Who WAS the True Master of the Elder Wand?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183988

Carol earlier:
> > 
> > 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? 
> 
> Mike:
> But Carol, it's not a matter of what Voldemort did or didn't do, 
should or shouldn't do. It's a matter of what the wand should do, in 
the hands of it's true master.

Carol responds:
I understand your point. My point is that we're never shown that the
wand fails him. He's had it for more than a month before he kills all
those people in Malfoy Manor without a thought of its failing him. Nor
does that thought occur to him at the time. All he thinks about is the
Horcruxes:

"The scream of rage, of denial [that the cup has been stolen] left him
as if it were a stranger's. He was crazed, frenzied, it could not be
tru, it was impossible, nobody had even known: How was it possible
that the boy could have discovered his secret?"

Every AK he aims finds its mark. Had he cast a different spell, one
that should have killed everyone in the room except himself, and it
had failed, it would be different. Instead, we get:

"The elder Wand slashed through the air and green light light erupted
through the room; the kneeling goblin rolled over, dead; the watching
wizards scattered before him, terrified. Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy
threw others behind them in their race for the door, and again and
again his wand fell, and those who were left were slain, all of them,
for bringing him this news, for hearing about the golden cup" (549).

Even the Elder Wand, whether wielded by its master or by a powerful
wizard like Voldemort who can wield it effectively without being its
master, can kill only one person at a time with an AK. Everyone who
doesn't flee is dead. had he aimed specifically at Bella or Lucius,
assuming that the path to them wasn't blocked by other living bodies,
they would have died, too. But a wand firing an AK is like a revolver,
not a machine gun. A bullet can (normally) only kill one person at a
time. the most powerful AK in the world does the same. (And wouldn't
this be the time for Voldemort to attempt the spectacular magic that
snape and Voldemort mention but we never see?)

> Mike:
<snip>
> It's not a matter of the wand "failing" him, as in not performing
the spells. Ollivander said, "if you are any wizard at all you will be 
> able to channel your magic through almost any instrument." <DH, The 
> Wandmaker> Voldemort isn't just "any wizard". He's probably the most 
> powerful and accomplished wizard of his age, with the possible 
> exception of Dumbledore. Voldemort could have performed all those 
> spells with Hagrid's umbrella/wand, IMO. So of course the Elder Wand 
> had no problem doing those spells, because it was Voldemort's magic 
> that was spectacular. Voldemort didn't have to be the wand's master 
> to accomplish what was usual magic for him.

Carol:
A) We don't see any of those spectacular spells. B) How would he know
the difference? If the spells worked, how would he know that they
worked because of his own magic and not the wand's? C) He expresses no
doubts until it's time to kill Snape, yet he's had the wand for more
than a month. He gives no specifics, and we see none. To repeat, the
Elder Wand kills effectively, it clears the potion effectively, it
creates Nagini's bubble effectively, and it sucks Snape into that
bubble effectively. No other magic performed by Voldemort using the
Elder Wand is mentioned. He has no grounds to doubt its effectiveness
for him. It works just as well as his own yew wand, which also worked
spectacularly, creating all those Horcruxes and whatever other "great
and terrible things" Voldemort did in VW1. And both Snape and
Voldemort say that he performed other, unnamed, spectacular feats with
that wand. And yet he doubts, suddenly and with no clear reason, that
he's its master. Why? Because JKR needed a reason for Voldemort to
kill snape without AKing him.

Mike: 
> But the true master of the Elder Wand will get an extra boost to his
magic. We've seen it on page. Twice. Dumbledore's Stupefy blasted a
door out of the way and continued on to strike Crouch. Stupefy isn't a
spell that should be able to blast through solid objects.  Then we saw
Harry repair his Phoenix and Holly wand with the Elder Wand after 
Ollivander told him there was no way to repair it.

Carol:
But there's no door to blast through in the scene we're discussing.
The door is apparently open. Bellatrix and Lucius run through it,
along with anyone else who wasn't quick enough to escape the barrage
of AKs (which apparently require a lowered and raised wand between
them, as well as the nonverbal spell, so there's at least a split
second between them). There's no indication that he attempts to aim
any AKs through a closed door or even that the fleeing DEs close it
behind them (which would block the escape of anyone else who was
fleeing and would surely have been mentioned). As for Harry's
repairing his broken wand with the Elder Wand, voldemort's yew wand is
not broken and he has no need to perform such a spell. (Lucius's "poor
stick" wasn't worth keeping, much less repairing.)

If we had seen Voldemort trying to blast through a door with a
Stunning Spell (normally, he would use the spell designed for that
purpose, Reducto) and failing, or trying to repair a wand and failing,
or doing anything else with the Elder Wand and failing, he would have
grounds to suspect that he's not its master. But it works perfectly
well in doing everything he asks it to do, including surrounding him
with a sea of dead bodies. But instead of thinking, "They all deserved
to die! Why did my wand fail me?" he thinks about the Horcruxes and
goes after them. And he should still be worrying about the Horcruxes,
and about Harry, when he reaches the Shrieking Shack. Instead, he asks
Lucius to summon Snape (whom he has thought of as his loyal lieutenant
earlier that same day and informed that he is coming and that Harry
will be going to the Ravenclaw common room) for no apparent reason No
new spells have been cast (except for the cleared potion and Nagini's
bubble, both of which worked fine). No new doubt has been cast on the
effectiveness of the wand. It's nothing but a clumsily handled plot
device, an excuse for Voldemort to kill Snape and discuss the Elder
Wand in Harry's hearing.

Carol earlier:
> > 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.
> 
> Mike:
> And that's exactly the point! The Elder Wand was no more effective 
> than his Yew wand and it should have been. Voldemort could see and I 
> daresay sense that the wand wasn't living up to it's potential. 

Carol:
How? where? When? the wand never fails him, and if it performs as well
as his yew wand, the wand that chose him and is perfectly suitable to
him, then it must have performed perfectly. It's unreasonable to
expect anything better than perfection, and not even Voldemort would
expect that. Now if he said that it didn't perform *as well* as his
old wand (which performed perfectly) and if we saw evidence of its not
performing as well, it would be different. But that's not what he says
and it's not what we see. The doubts, which come suddenly and for no
reason after he's been using the wand for more than a month, have no
foundation in canon.

If JKR wanted Voldemort to doubt that he was the master of the Elder
Wand, she should have given him reason to doubt it--on page, with no
speculation required by the reader. She failed to do that.

Carol, who understands exactly what you're saying but does not agree
with your position