Susan from Narnia

Today is Narnia’s turn. The character of Susan Pevensie has been compared to more recent portrayal of Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games, but I don’t see what they have in common other than both are archers and both are female. There are already plenty of female archer characters in games and other media. I don’t know what the thing is with femininity and archery. Shooting with a real bow is hard, it’s not child’s play like some people tend to think. There might be a cliché that bow is a suitable weapon to women, if they have to have a weapon. The other alternative is a spear or some other pole arm.

Anyway, to the mistakes.

1. The back quiver. More impractical than a hip quiver. But ‘less cool’ if you ask moviemakers.

2. Anna Popplewell, the actress has some issues with her bow hand. Clearly an archery instructor has been utilised in the making of this movie (like any decent movie featuring archery should), but she still keeps her bow hand in this weird position, the two last fingers wrapped, and not around the bow. You can see that in four different pictures.

3. This is clearly a photoshoot picture and not from the movie, so the fault is most probably photographer’s, who has instructed the actress to tern her head and to look at the camera. This is not a shooting position, she doesn’t look where she’s aiming at. The string (and arrow) should also be drawn close to face, like she’s properly doing in most other pictures.

4. This is also a photographer’s fault, possibly. The infamous ‘sideways shooting’, which isn’t practical at all. The bow cannot be fully drawn so the arrows don’t fly as far as they could and hit closer targets with less force, if they even hit the target since the aim is far from good (the arrow being away from the archer’s face).

5. Now this is from a movie again, but now she has the ‘beginners grip’, with her index finger holding the arrow in place. That is not good at all, since the fletching of the arrow will hit her hand, and it is also not good for the flight of the missile itself.


Good:

Susan has surprisingly good form otherwise, if we don’t count the odd grip of the bow. Much better than Katniss (although based on just one picture, haven’t seen the Hunger Games movies). Susan’s aim is also good, she has the arrow rightly positioned on her cheek, so she has a real chance of hitting her targets.