As many as you want. A story feels “woke” when the character’s skin color is important to their creation, or if their inclusion in the story feels forced. Nobody complains about Mr. T being in the A Team or Samuel L Jackson playing Mace Windu in Star Wars, because those characters do not feel like their inclusion was forced. Their race didn’t really matter to their character or story, and their dialogue and acting was equally as good as everyone else’s. Basically, those characters didn’t feel like they were there to check a box, they felt like they were always supposed to be there from the beginning, black skin or not.
Sometimes, its contextual. For example, a story taking place in medieval Europe could potentially have a black person in it, but any more than one or two would probably feel forced. When thinking about medieval Europe, black people did exist but they were not a common sight. A person who is interested in that kind of story would expect the vast majority of the story’s characters to be white Europeans, and there might be one or two characters that aren’t.
Another point to keep in mind is that a fantasy world doesn’t need to follow the rules of current society. In your story, slavery could be legal, or the age of consent could be 403 years old. It doesn’t matter because is a made up world, a fantasy. Fantasy doesn’t always mean ideal or perfect, and I would argue that the best fantasy settings are the ones that you wouldn’t want to live in on a daily basis. An imperfect world, where people suffer from.various things, give a good backdrop to explore various types of stories that are relatable enough to a person without being too real. A fantasy story’s general purpose is simply to provide people with a temporary escape from reality, so if they start seeing things which remind them of reality such as social political talking point, they may be less inclined to feel like they can escape, and thus will have a negative view of the world you created.
As many as you want. A story feels “woke” when the character’s skin color is important to their creation, or if their inclusion in the story feels forced. Nobody complains about Mr. T being in the A Team or Samuel L Jackson playing Mace Windu in Star Wars, because those characters do not feel like their inclusion was forced. Their race didn’t really matter to their character or story, and their dialogue and acting was equally as good as everyone else’s. Basically, those characters didn’t feel like they were there to check a box, they felt like they were always supposed to be there from the beginning, black skin or not.
Sometimes, its contextual. For example, a story taking place in medieval Europe could potentially have a black person in it, but any more than one or two would probably feel forced. When thinking about medieval Europe, black people did exist but they were not a common sight. A person who is interested in that kind of story would expect the vast majority of the story’s characters to be white Europeans, and there might be one or two characters that aren’t.
Another point to keep in mind is that a fantasy world doesn’t need to follow the rules of current society. In your story, slavery could be legal, or the age of consent could be 403 years old. It doesn’t matter because is a made up world, a fantasy. Fantasy doesn’t always mean ideal or perfect, and I would argue that the best fantasy settings are the ones that you wouldn’t want to live in on a daily basis. An imperfect world, where people suffer from.various things, give a good backdrop to explore various types of stories that are relatable enough to a person without being too real. A fantasy story’s general purpose is simply to provide people with a temporary escape from reality, so if they start seeing things which remind them of reality such as social political talking point, they may be less inclined to feel like they can escape, and thus will have a negative view of the world you created.