The Core of the Elder Wand and other new JKR explanations

[Annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 179726

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> "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.

Annemehr:

Well, now, I read this differently: I believe what JKR meant was that 
working with thestral tail hair *itself* could only be done well by 
someone "capable of facint death."  I.e. it would apply to a 
wandmaker who might use thestral tail-hair, but not necessarily to 
the wand-owner.  (I'd say it would also apply to anyone using it in a 
potion as well.)

I feel even more confident of this interpretation because it meshes 
with the fact that LV seems to have been very well bonded with his 
phoenix-feather wand, even though he has nothing in common with 
Fawkes and could never, say, call him to himself through loyalty to 
Dumbledore or the like.

If LV can master a Fawkes-feather wand, then he could have mastered 
the Elder wand as well, if he had actually ever won it from its owner.


> Carol, who prefers to believe that the Elder Wand was coreless and
> that mastery of it has nothing to do with overcoming the fear of 
death
> (if that were the case, it should have gone to Snape!)
>

Annemehr:

Coreless, huh?  The possibility never occurred to me; in fact, I was 
irritated that DH never said what the Elder core was.  I'm glad JKR 
finally said, but I wish she'd have put it in the book.