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This frustrates me a lot, as someone who has watched Wheel of Time (absolute shit) and Rings of Power (kinda meh, but visually impressive).
I don't mind black elf -- he's in the army, army draws from all over the place, and he's kinda elven (vs most of the other elves, who look like roman senators in a cheap community drama, but with pointy ears). Black dwarf lady is potentially okay -- we can imagine different kingdoms, although that's not what they said, and we haven't seen the kids. The storyline for the dwarves is more engaging, which helps.
But the black hobbits (Harfeet) just doesn't make sense. Do genetics not hold any more? Do children not look like their parents? Do no men worry about cuckolding then? This changes a huge dynamic in the whole species! If genetics don't hold, can Harfeet have elves for kids? Dwarves, humans, sheep? I would say, even if we don't know genetics deeply, we have an intuitive sense (likely at least somewhat honed by the whole cuckolding thing) about kids looking like parents. "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" "Oh, you're the spitting image of your grandfather at that age". Apparently it's true across almost all cultures for there to be more comments made about how a kid looks like the dad than the mom (presumably to soothe fears). We've been breeding animals for longer. We know something is up if a kid doesn't look like either parent.
Or if genetics still hold (doesn't really work in RoP, where the mother with very broad black features has a very fair Irish child), does that mean that in isolated communities (like in Wheel of Time) the Maori family has been inbreeding for hundreds of generations? (As have the Chinese, Nigerian, Spanish and Celtic families?)
It just requires throwing out a whole lot, and you can't just say, "oh, you accept dragons, but not X" because it means the world doesn't make any sense. A big part of fantasy and science fictions, is asking "what if?" and following where it takes you. If you don't do that (or it immediately makes no sense), it's not a convincing story, it's just a stream of words or scenes (which kinda describes Rings of Power).
It's a bit like modern stories where a single phone call with a cell phone would solve the problem (often they are problems normal people have encountered). The story needs to address why that phone call wasn't made, or it won't be an engaging story. You're not a 'techno-fetishist' or something if you ask why a character didn't use their cell phone, you just want a somewhat consistent world!
i share your view on rings of power tbh. wanted to like it, was excited for it, but it's pretty underwhelming.
concerning the black elf, if there is a rational justification for it I'm fine with it. but each of these species of humans, e.g. the elves, is very genetically distinct and appears to mostly stick to themselves with respect to mating. i think there could plausibly be a rational explanation for it but given that all the other elves are white they've gotta give some sort of explanation
definitely agree with your third paragraph. doing this sort of thing sort of implies that all logic be suspended if it's to achieve a DEI end. I don't know why people think this way of doing it is the only way to achieve diversity in film. it almost strikes me as a power move: this doesn't make sense but this idea is so supreme that we can make you accept it either way, even though there's a more reasonable way for us to do this.
the rest of your comment, also disagree with. we are often expected to suspend disbelief in movies but there's always an explanation for it; absent that we are left to say 'i think i was probably supposed to suspend disbelief there but I'm not sure. so this other thing that's happening doesn't seem sensible; are they going to explain that or am i just supposed to know I'm supposed to suspend disbelief there, or did i miss something?'
This truly strikes me as something we are going to look back on in 10 years as an indication of the degree to which absurd thought was allowed into the mainstream.
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