The Core of the Elder Wand and other new JKR explanations

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 179717

> "meann ortiz" wrote:
> >
> >  J.K. Rowling updated her website and posted some interesting
> tidbits about *Deathly Hallows*.
> > 
> > - The core of the Elder Wand is the tail hair of a thestral, a
> substance that can be mastered only by someone capable of facing 
death.
> <snip>
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> Does anyone besides me find this information less than helpful, even
> possibly annoying? It isn'e in the books (we don't even know that 
the
> wand *has* a core), and it seems to me that a number of people 
became
> the master of the Elder Wand by seizing it or killing the previous
> master without necessarily being capable of facing death. (That's 
what
> "master of death" seems to be about, as well.) How could Draco, who
> seems to be afraid (like most people) of dying have been the
> (unwitting) master of the wand, and why did it work perfectly for
> Voldemort (who killed loads of his own DEs with it and used it to
> create Nagini's bubble) when he was more afraid of death than anyone
> in the WW? 

Magpie:
That was my response--well, actually my response was kind of the 
opposite. I mean, I can't believe that JKR would say that Draco was 
the kind of wizard who was "capable of facing death," since that 
seems to be a sign of someone exceptionally heroic and I can't 
imagine Draco's heroic in JKR's view. (Though of course he has faced 
death more than once in the series.) Yet at the same time, as you 
say, he also was the master of the wand. 

I've got no problem myself describing him as capable of facing death, 
but that's because imo EVERYBODY is capable of facing death because 
we will all do it whether we choose to or not. You don't need to be 
any kind of person for it any more than you do to be born. Every 
human faces death. It's part of our condition, not a character trait. 

But then, I just don't get what the real issue is with facing death. 
This answer brings up again how obviously this subject is important, 
the idea of "facing death" with bravado or acceptance and never 
cowering of somebody's coming at you with an axe or whatever, but it 
doesn't add up to anything meaningful that I can see. Death's not 
scary, it's like falling asleep, you can see happy ghosts waiting for 
you and you've got a lot of proof of the afterlife (unlike humans 
do)...but also it's this big important thing that only Masters of 
Death are capable of facing. (Except for Merope, who lacked the 
courage to live.) Harry's been doing it since he was 11--he could 
have performed his part in the forest just as well then.

I think the core raises questions as well--it makes it seem like 
somebody made it like a regular wand.

As for the "it's not scientific so it works on faith"--that's 
definitely standard--only if it doesn't "click" then there's a 
problem with the metaphor. Most if not all of the magic in HP canon 
is obviously not thought through in great detail. Pensieves don't 
really hold up to basic logic questions any more than this stuff 
does, but that isn't a problem. There's a bit more of one, imo, when 
things need to be based on deep ancient "rules" of magic when we've 
no idea how those kinds of rules could exist since the nature of 
magic is so mundane in this world. And then there's the slight 
problem of her slipping into stuff like "genes" and "DNA" which *is* 
scientific. 

-m