Crossbows

[SeeingBlue]

Has anyone noticed how useless they are in the show? I don't know if it's just me, but I get mad every time someone pulls one out. They're good for MAYBE one shot (although usually they don't seem to do any harm anyways) and then they get tossed to the side by a demon or something. Idk, it's just something that's been bothering me as I re-watch the series haha.

 

[Lyri]

I always thought that the crossbow would have been a good weapon for Xander or Willow to learn how to use. They're distance weapons, so theoretically, Willow could be planted on top of a roof somewhere, with a quiver full of bolts, and just start shooting at demons and vampires, like a supernatural sniper, lol.

 

[MergedLoki]

I always thought that the crossbow would have been a good weapon for Xander or Willow to learn how to use. They're distance weapons, so theoretically, Willow could be planted on top of a roof somewhere, with a quiver full of bolts, and just start shooting at demons and vampires, like a supernatural sniper, lol.

Agreed, they're a good weapon with training (i suppose that can be said of almost ANY weapon). But I mean for vampire/demon hunting I'd take the crossbow over a gun.

what with the obviousness of flying stake thru the heart 😛. and unlike a gun it's silent so in theory one could fire a bolt @ a vamp, and move before your location was pin pointed. To Keep up a lil barrage of surprise attacks.

 

[Kelsey]

It's actually kind of frustrating that they didn't take it seriously. As others have said, it could have been a good weapon for Xander and Dawn, especially. If they had learned how to use it, they could have kept their distance from the demons but still been useful.

 

[BillyidolwannaB]

Yeah, crossbows were really crap. Why didn't they just use uzi's to weaken em.

 

[BuffyElevated]

I didn't really ever think much of the crossbows. I mean, I think you guys are right about them being great distance weapons for people like Xander, Dawn, or Willow who didn't have all the physical strength that others did.

 

[sk]

That's actually a thing I also noticed.

Wasn't often they managed to use their crossbow for more than one shot that usually missed and then they just throw it away.
Always suprised me that they kept using it. lol

It looked cool though, that's good enough reason for me. 🙂

/SK

 

[Tasha]

I always thought of crossbows being a crappy weapon to use, if you're bent like me, it's gonna be hard to aim properly. 😛
They were even useless in the Buffy video games. 😛

 

[Chris2]

In order to make good use of crossbows, they'd really have to use them from a greater distance. When they used them in the show, they were usually close enough that if the first shot wasn't a kill, they didn't have much time to reload and fire again before the vampire/demon reached them. Of course, I don't know much about crossbows, but I'd imagine using them accurately at longer distances would necessitate a good deal of practice at actually aiming the things. And against most non-vampires you'd presumably be better off with guns for the faster rate of fire.

 

[NY State of Mind]

Yeah but i guess it just makes for better fighting scenes..it be to easy otherwise if the crossbow were mastered

 

[white avenger]

In order to make good use of crossbows, they'd really have to use them from a greater distance.

Of course, I don't know much about crossbows, but I'd imagine using them accurately at longer distances would necessitate a good deal of practice at actually aiming the things. And against most non-vampires you'd presumably be better off with guns for the faster rate of fire.

You're pretty close to being exactly right. The crossbow was basically the medieval equivalent of a sniper rifle. Tremendously powerful and capable of sending a bolt over a hundred yards with enough force to pierce a knight's armor. But that degree of power made them very hard to reload and get off a second shot. They were never intended for close in fighting.

As far as having the Slayer or her friends use modern weapons, other than a single round from a rocket launcher, I think that that was more for the action than anything else, just like Buffy or Faith slugging it out with a vampire before staking him. No amount of kicks or punches are ever going to do any sort of serious damage to a vampire or any sort of demon. It just looks cool to have a little slug fest before the staking, plus, even as oblivious as the citizens of Sunnydale seem to be to the presence of all of those non-human killers roaming about, a nightly barrage of gunfire and explosions would just HAVE to eventually attract someone's attention, and Vampire Slayers apparently prefer to keep their work as secret as possible.

Besides which, Joss Whedon is a very strong supporter of gun control, and he couldn't have his heroes use the nasty things (except on "Firefly," of course, but you can't have a "western in outer space" without the cowboys having their trusty shootin' irons)

 

[Eleftheria]

I have noticed that they shoot one arrow and then they throw it against the enemy. Use the crossbow itself as a weapon. Indeed it doesn't seem to be very helpful but I have some good ideas about how it should be used.

The Slayers should be at a certain distance and throw a pretty good number of arrows before they get in hand-to-hand combat.

I have seen that whenever they used them it was against very powerful enemies. Buffy used it against the Master and Faith used it against the Beast. The latter was really hard.

 

[Mumrik]

I have no clue about crossbows and it still pains me how they're used on both shows. These are weapons that make sense in fighting vampires - as opposed to anything that uses bullets - in that they can actually kill them without breaking a sweat or even come to almost life-threatening danger, especially when used by someone without Slayer powers.

I remember that one time,

Spoiler

in "Bad Girls", where Faith five-finger-discounted a very fine bow, which is a very hard weapon to master correctly, which she then tried to use in close combat and then quickly discards to go for a stake. Of course that doesn't work. Think, girl, THINK. Later, in "Graduation Day, Part 1", I think, she uses it to inject Angel with the poison, so that's good. As far as weapon use goes, not for Angel, obviously 😛

But they still could've made much better use in long distance weapons, especially for the non-superpowered people.

 

[Foster]

First of all, crossbows look way cool. They are one of the more cooler looking weapons of old. Plus, I have seen Buffy, Jonathon and some of the Potentials use it successfully and with the company of other fighters been able to use it several times before the crossbow itself is used as the weapon rather than the bolts (which always, incidentally, seems to go nicely with the flow of the fight)

BUT, it is a long distance weapon and it would have been nice to see it used in that respect more. Like Lyri said we could have supernatural snipers. I mean Xander has no powers but with training and placement on a safe high ledge he could be rather good at taking out pesky vamps.