The use of a bow and arrow is nothing new to Hollywood, however this year the weapon was featured in more movies and TV shows than normal. What would happen if all these bow wielding heroes and heroines were thrown together and forced to fight to the death, very much like the Hunger Games (which features a bow). Who would raise the victor? Before we decide, we need to pick the contestants.

It should be noted that the characters I am using are their film adaptations only. I am not familiar enough with their books or comics so this is based purely off of what I’ve seen in movies or on TV.

Katniss
The Hunger Games (movie)
Type of bow: Longbow in D12, Recurve in the Arena
Strengths: Compassion
Weaknesses: Being a girl who shows compassion

Katniss relied on her bow when she lived in District 12 to provide food for her family. Once she was in The Hunger Games she used a bow for self defense. When little NAME was killed by a spear she took the unnecessary time to honor the death. She was a completely open target while she wasted time covering the dead body in flowers. She’s lucky no one spotted her doing this and made an easy kill out of her. Katniss’s emotions could easily aid in her death.

Hawkeye
The Avengers (movie)
Type of bow: Compound
Strengths: Exmilitary
Weaknesses: Relies on his teammates

Hawkeye is a member of The Avengers. He doesn’t bring any super powers to the team, but he isn’t completely useless to them either. Hawkeye is a master of military strategy. He can quickly analyze a situation and come up with the best plan for it. The problem with this is that his plans usually involve the entire team. Hawkeye needs the full support of The Avengers to be fully successful. Hawkeye is also equipped with a variety of arrows and has the most advanced bow of the group.

Daryl
The Walking Dead (tv)
Type of bow: Crossbow
Strengths: Tracking
Weaknesses: Primary targets are zombies

Daryl was once the outcast of his group but now he is an essential piece. When (little girl) went missing he was relentless in trying to track and find her. Daryl is a good shot with his crossbow but that is because he is shooting at slow moving walkers that can’t fire back. Daryl’s accuracy will likely be drastically reduced when he is shooting at targets that can defend themselves and strategize.

Merida
Brave (movie)
Type of bow: longbow
Strengths: Small target
Weaknesses: Big red hair would give away her position

I’m not going to lie, Merida doesn’t have much going for her in this fight. She’s the princess of a kingdom and the only bow shooting she does is for sport (with the exception of a bear once). She would never be able to take another person’s life. It is completely unfair to even put her into this battle, but she fires a bow so she has no choice. Merida’s best chance of survival is to hide and hope that the last remaining survivor steps on a rusty nail and dies of tetanus.

Charlie
Revolution (tv)
Type of bow: Crossbow
Strengths: Being trained by her uncle
Weaknesses: Letting her guard down

Like Katniss, Charlie learned to use a bow to hunt and provide food for her family. However, now that her brother has been kidnapped she is willing to kill for more than just food. Under her uncle’s guidance, Charlie is becoming more comfortable with killing. At first it was in self defense but now she is killing people that are just standing in her way of saving her brother. Charlie is guilty of letting her guard down too often. There have been numerous times where she has been caught or attacked and relied on someone else to save her.

Green Arrow
Arrow (tv)
Type of bow: Recurve
Strengths: Stealth and weaponry
Weaknesses: Motivated by revenge

Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) was forced to survive on a deserted island for 5 years with nothing but a bow. Now that he is back in his home city he is determined to clean up the crime that his father helped grow. Oliver has access to his family fortune and a wide variety of technology. Oliver is motivated by revenge and it may lead to him getting caught or killed. He seems to jump into situations without much thought, even though he always manages to come out ahead.
Now you know the competitors, but who would win? This is how I think it could possibly play out.

Let’s throw out Merida right away. She’s a Pixar Princess and isn’t going to be able to take down any of these more experienced archers. But who would be heartless enough to shoot and kill a child? Certainly it wouldn’t be Katniss and probably not Charlie. Hawkeye and Green Arrow are super heroes who fight for good; their moral compasses point North enough to prevent them from doing it. This leaves Daryl. Season 1 Daryl could probably pull the trigger on little Merida, but after watching how passionate Daryl was in finding missing Sofia in season 2 and how much he is already caring for Lori’s baby in Season 3 I think he would rather kill himself instead of hurting a little girl. So who takes out Merida? I’ll take the easy route and say she gets gobbled up by a bear. She’s gotten lucky once and survived a bear attack; it’s not going to happen that way again. Daryl hears the attack and rushes to help Merida. He is willing to fight the bear if it means saving Merida’s life. But he is too late. All that is left is a motionless body.

With Merida dead already guess who is going to be upset and crying? Katniss. Even though her goal was to kill everyone, including Merida, she is troubled by her death and must avenge it. Katniss sneaks up on Merida’s body and sees Daryl hunched over her. Katniss assumes Daryl is responsible for Merida’s death and puts an arrow through his back. Daryl didn’t even hear her sneak up on him because Katniss is use to being quite while hunting deer and Daryl usually only encounters loud moaning walkers.

After taking care of Daryl, Katniss finds herself in an open field with Charlie. It’s the battle of the hormones. Katniss is still shaken up about Merida’s death and killing Daryl that she hardly has time to pull up her bow before Charlie fires at her. Charlie is rougher around the edges than Katniss and doesn’t hesitate to shoot her right in the stomach. She walks away leaving poor Katniss alone to bleed out.

For those of you keeping count we are down to three, Charlie, Hawkeye and Green Arrow.

Hawkeye and Green Arrow have both used their skill of stealth to stay out of the fight until now. Either one of them could have taken out the entire lot, but they both had the same idea to sit back and watch the show. Now one of them has to make their first move. Hawkeye decides to go after Charlie because he has assessed the situation and has identified her biggest weaknesses, her crossbow and inability to plan ahead. Hawkeye locates himself right in front of Charlie and yells out to her. Just as she is about to fire her crossbow Hawkeye runs at her. This catches Charlie completely off guard and she misses her shot. Due to the fact she is using a crossbow her reload time is much longer than the other bows. She doesn’t even have a new arrow ready before Hawkeye is on top of her with an arrow stabbed between her ribs into a lung.

That leaves Hawkeye and Green Arrow as the final two. Is anyone actually surprised? Of course not. By definition these two are super heroes. It is highly debated who would win in a fight but I think it has to go to Green Arrow as long as he can keep some distance between Hawkeye and himself. Hawkeye is definitely the better hand-to-hand fighter, so lucky for Green Arrow this is an archery competition. Why do I favor Green Arrow? Hawkeye has the better bow, but Green Arrow as a wider selection of arrows. Hawkeye has his military training, but Green Arrow has self taught survival training when he lived on an island for 5 years. I think Hawkeye may be smarter, but Green Arrow can move faster than Hawkeye can think. It would be a very close match but in the end Green Arrow would be the champion of the TV and movie archers.