As usual, Lord Raine has mixed canon with his/her own created canon, designed to suit his/her needs.

This bit is roughly what JKR said.

This bit is the bit Lord Raine has made up.

The Elder Wand is not omniscient. It's not even sentient - only semi-sentient. It does not have an internal list of the powerful wizards in the world and only bend to their will. It is simply the ultimately disloyal wand, and switches allegiances every time its current owner is bested. And this is the only criteria for its mastery. Had Lavender Brown succeeded in taking the wand off Dumbledore then the Elder wand would have worked for her. All it respects is strength, yes, but it only determines strength by who has managed to succeed in gaining possession.

Thus, to say Snape is powerful because the Elder wand allowed itself to be mastered by him is false. Anyone could master it, given correct succession. In fact, Malfoy (Draco) did master it - that was how Harry got it. Snape was never its master. Dumbledore had desired to make Snape its master, but that didn't work out.

That said, I agree that, after Dumbledore's death, Snape was the 2nd most powerful wizard in Britain.

I think poison would count. After all, Grindelwald stole it and that counted. And I think Snape's killing of Dumbledore would have counted. The only reason why it didn't was because Malfoy had got there first.

 

I thought the plan that Dumbledore and Snape had in canon was to let Snape kill Dumbledore, in which case there would be no successor to the wand because Dumbledore let himself die.

Or is that just all of the fan fiction i've been reading? I haven't actually read the Harry Potter books in a couple of years, and everything is starting to kind of blur together in my mind

 

You meant to say skilled, didn't you?

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5025577/1/Magical_Theory_by_Adalbert_Waffling

(I know I'm stretching what you meant, just thought I'd poke a little fun at you is all.)

 

If power = skill, then either word may be used to mean the same thing.

(And thanks for making me waste a post.)

 

You're welcome. Though, I'm not sure why you did considering I knew what you meant either way. So don't blame me for your wasted breath of clarifying something I already knew and alluded to with this.

Sorry if that distinction was not clear.

 

I thought it was rather interesting and unique, actually. Also, it's not a Deathly Hallows thing. We were told in the very very beginning by Olivander himself that "the wand chooses the wizard." We just assumed that he was being weird and spooky, as opposed to him being totally literal.

If it was a citation or her exact wording, I would have cited it, quoted it in a box, or put it in quotation marks like I just did with Olivander's dialogue. It's an extrapolation of canonical facts into a reasonable conclusion, which should be obvious to anyone who followed the discussion. Don't be a cock about it. I was asked to give a sauce, not an MLA format citation page. Which is what I did. All of the finer details of the Hallows are lined up in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, just like I said. If you wanted the exact wording and page numbers and 12 Times New Roman font, you should have asked.

Actually, it does. The Elder wand is a humongous dick of a wand, and has an extremely loose definition of what counts as "defeat." Numerous owners have acquired the wand in illicit manners that do not actually involve fighting and defeating the current owner in a fight, such as poison, theft, murder, trickery, and duplicity. Don't forget, according to the legend (IIRC), the very first time it passed involved the current owner (the eldest Percival brother) being murdered in his sleep. That's not exactly honorable or fair. Hell, there wasn't even a real fight involved.

Which actually makes a lot of sense if you stop to think about it. While the wand obviously and clearly is not unbeatable, it is a very powerful magical artifact. The last thing you would want to do is fight somebody who has it.

In fact, I seem to recall Rowling mentioning that that is one of the reasons Dumbledore is so awesome as a wizard. He beat the shit out of Gellert in a fair, straight-up fight head on while Gellert had the wand. She did not go so far as to imply that that was the first time it had ever been done, but she did say that it made Dumbledore incredibly unique, because the vast majority of all passings of the wand occur via duplicity and murder. Almost nobody ever took it in a fair fight like Dumbledore did.

 

If so, you need to separate the extrapolation of fact from the fact itself with something like "from this, it is reasonable to say...". Otherwise it looks like you're trying to pass off your own ideas as canon, and someone around here will call you on it (as Ryuugi did).

 

No, I don't. I shouldn't have to line that out for you. You're all big boys and girls, and this isn't even remotely a formal academic setting. And that wasn't what I was asked to do anyway. I was asked to back my side up. I did so. The other side even conceded that I had a point. The discussion was closed. And the whole thing was over an offhand remark to begin with.

Seriously. What the hell.


[EDIT]

Also, since it peeved me rereading it, no, I did not make that up. The Elder Wand only allows itself to be truly mastered by the strongest magical users. I don't care how you interpret it, but don't pin specific interpretations, like it being omniscient, onto me, and then argue their absurdity. It isn't gone into how the Elder Wand decides if someone meets the criteria or not, so don't try to pretend that any flaws in any specific interpretations that you come up with punch holes into the concept. They do not. You are tearing apart cloth that you yourself have woven.

There is precedent: The wand chooses the wizard. If you really want to know how the Elder Wand does it, then I would suggest you start your train of thought here by asking yourself how in the hell the normal wands do it. The answer to one is likely the answer to the other, in my personal opinion. I also suggest you think about this particular fact about wands long and hard before suggesting that they are not "sentient." Either they are, or magic itself is. Considering Olivander directly states that it is the wand making the decision, and not the magic within the wands, I'm going with it being the wands.

 

You're a bit of a douchey idiot, aren't you Raine? If you're going to base your whole argument on a quote, it's pretty dumb not to give the actual quote and paraphrase it instead. And really, saying "It's in Beedle the Bard" isn't very helpful, because most of us haven't read Beedle the Bard.

If you knew how to read, you would know that the discussion wasn't closed; Blazzano made a few reasonable points, and as far as I can tell you just didn't answer.

And he did, which you would know if you had actually read the answers to your posts.

Asking us to accept your paraphrasing instead of the original source is even more stupid when you start interlacing it with your "reasonable conclusions" extrapolated from canon. So really, you're asking people to take your word for it, when as far as I can tell you're just a newb with a superiority complex.

Since I sort of like this discussion, I'll add a few things I haven't seen. Firstly, by the end of OotP I would say there are a few wizards who are on par with Snape. Shacklebolt, McGonagall, Flitwick, Moody, Bellatrix, Sirius and Snape are quite hard to rank, even considering what we know in the later books. You would expect Moody to be near the top of that list, but actually he gets overpowered a surprising number of times (maybe due to his handicap). By the end of DH Snape learned a few things from Voldemort, so it's very possible he tops the list. Of course, that's without taking Raine's non-quote into account.

 

I always assumed that the "wand chooses the wizard" related to how different wands are simply more compatible with different wizards. Each wand has different properties - the core and wood, length and flexibility of the wand - which works better for different wizards.

Thus Ollivander's quote should mean literally that you can't just pick a wand that you like the look of - you have to find a wand that's compatible with you. Hence that you're not choosing which wand you get, but it's properties are 'choosing you' metaphorically since they won't work as well for other wizards.

In no way does that mean that wands are sentient or even semi-sentient. I've not ever seen any other evidence that could even suggest it.

In fact, considering that anyone, especially enemies, may use another's wand - albeit with less magical precision - it seems unlikely that they'd be sentient and still let others use them if they really did literally "choose the wizard".

In the end, they're just twigs that act as magical mediums that are specific to the user.

 

Backtracking ahoy! Yes, the Elder wand nominally accepts the strongest wizards, but in reality this means whoever can get their hands on it, because it takes that to be the only measure of strength worth having. And as I said, case in point: Draco Malfoy was its master.

You argued that Snape was a powerful wizard because Dumbledore thought he could master the Elder wand. This implies that you think that the Elder wand has some other mechanism of choice other than succession of owners defeating the last. Which means that the Elder wand has to have some kind of knowledge of all of the wizards in the world, and only let itself be mastered by the most powerful of these (how is the Elder wand to know if the wizard holding it is powerful compared to his contemporaries, unless it has omniscience?). Which is clearly ridiculous. We know exactly how the Elder wand transfers masters, and it's simply who can take the wand off of its previous owner.

No, actually, you do. If you're making an argument from canon, it has to be clear where canon ends and argument begins. Because otherwise, as I said, you look like you're trying to pass off your argument as canon. You state your "reasonable" conclusions in the same matter of fact phrasing as you do the canon facts that you base it on.

As for wand sentience, it's mostly irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It doesn't matter if the wand's "choice" is the result of some physical compatibility or decision on the part of the wand. What matters are the criteria by which the wand makes this choice. But for my part, I take JKR at her word that wands are "semi-sentient", whatever that means.

 

Nothing about magical skill, talent, power or sentience.

 

Wait, she said that? Where? When?

EDIT: Ah - was that the quote? Regardless, the above begs the question of just how wands develop this "loyalty" to its owner and what it's exact nature is. When a wand changes "ownership" what actually changes? Just the ability to which you can use it? And how can this "loyalty" manifest beyond physical properties of the wand? (which are shown to be important considering how Ollivander's works) - after all, if a regular wand can change loyalties regardless, then aren't the properties of that wand rendered completely irrelevant?

 

There may be some more explicit sources, but it's quite clear from reading DH or nmb's quote that wands are at least somewhat sentient: "it will only take into consideration", "it has developed an affinity with you that it will not give up easily", "a wand may switch allegiance", etc. The properties of the wand matter because even once a wand has changed allegiance, it doesn't necessarily fit the new owner very well.

Taure: I think Raine is claiming that there are two levels of mastery for the Elder Wand, and that Malfoy and Harry didn't truly master it. I see no evidence of such a thing.

I also think "accepting the most powerful users" doesn't necessarily mean accepting only the three most powerful users, it could simply mean accepting people considered powerful on a subjective scale - for example, the wand could compare a user to its previous owners. I've no reason to believe a simplistic notion of "power" even exists in the HP world however.

In fact nmb's quote seems to support both Taure's theories quite strongly: "if you win, then you've won the wand", and "It will only go where the power is." suggest that not only does the wand go to whoever beat the previous owner, but that "power" is to be understood as "the ability to beat the previous owner".

 

I would think that the 'loyalty' the wand gives is when it 'chose's' the wizard. So when Harry got the feeling that the Holly wand was the wand for him, it gave him its loyalty.

Probably if the wand changes ownership, it just makes it easier to use for the person who won it. But if they just don't have the affinity to use that wand, they will still have trouble using it.

The properties of the wand aren't rendered useless, because even though Harry won Draco's wand from him, it never worked the same/ as well as his Holly wand

 

The bold part, does it mean with proper duel like a normal duel where they bow and just nuke it out or do you have to wager your wand in a fight? The Elder wand is clear in that every shmuck who manages to pry it from your fingers with whatever means necessary owns it but I don't see the advantage in this for the normal wands. If you win a regular wand, chances are it won't work for you as well as your real wand does, so winning a wand that gives you less satisfactory results then, or will it "adapt" to you?

 

I'm sure it's not specified, so you can draw your own conclusions from the information you have.

Harry 'defeated' Malfoy, and they didn't bow or bet their wands, so I assume that you don't really have to bet it, but your guess is as good as anyone else's.

 

I believe it has already been established multiple times that the Elder Wand does not work like other wands. It has no empathy or loyalty to the person that owns it. No normal wand would ever switch allegiances just because someone else managed to pick it up and walk away with it, because normal wands have empathy and loyalty. The Elder Wand, however, does not.

I believe I summed it up quite nicely by calling it a dick wand. It is a dick. Or possibly a whore, depending on how you want to interpret it.

That's what I assumed as well. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what everyone assumed until Deathly Hallows came out, which clearly paints wands as being sentient. You could go with that idea, sure, but it contradicts everything we learned in Deathly Hallows.

No. You are using the word wrong, and apparently do not understand what sentient actually means. Sentience =/= human capacity. The definition of sentience is roughly:

1.) Responsive to and/ or conscious of sensory impressions.
2.) Aware
3.) Capable of finely tuned sensory processing.
4.) Able to act upon sensory input with a degree of intelligence and purpose; ability to make complex informed decisions.

Apes are sentient. Humans are sentient. Dogs are sentient. Octopi are sentient. All higher-order animals are considered sentient.

Wands would be considered sentient, because they are:

- Capable of perceiving magic, personality, and possibly something greater (possibly Fate. Do recall where Fawkses two feathers went. And who Fawks belonged to).
- Capable of making complex informed decisions based on what they perceive of magic, personally, and whatever else it is they perceive.
- Capable of things such as loyalty, devotion, empathy, and allegiances.

I doubt there is even a such a thing as "semi-sentience," at least as far as official terms go, though I will admit I have not actually checked yet. If it did exist, it would presumably be the descriptor for the level that exists between "Dog" and "Rock." Wands are clearly not in that category. Their senses are too far refined, and they are clearly capable of using that sensory input to make complex informed decisions.

At the very absolute least, all wands must be capable of sensing magic in a wizard and making an informed decision whether or not to go with that particular magic. And that is in addition to possessing whatever X amount of mental capacity is necessary to maintain things like empathy and loyalty.

That pretty definitively qualifies them them for sentience.

Then explain what Dumbledore, the premiere in-verse expert on Deathly Hallows lore, meant when he said that only Voldemort, himself, and Snape had the potential to master the wand? Obviously the wand 'belongs' to whomever wins it. Even a nonentity like Draco can become it's owner. And yet Dumbledore still clearly says that there are only three wizards in magical Britain who could "master" the wand.

There is only zero evidence if you pay zero attention. Dumbledore's explaination blatantly implies that there are, in fact, two different levels of mastery to the Elder Wand.

No, actually, I don't.

Actually, yes you can. It just won't work nearly as well. We were flat-out told that at least three times that I can recall, and I'm pretty sure one of those times was from Ollivander himself.

 

See nmb's post above.

By your own definition of sentience, the Elder Wand isn't sentient: there is no sensory information involved in the common sense, and so also there is no sensory processing, and it cannot make complex decisions. Since there's obviously something going on with the wand that implies some sort of response to the outside world, we come back to semi-sentience (not used as a specific scientific term, as you so gleefully pointed out, but as a general concept used to describe the unique disposition wands hold).

The argument could be made that wands are not sentient as well. You say that wands are "Capable of perceiving magic, personality, and possibly something greater", since some wands work better for different wizards. Does that also mean that sound waves are sentient because they resonate better with some things than others? Maybe the 'allegiance' or 'empathy' of a wand is just the synchronization of frequencies between magic and tool. We have very little solid, indisputable information to go on, which was very intentional on JKR's part.

As for Dumbledore's comment on mastering the wand: what if he just meant that that he thought he, Snape, and Voldemort were the only ones capable, smart, tricky, or paranoid enough to keep control of the wand until their deaths, thus becoming the ultimate 'master' of the wand? My theory holds just as much water as yours, because ultimately we have no idea what the hell mastering the wand entails.

You seem very dedicated to your theories, but are also quite intent on ramming it down our throats as fact. If you want to continue your crusade to show us our places and out-canon Taure, well...

No, actually, you do.

 

I said I saw no evidence, because you have given none. We have asked you to give us the exact quote multiple times, and you have failed to do so. Of the three specific sources you reference, the only one cited literally goes a long way to disprove your claims. I suggest you learn to read.


On the subject of sentience, nmb left out part of the quote:

Obviously this is very vague and jumbled, so idiots will try to use it to prove something.

I don't see how wands show empathy, brainpower, complex decision making or half the other things Raine talked about. As far as I can tell, they are capable of loyalty (or devotion, or allegiance, if we must multiply synonymous words), they can perceive magic, and make instinctual decisions based on that perception.

pdo91: You're weakening your case by mentioning things that are so easy to shoot down.