Who WAS the True Master of the Elder Wand?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183974

 Jenni from Alabama responds:
> Now this is just my opinion... but I think that Harry was the
> Master of the Elder Wand the entire time. Why? Because Ignotus
> Peverell died a natural death! No one defeated him! He was
> Master of the Wand. Harry is a descendant of his... a direct
> descendant! I think the Wand worked somewhat for Tom because
> he was related to the Peverells. But Ignotus was supposedly
> Harry's great, great, great (however many greats) grandfather.
> The Wand showed its complete loyalty to Harry because of that.
> Defeating Draco just solidified it even more.
> 
> As to why it worked for Dumbledore... I think that Dumbledore
> was also related to the Peverells.
> 
> Just my opinion.

Carol responds:
That's an interesting idea, but Voldemort was descended from Cadmus
Peverell, who created the Resurrection Stone, and Harry from Ignotus,
who created the Invisibility Cloak. Antioch, who created the Elder
Wand, apparently had no descendants, having been murdered by someone
who wanted it. Ignotus was never the master or the Elder Wand.
(Ironically, Tom Riddle would have been the rightful heir to the
Resurrection Stone once Morfin died had he not stolen it and turned it
into a Horcrux after murdering his own father and grandparents.) So
the only Hallow that was Harry's by right of descent was the
Invisibility Cloak.

As for Dumbledore, who lived in Godric's Hollow only because his
mother moved there after his father was arrested, I don't think he had
any relationship to the Peverells. The Elder Wand was his because he
won it (though he was apparently careful not to kill with it), but the
borrowed Invisibility Cloak was never his, nor was the Resurrection
Stone that indirectly caused his death. The Resurrection Stone
*becomes* Harry's when it's no longer a Horcrux because Dumbledore
willed it to him--perhaps he's its rightful possessor, as Dumbledore
was not, because he doesn't want to bring people back from the dead,
only to have them with him as he joins their ranks. He casts it away
at the end and doesn't go back to look for it once he's defeated
Voldemort, apparently knowing and rejecting its temptations as he
knows and rejects the temptations of the Elder Wand.

Because Harry is descended from Ignotus rather than Antioch, JKR is
forced to construe an elaborate subplot that enables Voldemort to
obtain the wand but Harry to be its true master. At any rate, it would
have simplified matters considerably if the childless Antioch had
willed the wand to one of his brothers, but apparently he was as much
a quarrelsome braggart as his counterpart in "The Tale of the Three
Brothers," and so the wand passed from hand to hand through murder and
treachery (or sheer accident in DH) until Harry finally put an end to
that story.

Carol, who would have preferred a simpler, less bloody solution herself