Professional archer says Link’s bow skills suck

polygon.com:

Link, the protagonist of The Legend of Zelda series, seems to be good at everything. He can fight expertly. He can cook. He draws upon his deep arsenal of strange weapons with the touch of a seasoned expert. In The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, he even masters the art of flying the moment he gets his glider. He’s amazing at literally everything he does, or so it appeared.

There is one flaw beneath all those heroics: He doesn’t draw his arrows correctly. Or more so, the way he draws an arrow isn’t recommended by archery experts. Ridgeline Mounted Archers, an Oregon-based organization that teaches horse archery — yes, it’s when you ride a horse and shoot a bow at the same time — posted a video explaining what kind of draw Link uses in Breath of the Wild. As it turns out, the way Link fires his arrows can make it hard to shoot accurately.

One of their instructors explained it all on the organization's TikTok account. If you watch Link inBreath of the Wild, he mounts his arrow on the top of the bow and uses what the instructor calls an “inverted two-finger” draw. According to the archer, this draw “really sucks” and people shouldn’t use it. This is because it pushes the arrow in the opposite direction of the direction you want it to fly.

Reply to @im.the.trash_man #greenscreen Ask me how he draws in other games #archery #archer

As explained in a follow-up video, if you fire an arrow this way, your draw will actually twist the string and push the arrow off to the side. (So, maybe it’s not the best if you’re trying to nab a Bokoblin from a distance.) The instructor has made videos on other famous fictional archers as well, so if you want to learn more about how Merida from Brave or Katniss Everdeen from The