Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win
Jun 02
Warning: I DO use dude, man, bruh, and bro as completely gender neutral terms, HOWEVER if I call you one of the above and it bothers you, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me.
“College kids are the absolute last people you want to mug. They’re in peak physical condition, they have no money, and most of them have such a twisted view on the value of life they would rather you shoot them than give you the $4.37 in change at the bottom of their book bag.”
— ztejas (via suspend)
I love Doof being secretly protective of the boys and pups
And then he slips and starts jamming out. Like, “Go to sleep/little pups<3/BECAUSE TOMORROW WE’RE RIDING ON THE FURY ROAAAAAAAAAD
*all the pups and ‘Boys in unison* “SHUT UP DOOF WE’RE TRYING TO SLEEP”
Doof giggles and runs around tweaking people’s ears and then runs away
Basically Doof is everyone’s big annoying brother despite the fact that he looks like he popped out of a nightmare
Yaaas~ All the war pups are like HE LOOKS SO COOL when he really looks like some kind of horrid gremlin
*looks like a horror movie* *is actually a chill stoner music making master*
*is the metal papa if the Citadel*
Everyone comes to him for advice ok
Slit: “so there’s this person….that I like…..but I don’t know if they like ME…” Doof: “just go fucking kiss Nux” Slit: “WHA?! I didn’t say- nononono it’s definitely not Nux….” Doof: “it’s fucking Nux and if you dont kiss him I will play love songs every time you’re around him”
*Nux and Slit walking together to the welding room*
Doof: NEEEAAAR, FAAAAr, whereEEEEVER you areeee…”
Slit: Odin help me.
*Slit and Nux quietly eating breakfast*
Doof: and IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will alwaaaays LOVE YOOOOU
YAAAAASSSS
Nux: “Hm, looks like Doof’s discovered a new genre of music.” *munches bug* How nice for him! He sounds really happy. Do you think he’s got a crush on someone?”
Coma: “ I LOVE YOU BAAABY, AND IF IT’S QUITE ALRIGHT , I NEED YOU BABY TO WARM THOSE LONELY NIGHTS”
I WAS GONE FOR TWO SECONDS AND YOU ALL DO THIS
I just can’t leave you war babes alone smh
Doof: “I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAAAAAND, I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND OH PLEASE SAY TO MEEEE YOU’LL LET ME BE YOUR MAAAAAAN AND PLEASE, SAY TO MEEEE YOU’LL LET ME HOLD YOUR HAAAAAND!!!!”
Nux: “wow Doof thats a really sweet song”
Doof: *looks pointedly at Slit*
omf i love the beatles
Slit just *grumble* “how’d'you even know these anyway”
I would just like to say fuck you to everyone who made me feel inadequate growing up and ruining my self esteem for years. You all suck and I’m glad I don’t talk to any of you any more.
I…I recognize the joke, but these are totally different kinds of bows, each with its own benefits and suited to its user.
Bard’s using a longbow.
Longbows are awesome and take a fuckton of regular practice to use, because the muscle strain required to be a longbowman(/woman) actually deforms the arms and back of the user.
“Bard the Bowman” is still known by that sobriquet even though he’s low status, his family’s life and profession changed when the dragon attacked. Why would he be called that, if not that he’s still in regular practice and people see him using the thing over and over and over?
Longbows are less-damaged by damp than composites, being made of once single piece of wood rather than layers of material, which is handy if one lives in the middle of a freaking lake.
The longbow changed the face of warfare in real life, esp. for England. They’re effective killing machines over long distance, even against armored enemies.
Conclusion: Bard’s a tank-muscled distance shot used to fighting with good sightlines.
Legolas and Tauriel use recurve bows, albeit in different styles.
Legolas’ looks like a Turkish bow, though I don’t recall seeing him use a thumb draw (which is not mandatory if you’ve got super strong elf-fingers, I guess).
Tauriel’s looks to be a Scythian composite bow by the shape.
Composite recurve bows are much easier to use in confined spaces and at odd angles.
They have been historically used by folks who specialize in archer tricks like multiple arrow shots (a thing we have seen Legolas do).
Because of the curves, composites pack heavy draw weight (the factor that determines with what force, i.e. how fast and far, the arrow will travel) into limited space.
Short draw (the distance you have to pull back the arrow to shoot it) means a quicker release time and quicker time to get your next arrow on the string.
Legolas and Tauriel fight in a forest, not know for long sight lines or easy travel, nor for enemies who can be seen coming. They need weapons that won’t be getting caught on a bush at an inopportune time. Likewise, you see fewer spears and longswords among the elves of the Greenwood.
Conclusion: Legolas and Tauriel are guerrilla fighters from a heavily-forested territory and their weapons reflect that.
Kili also uses a composite recurve bow.
For practical purposes, note that Kili has significantly shorter arms than any of the other archers here mentioned. Long draws, like on Bard’s longbow, are not feasible and that means he’s not going to get the power he is capable of producing.
Dwarves are fucking strong, all right? That wee little bow looks very like the Mongolian horse-bow in size and shape that my friend used with a draw weight of 55 lbs. (I’m not a weakling and I can draw 35 for a decent length of time when in practice). Kili’s could easily be upwards of 75-100 lbs.
Kili’s a hunter. Likely, his main concern with a bow (when not following his uncle on an inadvisable quest) is the procurement of dinner for his family. To do that with a bow you need to be very quiet or very quick on the draw. Dwarves are not known for being super-quiet, though I believe I remember something about Fili and Kili being better at that than is typical.
Anything that can kill a deer can probably kill a person (or an orc). That little horse-bow can easily kill or maim.
Conclusion: Kili is a hunter. He uses a bow that allows for the production of a lot of power at short notice and is suited to his size and strength.
Bigger is not always most effective. Your medieval weaponry rant has concluded for the day, unless someone wants to talk to me about swords.
I do have some issues with the axes and swords used in the movies. Mind you, I’ve not seen BOFA and probably won’t until it comes out on DVD (Poor college student here). I’m no expert, but the chunkiness of Fili’s swords seems to me that they would not be well balanced. Thorin’s sword seems to look kind of like a Falcata in the shape, so it in theory should work well even though it doesn’t look like it would be that well balanced to me.
The big honkin’ triangular holes in the middle of the axe head pictures that I’ve seen don’t seem like they’d have much integrity for battle.
I think you may find the explanation to the shapes of Dwarven swords/axes in the workbooks Weta released. From what I remember (I may be wrong on details) Dwarven weapons are purposefully chunky and heavy as fuck to maximise the force of the hit. Also, due to short height, usually Dwarves are unable to attack the head/neck of an opponent and that leaves the hits on corpus that are actually very tricky to turn onto a killing blow.
So like a butcher’s cleaver, Dwarven sword is supposed to bring the force down and cut/crush the fuck out of whatever happens to be underneath – they even have a lot more/bigger groves to get the blood out of the way than a human sword, yikes. Dwarves have strength, but their range is very limited and they are slower than Elves or Men, so in theory every hit is supposed to be a finishing blow because their fighting style is basically ploughing forward and not looking back or standing in place and watching the bodies pile. See that even their ranged weapons (Dwalin’s hammer, Bofur’s pickaxe, Bifur’s boar spear of Oin’s stick) are very chunky and heavy so that they can deal with massive forces working from both sides.
Swords/knives are built for maximum damage in close quarters and axes have long handles for bigger reach. The ‘holes’ in Thorin’s axe and Balin’s mace are there for the purpose of bettering the balance – they take some weight off the end of the weapon without really compromising it’s power (there’s a whole thing about that the blade with a round holes in the right pace being actually more resilient/flexible than a full one). The ‘arrowhead’ shape of Thorin’s axe makes it a good weapon to fight an armoured opponent – with most of the strength of the hit coming on the point and dealing damage in places that a flat blade might have slid off (chainmail, plate armour). So it’s not as much of a slashing weapon, as a crushing/stabbing one. Also, Weta mentioned that the shape allows for getting a good hook on and dragging the opponent closer – which, taking into account short reach, is a good idea.
All in all, what I understand from the books and personal research, Dwaven weapons for the movie work for their battle style. Dwarves are savage fighters, completely opposite to Men and Elves, they hit slow but HARD, one hit is supposed to finish the fight, they don’t ‘dance’ around the opponent but push forward, they won’t chase their enemy around. Dwarves are very much the “come at me so I can kill you” fighters. With the amount of raw strength they have, perfectly balanced weapons are hardly necessary and everything that will make a hit harder is preferred.
I have a theory that Orcist is only any good in Thorin’s hands because it’s a blade of insane quality and endurance. Was it not an ancient weapon forged from a fabled steel, the blade would’ve snapped in half a while ago because of the sheer force behind every hit.
*if there’s the underline in the first part I apologise, I have no idea how to get rid of it on work PC ;) It just does that>_>
