History Main / ArrowsOnFire

* In DCNation's take on BlackestNight, Connor Hawke rigs up a truck-mounted ''hwacha'' (Korean siege weapon that can shoot dozens of flaming arrows at a time) out of hardware store parts and uses a few volleys of them on invading Black Lanterns while Green Shield DrivesLikeCrazy down Highway 101.

* AquaTeenHungerForce: A gun store billboard that [[KindOfLooksLikeAFace people claim shows the visage of]] [[UnusualEuphemism "Gee Whiz"]] shoots flaming arrows at those who offend it. Turns out it's [[spoiler: TedNugent]]

* These are alluded to (but not shown) in the second book of Tamora Pierce's ''[[TortallUniverse Protector of the Small]]'' series, exciting the trainees enough to make them improve with regular arrows. The trainer also points out that fire arrows fly differently from regular ones, which is why they have to get better before he will let them try them.

{{Molotov Cocktail}}s are arguably the modern counterpart, though tracers can fit the "frighten enemies" and "adjusting the shot" parts.

{{Molotov Cocktail}}s are arguably the modern counterpart, though tracers can fit the frighten enemies and adjusting the shot parts.

In real life, flaming arrows were seen on medieval battlefields, though to get them to burn reliably one had to wrap them in flammable material and light them first, making them heavier and reducing their range. Also, wrapping a cloth around the pointy bit of your arrow might affect its ability to, you know, ''kill people''; wrapping the cloth behind the arrowhead, as was mostly done in real life, would allow it to penetrate a target.

* ''[[MichaelCrichton Timeline]]'' - Used straight, then subverted: "Fire the Night Arrows."

* Subverted in ''{{Troy}}'', where the Trojans use flaming arrows to set wooden boats on fire, then return to using conventional arrows to kill people. Also subverted in the actual Iliad, for the same reason -- they also used firebrands.

* King Arthur's troops made use of these in ''FirstKnight.'' Interestingly, the arrows appeared to use something like magnesium as the flammable agent, which, at least, [[RuleOfCool looked cool.]]
* The Allied soldiers in ''RedCliff'' use flaming arrows to complement their more creative ways of using fire in the ultimate battle. Both sides mostly use a regular RainOfArrows, though.
* ''[[Franchise/EvilDead Army of Darkness]]'' - Ash equipped his soldiers with gunpowder arrows.
* ''TheLastSamurai'', during the final battle.

* In ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' series you can occasionally obtain fire arrows for your bow...as well as ice arrows that freeze enemies, light arrows that beat enemies in one hit, and, ahem, ''[[TrickArrow bomb arrows]]''. Most arrows are implied to be magical, but you can still set regular arrows on fire by shooting them trough burning torches. ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' gives fire arrows to Bulblins (and their twilight counterparts), which typically do [[AnnoyingArrows minimal damage]] and can be swatted out of the air with your sword. If you're wearing the Zora armor, however, they do a massive six times normal damage. Out of combat, Fire Arrows were used on two separate occasions to trap you on a bridge coated with oil.

* In the ''Zelda'' series you can occasionally obtain fire arrows for your bow...as well as ice arrows that freeze enemies, light arrows that beat enemies in one hit, and, ahem, ''[[TrickArrow bomb arrows]]''. Most arrows are implied to be magical, but you can still set regular arrows on fire by shooting them trough burning torches. ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' gives fire arrows to Bulblins (and their twilight counterparts), which typically do [[AnnoyingArrows minimal damage]] and can be swatted out of the air with your sword. If you're wearing the Zora armor, however, they do a massive six times normal damage. Out of combat, Fire Arrows were used on two separate occasions to trap you on a bridge coated with oil.

* ''TheZombieSurvivalGuide'' lists this as one of the more effective ways of dealing with zombies, as the mindless walking cadavers will not think to simply pull the arrows out.

* In the ''Zelda'' series you can occasionally obtain fire arrows for your bow...as well as ice arrows that freeze enemies, light arrows that beat enemies in one hit, and, ahem, ''[[TrickArrow bomb arrows]]''. Most arrows are implied to be magical, but you can still set regular arrows on fire by shooting them trough burning torches.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' gives fire arrows to Bulblins (and their twilight counterparts), which typically do [[AnnoyingArrows minimal damage]] and can be swatted out of the air with your sword. If you're wearing the Zora armor, however, they do a massive six times normal damage. Out of combat, Fire Arrows were used on two separate occasions to trap you on a bridge coated with oil.
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'' and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks'' you can set your {{boomerang}} on fire by throwing it through a torch. No explanation of how Link manages to catch it safely...

* The ''VideoGame/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAsPortable: The Battle of Aces'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNUgZ-NBNc version]] of Signum's Sturmfalke, which coats the arrow in flames before Signum fires it.

* ''{{Thief}}'' allowed you to purchase fire arrows. The arrows didn't actually burn (but rather had magical glowing crystals on them instead), and they exploded violently when they hit something. In a stealth game like ''Thief'', though, [[AwesomeButImpractical a weapon that makes a loud explosion isn't very practical (unless you're planning on using it as a distraction.)]] They are, however, the only weapons (save holy water and, in Deadly Shadows, flash bombs and land mines) that can kill zombies. They can also [[MundaneUtility relight torches]]. The games also include three other elemental arrows as well.

* In ''Rome: Total War'' and ''Medieval II: Total War'' archers can be told to light their arrows on fire. However, due to the ''TotalWar'' series being more of a realistic tactical simulator and less of your usual real-time strategy fare, flaming arrows in this game are less accurate and, on the whole, less damaging and take a lot longer to reload. The entire point of firing them is the psychological punch, as they deplete enemy morale like mad, often sending fearless spearmen running within a few volleys. Flaming catapult ammunition, on the other hand, is much more destructive (and utterly ruinous to morale), but again less accurate and slower to reload. Setting any projectile on fire also eats through the ammunition supply more quickly, so a unit of archers firing flaming arrows will probably only get off half the shots of their non-flaming counterparts over the course of a battle.\\

* In the ''[[HalfLife Half-Life 2]]'' mod ''Fistful of Frags,'' you can get flaming arrows for the bow weapon. They either light people on fire, or light an area on fire. For a few frags more, you can get dynamite arrows. The regular arrows do a lot of damage, and are pretty good; the fire arrows, being a little hard to use, are kinda bad; the dynamite arrows--well, the result of using those is just ugly.

-->-- '''JossWhedon'''

* In {{Warhammer}}, the Bretonnian archers may be equipped with braziers to provide them Flaming Arrows.

* The ''Warhammer Fantasy'' video game ''[[WarhammerMarkOfChaos Mark of Chaos]]'' allowed elven archers to use fire arrows (slower firing rate as a drawback). These wreaked havoc among the enemy's morale, which is probably the most tactical goal to achieve - probably more than killing every single enemy soldier.

-->'''JossWhedon''': ... And the students shooting flaming arrows, because, well ... you gotta' have flaming arrows ...

* Done in ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''. The night before the battle of Falkirk, Wallace's soldiers had coated the ground under the English army with pitch. He then used archers with lit arrows to light it and set many of the English troops on fire. How he knew ''exactly'' where they would be standing is another question. Other questions are why the English did not notice that the ground they were standing on was soaked with pitch and where did they get that large of a quantity of pitch? [[hottip:*:It was obviously a [[JustForPun pitched battle]].]]

* The crossbow-wielding enemies in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' shoot flaming arrows, though this doesn't seem to do anything to enhance their lethality.[[hottip:*:Although, the game doesn't have any non-flaming arrows to compare them to...]] Most likely the reason for the fire effect is to help the player spot the crossbowman at a distance rather than any in-universe justification.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' - ''Detective Comics'' #828 has the recently reformed Riddler taking a bow and arrow from a museum exhibit, wrapping his trademark question-mark tie around it, lighting it with a cigarette lighter, and shooting it into a murderer that wears coconut-fiber armor (don't ask). Riddler then proceeds to ring the museum's alarm, and [[GoodIsNotNice proceeds to taunt the burning man by holding a fire extinguisher in front of him, but refusing to douse the flames]]. Batman extinguishes the man anyway, though.

* ''{{Terraria}}'' allows you both to craft flaming arrows by combining a torch with a few normal arrows, as well as craft a Molten Bow that makes normal arrows fired by it flaming arrows instead. Either way the weapon deals a bit of extra damage and has a fairly high chance to set enemies on fire, something that's quite practical as it makes monsters light up in the dark and be very visible targets no matter ambient lighting (hint: at any point of the game where flaming arrows are relevant this usually means no lighting at all).

* In Robert Asprin's ''[[MythAdventures Myth Conceptions]]'', the hero manages this by performing his most basic magic trick (lighting a candle by concentrating on a single point) and having his ally fire his arrows through that point. A little later when he gets ticked off, the archer asks him to calm down since his anger is almost burning up the arrows before they can hit their targets.

* ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'' - ''Detective Comics'' #828 has the recently reformed Riddler taking a bow and arrow from a museum exhibit, wrapping his trademark question-mark tie around it, lighting it with a cigarette lighter, and shooting it into a murderer that wears coconut-fiber armor (don't ask). Riddler then proceeds to ring the museum's alarm, and [[GoodIsNotNice proceeds to taunt the burning man by holding a fire extinguisher in front of him, but refusing to douse the flames]]. Batman extinguishes the man anyway, though.