CHAPDISC: DH36, THE FLAW IN THE PLAN

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 185332

 "Jeanine"  I have been unable to find any evidence
> in canon to support why Voldemort should 'suddenly' decide at this
> late stage that the Elder Wand is not performing properly for him.

Pippin:
The thing is, Voldemort didn't want the wand for the powers it
actually had. He wanted it because he thought it would make him
invincible. 

But being invincible is like being immortal -- it's an expectation
about the future that can't be verified in the present. Voldemort
could never know that he was invincible. He could only think he was.
And as long as he thought he was invincible, he was convinced that the
wand was performing as it should.

 We certainly saw the moment when Voldemort stopped thinking he was
invincible. And that, as far as he was concerned, would be evidence
that the wand was failing him. Then, perhaps, it occurred to him that
the wand hadn't manifested *any* of the special powers it was supposed
to have. But he wouldn't have concerned himself about the actual
powers of the wand before that because he hadn't needed them. 

All his life, he's been like Hermione in her first and second years at
Hogwarts -- every spell he ever tried worked for him, and he was never
daring or creative enough to try things that weren't supposed to work.
The only spells that didn't work were his attempts to kill Harry.

If there are spells that only the Elder Wand can do, then it's likely
that only the owners of the Elder Wand know how to do them, and that
the Elder Wand reveals this knowledge to its masters. Voldemort
wouldn't expect to test the Elder Wand. He would expect it to reveal
its secrets. He was confident that it would -- until he discovered
that his horcruxes were being stolen and destroyed, and his sense of
invincibility evaporated.


I suspect the active posters here are all creative people -- this is a
list that values original thoughts. It wouldn't occur to most of us to
have power and not try to do something new with it. 

But Voldemort is not creative. He stole other people's treasures. He
never tried to create any powerful magical objects of his own. 

Pippin