I just started watching Babylon 5. I'm like 6 episodes in and I've already seen a Nazis bad allegory, a "poor black man was experimented on by the government, and also is the only guy that the hot blonde has had any romantic interest in" episode, and a "humans saying that Earth should be for humans are evil scum maggots" episode.
I hear that the series gets good and has a cool story arc, but I'm not willing to put up with much more of this. I'm just waiting for the "men are bad" episode and then they'll pretty much have the '90s leftist propaganda bases covered.
Pay very close attention to which episodes were actually written by the lead writer, and which were not. The ones that were not are the worst, most propaganda driven episodes in the whole show.
I'm almost done with season 2 on a first time watch. Once I realised who the subversives were (and reading their bios lead you to the worst episodes of trek, and how those episodes could have been even worse if the author had gotten away with it) I started ignoring anything not written by Straczynski.
I think it's a damn good show so far, but those "filler" eps were absolutely hardcore propaganda. It was the one where "parental rights are a bad thing!" that got me looking into who was actually writing this trash, and why was it so clearly bad in every way compared to the episode before it.
For what it's worth, B5 S1 has always been notoriously terrible even leaving the propaganda aside. It quickly gets better in S2, although it's been some time since I've seen the show in its entirety.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,
Nothing worth doing that I haven't tried.
There ain't no living on planet-side,
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
How many cities crumble into dust
At the first atomic attack?
How many self-aware, wise, and just
Computers will we have to hack?
How many supercars will turn to rust
'Cause we don't have a spare or a jack?
Give me technology we can trust,
And give it fins like a Cadillac.
I want a shining tower of glass and steel,
A rubber jumpsuit and a freeze-dried meal,
The will to survive, the need to explore,
The love of adventure, who could ask for more?
I want you, baby, right by my side,
Help me get out before my brain is fried.
The stars are waiting, so big and wide,
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
How many demons out in cyberspace
Will possess every hacker's will?
How many members of a master race
Will come closing in for the kill?
How many xenomorphs will change their face,
And then hunt us down for a thrill?
Give me a villain with style and grace,
And a little bit of fencing skill.
They used to be angular, sneering and bald,
If someone got killed even they were appalled,
They tried to marry the heroine, no thought of rape,
And they sure as hell knew how to wear a cape.
They never tortured, they never lied,
They'd honor a promise if it meant they died.
Let's find a villain with professional pride,
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Terminators, Life Force, Robot Jox, Predators,
Lots of things that know how to flense,
Defenestrate 'em out the doors, gimme gimme Star Wars,
Bring back the Children of the Lens.
Puppet Master, Child's Play, Fright Night, Judgment Day,
Jason, Freddy, Michael, and Stripe,
Let Frankenstein, Ardeth Bey, and Kong chase them all away,
The Movie Snatchers' pods are overripe.
I want more than action and special effects,
To think about what might happen next,
A hero, not a weapons shop with pecs,
A heroine, not an excuse for sex.
I want a bubble helmet matting down my hair,
The ground giving way to the open air,
The joy and wonder as I head out there,
And I know I can have it, if I only dare.
How many bodybuilding macho jerks
Will blow everything full of holes?
How many imitation Captain Kirks
Will spill beer on the ship's controls?
How many stupid personality quirks
Will we see instead of souls?
Give me my baby and a ship that works,
And give us the starring roles.
I want to cruise the galaxy at FTL,
Pursuing Heaven and defying Hell,
I want to do everything that a man can do,
And I want to do it all out there with you.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,
Nothing worth doing that I haven't tried.
There ain't no living on planet-side,
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,
Nothing worth doing that I haven't tried.
There ain't no living on planet-side,
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
S2-S4 in particular are what make it a glorious ride.
It's kind of funny how part of the reason for the faster and more dramatic pacing is because at one juncture they really thought they were going to get cancelled soon, so Straczynski really wanted to advance the story and get it going.
B5 is unique because the majority of the show was written by one man. Other shows have whole teams of writers, and even the "creator" of the show might only write 5% of the episodes. Straczynski wrote like 95% of the episodes, so yeah, skip the filler and get a decent show.
The preachy/propaganda stuff is pretty much gone after season 1, and the show gets a lot better. Still, there's some great content in season 1. Season 5 isn't as good as 2, 3, and 4, but it's because of studio interference, causing the creator to condense 2 seasons into 1 (resulting in a very fast paced season 4), and season 5 being quite anti climatic, and taking a while to find its feet, since the JMS had to conjure a whole new story for season 5, since the studio said they were cancelling the show at the end of season 4, and then renewing it for season 5 after JMS had told the story he wanted to tell.
Even though it's a scifi show, it has amazing characters and arcs, arguably the best in any show I've seen, like Garibaldi, Londo, and G'kar.
Just be sure to watch the show and movies in proper viewing order. Most of the movies are "meh", but In The Beginning is incredible.
While Straczynski wrote like... 90% of the episodes iirc, I think he hired some weird, VERY lefty sci-fi writers who ended up being too lazy to write as many scripts as he'd expected them to. I think one was a mega feminist if I remember correctly.
That was part of an attempted attack on Jehovah's Witnesses that the media staged in the 1990s.
It kinda backfired, because people hate JWs, and don't give a shit what happens to their fucking kids, if they don't grow up to knock on doors, great. So they dropped it.
You're going to be very pleasantly surprised when you hit the series of episodes that go into how the media manipulate and control perception and reality. Sadly, they're interspaced out over several seasons...
As others have said seasons 2-4 are the best. One has a few interesting episodes especially the last few of the season. While season 5 get more interesting at the end. Londo and G’Kar’s arc is probably one of the best in sci fi with an amazing job done by the actors. While it does tackle some social issues I always felt it did so on a higher level than Current YearTM insert politics. Concepts like order vs chaos, revenge, forgiveness, fate. How choices we make now can have a negative impact on the future as we ignore all the warning signs.
I always felt it did so on a higher level than Current YearTM insert politics
It's definitely less ham-fisted than most of Current Year masturbatory writing (minus the pro-human episode, that was just naked propaganda), but I have zero tolerance for any of it at this point.
The pro human propaganda gets a bit more subtle in subsequent seasons, but unfortunately is still present, as it becomes part of the earth government story. Still, the details that are revealed about the Earth Minbari war which occured a few years before season 1, shows that the "racist" humans had a damn good reason to think the way they did, even if the show tries hard to demonize them.
Even though JMS did a great job writing and planning out the show, it could've been even better if he spent more time on the nuance of the opposing sides, leaving more to the audience to decide for themselves, which is what some of the best Star Trek episodes did.
Harry potter is accidentally the most pro 2A thing to ever come from the brits.
Wands are guns and everyone in their society is constantly armed. The government is corrupt at best and is actively subverted by evil people, by the end it literally requires armed rebellion to overthrow the tyrannical authoritarian government.
In the 5th book the protagonists literally create a youth militia to support a beloved figurehead persecuted by the government. They gather in secret, teach each other methods of self defense and believe self defense to be a fundamental right that the government is trying to restrict them from exercising.
JKR is such a lefty nutjob that there is no way she is aware of the analogy she created. Which just goes to further support my hypothesis that JKR probably only wrote the first 1-3 books and had a ghostwriter help her with the rest.
Considering that books 1-3 are actually proper children's book sized and books 4-7 a fucking gigantic doorstoppers of a novel, I'd be more surprised if she didn't have help to churn all that out just on size alone.
It was written by Brits, who gave up their dark objects guns for "their safety." The Brits who have no right to free speech.
It's not exactly a people who I would look towards to find search and seizure a problem. I assume it goes way back, the Americans put in the 4th amendment for a reason.
What's interesting is, in context of that world, considering there is magic, there are inherently harmful/bad artifacts. So it's not a direct analog for guns, and they probably should be controlled.
That said, the act is still bad, because it's thought policing. They're searching specific people, based on their views for these artifacts. It's a draconian and tyrannical law, whether or not the artifacts in question need to be controlled or not. It's those in power writing laws to go after their opposition. Very on-brand.
The problem with most of the "allegory for racism/guns" stories is that they are always stuck with the problem of "wait no those things are legitimately a danger to everyone."
Guns are just inanimate objects. Magical artifacts and the like can literally influence the world around them through curses and other manners, actively damaging things or manipulating people to use them. And 99% of the time, there is no actual reason to own a "dark art" object over a regular magical one other than being evil. They either only do things evilly or are used for terrible consequence filled actions like Resurrection.
The whole thing falls apart unless you also think guns are legitimately magical things that turn people violent and have no non-human killing use.
I like when they explicitly call that out. Monster Hunter Memoirs makes the point that there is no 2A for dark magic because, unlike guns, tapping into dark magic actually drives you insane. Dark magic needs to be controlled, or the world falls apart. Guns don't as, like you said, they're just objects.
The whole thing falls apart unless you also think guns are legitimately magical things that turn people violent and have no non-human killing use.
Which is why you'll see the magic = guns thing from leftists or brainwashed normie authors, and only see the 'magic and guns are different' thing from more conservative authors.
One of the best fantasy gun control metaphors I've ever seen was in Pokemon Black and White.
Team Plasma goes around spreading a wholesome message of Pokemon freedom, insisting that everyone release their Pokemon so they'll no longer be abused or mistreated by foolish humans. Their figurehead, N, fully believes this message and actively practices what he preaches. However, the whole thing is a scam by the shadow leaders of the team. Once everyone else has released their pet super monsters, they plan to move in with their own and take over everything unopposed.
The final message of the game boils down to: "The truth is that there will always be power abusers, so it's best that good people also have power so that they can fight for ideals."
None of this is specified in any of the books or movies. Idk where it comes from. The Muggle Protection Act in the books is referenced completely without any specifics whatsoever other than that Arthur wrote it and Lucius opposed it.
Lucius IS raided by the government specifically under the muggle protection act, but the purview he's describing at the time is poisons and torture devices.
In any case. Old Rolling Pin has never been good at political commentary. In her world the news is completely controlled by high class elitists who want the population at large to be disarmed and specifically not trained in self defense.
The government is irredeemably corrupt, and attempts to ruin the reputation of any populist leader that refuses to work for them. One of its primary excesses is attempting to exercise control over independent organizations such as Hogwarts which are held up as examples of private institutions who should be allowed to hire who they like and set their curriculum.
And then Dumbledore as that school's head specifically hires incompetents based on non-work related factors which leads to near deaths of children, cronyism, and rampant institutional abuse. This is all framed as wrong and misguided but for understandable reasons.
JK Rowling : ''Scotland independance proponents are Death Eaters''.
Also JK Rowling, after the UK declares independance from the EU : ''Well Scotland has to do the right thing now and declare independance from the UK to rejoin the EU''.
Not the sharpest tool in the police raid box of confiscated cuttelry.
After Voldemort is defeated and global wizard equality is achieved, the influx of half-breeds and less-capable wizards into Hogwarts and other magical schools grows dramatically. Criticisms of this change are met with accusations of bigotry, including calls of “you are starting to sound a lot like you know who with that talk!” This process continues, with miscegenation becoming “all the rage” for the next hundred years.
By the year 2100, magical bloodlines have become so diluted that very few people can actually use magic any longer. Magical creatures find that they cannot communicate with students at school, wands begin refusing ownership, and tensions rise as “pure” students begin to unite. The fear of a return to the Dark Days is still strong, and those critics who raise concerns over the decline in quality and use of magic are called “bigots” for their anti-muggleblood views.
In more progressive circles, prominent “intellectual” wizards begin to suggest that magic doesn't even really exist - not objectively anyway. It is merely a social construct, and witchcraft and wizardry can manifest themselves in many different forms, most of which don't involve the use of magic at all. This is met with great approval by the majority of muggleborns, though there is still discontent among those who continue to actually use magic “correctly.”
The wizard population capped out a thousand years ago, judging how Hogwarts is less filled than when it was constructed. Meanwhile the muggle population exploded from a few million globally, to 8 billion today.
Yes, it's a big fucking problem when your population goes from being outnumbered, to being outnumbered a million times worse.
Isn't this the law that was meant to stop wizards from turning mundane objects into (potentially dangerous) magical ones, that then might find their way into unsuspecting Muggle hands?
The law that Arthur broke the hell out of himself by making himself a nifty flying car?
Related:
I just started watching Babylon 5. I'm like 6 episodes in and I've already seen a Nazis bad allegory, a "poor black man was experimented on by the government, and also is the only guy that the hot blonde has had any romantic interest in" episode, and a "humans saying that Earth should be for humans are evil scum maggots" episode.
I hear that the series gets good and has a cool story arc, but I'm not willing to put up with much more of this. I'm just waiting for the "men are bad" episode and then they'll pretty much have the '90s leftist propaganda bases covered.
Pay very close attention to which episodes were actually written by the lead writer, and which were not. The ones that were not are the worst, most propaganda driven episodes in the whole show.
I'm almost done with season 2 on a first time watch. Once I realised who the subversives were (and reading their bios lead you to the worst episodes of trek, and how those episodes could have been even worse if the author had gotten away with it) I started ignoring anything not written by Straczynski.
I think it's a damn good show so far, but those "filler" eps were absolutely hardcore propaganda. It was the one where "parental rights are a bad thing!" that got me looking into who was actually writing this trash, and why was it so clearly bad in every way compared to the episode before it.
That's a good suggestion; I might just start doing that. I'm not interested in wasting any more time with propaganda masquerading as sci-fi.
For what it's worth, B5 S1 has always been notoriously terrible even leaving the propaganda aside. It quickly gets better in S2, although it's been some time since I've seen the show in its entirety.
I like terrible sci-fi.
Give me tar monsters and aliens made of painted bubble wrap. The more bad CGI the better. Just leave the goddamn political messaging out of it.
Fourth doctor vs 6th doctor basically.
https://tomsmith.bandcamp.com/track/rocket-ride
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Nothing worth doing that I haven't tried. There ain't no living on planet-side, Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
How many cities crumble into dust At the first atomic attack? How many self-aware, wise, and just Computers will we have to hack?
How many supercars will turn to rust 'Cause we don't have a spare or a jack? Give me technology we can trust, And give it fins like a Cadillac.
I want a shining tower of glass and steel, A rubber jumpsuit and a freeze-dried meal, The will to survive, the need to explore, The love of adventure, who could ask for more?
I want you, baby, right by my side, Help me get out before my brain is fried. The stars are waiting, so big and wide, Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride. Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
How many demons out in cyberspace Will possess every hacker's will? How many members of a master race Will come closing in for the kill?
How many xenomorphs will change their face, And then hunt us down for a thrill? Give me a villain with style and grace, And a little bit of fencing skill.
They used to be angular, sneering and bald, If someone got killed even they were appalled, They tried to marry the heroine, no thought of rape, And they sure as hell knew how to wear a cape.
They never tortured, they never lied, They'd honor a promise if it meant they died. Let's find a villain with professional pride, Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride. Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Terminators, Life Force, Robot Jox, Predators, Lots of things that know how to flense, Defenestrate 'em out the doors, gimme gimme Star Wars, Bring back the Children of the Lens.
Puppet Master, Child's Play, Fright Night, Judgment Day, Jason, Freddy, Michael, and Stripe, Let Frankenstein, Ardeth Bey, and Kong chase them all away, The Movie Snatchers' pods are overripe.
I want more than action and special effects, To think about what might happen next, A hero, not a weapons shop with pecs, A heroine, not an excuse for sex.
I want a bubble helmet matting down my hair, The ground giving way to the open air, The joy and wonder as I head out there, And I know I can have it, if I only dare.
How many bodybuilding macho jerks Will blow everything full of holes? How many imitation Captain Kirks Will spill beer on the ship's controls?
How many stupid personality quirks Will we see instead of souls? Give me my baby and a ship that works, And give us the starring roles.
I want to cruise the galaxy at FTL, Pursuing Heaven and defying Hell, I want to do everything that a man can do, And I want to do it all out there with you.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Nothing worth doing that I haven't tried. There ain't no living on planet-side, Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Nothing worth doing that I haven't tried. There ain't no living on planet-side, Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride. Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride. Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride. Come on with me, baby, on a rocket ride.
S2-S4 in particular are what make it a glorious ride.
It's kind of funny how part of the reason for the faster and more dramatic pacing is because at one juncture they really thought they were going to get cancelled soon, so Straczynski really wanted to advance the story and get it going.
B5 is unique because the majority of the show was written by one man. Other shows have whole teams of writers, and even the "creator" of the show might only write 5% of the episodes. Straczynski wrote like 95% of the episodes, so yeah, skip the filler and get a decent show.
That's also why the Syndicated Real Ghostbusters still Slaps with real Scary Shit and his Spider-Man is still top shelf.
The preachy/propaganda stuff is pretty much gone after season 1, and the show gets a lot better. Still, there's some great content in season 1. Season 5 isn't as good as 2, 3, and 4, but it's because of studio interference, causing the creator to condense 2 seasons into 1 (resulting in a very fast paced season 4), and season 5 being quite anti climatic, and taking a while to find its feet, since the JMS had to conjure a whole new story for season 5, since the studio said they were cancelling the show at the end of season 4, and then renewing it for season 5 after JMS had told the story he wanted to tell.
Even though it's a scifi show, it has amazing characters and arcs, arguably the best in any show I've seen, like Garibaldi, Londo, and G'kar.
Just be sure to watch the show and movies in proper viewing order. Most of the movies are "meh", but In The Beginning is incredible.
While Straczynski wrote like... 90% of the episodes iirc, I think he hired some weird, VERY lefty sci-fi writers who ended up being too lazy to write as many scripts as he'd expected them to. I think one was a mega feminist if I remember correctly.
Huh, literally only knew him from Amazing Spider-man comics.
Yeah I'm gonna read those comics eventually because his writing in B5 is so good.
Can't believe I slept on the show for so long.
That was part of an attempted attack on Jehovah's Witnesses that the media staged in the 1990s.
It kinda backfired, because people hate JWs, and don't give a shit what happens to their fucking kids, if they don't grow up to knock on doors, great. So they dropped it.
Have you run into the "this is how we should treat gays" episode or was that just 80s shows?
First season really was meh, but has its moments. Second through Fourth are AMAZING.
You're going to be very pleasantly surprised when you hit the series of episodes that go into how the media manipulate and control perception and reality. Sadly, they're interspaced out over several seasons...
As others have said seasons 2-4 are the best. One has a few interesting episodes especially the last few of the season. While season 5 get more interesting at the end. Londo and G’Kar’s arc is probably one of the best in sci fi with an amazing job done by the actors. While it does tackle some social issues I always felt it did so on a higher level than Current YearTM insert politics. Concepts like order vs chaos, revenge, forgiveness, fate. How choices we make now can have a negative impact on the future as we ignore all the warning signs.
It's definitely less ham-fisted than most of Current Year masturbatory writing (minus the pro-human episode, that was just naked propaganda), but I have zero tolerance for any of it at this point.
The pro human propaganda gets a bit more subtle in subsequent seasons, but unfortunately is still present, as it becomes part of the earth government story. Still, the details that are revealed about the Earth Minbari war which occured a few years before season 1, shows that the "racist" humans had a damn good reason to think the way they did, even if the show tries hard to demonize them.
Even though JMS did a great job writing and planning out the show, it could've been even better if he spent more time on the nuance of the opposing sides, leaving more to the audience to decide for themselves, which is what some of the best Star Trek episodes did.
Telepaths and the psycorp become allegories for almost everything throughout the series.
Harry potter is accidentally the most pro 2A thing to ever come from the brits.
Wands are guns and everyone in their society is constantly armed. The government is corrupt at best and is actively subverted by evil people, by the end it literally requires armed rebellion to overthrow the tyrannical authoritarian government.
In the 5th book the protagonists literally create a youth militia to support a beloved figurehead persecuted by the government. They gather in secret, teach each other methods of self defense and believe self defense to be a fundamental right that the government is trying to restrict them from exercising.
JKR is such a lefty nutjob that there is no way she is aware of the analogy she created. Which just goes to further support my hypothesis that JKR probably only wrote the first 1-3 books and had a ghostwriter help her with the rest.
I remember hearing this theory before, that it was part way through the 2nd book that a ghostwriter takes over
Considering that books 1-3 are actually proper children's book sized and books 4-7 a fucking gigantic doorstoppers of a novel, I'd be more surprised if she didn't have help to churn all that out just on size alone.
Fun fact: Only humans are allowed to carry and use wands. Goblins and Elves must use magic without a wand.
It was written by Brits, who gave up their
dark objectsguns for "their safety." The Brits who have no right to free speech.It's not exactly a people who I would look towards to find search and seizure a problem. I assume it goes way back, the Americans put in the 4th amendment for a reason.
What's interesting is, in context of that world, considering there is magic, there are inherently harmful/bad artifacts. So it's not a direct analog for guns, and they probably should be controlled.
That said, the act is still bad, because it's thought policing. They're searching specific people, based on their views for these artifacts. It's a draconian and tyrannical law, whether or not the artifacts in question need to be controlled or not. It's those in power writing laws to go after their opposition. Very on-brand.
The problem with most of the "allegory for racism/guns" stories is that they are always stuck with the problem of "wait no those things are legitimately a danger to everyone."
Guns are just inanimate objects. Magical artifacts and the like can literally influence the world around them through curses and other manners, actively damaging things or manipulating people to use them. And 99% of the time, there is no actual reason to own a "dark art" object over a regular magical one other than being evil. They either only do things evilly or are used for terrible consequence filled actions like Resurrection.
The whole thing falls apart unless you also think guns are legitimately magical things that turn people violent and have no non-human killing use.
I like when they explicitly call that out. Monster Hunter Memoirs makes the point that there is no 2A for dark magic because, unlike guns, tapping into dark magic actually drives you insane. Dark magic needs to be controlled, or the world falls apart. Guns don't as, like you said, they're just objects.
Which is why you'll see the magic = guns thing from leftists or brainwashed normie authors, and only see the 'magic and guns are different' thing from more conservative authors.
One of the best fantasy gun control metaphors I've ever seen was in Pokemon Black and White.
Team Plasma goes around spreading a wholesome message of Pokemon freedom, insisting that everyone release their Pokemon so they'll no longer be abused or mistreated by foolish humans. Their figurehead, N, fully believes this message and actively practices what he preaches. However, the whole thing is a scam by the shadow leaders of the team. Once everyone else has released their pet super monsters, they plan to move in with their own and take over everything unopposed.
The final message of the game boils down to: "The truth is that there will always be power abusers, so it's best that good people also have power so that they can fight for ideals."
I miss when Pokemon was good....
the dangerous muggle artifacts are just normal shit you have around your house that fuck with magic in the setting.
None of this is specified in any of the books or movies. Idk where it comes from. The Muggle Protection Act in the books is referenced completely without any specifics whatsoever other than that Arthur wrote it and Lucius opposed it.
Lucius IS raided by the government specifically under the muggle protection act, but the purview he's describing at the time is poisons and torture devices.
In any case. Old Rolling Pin has never been good at political commentary. In her world the news is completely controlled by high class elitists who want the population at large to be disarmed and specifically not trained in self defense.
The government is irredeemably corrupt, and attempts to ruin the reputation of any populist leader that refuses to work for them. One of its primary excesses is attempting to exercise control over independent organizations such as Hogwarts which are held up as examples of private institutions who should be allowed to hire who they like and set their curriculum.
And then Dumbledore as that school's head specifically hires incompetents based on non-work related factors which leads to near deaths of children, cronyism, and rampant institutional abuse. This is all framed as wrong and misguided but for understandable reasons.
Frankly it's great.
JK Rowling : ''Scotland independance proponents are Death Eaters''.
Also JK Rowling, after the UK declares independance from the EU : ''Well Scotland has to do the right thing now and declare independance from the UK to rejoin the EU''.
Not the sharpest tool in the police raid box of confiscated cuttelry.
The irony of the whole "wizards deny goblins access to wands" coming from an anti-gun commentator will always be tasty.
Voldemort did nothing wrong.
I wouldn't say that, but I would say Lucius Malfoy was utterly correct in the quote from the image.
He was weak, inefficient, and when you have access to permanent polymorphic magic, he was ugly and not even in an intimidating way.
Lord Val-U-Mart is some tiki-torch tubby self-hating half-breed.
Unironically.
The wizard population capped out a thousand years ago, judging how Hogwarts is less filled than when it was constructed. Meanwhile the muggle population exploded from a few million globally, to 8 billion today.
Yes, it's a big fucking problem when your population goes from being outnumbered, to being outnumbered a million times worse.
Isn't this the law that was meant to stop wizards from turning mundane objects into (potentially dangerous) magical ones, that then might find their way into unsuspecting Muggle hands?
The law that Arthur broke the hell out of himself by making himself a nifty flying car?