Superbly stated as always. I'd be interested in your thoughts on historical dramas (excluding those not intended to be realistic, but which play with the conventions.)

For example, Vikings in the last season (and yes I know the history in that show is shite but it looks real enough that I can stomach it) had woman of colour as an important Jarl. Is it plausible? Well, the old Norse so far as we understand them weren't racist, so colour isn't an issue (although they were sexist, so the fact that she's a woman might be...) and they gave her a backstory. Her father had voyaged to Africa, met a woman and brought her back and married her. I'll buy that, the Vikings travelled widely and it could have happened.

In the final season of the The Last Kingdom, they had a Black English priest. Not common in the time period but not impossible.

However, what took me right out of the story was the last couple eps, where the soldiers defending a 9th-century fortress in northern England seemed to be largely Black or Asian. I started to wonder "Where did they come from? How did they get here? Do they speak Old English, or Gaelic, or some other languages?"

Basically I'm in my head trying to invent a realistic scenario to account for their presence. Of course I do the same when all the heroes fight without helmets so you can see their faces, when no real world medieval warrior would even have considered such a stupid strategy.

So maybe I'm overthinking this. TV shouldn't be confused with history :) .