Tauriel from The Hobbit

I decided to start my blog ranting with everyones favourite-to-hate non-tolkienite strong female character elf, Tauriel, from Peter Jackson’s the Hobbit-trilogy of course.


Let’s get down to business.


Mistakes:

1. The bow is way too powerless, or as we say in Finnish: “lussu jousi”. It can clearly be seen in the third picture in which you can notice the huge gap between the arc and the string. The proper size for that gap at the grip level should be the length of the archers fist and upwards protruding thumb (I have drawn there the proper measurements for a recurve bow for comparison). The gap in Tauriels bow is far wider and I do happen to know why.

The thing is with movies: they can’t really kill people, as sad as it is. Not even extras! So they use extra carefulness when weapons are present. And bows are always dangerous missile weapons. For that reason bows used in films are never as powerful as real hunting- or warbows would be. That’s a safety thing, if someone accidentally releases an arrow towards a person, that person probably doesn’t die, since the bows are not that powerful.

But there’s also another reason which I think has been behind this case. They probably made Tauriel’s bow more ineffective than Legolas’ bow, which seems pretty adequate, because Evangeline Lilly, Tauriel’s actress wasn’t as strong as Orlando Bloom. Womens bows are often less powerful than mens, for obvious reasons. Drawing a bow takes a lot of strength, and they probably thought it easier to make a less powerful bow, than to train the actress (much) more.


2. Tauriels bows back (the outer side of the arc) is carved hollow, which makes the arc less durable. Bows back should always have an unbroken layer of wood filament. But it is possible that this bow is not made of wood at all, rather from some artificial material.

3. In the first picture we see the tip of the arrow, which is ‘elvishly’ formed. Seems, if not a bad design, not very useful one. There have been asymmetrical arrowblade designs in history, but the curved blade does not do any good for the tip of the arrow.

4. Tauriel is also not pulling the string close to her cheek, which would be more proper method of drawing a bow, that makes aiming easier, since the arrow is nearer the archers eyes. She is also pulling the string with only two fingers instead of the usual three (in mediterranean release), and the fingers seem quite relaxed, which tells us further evidence that the bow is not very strong. Aiming may have been difficult for the actor in this shot, since it seems that the arrow is placed there afterwards with computer. The arrow should also go to the left side of the bow (from the perspective of the archer), not right as it is placed now, so it is more secure and doesn’t fall of easily.

5. Tauriels shooting stance is not optimal, rather strange indeed, why wouldn’t she stand while shooting? This posture is a thing which can be seen in many portrayals of female archers. That has more to do with sexism than the typical movie ‘coolness factor’. Even though a very slight form of sexism in this case, but still, the actress is instructed to pose in that stance, standing on one knee, which gives us the ‘sexy female archer pose’.

6. In the second picture Tauriel and Legolas are both shooting sideways, which is a very bad posture. They couldn’t draw full length if they tried, but seems that Tauriel isn’t even trying, but her bow still looks like it would’ve been drawn properly because it’s so overcurved.

7. She is also holding the arrow with her index finger, which is not a good idea. If released that way, the fletching (feathers) of the arrow will hit her finger, which both hurts and can distract the flight of the missile.


Good:

1. Apart from over-curveness, Tauriels bow is very nice looking and ‘elvish’ as it should – I particularly like how they gave her a recurve bow instead of the traditional-mediaeval-west-European-longbow, which Legolas and all the other characters in the Lord of The Rings have.

2. One other thing is very good in this portrayal of a film character: she has a hip quiver (holster for arrows), and not a back quiver, as does Legolas and every other bow wielding character in every movie ever filmed. Back quivers were historically used sometimes, but they were very rare, since it’s much quicker and easier to take an arrow from a hip quiver than from behind a shoulder. So a big thumbs up for prop maker there!


…


This post only deals with pictures released from the movies, not the archery action in the movies itself. I have seen the first two Hobbits, third one not yet, and I don’t have them on DVD to make a good film review at the moment. What I do remember is that the elves (although magical creatures) shoot unbelievably fast and have superhuman aim, which would not be possible in real life. But this is fantasy, so that is not an error.