Wand allegiance.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 187263

> Carol, noting that if wands are capable of allegiance and can choose to yield their will to a wizard's (or not), they must be sentient and capable of thought

Magpie:
In DH it seemed like they really couldn't choose exactly, since the whole plot depended on them pretty much switching alliances over power. In the first book--and all the way through HBP--I thought it was implied that wands had certain qualities due to their wood and core that were naturally sympathetic to different people. The wand chose the wizard because you found "your" wand, basically, and then the bond was strengthened as you learned together. Thus a Wizard who was shy would have a wand more suited to their personality than a person who was aggressive. I think DH completely overwrote that with the later addition that all wands respond to strength. If you win somebody's wand it sees you as its master, even if it would never have chosen you in that first moment. (I remember someone once describing it as sort of starting out with a love metaphor that becomes more of a rape thing--the most powerful suitor is the better suitor.)

Ollivander's "well, it's very subtle..." could be considered an out but frankly it seems more like a handwave to me. I've no idea how much of the ultimate Elder wand story JKR had in mind when she wrote the early Ollivander scenes. She might have originally thought that only the Elder wand responded this way, which would solve any problems, but not give her much of a chance to show us the magic before it was important (rather than just tell us), as she always liked to do. 

Whether this comes down to being able to think, I don't know. It seems more like it's not so much a brain but a primitive magical instinct. A lot of the magic in the books works like this, after all. The life debt and the GoF seem to behave by recognizes subtle human behavior around them but I don't think they're really supposed to be doing that. I think it's more like when the correct type of situation (as humans would recognize it) happens, the magic happens. Thus even when a pesron seriously Expelliarimus someone (not in practice) the wand doesn't switch, but when the author's writing a scene that's about one Wizard besting another the wand switches too. At least that's how I read it.

-m