Flick’s Great Idea

[Spoiler alert for The Sword of Shannara]

I recently wondered whether the Mythbusters might have a problem with a scene in The Sword of Shannara. The scene is this: The company from Cullhaven have been traveling through the Wolfsktaag Mountains, and a group of Gnomes has spotted them and set fire to the forest. The group hurries forward and makes it out of the trees, but the path behind is cut off, and the Gnomes are presumably not far behind. They make their way to the Pass of Noose, where they expect to cross a rope bridge, which they could then cut and leave pursuit behind. But when they get to the pass, they find that the bridge has already been cut, on their side. It dangles from the cliff face on the far edge of a (relatively small) canyon. It looks like they’re trapped.

Suddenly, Flick has an idea – one of them can fire an arrow with a rope attached to it into the wooden planks (or ropes, or whatever) of the bridge on the far side, then haul it back into place so the group can cross. Fortunately, the shot is successful, and they haul the bridge into place, just in time to tie it off, cross, and cut the ropes on the other side.

So here are the issues that have me a little worried:

1. The rope would add weight, causing the arrow to lose altitude. In theory, you could compensate for this by aiming higher.
2. The rope would have to be fed out pretty fast, or it would pull back on the arrow as soon as the slack was gone. I supposed you could toss the coil over the edge before firing, so there would be nothing to unwind.
3. The rope would prevent the arrow from spinning, which would make it very hard to aim, not to mention the additional drag from air resistance that you’d get the moment it stopped pointing straight forward.

#3 seems like a big problem. I don’t remember exactly how wide this gap was, and I guess you might not have to be super precise – if the barbs on the arrowhead could be made to catch among some rope, that might be enough to let you pull it back up on the other side. And if the rope were thin and light enough, maybe the arrow could even spin for a while before the rope became over-wound. Let’s just tell ourselves that and call it good. After all, the group made it through, so it must be possible, somehow.