Fellowship of the Fans

Has it Been Review Bombed? (9/5/2022)

Is Rings of Power being review bombed?

In the last chapter I examined how one can tell if a show is being review bombed or not, but for those who don't want to dig through the statistics I pulled up for some works that are diverse and their IMBD scores the conclusion I drew from what I saw was that positive review bombing was more likely to occur than negative review bombing.

Of course, with Rings of Power we're dealing with a normal "C" curve. Or at least that is what the curve as of right now currently stands which as I said in the previous works means the work is divisive in nature for some reason or another, and I honestly believe the current scoring needs to be judged based on the fact the show is currently leaning towards a normal "C" curve.

Also, having taken a look at Steven Universe where the show received a lot of praise for how well they handed creating a diverse cast as well as a strong narrative at the start of the show, one can argue that a show with a super positive non-C curve isn't a statistical anomaly, but Steven Universe does actually prove people want diversity and they want it done right. But, for reference, here is Steven Universe's stats.

Steven Universe

(10) – 15,817 – 47.5%
(9) – 5,146 – 15.4%
(8) – 4,450 – 13.4%
(7) – 2,485 – 7.5%
(6) – 1,319 – 4.0%
(5) – 752 – 2.3$
(4) – - 456 – 1.4%
(3) – 398 – 1.2%
(2) – 424 – 1.5%
(1) – 2,053 – 1.3%

For this show I concluded that it was impossible to determine if that statistical difference is an anomaly caused completely by positive review bombing, although I do agree that there is some of this going on. The reason I argue it is an impossibility is because Steven Universe, even among those of us who've not seen the show know that the show received praise for handling diversity right when it started, and had a strong narrative so even those of us who haven't seen the show feel that the number of tens the show got is deserved. And towards the end we can see it does have a bit of review bombing going on towards the negative.

So...

Is the high number of one stars the show getting warranted in the same way?

So, as I said, Steven Universe has a high number of tens because it handled diversity well, and crafted a well made narrative.

But to justify, particularly since this is a "C" curve which indicates divisive material that it's review bombing and not legit criticism, you must prove that the criticism isn't legit.

How do we do that?

Well, what is the criticism?

"Ah! It's diversity!" some will say. "They are mad at seeing diversity!"

Um, no, because there are plenty of diverse shows which are rated well, such as Black Panther and Dragon Prince. Even House of Dragon which everyone thought would be a bomb is doing well, with those who thought it wouldn't be singing it's praises, so this idea that those criticizing Rings of Power just wanted it to fail doesn't work, not when it's the same people for both shows raising concerns prior to the shows airing.

It's way to easy to boil it down to racism and misogyny and ignore what the discourse is actually about, what is actually making the show diversive in nature.

So what is making the show diversity?

Well, when a show is divisive it means there are two sides. And as I've been saying, it's not non-whites vs. whites and females vs. males. I'm not white and female and I'm siding with the criticism. So what is the actual issues?

And here are the sides. Actually, there are a few versus here which doesn't help.

- diversity before quality vs. quality before diversity
- message before story telling vs. story telling before message
- diversity done to virtue signal vs. diversity done in a natural, organic manner
- it's okay to race swap if the character's white vs. don't have double standards when it comes to race swapping