Merlin: Hunt!Fail: How Not to Hunt Like Prince Arthur and Why

[crabby_lioness]

(I still lack auto-formatting. Grr.)

Merlin Hunt!Fail: Introduction (Note to Fanon) and Physics 101

Comments

[quoth_the_girl]

I am so glad someone else noticed this! The boar hunt in particular had me laughing all the way through. A regular boar is insanely dangerous and tough, and then that thing in 2x01 was the size of a trailer.

I loved the bit about the test pilots. Somewhere, I can't remember where, I read that they often used to put a slave or at least a lowly peasant sort on the job of bracing the spear from the ground, because the boars would be so enraged that even if you managed to skewer them, they'd push themselves right along the spear length to get to the dude holding it. Being the poor guy bracing the spear meant you were injured if it was a good day, killed if it wasn't.

[scarfman]

In The Sword and the Stone the boar-hunting party uses spears with crossbolts halfway along, so the boar comes up against the crossbolt when it impales itself, and still can't reach the spearman even if it doesn't die right away. Of course, the spearman then has the challenge of keeping the spear braced with himself at the base end away from the crossbolt, for as long as the boar takes to die. But the spearman is assumed to be clever enough to have been hunting with a party, who then come up to the impaled boar trying to get past the crossbolt and stab it till it dies.
I haven't seen 2x01, nor am I as educated about hunting generally as crabby-lioness; but had I seen it I'd have flashed back to the boarhunt in The Sword of the Stone and rolled my eyes.

[crabby_lioness]

Yep, those are the fancier boar-impaling spears for working from the ground. They only used the straight ones for enraging the boar and in later ages when they were mounted on horses. One French king got himself killed trying to impale a boar from a horse.

[crabby_lioness]

It depends on the culture. In some areas it was a hero's job to be the spear-holder, in others it fell to a slave. In some areas there would be as many as three men holding the spear if they could find three lunatics to do it.

I started to write a long, graphic description of what boar-hunting actually entailed, then deleted it. The spear-holders were often crushed, and were always drenched to the skin in blood from head to toe.

[eandh99]

I"m actually enjoying Merlin more now - because I've already come to terms with the total History!Fail (somewhere around episode 8? of first series) and now just roll along with the craziness. Cornelius just finding that faboo black feather cape lying around the castle? Sure, why not. The weapons are wrong (and even the beating was pathetic in that episode) the armour is wrong, the clothes and the food are just so many kinds of wrong, the castle has handrails and glass windows. But it's fun and the boys are pretty, and the gargoyles were way better CGI than last year's hippogriff.

[crabby_lioness]

I know, I let most of the Fail go without comment (Although there's a huge rant about "The Old Religion" in my upcoming 1-13 review. You're warned.) but for some reason the Hunt!Fail has the same effect as fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Maybe it's the remote possibility that somewhere, some child will see it and take it seriously. IDK

[eandh99]

Initially this drove me INSANE about Merlin, I bitched and groaned and complained while my partner watched. There are tomatoes and sandwiches and stiletto heels in Merlin!

Seriously, any child taking the history or the "technology" in Merlin as accurate? Once they actually get interested in medieval history, they'll be very quick to point out the mistakes. Like a truly dinosaur-obsessed child watching Primeval.

[crabby_lioness]

I don't mind the rest, because getting the food or the costumes wrong isn't potentially life-threatening. Not many people die from tomatoes or designer dresses.

[suaine]

Yes! It doesn't bother me as much as it does you, but I giggle through the hunting scenes like a deranged squirrel. I only lived with a hunter for about half a year (hunting's not a thing in Germany, but it sure is in Louisiana) and the weapons, strategy and sheer ridiculousness in Merlin make me facepalm.

[crabby_lioness]

Thank you. It really gets ridiculous.

[partofthequeue2]

I am so glad other people noticed the flaws, and had enough technical knowledge to tell us where we're going wrong!
I always struck me as odd that Merlin would have a dislike of hunting for reasons other than Arthur dragging him out of bed and forcing him to carry all the gear :)

Thanks for doing this!

[crabby_lioness]

Thank you. "Cute and fluffy forest animals" tends to be an urban idea.

[glorafin]

Although your point about killing in one blow stands well, I'm unsure your use of Newton's Second Law F=m.a is warranted here. Although the mass of the projectile is a significant factor, the body-mass of the target has no bearing at all on how lethal a blow can be. What is important is the resistance the skin/armour/etc.. can oppose to the projectile's momentum or kinetic energy during collision. A massive boar with paper-thin skin could be killed much more easily with arrows than a tiny creature in a protective shell.

That said, Mother Nature is no fool and there is usually a correlation between how massive an animal is and the thickness of his skin. :)

[crabby_lioness]

This is my kiddie lecture. I tried to leave out things like velocity, resistance, impedance, and collateral damage as much as possible. :)