what's with the black handmaiden?

Bah! Of course the time travel's real. We see it all on film, right?

But is she really black? Seems like more of an olive skinned complexion to me, probably less than a quarter blood.

Well, anyway, how did this darker skinned girl arrive in England?

My theory involves a complicated journey from the previously moorish (African moslem) held areas of spain. Seeing as how the opening scense show her talking with an ASIAN woman in medieval England, I'm going to guess that King Leo is a collector of fine foreign women. You can watch it yourself, and some of the scenes make slightly more sense in this light... or at least, it's a stupidly funny explanation, suitable for a stupidly funny movie.

Ah, yes. Everybody knows that in the 1300s, french people were black. Then they got wiped out by the Black Plague, and the surrounding nations used the freshly emptied land as a dumping ground...

There were blacks in Medieval times. They usually called them Moors. Have you ever read Shakespeare's Othello? Do your research.

I'm working on my inner peace...hmmmm...
*yoga pose*

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I believe Cleopatra was Greek who happen to become the Queen of Egypt! I don't know how, but she wasn't Egyptian; she was Greek.