Wand allegiance.

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187266

bboyminn:
> 
> I'm more inclined to agree with Pippin's view of events. I think
> people are trying to assigning too ridged a set of rules, and 
> too much active intellectual intelligence to wands. 
> 
> Wands are magical, but at their core essence they are a stick
> of wood and a core substance. 
> 
> When we say 'the wand chooses the wizard' are we really saying
> 'the wand /matches/ the wizard'?
> 
> Further, I think the wand interprets part of an encounter by
> whether a dueling wizard gives back his opponents wand. If
> he gives it back, he clear has to real intent to actively
> defeat the opponent.
> 
> Further in competition dueling and in the DA club, opponents 
> have given their permission to be disarmed or stunned or
> otherwise cursed. I don't see how that can constitute a
> defeat.
> 
> The same with Dumbledore, he gave permission for Snape to kill
> him, consequently, their encounter does not count as a defeat.
> Dumbledore intended for the last owner of the wand to go
> undefeated when Snape killed him. I don't think he intended
> Snape to be the new owner, only the new possessor of the wand.
> The wand would do his bidding as any wand would, but not to
> the extent that it would if Snape was the true owner and
> master of the wand.
> 
> Again, wand 'transfer' is not down to a ridged set of rules, 
> it is down to a very imprecise and subtle interpretation by
> the wand. And, I don't think the wand does that by scientific
> analysis of the situation; nothing so clinical as that.
> 
> It is more a case of a subtle sense of the parties involved
> and its own instinctive interpretation of events. This is
> not 'active intelligence' in the thinking, planning, plotting,
> analysing form. This is a subtle intuitive sense of what is
> happening around it.
> 
> I think those who can't see the subtle distinction, those who
> would force wands into an absolute set of ridged rules, can't 
> make sense of what is happening, because what is happening
> absolutely does not fit that mind set.
> 
> Steve/bluewizard
>
Carol responds:

I don't think that a wand is just a stick of wood and a magical core, or everything that Ollivander says is nonsense. OTOH, you're right that it doesn't, strictly speaking, have intellect. It doesn't plot or plan, for example. It is, however, sentient, according to Ollivander, and it does have the power to choose whether or not it "bends its will," to quote Ollivander, to the wizard who defeats it. (I agree with you that disarming a pretend opponent in a practice duel, or even a formal duel used as a lesson or entertainment--Snape disarming Lockhart--is not a defeat in the sense we're talking about here. Lockhart gets his wand back. (Now, if Harry had found Lockhart's wand after he disarmed him and Ron tossed the wand out the window, that might have been another story, especially after Ron's wand robbed Lockhart of his memory. The wand would probably have worked perfectly well for either boy.)

Regarding Dumbledore wanting Snape to have the Elder Wand, which would work for him but no longer have super powers, what would be the point of that? I think that the whole idea of having Snape kill Dumbledore with Dumbledore undefeated (I agree on that part) is for the Elder Wand to lose its powers altogether. Only when it becomes a useless stick of wood would it cease to be dangerous. Otherwise, someone like Voldemort would still think that he had to kill the wand's owner to get it to work for him. If he tried it and it wouldn't so much as perform a Summoning Charm no matter how hard he tried, he would just toss it away in fury, thinking that someone had buried Dumbledore with a fake wand.

Anyway, that's the only way I can make sense of DD's wanting Snape and only Snape to kill him (setting aside the Unbreakable Vow and the other real but minor reasons that DD gave Snape).

Carol, who still thinks that wands can hear words and sense thoughts and, to a limited extent as relates to wand allegiance, think for themselves (I doubt that they spend their free time composing poems or figuring out how to get back to their former owners, however)