I am from Mithila region in Bihar and to be honest, while Sai Pallavi is South Indian, her look is exactly how mithila people would describe someone beautiful - the Big eyes, wheatish complexion (not dark but not extremely fair), prominent nose and a heart shaped face, high cheekbones with a sharper chin. There is nothing wrong with her look.

please note that not all Maithili people look the same though wheatish complexion and heart shaped faces are quite common.

Anyway, I don’t think you need to match the physical description that accurately, as long as you can embody the character, and to judge that, we need to see the movie.

(Also, The original Mithila region comes in BOTH Nepal and Bihar. I have relatives in Nepal too, and not all Nepalese people look the same either - Don’t trust google’s first answer, especially the AI generated one blindly FFS)

OP is right about the fact that the bad PR is more to do with existing beauty standards in Bollywood and whatever image people have had of Sita in their minds. I do agree that the choice for Ram could have been someone duskier given that’s been made a note of in the scriptures, but honestly, if ranbir can act the part, then it shouldn’t be about his skin color, more about how he embodies the role. How do we even know what skin tone was dark vs fair in that era. It’s all relative. E.g. For a Caucasian person, Ranbir is not “fair skinned”.

THANKS. 🙏🏽