No archers in GoT ?

[robasp2]

I have been wanting to ask this for a long time.

The GoT world does not have a single archer who is a main character.

Archery is used only on the wall and north of the wall. The kings and queens across the world only have swordsmen and ones with pikes or daggers.

Ygritte and that dude in Brotherhood without banners :p were the only two archers even worth noticing.

Many of the battles would have been very exciting if the showed more archers and arrows. I would have loved a main character who was a "full time" archer.

Instead arrows always fly in the background.

Why is it so? Did GRRM not write any or D&D did not cast any?

[Lordi Nietos]

Theon is an archer. Bloodraven was an archer before he became a tree.

Archery is more popular in Dorne, though Oberyn favoured the spear. His bastard Sarella is an archer, though we haven't seen her in the series. Can't think of anyone else who's primarily an archer down south.

[piotes]

No, archery is favored in the Dornish Marches, the place that oposses Dorne

[pettes]

Grrm had many archers but mostly men at arms. In the show bran is learning archerry with robb and jon in the first episode.

[robasp2]

Sadly nothing ever continued past Season 1.

Arya hit the bulls eye mark in Episode 1, yet after that all they showed was her needle.

Hmm, so you saying the books also have no main archer character?

(By main, I mean Legolas main in Lord of the rings.. Damn I would have loved such a character in GoT)

[Lord Foreshadow]

My favorite tale of archery in the books is Bloodraven, who used a bow he fashioned from a branch cut from the weirwood tree at Winterfell. Even though he wields Dark Sister, he prefers his weirwood bow, and he leads a band of archers called The Raven's Teeth. We don't see this in the show though, nor do we see most of George's best archer characters.

In the show...

-Ygritte could put a shaft through a rabbit's eye at 200 yards. Using only her bow, she is tied with Tormund for fourth deadliest character in the whole series. The only people who we see kill more than her are Bronn, the Hound, and Jon.

-Anguy from the Brotherhood is probably the most skilled of all.

-Meera Reed is an expert and has dragonglass arrowheads given to her by Samwell.

-Theon puts a shaft through Stiv when he holds Bran at knifepoint.

-Ramsay shot arrows through the backs of his comrades when pretending to be Theon's friend.

-Blackfish shoots the arrow to set fire to the boat holding Hoster Tully's body.

-Bronn shoots the arrow to set fire to the ship in the battle of Blackwater Bay.

-Arya was good already but also receives further training from Anguy.

-Mag the Mighty, last king of the giants, wields a huge bow that shoots arrows big as lances.

-Joffrey puts several crossbow bolts into Ros.

-Tyrion uses the same crossbow to kill Tywin.

-Olly is the best archer in his village.

-Jon puts an arrow through Mance's heart before he burns to death.

That's about all I can think of for named characters wielding bows on the show.

[Travy1991]

My favorite tale of archery in the books is Bloodraven, who used a bow he fashioned from a branch cut from the weirwood tree at Winterfell. Even though he wields Dark Sister, he prefers his weirwood bow, and he leads a band of archers called The Raven's Teeth. We don't see this in the show though, nor do we see most of George's best archer characters.

In the show...

-Ygritte could put a shaft through a rabbit's eye at 200 yards. Using only her bow, she is tied with Tormund for fourth deadliest character in the whole series. The only people who we see kill more than her are Bronn, the Hound, and Jon.

-Anguy from the Brotherhood is probably the most skilled of all.

-Meera Reed is an expert and has dragonglass arrowheads given to her by Samwell.

-Theon puts a shaft through Stiv when he holds Bran at knifepoint.

-Ramsay shot arrows through the backs of his comrades when pretending to be Theon's friend.

-Blackfish shoots the arrow to set fire to the boat holding Hoster Tully's body.

-Bronn shoots the arrow to set fire to the ship in the battle of Blackwater Bay.

-Arya was good already but also receives further training from Anguy.

-Mag the Mighty, last king of the giants, wields a huge bow that shoots arrows big as lances.

-Joffrey puts several crossbow bolts into Ros.

-Tyrion uses the same crossbow to kill Tywin.

-Olly is the best archer in his village.

-Jon puts an arrow through Mance's heart before he burns to death.

That's about all I can think of for named characters wielding bows on the show.

THIS to all of the above! There's no shortage of archery in the series (let's not also forget Coldplay shooting up Starks at the Red Wedding with their crossbows).

[The King Of Cooked Steak]

Were there any really talented archers on page in the books? I remember Anguy and Theon (though the show doesn't really make it apparent). Nobody else aside maybe from a passing mention about characters just being decent archers (Brynden Tully e.g.). If anything the show has added more. Ygritte is said and shown to be a great archer in the show and she's a main character. Meera if you count her too. Plus all the instances of good archery Lord Foreshadow mentioned above.

[Primalsplit]

You forgot edmure, the best archer of riverlands. :lol:

I think the point is, archery is looked down by westerosi nobility in general, at least among the southron ones. So it makes sense there aren't many archers as main characters.

[SayGen]

I think swordplay is more entertaining. You can have 2 forces on the screen battling back and forth. It's very symbolic and theatrical.

I do think archery is kool though, and perhaps a little more from Got would be nice, but I'm not missing an archer based character.

[Lord Foreshadow]

Were there any really talented archers on page in the books?

Most of the archers in the books go unnamed, but there are a huge number of them. Every battle ever described seems to have them around - a thousand here, three thousand there, hiding behind every crenel and slit, every five feet on every battlement or hiding in the trees. Offhand comments are made by characters described as red haired archers or fat archers, etc. I did try to find the archers that are named in the books though, aside from those I mentioned earlier...

-Khal Drogo is described as a "demon archer" on horseback. Daenerys received a bridegift of a dragonbone bow, and she gave it Drogo. Actually, all 40,000 warriors of his khalasar could fight as archers on horseback, shooting equally well in charge or retreat. After Drogo's death, she named Aggo as her ko, and awards him with the dragonbone bow.

-Ser Balon Swann and Jalabhar Xho placed second and third in the archery competition of the Hand's tourney, behind Anguy.

-Morrec and Lharys, who helped Catelyn escort Tyrion to the Eyrie, were good archers.

-Fletcher Dick of the Kingswood Brotherhood was supposedly the best archer ever.

-Ulmer, the last surviving member of the Kingswood Brotherhood, now serving in the Night's Watch, bragged that he shot an arrow through the hand of Gerold Hightower, then the Lord Commander of the King's Guard, and that for it he won the kiss of a Dornish princess - presumably Elia Martel. He was the one of the survivors of the Great Ranging, bent the knee to Jon upon his election, and then Jon had him begin daily archery lessons for all the Night's Watch. Jon so liked his stories that he tells Samwell to record them all in a book while he is away in Oldtown.

-Satin was a good shot with a crossbow in the battle against the wildlings.

-Xanda Qo was a former slave who became a warrior princess who ended slavery on the Summer Isles. She invented the bows of goldenheart that the Summer Islanders wield, able to pierce even good steel plate.

-Chatana Qo was Xanda's daughter, known as the Arrow of Jhahar, also a warrior princess.

-Kojja Mo captains the Cinnamon Wind's red archers and is an expert marksman with her double-curved goldenheart bow.

-The Rhoynish archers commanded by Prince Garin the Great actually managed to kill two dragons in the Second Spice War, and sent a third away wounded and afraid.

-Golden-haired Lewis Lanster is the Windblown company's best archer.

-Black Balaq commanded a thousand archers in the Golden Company.

-Daena the Defiant was a fine hunter and archer with a short recurve bow.

-Robar Royce forged an alliance with Longbow Hall by outshooting Lord Hunter in an archery contest (though legend claims that Robar cheated).

-Foss the Archer was renowned for shooting apples off the head of any maid who took his fancy.

-Red Robb Rivers, known as the Bowman of Raventree, took down a dozen ravens on the wing to prevent alerting reinforcements for Lord Lefford at the Battle by the Lakeshore.

-Billy Burley took up a position beyond the range of a dying dragon’s fires and sent three shafts into her eye as she lay helpless on the ground.

-Koss and Kurz were poachers who had been caught and sent to the Wall with Yoren who fought with longbows.

-The children of the forest wielded weirwood bows, like Bloodraven.

Granted, some are only mentioned and not seen. There are probably others that I'm forgetting. One thing that I'd actually really like to read is a firsthand perspective of the Summer Isles. They seem to have a highly ritualized culture based around their archery - like they never use their goldenheart bows against each other, reserving their arrows for enemies from foreign lands.

I may be mistaken in my earlier post about where the weirwood branch that made Bloodraven's bow came from. We know a pale youth long ago climbed the Winterfell tree and cut three branches from it, but those were fashioned into arrows, not a bow. His bow may have come from some other weirwood tree. I wonder if weirwood arrows are special somehow...

In terms of bow quality... it seems Dragonbone > Goldenheart > Yew. It never says where weirwood bows fit into that progression, or why someone like Bloodraven would prefer a bow of that material. I'm rather curious if they have any special properties. Bloodraven, being a very powerful person, surely he could have gotten a dragonbone bow if he wanted one. Why a weirwood bow instead?

[robasp2]

Most of the archers in the books go unnamed, but there are a huge number of them. Every battle ever described seems to have them around - a thousand here, three thousand there, hiding behind every crenel and slit, every five feet on every battlement or hiding in the trees. Offhand comments are made by characters described as red haired archers or fat archers, etc. I did try to find the archers that are named in the books though, aside from those I mentioned earlier...

-Khal Drogo is described as a "demon archer" on horseback. Daenerys received a bridegift of a dragonbone bow, and she gave it Drogo. Actually, all 40,000 warriors of his khalasar could fight as archers on horseback

Wow. That is a lot of info !

I feel quite sad all this was not converted to TV.

Dithraki with arrows on horseback would have been epic.

Basically if you look at any army in the book you wont see any archers. Even if they do show them its for a second, in thr background.

From your post I understand that D&D are the culprits

[robasp2]

THIS to all of the above! There's no shortage of archery in the series (let's not also forget Coldplay shooting up Starks at the Red Wedding with their crossbows).

Still no major character. All mentions are one time instances

Bron shot an arrow once & never again.

Arya shot an arrow once & never again.

I loved it when they gave focus to Ygritte, but she was a wildling, north of the wall. No character south ever got major focus. All we see were swords clashing.

[FreeParking]

Still no major character. All mentions are one time instances

Bron shot an arrow once & never again.

Arya shot an arrow once & never again.

I loved it when they gave focus to Ygritte, but she was a wildling, north of the wall. No character south ever got major focus. All we see were swords clashing.

But Ygritte was a major character. I feel like if the Blackfish was constantly shown as being an archer you would claim that only Tullies are being shown as being archers. North or south of the Wall, it feels like an arbitrary distinction to me.

[Lord Foreshadow]

Still no major character. All mentions are one time instances

Ygritte and Meera surely count as major characters at least. I think Meera has some really interesting possibilities in upcoming seasons and books. I mean, she is an expert marksman, has dragonglass arrowheads, and she's hanging out under a tree with Bloodraven, former leader of the most infamous company of archers in recent history. He presumably still has his weirwood bow that he can't use any longer, which could be passed on to Meera.

I was looking a bit more into the use of weirwoood bows. It seems that Bloodraven wasn't the only human who used a weirwood bow. All three hundred of the Raven's Teeth that Bloodraven commanded wielded wierwood bows. Other than the Raven's Teeth and the children of the forest, I can't find any other people using weirwood for their bows. Some speculate that it wasn't Bloodraven at all who made those weirwood arrows from the Winterfell tree, but rather that it was possibly the bastard brother of Torrhen Stark, the King who Knelt, who was named Brandon Snow and was sent on a mission to kill three dragons. He arrived at a parley with three maesters and presented his plan to assassinate the dragons. Somehow he failed, and Torrhen bent the knee to Aegon, but little else is know.

Three maesters, three arrows, three dragons - and a bastard Stark at the center of it all. The field is ripe with material for new theories.