The Elder wand -- Book vs movie

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 192195

Steve:
> Legends are very powerful things. The Legend of Curly's Gold. The Legend of the Holy Grail. The Legend of the Fountain of Youth. The Legend of the Guardian (of Ga'Hoole). The Legend of Davie Crockett. The Legend of Atlantis. The Legend of Hercules. The Legend of (insert legend here).
> 
> An idea can be a powerful force. 
> 

Pippin:

Sure. But combatting the idea that the wand exists is the idea that it doesn't, and that's what most wizards believe, except for a few eccentrics like Luna's father. Wandlore experts don't believe in the *legendary* wand at all. Ollivander, for example, is perfectly well aware that the wand, though powerful, does not make its owner invincible, nor does he believe that the wand has to be transferred by killing its current possessor. Voldemort essentially invented a legend of the Elder Wand and attached it to  the Elder Wand that he had. 

I might add that the seekers after such legendary objects are generally pretty  legendary themselves -- even Ponce De Leon did not become associated with the Fountain of Youth until well after he was dead. 

Most of the people who heard Harry's final conversation with Voldemort wouldn't have known what he was talking about, and those who did probably thought he was playing along with a wizard everyone knows was a nutcase. As in, "Sure, You Know Who may have *believed* he had the Elder Wand, but everyone knows it doesn't  really exist." If Luna Lovegood went around explaining that the Wand is real and her father's been seeking it for years -- well, that'd just about ice the cake, wouldn't it <g>

As you say, the obstacles facing someone attempting to claim the Elder Wand are considerable. A wizard going after it would need to have considerable power of his own already -- in which case, he wouldn't need it.   Even Voldemort didn't think he needed it until he deluded himself into believing that he could defeat Harry if he just had a superior wand. 

Anyone who  did claim the wand would have the same problem as every previous owner -- the taker of the wand only has to be lucky once, but to keep it he has to be lucky every single time. But  Harry has less to fear than a wizard stealing the wand to get power, because even if Harry lost mastery of the wand, he'd still be a great wizard with a lot of powerful friends. 

That  danger is remote, compared to the danger from the three wizards who already know about the wand. Harry does not need to give Ron another reason to be envious, or Hermione another way to get around the stubborn refusal of people to do what she thinks would be good for them. And Harry does not need a wand that has shed so much innocent blood, not if he thinks of what might have happened if he'd had the Elder Wand with him when he met Snape again in the corridors of Hogwarts. 

Pippin