nock - hold - draw - fire. Then just rain of arrows here and there hitting horses their own men opposing forces and still sending em. Brutal brutal days
You missed one important aspect with older pre fiberglass bows. Wooden bows do not take being held at full draw for extended amounts of time without damage. Generally a few seconds (like 2-3)at full draw is safe but longer than that and the belly fibers permanently compress making the bow slower. Sometimes the extended stress can cause splinters to lift that otherwise wouldn’t
In Rambo first blood they requested higher poundage limbs so that it would show Stallone's back muscles more. The bow was modified with offset cams in order to eliminate the guide from the standard Hoyt for aesthetics. Stallone could actually use a bow though so certainly a flex but more of an exception, mostly actors nowadays are just using bows with an elastic 'string' you can often see where the string is contacting the torso and then bends to the draw hand. It is the reason a lot of scenes are of the upper potion of the bow only. Now that I have mentioned it you will likely never unsee it.. sorry.
Adding to this, bows are often given to characters considered weak (i.e. women). I am sorry, but you are either weak, or an archer. Katniss, Susan from Narnia, Merida or Ygritte must have amazing back muscles. I do/did HEMA, Kenjutsu, Olympic fencing, Kendo and archery and swinging around a sword for two hours is less exhausting than two hours of shooting my light weight 40lbs bow.
Same. Was pretty decent wit a rapier and thought, a bow is a dexterity weapon, it might be easy to pick up. Turns out, the first week is just trying to keep an arrow straight on the drawn bow.
I love my compound bow. Pulling 75lbs at 80% let off it’s a breeze to hold. I however have a ton of respect for the trad guys. Hope to grab a recurve one day and give it a go.
@@shigglezz684here’s a fun fact: English/welsh longbowmen in the Hundred Years’ War regularly used 120+ pound longbows. These are the weapons that they used to take down the French knights and supposedly they were so skilled they could sink that arrow into the knight’s visor from 150 yards and fire 6 times before the first one hit the ground. People back then were built different.
@@alphastronghold715 though I’m sure they were extremely skilled I also don’t doubt the stretching of the truth in some of the achievements they accomplished. However I totally agree they we built different. You should research the skeletal differences in archers from that time period. The sheer bone density and size in their forward arm is insane compared to the rest of their body.
I like to think that like Elves and other archery based warfare races just have adapted to hold their breath and stance for extended periods of time, unlike a human who needs to almost immediately loose an arrow after getting a target.
@@Novenae_CCG It could also simply be that they've had centuries/millennia of practice while humans have about 20 years total of being in their prime until we start going grey.
It's really fun shooting instinctual. Wish more competitions ran that category for more than just 3d. Would love to see an open instinctual world series.
I can't believe that's not the only thing the comments are talking about. Only takes one wild shot and you're putting an arrow into your neighbor's window.
Fun fact! In Destiny 2, if you hole a bow shot too long (as in a few games) your character will fire automatically, due to strain. Also, the strongest shot isbone fires immediately at full draw, weakening a bit as you hold it.
That scene was designed to show how old some of those Helm's deep defenders were. The old man lost his strength and the arrow accidentally shot away. Beautiful story telling. So subtle, yet so sure.
A young man in his prime cant draw a warbow and hold it for more than 5 seconds before having to let go. Its just a trope to be given the order to draw then stand there for 5 minutes
The stakes were so high in the battle of helms deep that Aragorn didn’t care if they had operating bows afterwards they wanted to survive and were consequently in survival mode & tactics…howbeit I see what your saying brother; it makes a lot of sense & I’m more informed now about not putting unduly strain on my bow…thank you, truly & kindly!
I can confirm it does not end well. Normally. Missed and it went through my chain link fence that had privacy slats. No one was outside during it but I still hid from my neighbor for like 2 weeks
Destiny 2, of all games, does bows pretty well. There are different types of bows (recurve, compound, etc) that have different draw times and duration that they can be held. They're most accurate and travel the fastest when released at the right time, and if you hold for too long, your aim will waver before you automatically release. The only way to hold a bow indefinitely is, quite fittingly, a special pair of gauntlets for the Hunter.