Why is 'House of the Dragon' getting review bombed by Saudi Arabia?

‘House of the Dragon’ is the latest TV series to face review-bombing. The sixth episode of the second season is the lowest rated of the entire show on IMDB with an average star rating of 6.2.

This week’s episode of HBO’s prequel series to the ‘Game of Thrones’ franchise has received a raft of one star reviews, following its premiere on 21 July.

Of the 27,000 ratings the episode has been given on IMDB, around 9,400 (or 35%) have been just one star. Of these, 4,500 have come from Saudi Arabia as one of the largest voting countries on the episode.

It’s the lowest rated episode of the entire series, significantly behind the fourth episode of this year’s season, ‘The Red Dragon and the Gold’, which currently has a 9.6 star rating.

The episode, ‘Smallfolk’ featured a kiss between Queen Rhaenyra and Mysaria, two female characters in the show played by Emma D’Arcy and Sonoya Mizuno, respectively.

As Queen Rhaenyra has increasingly felt demeaned by her war council during her attempt to unseat the usurpers on the throne led by the Hightower family, she has turned to her one staunch ally, her own Master of Whispers, Mysaria.

Originally, the two characters were just meant to share a tense moment at the end of the episode, but D’Arcy suggested their character should go in for the kiss, creating the moment on set.

“Initially, there’s huge feelings of empathy and gratitude towards this person,” D’Arcy told Variety. “Rhaenyra is hugely affected by the life that Mysaria has lived so bravely. Then, they are two bodies completely overrun by touch.”

It seems that the kiss, hailed as a success of LGBTQ+ representation on screen, has been the main source of ire for those leaving the scathing reviews on IMDB.

“I have never seen someone ruining