I genuinely don’t think it’s inconsistent. I can’t see why you say that. I think it may not be consistent through all seven books in every occasion, yes, there may be slip-ups. But I think this book was extremely consistent as far as the wands were concerned. That’s why I say you need to read it again.

-Anyone can use any wand to some extent. This varies according to your own ability. Harry got better at using the blackthorn wand with practice, though he would never have been able to use it like his own.

-The best magic will come from your own wand or a wand you have gotten by disarming another person.

I think that all the examples we saw line up with this information.

Additionally, she did NOT say Snape was THE hero. Many people think he was A hero (I don’t, but many people do), and I won’t argue with that at this point, even if I personally disagree. But you said he was THE hero, which JKR would not agree with.

Lechicaneuronline: Do you think snape is a hero

J.K. Rowling: Yes, I do; though a very flawed hero. An anti-hero, perhaps. He is not a particularly likeable man in many ways. He remains rather cruel, a bully, riddled with bitterness and insecurity – and yet he loved, and showed loyalty to that love

J.K. Rowling: and, ultimately, laid down his life because of it. That’s pretty heroic!

and i don’t think i’m oversimplifying. i’m just going on what’s written in the book. and trying to connect the parts to the whole given the importance and stress placed on wandlore, and given three examples of problems with wands.

oh well. nothing’s perfect, i guess.

I didn’t say that was only the Elder Wand that dealt with these issues, otherwise any old wand would do. I said that I think Hermione had better luck with Bellatrix’s wand, even though she didn’t take it, than Harry did with the blackthorn wand, because she was more skilled than Harry to begin with. I do think the more skilled you are, the less the wand matters. I think Voldemort could have used pretty much any wand and had pretty much the same effect. Same for Dumbledore. Probably same for Snape or Grindelwald or any of the extra powerful wizards we know. A normal wizard, though, is going to have more trouble with a wand that isn’t his/her own.

I think you are oversimplifying a whole lot. It makes sense to me, honestly. I don’t know what to tell you except that you probably need to read it again.

so, if you’re right, all that stuff about wandlore and right ownership and process is only applicable to wands with extraordinary capabilities? otherwise, any old wand will do? i just don’t buy that.

that goes against everything that was written about wandlore, about “the wand choosing the wizard,” and, of course, the two examples that we have that HAD to be telling us something about the effects of improper wand ownership: Harry and the blackthorn and Hermione and Bellatrix’s wand.

I’m not sure Harry and the Blackthorn wand are exactly comparable since Voldemort is so much more powerful. Hermione had Bellatrix’s wand, and she said it didn’t feel right, but she was able to use it better than the blackthorn wand, presumably because she is more magically talented than Harry. Voldemort is much more powerful than Harry, so he was even more able to use the Elder Wand. It just wasn’t submitting to him as it would to its rightful owner. The wand lore in genereal makes sense to me, though, taking into account the person’s original talent and any special talent of the wand.

I think the scene in the forest was more about the sacrifice than the wand, if that’s what you are asking. We don’t really know what it would mean to attach a horcrux to a living object . . . if Harry had lived to be 80 and died a natural death, would the horcrux have remained in his corpse after death? What would have happened if Nagini hadn’t been killed by Gryffindor’s sword? I don’t think we have enough information to say.

I think Sarah’s theory makes sense, but I’ve been reading it that Harry’s sacrifice is what the “extraordinary magic that couldn’t be reversed” is that killed the horcrux. We were told repeatedly that the weapon Harry had is love, so when Voldemort tried to killed an unarmed, defenseless Harry and he chose willingly to die, the horcrux in him was defeated, also offering the same protection he’d grown up with on everyone in Hogwarts. The wand worked on him because he wasn’t fighting back. So, in the forest scene, what was working was love/blood. The protection in his own blood gave him the chance to come back. His protection ensured that the wand wouldn’t work on anyone he’d died to protect. And because of his conversation, he finally understood where Dumbledore had made his mistake regarding the wands, and he knew that if he fought back, he could win.

magic is not the wand alone, but it is also the internal power of the wizard. Voldemort was probably the most powerful wizard alive, so he’s going to have a lot more internal power than, say, Harry or Ron. so “ordinary magic” is going to be at a higher level for him, but i just didn’t take “ordinary magic” to mean unforgivable curses and the like (at least not with the same potency as with a rightful wand), with the precedent being Harry and the blackthorn wand. again, how an unrightful wand limited a wizard was not something that was sufficiently explained. thus my charge of an inconsistency in the story and what was presented.

sarah just said that her theory is that Harry’s sacrifice combined with the fact that the wand was used against its rightful owner further weakened the magic that the wand could do which further weakened Voldemort’s magic against those who Harry sacrificed himself for. that if Voldemort had tried to curse someone who Harry had not sacrificed himself for, then the wand would still be able to do “ordinary magic.” again, i know what Harry said. i just think that parts at the end are inconsistent.

and i definitely think Harry died. that much is certain (again, my claims are inconsistency and lack of sufficient explanation, not a denial of what’s written). here’s a question. do you think it was the wand that killed the horcrux or harry’s sacrifice (both?)? if you’re correct, it has to be the sacrifice, right? normal wands cannot do damage beyond magical repair, so certainly the Elder Wand could not do so apart from its rightful owner, right? but a sacrifice of love could?

and i definitely think you’re right about the disarming bit. at least that any spell would have worked the same way as long as it allowed Harry to take the wand from Voldemort. but of course Expelliarmus because of what Harry had discovered, seen, and…well…it was his trademark for a reason!

Additionally, Voldemort did NOT say the wand didn’t work for him. He said that he could do his ordinary (which is to say extremely extraordinary for a normal wizard) magic with the Elder Wand. So you are mistaken there. The Elder Wand DID work for him, but not in any special way.

I think Harry really did die, so if you don’t believe that, it’s probably not worth continuing the discussion. But I think Harry did die and was able to return because of his mother’s blood. The wand worked on Harry because he wasn’t fighting back. He wasn’t dueling. He was willingly giving himself up, and that made all the difference. It killed Harry and also Harry-Horcrux . . . and since Harry died, Voldemort was also sent into limbo because he has Harry’s blood. He would have stayed in limbo until returning to his body (using the remaining Nagini-Horcrux) if Harry had chosen to go on. But Harry chose to return, finally understanding how best to defeat Voldemort.

And because of the wands, Harry understood what even Dumbledore did not - killing was not the necessary part. In this case, it wasn’t even the most important part. What was important was the disarming (and that was, in this case, Draco’s doing).

I think maybe you need to read it again.

first off, i’m not denying that Harry’s a hero. i definitely think he is. so are Ron, Hermione, Neville, etc. i just think there are bigger, more complex heroes. that’s all.

but…a real hero would have helped regardless? i think it’s pretty silly for JKR to say what she did. of course Snape wouldn’t have. and neither would Harry have helped had he not formed the relationships that he held so dear. Jesus, the “ultimate hero,” would not have done what he did had it not been for his relationship with the Father and Spirit from eternity past. you don’t really mean to say that Harry would have helped if he never had any of the relationships that he had formed with Ron, Hermione, Sirius, Lupin, etc, do you? if Dumbledore had just shown up one day, told him he was “the chosen one” and that he needed to go be killed by a dark wizard in order to save the wizarding world because of some vague connection he had with this particular wizard? i highly doubt that he would have said “right-o” and marched happily to his death because that’s what heroes do. heroes do not exist in vacuums. there is always motivation and there are always circumstances for them choosing to act as they do. it was true for Severus, and certainly true for Harry.

that’s why Snape is such a great story and character. love for Lily, and i would say for Dumbledore also, overcame his hatred of James. yes he did cruel things, even heroes can falter. but some of those cruel things, as we learned, may also have been done in order to keep up appearances. Dumbledore was very adamant that Severus give absolutely no indication whatsoever that he was truly acting on behalf of the Headmaster. he may have gotten carried away at times, and should rightly be blamed for that, yet he did so out of fidelity to what Dumbledore had charged him with, and out of a greater love for Lily.

Snape’s a Jack Bauer-esque type hero. if you can’t call Snape a hero then you definitely can’t call Jack Bauer a hero. Jack never plays by the rules, does some pretty under the table things, and hurts a lot of people, sometimes even good guys, in order to save the lives of countless others. sometimes to save the life of one. but it’s “for the greater good.”

you’ll probably disagree, and that’s ok.

in regard to Harry…i don’t think his “sacrifice” secured their safety. if it did then there’s a huge inconsistency with what was written about wandlore. i think the reason that Harry didn’t really die, the reason that the Crucio curse didn’t work on Harry, the reason that spells didn’t stick for Voldemort, was because the wand knew it was not with it’s rightful owner. before Voldemort attempted to kill Harry he already said that the wand did not work that well for him, and i’m not even sure (i’d have to go back and check) that we ever saw Voldemort try to do anything with the Elder Wand, beyond things like creating Nagini’s “cage” before Harry showed up in the woods.

Harry couldn’t use the blackthorn wand for this same reason. he did not procure the wand in the correct way in order for the wand to become “his.” thus he couldn’t do anything really powerful with it. and neither could Voldemort with the Elder Wand.

i think this goes back to what Dumbledore said about Voldemort’s ambition and blind obsession fixing his mind to get what he wants at all costs, not taking time to fully learn and understand what it is he’s seeking. this was true for house-elves, children’s tales, and, in this instance, wandlore. Voldemort didn’t understand the deep magic behind “the wand choosing the wizard”. if the Elder Wand was truly the most powerful wand that existed, then surely the magic behind that wand was the strongest there was according to wandlore. thus the wand wouldn’t work for Voldemort.

another inconsistency is how, then, it destroyed the horcrux, and this was not sufficiently explained (i’m sure there could be something about a non-rightful owner turning the wand upon its proper owner, but again this was not sufficiently, if at all, explained). i just don’t see, based on the extreme lengths taken to explain wandlore in this book, how things were different after Harry’s “sacrifice”. the wand still didn’t work because Voldemort’s lust for power and dominance blinded him to really finding out why the wand did not work for him. he was not the rightful owner, Harry was. what did Harry’s “sacrifice” do besides get him to a sort of intermediate state where Dumbledore could explain everything? i know what’s written in the book and i know the official party line, i just think there’s a wild inconsistency between what was said and demonstrated about wandlore and what the “official” stances are. it just doesn’t make coherent sense unless you forget about what was said about wands.

and i’m fine with happy endings. like i said, the ending would have been much better if the book had ended with “i’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.” i think that’s a PERFECT ending to the book and series. and a happy one. the epilogue, in my opinion, was just awful.