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The Straight Arrow is watching you...
"See him riding 'cross the plain
See how everybody fears his name
He's working for the good in
The mountains and the wood
Protector of the lame
Straight arrow is his name"
— Spirit, "Straight Arrow"
A sub-trope of Weapon Of Choice.
The bow is one of the oldest weapons in the world, an ingenious device that launches deadly barbs at a target from a safe distance. Archers have come in a wide variety of styles throughout history. Bows are often seen as a traditional weapon of the hunt, but many societies over the years have placed a special significance on the bow's application in war.
Depending on the culture, bows can be considered a weapon of style, finesse, and grace, but also of weakness, treachery, and cowardice. An archer might be a calm, analytical, and cunning warrior, but he can also be a craven who would rather shoot from the shadows than face his enemies with courage and the strength of his swordarm. Skill in archery might be considered necessary for any self-respecting warrior in some societies, while in others it might signal an unwillingness to engage in an honorable contest. One man's coward is another man's Combat Pragmatist.
Archers are often characterized as calm, self-possessed and analytical. Since they are removed from the raging melee of close combat, they must keep their focus and not let adrenaline upset their aim. In High Fantasy, elves usually share these traits, and are nearly always depicted as excellent archers.
Due to the importance placed on them in a story, Straight Arrows usually receive a fair share of respect for their skills. In ancient settings, Straight Arrows can pepper their enemies with arrows before they ever reach sword range. In modern settings, a Straight Arrow is often a part of an ancient and noble warrior tradition, forsaking the newfangled vulgarity of firearms.
If part of a fighting team, the Straight Arrow is usually less physically strong and robust than their teammates because of the erroneous perception that archery relies more on grace than the brute strength required to hack and slash. In reality, the draw of most warbows can range from 60 to 150 lbs, requiring significant strength throughout the body to use effectively. This misconception often leads to The Chick getting stuck with a bow as a slightly more proactive take on the Staff Chick. This also has the benefit of keeping the delicate female safely out of the bone-crunching melee.
It is interesting how many traits of the Straight Arrow have been transferred to the Cold Sniper in modern settings.
Contrast the hilarious randomness of the Trick Arrow. For added irony, check out No Arc In Archery. See also Annoying Arrows.
Examples:
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- Uryu Ishida, and the entire Quincy race, from Bleach. In a series chock-full of melee weapons, they are ranged and highly analytical fighters in part by necessity: because they cannot separate from their physical bodies like the Shinigami, the Quincies must be much more careful about taking damage in battle.
- Fuu Houiji in Magic Knight Rayearth, before the Magic Knights' weapons were all upgraded to identical swords. She was alrady a trained archer before the series started.
- Michelle from the Read or Die series uses a paper bow-and-arrows as her signature weapon. Despite not being that calm or collected, and especially not analytical.
- Touma Hashiba/Rowen, The Smart Guy from Ronin Warriors, has a particularly badass-looking longbow.
- Yukariko Sanada/Steinberg from Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome.
- Rei/Sailor Mars of Sailor Moon gains a bow and arrow made of flames in the fourth season. She's a calm, mystical miko, rather than the typical temperamental fire warrior (in the manga at least, the anime makes her more Hot Blooded), although she occasionally made bids for the leadership (losing out to The Fool, at that).
- Mew Mint from Tokyo Mew Mew has a tiny bow and arrow covered in hearts. In the manga, it was an undetailed longbow, but this was changed out to its anime counterpart later on, along with the other weapons, because Ikumi Mia liked them better. Minto is a dainty ojou with a surprising fangirl side, and Mew Mint fights mostly from the air, so it fits either way.
- Yes! Pretty Cure 5's Cure Aqua, Pretty Cure of Intelligence, gained the "Sapphire Arrow" attack near the start of the second season, giving her a bow made of water which lets her shoot what are apparently ice arrows.
- Kikyou and later Kagome Higurashi from Inuyasha. Kikyou's condition as the main one is remarked in the anime, where Kagome is temporarily stuck in a Lotus Eater Machine where Inuyasha and the others didn't exist, and Kikyou's real world counterpart was her schoolmate and the captain of the school's archery team
- In G Gundam, the main weapon of Rain Mikamura's Rising Gundam is a heat naginata that can be turned into a bow.
- In Card Captor Sakura, Yukito Tsukishiro and Yukito's alter-ego Yue and Kaho Mizuki. There's also a Clow card named The Arrow.
- In XXX Holic, Doumeki Shizuka lives in a Shinto shrine and is a star of the school archery team. Not too surprisingly, he turns out to have the power to exorcise evil spirits with his bow.
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Lady of War Signum's Laevatein can combine with its sheath to reveal its other form, a Bow that fires arrows that can shatter a Humongous Mecha's Deflector Shields in one shot. Note, however, that Signum is one of the physically strongest members of the team, and she's more likely to close in on her enemies to slice them to pieces.
- But of course she's got to have this. She is after all, an Expy of the
above below Angelg's pilot, a magnificent one at that. So that adds up their similarities.
- Koihime Musou's Kouchuu, being a Hot Shounen Mom Expy of Huang Zhong, comes with a bow and can shoot a straight arrow that stuns birds by purposely missing their head. And no, those enormous melons of hers do not hinder her bow skills.
- Averted and then played straight in Ikki Tousen, where the Huang Zhong Expy Kouchuu Kanshou... does not come with a bow, but is a Bare Fisted Monk with Super Strength instead. The loli Expy of Dian Wei, Ten'i, comes with a huge bow that she carries in a huge double bass case and gets to use it dangerously well.
- The Sagittarius Cloth in Saint Seiya, naturally, comes with a bow and arrow. Its arrival typically heralds the Big Bad's destruction, even as the until-then Hot Blooded Seiya calmly and methodically draws the arrow upon the foe, who never tries to dodge. There's also a small subversion: the original owner of the cloth (Aioros) did not get a chance to use said arrows unless you count the time when the cloth fired them of its own will during its Secret Test Of Character in the Sanctuary arc.
- The Sagitta Silver Saint (as in, the Arrow constellation as opposed to Sagittarius' Archer constellation) can shoot golden arrows made of Cosmo... and includes a more solid one that hits poor Athena directly in the chest. The entirety of the Twelve Houses segment of the Sanctuary Arc is then spent reaching the top of Sanctuary before the arrow reaches her heart.
- Chikane Himemiya of Kannazuki No Miko is part of the archery club and is pretty handy with a bow, but when she wants to use it, she's against someone supernatural that her bows almost had no effect. When she corrupts Souma's mech, it suddenly gains a bow.
- Although she only wielded bow and arrow twice in the manga, Akane Tendou from Ranma 1/2 proved herself an excellent shot with it making a perfect mark on Ranma (a fast-moving, erratic target under the trance of the Cat-Fist) with an arrow weighed down with several kilos of catnip in a sack attached to the head.
- Hikaru uses a bow in the first half of Otogi Zoshi.
- In Axis Powers Hetalia, as a young nation England is represented in some sketches as an archer. Justified Trope because of the Robin Hood myth and the famous medieval English archers.
- In Pokemon Special, many trainers have interesting ways to launch their Pokeballs rather than just throwing them. Erika sometimes puts her Pokeballs on her arrows before shooting them.
- Archers in The DCU come in a wide variety of flavors. Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) and Speedy (or Arsenal or Red Arrow or whatever they're calling him now) are both charming rogues. The crossbow-wielding Huntress is an Anti Hero. Speedy II (Mia Dearden) is a more typical calm, level-headed example.
- Marvel Comics has a number of archer characters as well:
- Hawkeye is an arrogant ace. He notably averts the 'lower strength' trope, observing in at least one unarmed brawl how all the years of archery have paid off in terms of upper body strength and on another occasion disparaging a villain who's gotten his hands on his bow and can't even draw the string back far enough to use it.
- Kate Bishop (the Hawkeye from Young Avengers) is a more typical example of a calm, level-headed archer.
- Strongbow (obviously) and Nightfall in Elf Quest, both of whom are fairly bold and not particularly weak.
- Abigail Whistler of Blade: Trinity.
- Melina Havelock in For Your Eyes Only is a crossbow user.
- In Musa (aka The Warrior) Jin-lip, the veteran sergeant of the envoy, uses a bow to deadly effect. Jin-lip is the most competent member of the envoy and its de facto leader. He subverts an archer's typical behavior in one scene where he inspires his unit to attack by being the first one to charge toward the enemy, firing arrows all the way.
- Rutger Hauer's character in Ladyhawke uses a double crossbow as one of his two signature weapons.
- Legolas in the film adaptations of The Lord Of The Rings has an incredible rate of fire with his arrows.
- Susan Pevensie, and later her little sister Lucy, of CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia used bows in battle, in contrast to their brothers, who used swords. Later when Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole turned up, Eustace was trained with a sword and Jill got a bow and arrows.
- Note that in The Silver Chair Jill got a dagger while Eustace got the bow and arrows; she got her own archery set only in The Last Battle. Same goes to Lucy, who originally received a dagger too and only became a Straight Arrow after growing into Queen Lucy the Valiant. Susan got to use her bow and arrows since the very beginning because she was already trained as an archer before reaching Narnia.
- Robin Hood is a legendary archer. One of the most famous scenes involves him beating a rival's bull's eye shot by splitting the arrow down the middle with his own shot, winning the competition.
- J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings features a few examples:
- Legolas, of the Fellowship of the Ring, wields a bow as his primary weapon. His skills are significantly boosted in the films.
- Beleg from Tolkien's Silmarillion favors his bow and is an excellent archer, but also quite skilled in close combat as well.
- Bard the Bowman of The Hobbit is a rare example of the dragon-slaying hero using a bow.
- Yeoman from the Wild Cards novels.
- Talia in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series fights (when she has to) with a bow and a knife. All Heralds are required to learn archery, in part because there's a secret Herald code language that can be written on the arrows.
- Thomas of Hookton in Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest is an unusual example. He is skilled as an archer and incompetent with a sword, but he is also physically stronger than most everyone else in the books. Also, while cunning, he's hardly analytical or introspective.
- Both Huang Zhong and Xiahou Yuan in the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms are known for their archery skills.
- The archer Lelldorin in The Belgariad is a prodigious bowman, but hot-headed and impetuous rather than cool and analytical.
- Squint from The Malazan Book Of The Fallen is correct to life in being described as a very heavy-built man with extremely powerful arm muscles.
- Stark from The House Of Night. Blessed With Suck because he hits whatever he's thinking about, even if it's not his target, even if it's nowhere near his line of sight. For example, he hits his mentor during a competition by accidentally thinking about him. Oops. He's also unable to quit doing archery altogether.
- Catti-brie, of R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books, was for a long time the group's specialist archer. She actually wasn't as skilled an archer as Drizzt was, but she had one helluva magic bow. She conforms to the archer stereotypes by being the group's moral center of sorts.
- Daffyd Ap Hywel, the Welsh archer from Gordon R. Dickson's Dragon Knight novels. Daffyd's bow has a 200 pound draw.
- No mention of Birgitte Silverbow from The Wheel Of Time series? A literally legendary shot that is bound to the Wheel and the Horn of Valere until she ends up being "spun out" into real time by an angry Forsaken for saving Nynaeve. She has the cold analytical traits described here in spades, to such a high degree that others linked to her mind can sense her supreme focus in tense situations, and compare it to "a drawn bow aimed at the target."
- Inara Serra of Firefly.
- Power Rangers had the first two Pink Rangers (who are both definitely The Chick), and bows as a weapon have turned up several times since, usually in the hands of one of the girls. In the Lost Galaxy season, all five Rangers had Transdagger weapons that could be transformed into any of five weapon modes, each Ranger preferring one, and the bow being Pink's preference (though she's used other modes, and others have used the bow, on occasion.) The only male to have a bow as a signature weapon is Animus, the godlike Humongous Mecha of the Wild Force series.
- Naturally, this goes for almost all of the Super Sentai counterparts.
- Ryuunosuke, from "Samurai Sentai Shinkenger" takes this trope to great lengths. Besides being an accomplished archer, his loyalty to his 'lord' borders on fanaticism. Other members of the team take no small measure of amusement when his straight man tendencies leave him running headfirst into Idiot Hero territory.
- Deirdre, The Chick of The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog, and her crossbow (okay, so it shoots blasts of air instead of arrows...)
- Arrows have been the murder weapon of choice in some cases in the Grissom Verse. This resulted in one particular case in CSI Miami, where as part of an experiment, Calleigh was shooting a competition bow. In tight black trousers, a top with transparent sleeves and a black bodice sort-of-thing. Ms. Duquesne owns a lab coat, but you never see her testing weapons with it on. Author Appeal anyone?
- Lindsay Monroe, although in not quite the same outfit, also did something similar in CSI New York.
- Pops up occasionally in Kamen Rider, but not often due to the fact that most of the Riders are straight-up heroes. Kuuga Pegasus Form (and its Super Mode version) uses a crossbow, while Chalice from Blade uses a regular bow (his Super Mode version can split it into two hand-sickles); Larc, Chalice's Expy from the Missing Ace movie, uses a crossbow mostly because she's The Chick of the Power Trio. Finally, Decade's version of Kiva turns into a giant bow for his Final Form Ride.
- Several Greek gods, goddesses, and heroes were renowned for their skill with a bow, among them:
- Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt.
- Apollo, Artemis's twin brother and god of the sun.
- Heracles.
- King Odysseus, notable in that he proved who he was partly by his skill in stringing and then firing his enormous bow, sometimes believed to be based on the Asian composite bow.
- Despite his Character Derailment, Prince Paris of Troy. Some sources even claim he killed Achilles with poison arrows. It was a lucky shot, indeed.
- Philoctetes. Who actually offed Paris with HIS poison arrows, which he inherited from Heracles.
- Teucer, who spent a good bit of the Trojan war sniping from behind big brother Ajax's massive shield.
- Archery enjoyed particular respect in India, which is reflected in mythology and even the Vedas. Upaveda dedicated to the warfare issues is named Dhanur-veda, "the Veda of the bow".
- In Ramayana, Rama broke a bow that no other, even gods, had been able to wield.
- Mahabharata has mentions of full-metal arrows used, beheadings and cutting down things like banners with arrows, and so on. Virtually every named warrior's Weapon Of Choice is mentioned, but the two most prominent heroes (bitter rivals, demigods and in fact half-brothers) Arjuna and Karna are both great bowmen, so the Great Battle's crucial moment is a shoot-out.
- There's also another "if you guys are so cool, string and shoot this one" story. Contest for the hand of princess, no less. The nature of the competition deserves a mention: shooting the eye of a golden fish attached to the top of a tall pole while aiming by the reflection in a pool of water. Only these two are able to do it, but Karna was Moses In The Bullrushes, so Arjuna got the girl. This disqualification ultimately pushed prospective the most dangerous warrior of all mortals onto the "wrong" side of the main conflict.
- The English longbow is famous for being a particularly advanced weapon that set England apart from other European nations and granted it notable advantages in warfare. English subjects were required to own and train with longbows regularly, while most other nations felt that archery was beneath them.
- Genoese crossbowmen were famous in the Middle Ages for their effectiveness, and were often hired out as mercenaries for other nations. However, they suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Crecy due to the higher rate of fire of the English longbow.
- A Nd they didn't have their sheilds because it way at the end of the supply line, plus it rained reduecing their range... yeah the French really should have postpond that battle (or waited a few hours)
- Princess Zelda often takes up a magic bow alongside Link. Her Final Smash in Super Smash Bros Brawl has her using the Light arrows to attack.
- Link also uses a bow as one of his alternate weapons.
- And you can't forget Pit...
- In Resident Evil 4, the Ax Crazy muscleman Jack Krauser uses a bow, probably due to being a pastiche of Rambo.
- Ada Wong in the same game uses a crossbow... with exploding bolts.
- In RE 5, Sheva has an unlockable alternate outfit called Tribal Sheva that uses a longbow as its signature weapon. Strangely, it is just as effective as Krauser's in the previous game (stunning bosses and killing Mooks with one hit) despite her MUCH lower upper body strength. (I bet Krauser could have climbed up that damn cliff faster during her Button Mashing sequence!!!!))
- Questor the Elf in Gauntlet. Also, the unnamed Archer (who looks a lot like a female elf) in Gauntlet Legends.
- Mary/Maki Sonomura from Persona, and Yukari Takeba in Persona 3. Takeba also subverts/lampshades the typical stereotypes of a Straight Arrow in one of her Sunday Social Link advancements. Choosing the comment, "You look like a hero," in the conversation causes her to comment on the arm strength needed to effectively use a bow, and then berate you for implying she looks like an Amazon).
- Archer of Fate/stay night actually doesn't use his bow that much and seems to prefer his dual swords or even his exploding shooting swords.
- Though Lina from Riviera The Promised Land uses bows as her primary weapon, she's whimsical, spontaneous, and childish, not to mention immature, whiny and selfish. Fiaa the fencer and Serene the scythe-and-claw girl come far closer to typical personality.
- Elves are naturally known for this in the Warcraft Universe, particularly the more feral Night Elves. The Priestess of the Moon in particular from Warcraft III (and the Dark Ranger, an undead Night Elf) put their bowstrings to very good use on fleshy opposing armies.
- Class is a bigger variable than race in World Of Warcraft. Though bows are available to a number of classes, only Hunters possess the skills and talents necessary to make them into effective weapons. Good Hunters also embody the analytical traits described here - not only does their long-range position and lack of flashy effects (compared the nukers like mages and warlocks) give them a much better vantage point of a pitched battle, but they are masters of battlefield control with aggro management skills like Distracting Shot and Feign Death, the ability to set traps, and effectively being two units in one by commanding their pet.
- The archers/snipers and nomads/nomadic troopers/rangers in Fire Emblem, and Lyn, when she gets to use bows as a Blade Lord.
- FE4: Midayle, Bridget, Jamuka. Bridget's son Faval, Edin's son Lester.
- FE6: Wolt, Dorothy, Shin, Klein, Dayan.
- FE7: Wil, Rath, Rebecca, Louise, Lyn (as Blade Lord). In the enemy side: Uhai the Soaring Hawk, Denning the Morph.
- FE8: Neimi, Innes, Innes's father King Hayden, Gerik (if promoted into Ranger). In the enemy side: Beran.
- FE9: Shinon, Rolf, Astrid
- FE10: Leonardo, Oscar promoted
- Marle from Chrono Trigger carries a crossbow with her at all times.
- In the Final Fantasy series, the big advantage of bows is inflicting the same damage from a "back row" position as from the "front row". Good for the Squishy Wizard. Not so good if a Ranger doesn't know what he's doing in Final Fantasy XI, as the monster can easily walk over to the back line after too much aggro and destroy the back line, although other back-line damage dealers could do the same, as well.
- Maria from Final Fantasy II starts with a bow, but is no better off (other than the two uses she may have gotten in the first battle) with it than any other weapon. In fact, it is actually bad for her HP to use bows.
- Rosa's best weapons in Final Fantasy IV are bows.
- Almost every Tales Series party has a Straight Arrow member.
- Chester Barklight in Tales of Phantasia is a nontypical example; he's hotblooded, aggressive, and highly driven. In the original, you can actually set his AI to "aim carefully" or "berserk fire", and his best bow supports the latter, since its superiority is not in damage but in attack speed.
- Chelsea Torn in Tales of Destiny (arguably, Garr/Woodrow can be considered one, but he mainly uses his Swordian).
- Nanaly Fletch in Tales of Destiny 2.
- Tytree Crowe in Tales of Rebirth uses a mini crossbow when not fist-fighting.
- Moses Sandor has archer-like skills... except he uses throwing spears.
- Princess Natalia L.K Landvaldear in Tales of the Abyss, returning to old school bowmanship.
- Tales Of Vesperia gives us Raven, who uses a bow. His personality is atypical for an archer.
- Hisui Hearts of Tales Of Hearts, who is also Hot Blooded, making him an atypical example of both this trope and The Medic archetype.
- The mecha Angelg from Super Robot Wars. Its pilot Lamia Loveless also fits the typical 'calm, self-possessed, analytical' personality.
- Also the Valzacard from W when it does it's Exa Nova Shot, which, being a Combining Mecha made of two battleships, uses a Humongous Mecha for a bow.
- A full list of Straight Arrow characters from the Suikoden series would be too exhaustive to list here. Sticking only to archers that are depicted as calm under fire, we have Kirkis, Quincy, Rubi, Teresa Wisemail, Kinnison, Jacques, Roland, Ted, Flare, and Frederica. There are many more due to the fact that the series has so many characters.
- Phoebe from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, after she gives you her Cat's Claw, becomes a combination of this and Black Magician Girl.
- The Rogue from Diablo.
- Inahime from Samurai Warriors.
- Due to the fact that in Baldur's Gate the longbow actually has a high strength requirement, the beefiest warriors are typically the Straight Arrows of the group. Minsc, the team's Large Ham Dim-witted Berserker Ranger, the second strongest party member available in the series, can use bows to great effect, especially because his lack of shield makes it easier to swap between weapons.
- And amongst the old school BG characters, we also have Kivan the elven ranger, a very typical example of this trope. Jan Jansen from the second game uses a crossbow, but he's about as far away from the typical psychology as you can get.
- In Dynasty Warriors 6, Sun Shang Xiang and Yue Ying become these (although in DW 6: Empires and Strikeforce Yue Ying uses a forearm-mounted crossbow with a blade attached). In previous games, Huang Zhong and Xiahou Yuan use swords and clubs, respectively, but would use their bow in some of their charge attacks.
- In Dynasty Tactics, Shang Xiang's unit is an Archer-class unit.
- MOMO from the Xenosaga series replaces her wand for a bow in the second and third games. In the second game, she's the most powerful fighter, especially against foes weak against Ether/Pierce - as a finisher, she can deal damage comparable to the Game Breaker Erde Kaiser Fury, and in the third, she has access to one of her cyborg friend's abilities, which is many times more powerful than the attack it's based off of. Granted, she's a Realian, but she's an observational-type, which is supposed to be relegated to the rear guard. She also only has the appearance of a teenage girl. No one really seems to notice or care that she's plugging enemies with damage a little beyond their own scope.
- Sarara of Magical Battle Arena, who uses a mechanical bow that fires energy arrows and can be charged to release a massive beam. The bow also comes equipped with a dozen Attack Drones for Beam Spam purposes.
- The Archery powerset in City Of Heroes utilises a customisable bow and various types of arrows. On some Archetypes it can be paired with the Trick Arrow powerset.
- In Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Firion(el) uses a bow and arrow for his damaging move. And when it comes to his bursts, his arrow is made up of the tons of weapons he carried. One of his moves is named after this trope too. Reversed Trope Namer, maybe?
- Marcel and Beatrix in Jeanne D Arc, along with scores and scores of enemy archers. Despite its fragility and lack of Counter Attacks, this weapon-class can be considered a Game Breaker due to its Cure Shot, Meteor Shot, and Sky Dart ability stones.
- Reimi Saionji of Star Ocean: The Last Hope uses a high-tech bow. True to form, she is extremely calm and level headed, even taking over as the leader of the group during Edge's Heroic BSOD. Her restraint usually only fails her during Edge's Accidental Pervert moments.
- Maori of Arcana Heart fires a magic arrow for one of her supers. Additionally, if you have enough extra charges in your Charge Meter and you're quick enough at inputting the additional commands, Maori could call down all of her sisters to power-up the magic arrow for obscene levels of damage.
- Team Fortress 2 has an unlockable weapon for the resident Cold Sniper. What is it? A bow.
- Trine's resident thief, Zoya, is equipped with a bow that when properly upgraded, is Game Breaker in combat. She initially plays the personality part straight, but becomes more talkative as the game goes on, especially when the main party visits the forest.
- Someone appears to have stolen Haley Starshine's entry here. Because there's no way we could miss her for so long.
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