Wandlore and more

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185416

Jen wrote: 
<snip>

> I do think disarming is consistently presented as a passive spell,
where the point is to collect the other person's wand without harming. 

Carol responds:
I notice that you, Magpie, and Alla are all referring to Expelliarmus
as a "passive" spell. I agree that it's a *harmless* spell (unless the
other Wizard is using it to steal your wand and become its master or
to disarm you so that he can kill or torture you), but I don't think
we can call any spell "passive." All spells are active in the sense
that they do something to someone or something else--in this case,
knock a Wizard's wand out of his hand. It's the recipient, wand or
wizard, who's passively receiving the action, just as a hedgehog
passively receives the spell that turns him into a pincushion. (He may
not like it much; he may resent it; but it doesn't matter. He's a
pincushion--or, in the case of the Wizard, he's wandless. Or
Stupefied. Or frozen. Or covered with spines like the new Minister for
Magic when Percy's spell hits him.)

If you mean that Expelliarmus is a defensive rather than an offensive
spell (even when it's used preemptively and with intent to do
subsequent harm, its purpose is to prevent the other Wizard from using
his wand against the caster). But it isn't passive. It still does
something to someone or something, causing the Wizard to lose control
of his wand and the wand itself to fly out of his hand. If
Expelliarmus is passive, so is the DADA curse, which causes the Wizard
to lose his position as DADA teacher. Both the class itself and the
various teachers are passive recipients of a curse that was actively
cast on them. There's always an active Wizard and an active wand
casting a spell that acts on someone or something, the passive
recipient (and sometimes victim) of the spell.

Jen:
> When a wizard wants to harm, he typically does so without disarming.
 Like the tower scene with Draco: him disarming Dumbledore first when
he intends to kill him is part of what alerts Dumbledore to the fact
that Draco won't follow through. 

Carol responds:

You may be right, but I didn't read it that way. It's a whole lot
easier to kill a Wizard, especially when that Wizard is Dumbledore,
when that Wizard can't fight back. Dumbledore with a wand, especially
his own (Draco doesn't know that it's the Elder Wand) is a formidable
opponent. Dumbledore without a wand is a helpless old man, at Draco's
mercy (so Draco says and thinks). Disarming him is like robbing a lion
of its teeth or a robber of his gun. Draco fears that Dumbledore will
hurt or even kill him. Safety first. Disarm him and then do the job
Voldemort has assigned him, which Draco, pumped up with adrenaline
after successfully repairing the Vanishing Cabinet and leading the DEs
to the tower (true, they got delayed along the way by the Order
members, but his "back up" is coming), still thinks he's going to do.

True, Draco could simply have shouted "Avada Kedavra" instead of
"Expelliarmus," or maybe "Stupefy or "Petrificus Totalus," but he's
not bold enough ("brave," I think, is the wrong word) to kill without
a group of DEs cheering him on, and where's the "glory" in killing DD
without witnesses or murdering an old man who's "petrified" or out
cold? He has to wait for the DEs to arrive and they're taking their
sweet time, long enough for the adrenaline to stop flowing and for
Dumbledore to find and exploit Draco's weaknesses. "You are not a
killer, Draco" hits home. Until that moment, IMO, Draco has not fully
realized what it means to kill. Maybe he recalls his own close brush
with death (he would be have bled to death from Harry's Sectum Sempra
had Snape not saved him). Maybe he sees just how helpless Dumbledore
is, how weak and old and frail he is, and can't bring himself to
commit outright murder. And yet he's still not stripped of all his
delusions about "glory": he's proud of his own cleverness in fixing
the cabinet, using Madam Rosmerta as an unwitting accessory to
attempted murder, fixing the cabinet, getting the DEs into the castle.
And he's also terrified of what will happen if he doesn't do it.

I'm quite sure that, had the DEs not been delayed by the Order members
and had been standing behind him, Draco would have killed Dumbledore.
Whether he would have regretted it later or basked in his "glory" as
Voldemort's new righthand man, supplanting Snape, I don't know. The
consequences for the other characters would, however, have been
disastrous. As things were, however, Expelliarmus was the perfect
spell for Draco's purposes.

Carol, who thinks that Expelliarmus is underrated, with or without the
question of wand ownership