CHAPDISC: DH36, THE FLAW IN THE PLAN

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185279

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> > Carol responds:
> > But the wand has worked perfectly well for Voldie up until that point.
> 
> Pippin:
> Not so. 
> 
> It worked, but it didn't give Voldemort the  special powers of the
Elder Wand. We did see one of them demonstrated in DH: it allowed its
owner to perform spells with increased power, witness Harry's repair
> of the holly wand. Others are told of in ToBtB. Voldemort would have
> known about these from his own researches.

Carol:
I disagree. The wand performed perfectly well, killing a lot of people
and creating at least one piece of spectacular magic, Nagini's bubble.
LV has no complaints about it--doesn't even think about it's not
performing for him--until that conversation with Snape. You may find
it convincing. I don't. We see Hermione's wand, which is perfectly
good and chose her, fail to repair the holly wand. We see nothing
comparable from the Elder Wand, which performs just as well for
Voldemort as the wand that chose him (noted by Ollivander as extremely
powerful, used by Voldemort to create *six Horcruxes*). It doesn't
fail him until after Harry's attempted self-sacrifice, which robs if
of his power.

I don't think we're going to convince each other here. I find no
grounds--none--for Voldemort's statement that the Elder Wand isn't
working as well as he expected. It does everything he asks of it.
According to Snape, it performs spectacular magic (Nagini's bubble
being the only example that we readers get to see) and does so just as
well as the wand that created the Horcruxes and the curse on the
necklace that nearly killed Dumbledore and the protections on the
cave, including the Inferi. He wants something more spectacular than
that? Is he insane? (Don't answer that last question!)

It's bunk, in my opinion. Nothing but an excuse for LV to kill Snape
using Nagini rather than a Killing Curse (which would have worked, but
LV doesn't know it, but would have made snape's last spectacular feat
impossible).
> 
Carol earlier:
> > I don't think the wand knows that Harry is its true owner (how
could it?) until he tells Voldemort and the wand hears what happened. 
> 
> Pippin:
> How does a stick of wood know anything? But it has to know when its
master has been defeated, and who defeated him. <snip>

Carol:
Has to know who defeated its master? Not necessarily. the Elder Wand
wasn't present when Harry took Draco's wand, and it doesn't *have* to
accept a defeat involving a different wand in the same way it would
accept a defeat involving itself. (A wand other than the Elder Wand
might remain loyal to its master, and even the Elder Wand has a
choice. Once it knows what happened to Draco, it rejects him. But,
IMO, it had no way of knowing that Harry had disarmed its master until
Harry told Voldemort about it.)

A wand--any wand--knows *some* things because it can hear and
understand spoken words and read the mind (understand the intent) of
the spell caster, at least if that spell caster can use nonverbal
spells and is the wand's master. It has free will and can choose its
master. We see Harry trying out unsuitable wands in SS/PS and we see
Draco's wand accepting him as its master after it know he disarmed
Draco. (He snatched it out of Draco's hand; how could Draco's wand not
know that?) The Elder Wand, similarly, would know that Draco had
Disarmed Dumbledore. It knew that Dumbledore was dead since it was
buried with him and that it needed to accept or reject its new master.
Yet it performed perfectly well for Voldemort, who had not Disarmed
DD, only stolen it from his dead hand. Why? Perhaps because it had no
way of reaching Draco, who had never touched it, and because it sensed
the power and evil will of this new would-be master and responded to
it. Perhaps, Draco or no Draco, it would have chosen him if Harry
hadn't revealed its history and forced it to choose between them. It
had no hesitation to kill him when it cast the AK that destroyed the
soul bit (and would have killed Harry, too, had it not been for the
drop of shared blood). 

BTW, Ollivander says that wandlore is complex and indicates that a
wand *usually* takes a new master when its master is defeated. But
"usually" indicates exceptions to the rule. Draco's wand accepts
Harry. Why? Not just because Harry disarmed Draco (though that may be
the deciding factor) but (IMO) because Harry is similar to Draco in
age and ability and knowledge. Draco and his wand would have learned
the same spells as Harry and *his* wand, both in school and on the
school grounds. (I think I agree with you about the wand's comfort
with Crucio transferring to Harry but I'm not sure since Draco is
*un*comfortable with it.) OTOH, even if Hermione had Disarmed
Bellatrix, I'm not sure that the wand she hated so much would have
accepted her or that she would have accepted it. (Odd that she can use
it when Harry can't use the Snatcher's wand, but I won't go into
that.) By the same token, I don't think that Voldemort's yew wand
would have accepted Harry as its master if Harry had disarmed him of
that wand or that Harry's holly wand, which hated Voldemort and used
his own spells against him after the Priori Incantatem, would ever
have accepted LV if LV had killed Harry and taken the wand (repairing
it if necessary). Some wands just aren't suitable for some wizards
regardless of whether that wizard has killed or defeated the original
master.

> Pippin
> hoping this answers some of Carol's questions.
>
Carol responds:
Not really. I already agreed with you on some of the points that I
snipped (the power of Harry's sacrifice, for example) and I continue
to disagree with you on others.

Carol, who will probably still have questions about wandlore even
after JKR tells us "everything" in her encyclopedia, simply because
JKR wouldn't recognize an inconsistency if it danced in front of her
wearing Dobby's tea cozy