Meanwhile, the review score on the popular review-aggregation site is a much more impressive 84%. So, why the inequality? Rings of Power may be the latest victim of “review bombing” – when bigots flood a show with bad reviews to make it seem less appealing or popular. The JRR Tolkien-inspired series has already been the victim of racist backlash due to its diverse casting. Nazanin Boniadi (Bronwyn) and Ismael Cruz Córdova (Arondir) in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” While the original LOTR films featured no black characters, both The Rings of Power and the new Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon worked to introduce a more racially diverse cast. Recalling a conversation he had with Steve Toussaint about casting the actor in House of the Dragon, Lenny Henry (who stars in The Rings of Power) said that “the purists were saying things” about a black artist starring in his series HBO. “God bless them,” said Henry. “They have no problem believing in a dragon, but they have a problem believing that a black man could be a member of the court. Or that a black man could be a hobbit or an elf.’ In his four-star review of the series, Kevin EG Perry called it “a spectacle-filled return to a lovingly rendered Middle-earth that promises to deliver an awfully big adventure.”
