Wand allegiance.

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187336

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> Carol:
> > > Have you forgotten that Harry can't  make the Snatcher's wand work for him in DH? 
> 
> Eggplant: 
> > Read it again, Harry hated the wand and it didn't work nearly as well as he thought it should, but it's just not true that it didn't work at all. 
> 
> Magpie:
> Right. DH is pretty clear what happens when you use a wand that isn't yours. You can use it, it just feels off and doesn't seem to work as well as the wand that is yours.

Carol responds:

Except that we never see any other wizard (except Neville using his "father's wand, and his problem appears to be a lack of confidence) having as much trouble as Harry does with the Snatcher's wand. In DH, Hermione is even more uncomfortable with the wand that Crucio'd the Longbottoms into insanity yet has no difficulty getting it to work for her, in contrast to Harry.

"A large spider sat in the middle of a r=frosted web in the brambles. Harry took aim at it with the wan Ron had given him the previous night, which Hermione had since condescended to examine, and had decided was made of blackthorn.

"'*Engorgio!'

The spider gave a little shiver, bouncing slightly in the web. Harry tried again. This time the spider grew slightly larger.

<snip>

"'Sorry--*Reducio*.'

"*The spider did not shrink.* [My emphasis] Harry looked down at the blackthorn wand. Every *minor spell* [my emphasis] he had cast with it so far that day had seemed less powerful than those the had produced with his phoenix wand. The new one felt obtrusively unfamiliar, like having somebody else's hand sewn to the end of his arm" (DH Am. ed. 391-92).

Harry requires two attempts to perform a feeble Engorgio and can't perform Reducio *at all* with the blackthorn wand. These are spells that he can perform perfectly well with his own wand, but the blackthorn wand doesn't work correctly for him, in part because it feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar but also, it would seem based on Ollivander's remarks, because the wand itself is not cooperating with him. It hasn't formed a bond with him and doesn't consider him its master.

This wand behavior is, in fact, exactly what we would expect from Ollivander's statement way back in SS/PS that a wizard will never get such good results from another wizard's wand, and yet we see witches and wizards using other people's wands, even those of people they hate (Black using Snape's; Hermione using Bellatrix's) with no problem at all--even, Hermione's case, when she has actively expressed hatred for and discomfort with the wand. It's inconsistent, period.

If this wand behavior were consistently depicted, we would not only see Hermione having trouble with Bellatrix's wand (which probably hates her as much as she hates it if wands have feelings), we would also see Voldemort having some sort of difficulty or discomfort with the Elder Wand. Instead, he uses it with no problem at all and no complaints--until JKR's plot requires him to have an excuse to kill Snape in a particular, wandless way, that will give Snape time to pass his memories to Harry and look into Harry's eyes.

There is, however, no evidence that Voldemort feels discomfort with the Elder Wand or feels that it isn't working properly for him. It does everything he asks of it perfectly until Harry's self-sacrifice interferes. Just how LV could expect results more spectacular than Nagini's bubble, I don't know. (That's the only extraordinary piece of magic, other than making the green potion clear, that he asks the wand to perform.)

Only a few hours before he decides to kill Snape, he thinks that the Elder Wand (which has just slashed through the air killing the Goblin and all the wizards who didn't escape after hearing that the cup had been stolen) is his--"Dumbledore, dead on his orders; Dumbledore, whose wand was his now" (549-50). *His.* Not a word about the wand not working for him, no discomfort with it such as Harry experienced with the blackthorn wand.

I'll grant you that it's not a plot hole, but it's an inconsistency and an annoyance that interferes with the believability of the story *for me.* Clearly, it doesn't bother either of you. But it's bad enough not to check for consistency between books (the Hand of Glory that wasn't bought in CoS and that Ron has supposedly actually seen, despite all the precautions against Dark objects in HBP). It's another to have wands behave inconsistently in one book--DH--and to have Voldemort perfectly satisfied with the Elder Wand one moment, considering it his, only to have him, on the same day, after having killed all those people, made the green potion transparent (note that the Elder Wand in DD's hands could not transfigure or Vanish that potion, whose protections were created with Voldemort's own yew wand), and created Nagini's bubble, he suddenly decides, with no provocation, that the wand isn't behaving properly for him and that his extraordinary magic is only extraordinary because he's performing it and consequently, he needs to kill Snape?

I could see him thinking that if his AKs had merely Stunned people or if Nagini's bubble had popped. But there's absolutely no reason for him to think that the wand is failing him in any way. He has not even felt uncomfortable with it as we might expect him to feel if the wand considered Harry its master. (I think it still thinks its master is Draco, but that should make no difference. He had no trouble using Lucius Malfoy's "poor stick" to kill Mad-eye Moody.)

Anyway, enough said. I'm never going to agree that Voldemort's dissatisfaction with the Elder Wand has any basis in canon or that the Elder Wand subplot (or wandlore in general) is consistently or satisfactorily handled.

Carol, not caring whether it's a plot hole or a Flint because it's not convincing or believable (to me) either way