How exactly did longbows, known for requiring significant arm strength, end up becoming the Default Female Protagonist Weapon? Is it just Hunger Games?
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
I find it interesting that a single exception to this coding is the compound bow which is coded as masculine (because of modern hunting?), but is far easier to draw and hold. Think of Rambo and his exploding arrows. I recall them branding that as a "Rambow" in a product tie-in.
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Replying to @BrackenMacLeod @BootlegGirl
Compound bows are obviously a product of modern technology (and would be impossible to manufacture in a pre-industrial setting) It's the whole -- often self-contradictory -- "modern/futuristic tech = masculine, primitive tradition = feminine" coding
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And yeah it's silly obviously because compound bows are easy mode archery I read a book by a bowyer once, giving some of his opinions, and he said he just didn't see the point of compound bows from his POV of why he was into archery at all
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I mean yeah they're really cool products of engineering but what's the actual point at the end of the day Isn't the idea of archery to look at how our ancestors hunted and fought wars *without* the benefits of our technology
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A medieval archer would likely be very impressed by a compound bow's power and accuracy but disturbed by how if it gets broken or damaged (which is substantially more likely than in a bow with fewer moving parts) he'd have no fucking idea how to fix it
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And, you know, a good old fashioned Winchester bolt-action rifle -- which is substantially *older* technology than a compound bow -- would be WAY MORE impressive to him and much more effective at winning any war your hypothetical time traveler was going back to fight
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(I guess in the "time traveler" hypothetical, arrows for the compound bow would be easier for the time traveler to manufacture in the past than rounds for the rifle, but still A backpack full of bullets + the rifle is not actually that much to carry through the time machine)
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