What happened to Bronwyn in ‘Rings of Power?’

There are a lot of characters to keep track of in Prime Video’s return to Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The polarizing series returned in late August of 2024, but not all of its characters were so lucky.

The loss of Joseph Mawle as Adar easily took center stage in the three episodes released to Prime Video on Aug. 29, but there was another face missing from the season 2 debut. Bronwyn, Arondir’s human heartthrob, was also notably missing across the season’s early episodes, and fans were given little explanation as to her absence. Pretty major spoilers for season 2 episode 3 of Rings of Power — titled “The Eagle and the Sceptre” — are incoming, so if you’ve yet to watch, you’ve been warned.

What happened to Bronwyn?

Arondir didn’t make his big return in season 2 of Rings of Power until the season’s third episode, and when he did, it was without his longtime lover at his side. Prime Video built up a stirring romance between Bronwyn and Arondir across the show’s first season, leaning into the potential of two characters made entirely for the series, and then seemingly tossed it out without a thought a few hours into season 2.

Bronwyn’s absence is quickly addressed in “The Eagle and the Sceptre,” when Arondir returns to the scattered survivors of Tirharad with a supply of wood in tow. That wood is intended to complete a pyre, and you can probably guess which corpse is ultimately burned atop it.

We never see her face, but its clear as day that Bronwyn is the body they burn in that tragic ceremony. Arondir’s pain, paired with Theo’s, is clear throughout the episode, and the loss of the village healer is noted at several points. The character seemingly had nothing but potential, and she also seemed to be recovering following an injury sustained in season 1, so how did she end up losing her life?

Bronwyn’s loss takes a back seat to several other plot points in Rings of Power season 2, but it is mentioned that she passed due to the same pesky “foulness” we’ve seen affect several characters across the franchise’s history. Back in season 1 of the series, Bronwyn took several orcish arrows, one to the shoulder and one to the leg, but things wrapped up with her on the mend. She seemed to be doing just fine, but by the start of season 2 she was dead.

Arondir explains this away by noting that he, too “thought she was getting better,” but “there is a foulness in orc arrows not easily forgotten by human flesh.” It seems an infection set in, following the events of last season, and ultimately robbed Tirharad of its healer.

Why did Nazanin Boniadi leave Rings of Power?

The fact that Bronwyn was killed off-screen indicates that her actress, Nazanin Boniadi, left the series without filming any season 2 scenes, which left viewers with questions. The character was clearly intended to survive, only to have her story later reworked, so what gives? Why did Boniadi decide to leave the series?

That largely seems to be due to the actress’s desire to open up space for more professional opportunities. Many people assumed that she stepped back to lend more focus to activism in her home country of Iran, but that seems to be nothing more than a rumor.

Back in 2022, Boniadi made the decision to emphasize activism in her life, most centrally her work with Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom movement, which aims to elevate female voices and bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in the country. Quite a few viewers assumed this was the culprit behind her departure from the series, but Boniadi has since shut those rumors down. She explained that her decision to quit Rings of Power was not related to her activism at all, but didn’t really provide a separate explanation. She did, however, heap praise on the traits that made Bronwyn such a favorite among viewers in the first place, and emphasized that the character meant quite a lot to her.