Archery expert confirms what Game of Thrones fans already know: Rickon should have zig-zagged

“Zig-zag, Rickon!” So cried every Game of Thrones fan when the youngest Stark child ran from the dastardly Ramsay Bolton in “Battle of the Bastards.” Ramsay was sniping Rickon with a longbow from quite a long ways away. It looked like Rickon was going to escape, but at the last minute…right through the heart:

Insider put out a huge video where various weapons experts weigh in on veracity of various scenes from TV and film, including this scene from Game of Thrones. Does it hold up to scrutiny? Apparently yes!

That’s according to archery expert Grizzly Jim, who obviously has the best name ever. He gave the scene a 9/10 on the realism scale. “Medieval longbow archers could be pretty accurate,” he said.

"The bow looked like it had what they call pony limbs, where you’ve got the basic bow and then you’d have another set of limbs that come off the front, so that limb is attached to that limb and that limb is attached to that limb, and that gives you way more power. So it would be perfect for that kind of, you know, killing dudes running away kind of archery."

That said, Jim does question Rickon’s survival strategy just like the rest of us. “I’d be zigging and zagging. I’d be serpentin-ing,” he said.

Legolas gets low marks for archery accuracy in The Lord of the Rings

As long as we’re here, Grizzly Jim also weighs in on Legolas’ archery skills from The Lord of the Rings movies. Short version: he looks cool, but what he’s doing isn’t very realistic.

“His elbow is a bit high, but I’ll give him that when you’ve got some big orc dude with a stick coming at you, you’re not always going to get a chance to set and make the perfect shot,” Jim said. “But in order to speed shoot to that kind of level, you’d need a pretty light poundage bow. I’m going to go four [out of ten], but it’s cool.”

Then again, Legolas has been around for hundreds of years. Who knows what new techniques he’s unlocked?

Henry Cavill is great at swordfighting on The Witcher, but the choreography is lacking

Switching experts, London Longsword Academy Master-At-Arms Dave Rawlings weighed in on how Henry Cavill handles a sword on The Witcher, specifically in the brutal Blaviken fight scene from the very first episode:

In this case, Rawlings is all in on Cavill, but doesn’t think much of the fight itself:

"I have issues with this particular fight because there’s a lot of reverse grip with the sword being held backward down here. It’s not a good way to use the sword, you sacrifice your ability to defend above very very clearly you have not got any reach, it’s not safe, but he’s changed grip.I like how he moves, I think he’s got a good organic feel to him. Generally, the sword is being moved in front of him, which is a very very good thing, it’s very rarely just kept behind him so he’s closing the space off between him and his opponent with the word.The thing is most of my judgment on this fight scene is actually Henry Cavill being very very good physically, and what is shown in this fight scene is probably being the most disappointing fight scene in The Witcher so far. So, for Henry Cavill, it’s going to have like an eight, for actual quality of fighting it’s going to have about four."

So apparently Cavill saves this fight scene. Yet another reason we’re going to miss him:

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels