Who WAS the True Master of the Elder Wand?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183963

Carol earlier:
> > 
> > I don't think that counts as the wand failing Voldemort. It served
its purpose--killing a lot of people in his wrath--and *he* certainly
never thought (or Harry would have known), "The wand failed me! It
should have killed him through the door!" 
> 
> 
> Pippin:
> Of course he didn't think in the middle of a temper tantrum! But
this is supposed to be the Deathstick, the WW's premier killing
machine, the wand with a long and bloody history, and though it did
kill a number of people, it did so no more efficiently than
Voldemort's old wand. <snip>

Carol responds:

Dead is dead. And if he killed *all* the people in that room,
including the escapees (how do we know that they closed the door
behind them?) he'd have no servants left. Altogether, a stupid thing
to do. I've heard of killing the messenger, but killing the listeners,
your own loyal followers? Even Voldemort must have been sated after
that kill-fest, and he certainly did not doubt the effectiveness of
his weapon then or later. Nor does it fail him in creating Nagini's
bubble, drawing Snape into it, or turning the green potion clear, the
only feats of magic other than those unimaginative AKs that it's
depicted as performing. Not one shred of a doubt, not one reference to
not killing Bella and Lucius or anyone else who escaped his rage on
that occasion. It's no *more* effective than his old yew wand, but
that wand chose him and performed many feats of spectacular Dark
magic, including creating Horcruxes and Inferi and the protections in
the cave, as well as the spells he cast against DD in the MoM. The
only reason it didn't kill Dumbledore was Fawkes's swallowed AK and
the animated statues from the fountain. And he was fighting the elder
wand at that point. The only failing of the yew wand, so compatible
with Voldemort down to its immortality-related components, yew and
Phoenix feather, relates to its "brother," Harry's holly-and-phoenix-
feather wand, and the Priori Incantatem. So to say that the Elder wand
performed "no more efficiently" than the wand that had performed so
many "great but terrible" things is to say exactly nothing. 

Carol earlier:
> but Voldemort himself doesn't start thinking about the wand's
supposedly not doing his bidding until more than a month later 
> 
> Pippin:
> Exactly. Not until he kills with it does Voldemort have evidence
that the wand is not doing all it should. But he has to go and check
on his horcruxes first.

Carol responds:

What evidence? He neither thinks nor says anything about the wand
having failed him until "The Elder Wand," and he provides no evidence
to support his statement. It's not even clear that he intended to kill
Snape from the moment he sends for him. He questions him first to see
how much he knows. But Snape, desperately seeking Harry and knowing
that time is running out, for once doesn't catch on. (We see his state
of mind earlier, with even Harry noticing, as indicated by the
narrator, that Snape seemed to be acting without conscious awareness
of what he was doing because his mind is elsewhere.) At any rate, IMO,
the fact that some of his followers escaped him is no indication of
the wand's failure, though it does show the limitations of the AK.
Even if Voldemort had been the wand's acknowledged master, he could
kill only one person at a time by that method and those he killed
would be no deader than they already are. Voldemort isn't thinking
about the wand at all. He's thinking, as you said yourself, about his
precious Horcruxes. Nor has the wand given him any reason to think
about it.
> 
Carol earlier:
> > Carol, who still thinks that this part of the storyline is
unconvincing and serves no purpose except to get Snape killed
> 
> Pippin:
> You mean, JKR was deliberately clumsy? I mean, why bother to give
Voldemort an unconvincing reason to kill Snape? No reason at all would
do as well. But Harry had to have some reason to start thinking that
*he* might be the master of the Elder Wand, without it being so
obvious that the reader would get there first. 

Carol responds:

Deliberately clumsy? I doubt it. But inadvertently clumsy and
unconvincing, yes. I see no evidence either of the astounding feats of
magic that Snape says the wand performed and Voldemort attributes to
his own surpassing skill (if the wand performed these unseen
spectacular feats of magic, why would he think that it failed him?) or
of the wand failing him. Nor does Voldemort until he suddenly gets the
idea to question and then kill Snape in case he's the wand's master. 

That incident provides Harry with information that he needs and
enables Snape to provide Harry with crucial memories before dying, as
he could not have done if he'd been AK'd. No doubt Voldemort thought
that the wand wouldn't AK Snape if he was its master since he hadn't
been Disarmed, but Voldemort could have realized, after his
questioning of Snape, that Snape knew nothing about the Elder Wand,
and then handed it to him saying, "Here. Hold this," and Disarmed him
with the yew wand. Snape would say, "What the--?" and then be sent
back to the battle to do whatever he he'd been doing (probably
searching for Harry as there's no indication that he was seen fighting
in the battle pretending to be a loyal DE).

But, nope. We get Voldemort suddenly thinking, for no reason that can
be discerned from canon, that the Death Stick with which he has
already killed so many people isn't working properly for him even
though it also created Nagini's bubble and turned the green potion in
the cave clear.

If we had only seen him attempt and fail some spectacular feat of
magic along the lines of the spells used in the duel with Dumbledore
in the MoM. So the supposed failure of the wand is only an excuse to
kill Snape, after which Voldemort uses it again to "kill" Harry,
casting what would have been a successful AK if it weren't for the
shared drop of blood--nothing to do with the Elder Wand (which does
not at that point recognize Harry as its master. IMO, wands understand
human speech and thought, as they would have to do to recognize a
compatible wizard and understand nonverbal spells, and learns its own
history along with Voldemort and the listeners in the Great Hall).

So, yes, it's clumsy. I have no reason whatever to believe that
Voldemort saw the wand as failing him until after Harry returns from
King's Cross, and even then it's his self-sacrifice, not the Elder
Wand itself, that makes Voldemort's spells impotent. Of course, we're
left to wonder how effective the self-sacrifice would have been if
Voldemort had really been the master of the "Unbeatable" Elder wand.
and, of course, once it learns that Harry is its master, it refuses to
AK him. But it seems to me that, never having been in Draco's
possession, the Elder Wand quite happily served the Dark Wizard who
stole it from the dead Dumbledore's grasp until it learned the
identity of its true master.)

The whole clumsy contrivance is confusing and unconvincing, but it
would have been less so if Voldemort had been given reason, on page
and in Harry's hearing via the scar link, to think that he wasn't the
wand's true master.

You apparently find it convincing. I don't. There was no reason
whatever for Voldemort to kill Snape except that JKR wanted him to die
that way, in Harry's presence, giving him those crucial memories as a
spectacular last bit of magic as Harry sat by in shock (at least
Hermione had the sense to conjure a vial) and allowing Harry to look
into Snape's eyes as Snape died--a great and memorable and horrific
scene, to be sure, but one that need not have happened as far as the
plot was concerned. Killing Snape had no effect on the wand's loyalty
and performance. It only made Voldemort think *what he already
thought*--that he was the wand's master. Why not skip that step and
have Voldemort continue using the wand that has not yet failed him,
thinking that he's its master because his own powers enable him to use
it effectively (and it's no doubt compatible in other ways, having
killed numerous people before he obtained it) and let Snape live?
Maybe JKR couldn't think of any other way for Snape to give Harry
those memories and for Harry to understand and forgive Snape.

Carol, looking for *on-page* evidence of the wand's failure to serve
Voldemort effectively and finding none at all