Merlin: Hunt!Fail: How Not to Hunt Like Prince Arthur and Why
(I still lack auto-formatting. Grr.)
Merlin Hunt!Fail: Introduction (Note to Fanon) and Physics 101
Merlin is a family fantasy so I give it a lot of slack. They have yet to get a hunting scene right though, and in The Curse of Cornelius Sigan the hunting scenes went from bad to outright cringe-worthy. Their physics is laughable and their strategy is abysmal. Neverwhere had a better boar-hunting scene, and whenever I have to type "worse than Neverwhere" it's way past time for an intervention.
The only thing worse is fanon hunting scenes, which too often get the entire premise for hunting wrong. I'm not a hunter, but I live among hunters and these scenes have become increasingly painful to watch and read. So, in the interest of my own sanity if for no other reason, here are some notes on How Not To Hunt and Why. These cover the premise and the physics of hunting. I hope I don't have to write a seperate meta on strategy.
Introduction (Note to Fanon)
So why are these guys out here hunting anyway? Some fanon writers don't seem to understand why, and portray Merlin as against the activity. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there were numerous secondary reasons to hunt, the primary reason was pest control. The communities within Camelot and it's surrounding kingdoms were isolated islands of people surrounded by a sea of wilderness. The animals who lived in that wilderness considered the crops the people planted as free all-you-can eat buffets. To a farmboy like Merlin they wouldn't be seen as cute, fluffy animals, but as competition if he was in a good mood and vermin if he was in a bad mood. Domestic animals like dogs, cats, and poultry could handle the smaller garden bandits like mice and rats, but it took humans to kill the larger garden bandits like rabbits and deer. If people didn't kill the wild animals that ate their crops, one of two things would happen: either the wild animals would eat all their crops and the people would starve to death the following winter, or predators like wolves and snakes would be attracted to the animals eating the human crops and snack on humans as well.
A peasant like Merlin isn't going to object to nobles hunting in general, although he might well object to the particular techniques used -- Camelot's hunting tactics stink. If farmers hunted that badly they'd have no time to do anything else. The other objection Merlin might raise is dietary.
Medieval peasants, like most subsistance farmers and hunter/gatherers, usually only ate meat once a week -- this is where the phrase "chicken on Sunday" originally came from. The rest of the week they ate eggs, cheese, leftover meat, and meat substitutes. Their diet consisted largely of salads and "savory puddings" -- basically a salad dumped in a pot with eggs, milk or water, and whatever the local grain is, and cooked to a thick mush. There were two exceptions. One was winter when they ate a lot of stored meat, because meat stored better than plant matter in the days before canning and freezing. The other exception was for invalids and pregnant women, who needed extra protein. Doctor were writing sick patients prescriptions for chicken broth and beef broth into the early 20th Century. A pregnant woman in medieval Britain could by common law demand a share of any food anyone had to satisfy her "cravings". If they refused to give it to her and her child miscarried or was born with any birth defects, she could hold them legally accountable in court.
In contrast, soldiers, Knights, and the High Table ate meat at least once a day for the same reason modern bodybuilders quaff protein drinks -- they needed the extra protein to bulk up their muscle mass. (Ancient doctors lacked modern equipment, but there was nothing wrong with their basic observational skills.) This is the most probable derivation for the colloquiel medieval term for elite soldiers, "Beefeaters". Knights hunted not only to build up their skills, but to compensate for the strain they placed on the royal larder. So while Merlin wouldn't object to hunting per se, he might object to the meat-rich diet the knights ate and how much hunting they had to do in order to support it.
Physics 101: Not Every Projectile Weapon Will Kill Every Creature With a Single Blow (AKA Where The Merlin Scriptwriters Fail High School Physics)
We all remember that Force = Mass x Acceleration. For our purposes this means the force a projectile weapon generates is equal to the mass of the projectile multiplied by how hard the projectile is thrown. As the body mass of the target increases, either the mass of the projectile or how hard it is thrown or both must increase. Let's look at what this means in terms of various targets (rabbits, humans, deer/horses/unicorns, and boars) and various projectiles (rocks, bows, spears).
We'll start with the smallest target, a rabbit, and the weakest projectile, a rock. An older child can kill a rabbit with a thrown rock or stick in an open field or meadow. It's a job often given to children in substistance communities; there's a very good description of the technique in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. A medieval crossbow, like we saw Arthur using in The Gates of Avalon, is a bit of overkill against a rabbit out in the open, but it's useful in deep forest where leaves and twigs might slow down the speed of the projectile.
Now at some point in our lives we've probably all been hit by a thrown rock or stick, either accidently or on purpose. It was probably moving with enough force to kill a rabbit, about the force that Merlin and Cedric were using to hit each other with sticks, but it didn't kill us. Unless the thrower gets very lucky and hits a vital spot, a rock thrown with the force to kill a rabbit is only going to bruise a human, maybe give them a cut if the rock has a sharp edge. Why? Because we have between five and ten times the body mass of a rabbit. That means a projectile that can kill a human with one blow is going to need five to ten times the force of that rock.
So, if you don't get lucky and hit a vital spot, how do you kill a human by just throwing a rock? You throw another rock. You throw a lot more rocks (called "stoning") until you hit something vital or the collective damage kills them. But a healthy human isn't going to stand around and let you do that. A healthy human is either going to run away or fight you. Stoning only works on a weak or injured human, or when a healthy human can be chased down or cornered. The same holds true for other animals. This is what lead to the development of bows and spears.
Not all bows are created equal. For our sakes, we can divide bows into three basic categories, short bows, longbows/recurves, and crossbows.
While a short bow generates more force than a thrown rock, it can kill a human only if it hits a vital organ. It doesn't generate enough force to kill a human if it hits anywhere else (Generations of high school coaches have been grateful for this fact.) But a short bow allows for a rapid rate of fire in the hands of an expert, like you see the Native Americans do in old Loony Tunes cartoons. This creates an effect like stoning.
Longbows/recurves were the medieval equivalent of Colt 45mms. They generate enough force to knock a fist-sized hole through a deer or an unarmored man, and to pierce the armor of an armored man. They will reliably kill something in those size ranges with one blow. But it takes about three times as long for an expert to draw a longbow and fire it as it does for an expert to draw and fire a short bow. (I don't really expect recurves to show up as they were not in Europe at that time period, but hell, Shine might inherit the props from that last Robin Hood series.)
Now let's look at the medieval crossbow that we see used in Merlin. It generated all the force of a short bow but took as long to fire as a longbow. So why did people use it? Because it was easy for non-expert to aim, and new soldiers could be taught to use it relatively quickly.
Think of a crossbow as the medieval equivalent of the "point and shoot" camera. In the hands of an expert a mechanical camera can take much better pictures, but in the hands of the average person a "point and shoot" camera takes better pictures.
Now let's look at the third type of target, a deer/horse/unicorn. They are between two and ten times the size of a human, and they're all muscle. How much effect do you think hitting one of them with a medieval crossbow bolt is going to have? About as much effect as hitting a human with a rock. It'll bruise them, but unless the hunter gets in a very lucky shot it won't kill them with one blow. With it's slow rate of fire you can't hit a deer repeatedly with the same crossbow, because a deer will run away. A deer can outrun a human. A deer with a minor crossbow bolt wound can get away completely. A deer with a serious but not immediately fatal wound can run at full speed continuously for up to two days before dying. It'll die, but that hunter won't be able to find it and eat it if he's on foot. The way
you hunt deer with medieval crossbows is on horseback, so the horses can keep up with the running deer. So when Arthur tries to shoot a deer with a crossbow on foot without another hunter there to help him bring it down as in The Gates of Avalon, I roll my eyes. Even an expert bowman wouldn't be able to do that most of the time. I accept that he's good enough to the kill unicorn in the Labyrinth of Gedreff because it was just standing out in the open, but if it had tried to get away he would have needed backup.
(Yes, I know there are modern hunting crossbows, but those are different from medieval crossbows. I don't know enough about them to say what all the differences are.)
That brings us to our final type of target, boars. Boars are built like tanks and about five to ten times harder to kill than a deer or horse. What sort of projectile weapon can kill a boar with one blow? A high-powered modern rifle or shotgun. Nothing less will do the job.
Spears were used to kill boars, but a thrown spear couldn't generage enough force to kill a boar with one blow. That amount of force would drive a spear through a brick wall. I was howling with laughter when Merlin used magic to kill a boar with a thrown spear, because magic is the only way that would work. The way you use spears to kill a boar with one blow is by gettting the boar to charge a hunter who is bracing a spear, either on the ground or on a horse, and letting the boar impale itself on the spear. It takes an adrenaline junkie with a great deal of strength and nerves of steel to do that; it's what test pilots used to do while waiting for planes to be invented.
And that takes care of the physics of hunting with projectile weapons, at which Merlin fails spectacularly. They're not any better at the tactics and strategy of hunting either, although I don't have time to go into that right now. I hope the series improves at this aspect, but I'm not holding my breath.
Merlin Hunt!Fail: Introduction (Note to Fanon) and Physics 101
Merlin is a family fantasy so I give it a lot of slack. They have yet to get a hunting scene right though, and in The Curse of Cornelius Sigan the hunting scenes went from bad to outright cringe-worthy. Their physics is laughable and their strategy is abysmal. Neverwhere had a better boar-hunting scene, and whenever I have to type "worse than Neverwhere" it's way past time for an intervention.
The only thing worse is fanon hunting scenes, which too often get the entire premise for hunting wrong. I'm not a hunter, but I live among hunters and these scenes have become increasingly painful to watch and read. So, in the interest of my own sanity if for no other reason, here are some notes on How Not To Hunt and Why. These cover the premise and the physics of hunting. I hope I don't have to write a seperate meta on strategy.
Introduction (Note to Fanon)
So why are these guys out here hunting anyway? Some fanon writers don't seem to understand why, and portray Merlin as against the activity. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there were numerous secondary reasons to hunt, the primary reason was pest control. The communities within Camelot and it's surrounding kingdoms were isolated islands of people surrounded by a sea of wilderness. The animals who lived in that wilderness considered the crops the people planted as free all-you-can eat buffets. To a farmboy like Merlin they wouldn't be seen as cute, fluffy animals, but as competition if he was in a good mood and vermin if he was in a bad mood. Domestic animals like dogs, cats, and poultry could handle the smaller garden bandits like mice and rats, but it took humans to kill the larger garden bandits like rabbits and deer. If people didn't kill the wild animals that ate their crops, one of two things would happen: either the wild animals would eat all their crops and the people would starve to death the following winter, or predators like wolves and snakes would be attracted to the animals eating the human crops and snack on humans as well.
A peasant like Merlin isn't going to object to nobles hunting in general, although he might well object to the particular techniques used -- Camelot's hunting tactics stink. If farmers hunted that badly they'd have no time to do anything else. The other objection Merlin might raise is dietary.
Medieval peasants, like most subsistance farmers and hunter/gatherers, usually only ate meat once a week -- this is where the phrase "chicken on Sunday" originally came from. The rest of the week they ate eggs, cheese, leftover meat, and meat substitutes. Their diet consisted largely of salads and "savory puddings" -- basically a salad dumped in a pot with eggs, milk or water, and whatever the local grain is, and cooked to a thick mush. There were two exceptions. One was winter when they ate a lot of stored meat, because meat stored better than plant matter in the days before canning and freezing. The other exception was for invalids and pregnant women, who needed extra protein. Doctor were writing sick patients prescriptions for chicken broth and beef broth into the early 20th Century. A pregnant woman in medieval Britain could by common law demand a share of any food anyone had to satisfy her "cravings". If they refused to give it to her and her child miscarried or was born with any birth defects, she could hold them legally accountable in court.
In contrast, soldiers, Knights, and the High Table ate meat at least once a day for the same reason modern bodybuilders quaff protein drinks -- they needed the extra protein to bulk up their muscle mass. (Ancient doctors lacked modern equipment, but there was nothing wrong with their basic observational skills.) This is the most probable derivation for the colloquiel medieval term for elite soldiers, "Beefeaters". Knights hunted not only to build up their skills, but to compensate for the strain they placed on the royal larder. So while Merlin wouldn't object to hunting per se, he might object to the meat-rich diet the knights ate and how much hunting they had to do in order to support it.
Physics 101: Not Every Projectile Weapon Will Kill Every Creature With a Single Blow (AKA Where The Merlin Scriptwriters Fail High School Physics)
We all remember that Force = Mass x Acceleration. For our purposes this means the force a projectile weapon generates is equal to the mass of the projectile multiplied by how hard the projectile is thrown. As the body mass of the target increases, either the mass of the projectile or how hard it is thrown or both must increase. Let's look at what this means in terms of various targets (rabbits, humans, deer/horses/unicorns, and boars) and various projectiles (rocks, bows, spears).
We'll start with the smallest target, a rabbit, and the weakest projectile, a rock. An older child can kill a rabbit with a thrown rock or stick in an open field or meadow. It's a job often given to children in substistance communities; there's a very good description of the technique in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. A medieval crossbow, like we saw Arthur using in The Gates of Avalon, is a bit of overkill against a rabbit out in the open, but it's useful in deep forest where leaves and twigs might slow down the speed of the projectile.
Now at some point in our lives we've probably all been hit by a thrown rock or stick, either accidently or on purpose. It was probably moving with enough force to kill a rabbit, about the force that Merlin and Cedric were using to hit each other with sticks, but it didn't kill us. Unless the thrower gets very lucky and hits a vital spot, a rock thrown with the force to kill a rabbit is only going to bruise a human, maybe give them a cut if the rock has a sharp edge. Why? Because we have between five and ten times the body mass of a rabbit. That means a projectile that can kill a human with one blow is going to need five to ten times the force of that rock.
So, if you don't get lucky and hit a vital spot, how do you kill a human by just throwing a rock? You throw another rock. You throw a lot more rocks (called "stoning") until you hit something vital or the collective damage kills them. But a healthy human isn't going to stand around and let you do that. A healthy human is either going to run away or fight you. Stoning only works on a weak or injured human, or when a healthy human can be chased down or cornered. The same holds true for other animals. This is what lead to the development of bows and spears.
Not all bows are created equal. For our sakes, we can divide bows into three basic categories, short bows, longbows/recurves, and crossbows.
While a short bow generates more force than a thrown rock, it can kill a human only if it hits a vital organ. It doesn't generate enough force to kill a human if it hits anywhere else (Generations of high school coaches have been grateful for this fact.) But a short bow allows for a rapid rate of fire in the hands of an expert, like you see the Native Americans do in old Loony Tunes cartoons. This creates an effect like stoning.
Longbows/recurves were the medieval equivalent of Colt 45mms. They generate enough force to knock a fist-sized hole through a deer or an unarmored man, and to pierce the armor of an armored man. They will reliably kill something in those size ranges with one blow. But it takes about three times as long for an expert to draw a longbow and fire it as it does for an expert to draw and fire a short bow. (I don't really expect recurves to show up as they were not in Europe at that time period, but hell, Shine might inherit the props from that last Robin Hood series.)
Now let's look at the medieval crossbow that we see used in Merlin. It generated all the force of a short bow but took as long to fire as a longbow. So why did people use it? Because it was easy for non-expert to aim, and new soldiers could be taught to use it relatively quickly.
Think of a crossbow as the medieval equivalent of the "point and shoot" camera. In the hands of an expert a mechanical camera can take much better pictures, but in the hands of the average person a "point and shoot" camera takes better pictures.
Now let's look at the third type of target, a deer/horse/unicorn. They are between two and ten times the size of a human, and they're all muscle. How much effect do you think hitting one of them with a medieval crossbow bolt is going to have? About as much effect as hitting a human with a rock. It'll bruise them, but unless the hunter gets in a very lucky shot it won't kill them with one blow. With it's slow rate of fire you can't hit a deer repeatedly with the same crossbow, because a deer will run away. A deer can outrun a human. A deer with a minor crossbow bolt wound can get away completely. A deer with a serious but not immediately fatal wound can run at full speed continuously for up to two days before dying. It'll die, but that hunter won't be able to find it and eat it if he's on foot. The way
you hunt deer with medieval crossbows is on horseback, so the horses can keep up with the running deer. So when Arthur tries to shoot a deer with a crossbow on foot without another hunter there to help him bring it down as in The Gates of Avalon, I roll my eyes. Even an expert bowman wouldn't be able to do that most of the time. I accept that he's good enough to the kill unicorn in the Labyrinth of Gedreff because it was just standing out in the open, but if it had tried to get away he would have needed backup.
(Yes, I know there are modern hunting crossbows, but those are different from medieval crossbows. I don't know enough about them to say what all the differences are.)
That brings us to our final type of target, boars. Boars are built like tanks and about five to ten times harder to kill than a deer or horse. What sort of projectile weapon can kill a boar with one blow? A high-powered modern rifle or shotgun. Nothing less will do the job.
Spears were used to kill boars, but a thrown spear couldn't generage enough force to kill a boar with one blow. That amount of force would drive a spear through a brick wall. I was howling with laughter when Merlin used magic to kill a boar with a thrown spear, because magic is the only way that would work. The way you use spears to kill a boar with one blow is by gettting the boar to charge a hunter who is bracing a spear, either on the ground or on a horse, and letting the boar impale itself on the spear. It takes an adrenaline junkie with a great deal of strength and nerves of steel to do that; it's what test pilots used to do while waiting for planes to be invented.
And that takes care of the physics of hunting with projectile weapons, at which Merlin fails spectacularly. They're not any better at the tactics and strategy of hunting either, although I don't have time to go into that right now. I hope the series improves at this aspect, but I'm not holding my breath.