If the cloud thing happned in the movies you can discount it.

 

Except that Bill is the secret keeper of his own home.

Why doesn't Voldemort kill Snape in the end of DH? He has this (logical) idea that Snape is the "master" of the Elder Wand, but instead of simply killing him Voldemort uses a cutting curse invented by Snape and orders his snake to bite him, and leaves him to die in the classic evil overlord style (the "How Harry Potter should have ended" video earlier in this thread does have a point in that).

I'd think that even using the snake is a bit uncertain method of gaining the ownership of the Wand, and certainly Voldemort should have tried to do things right.

 

The Cutting Curse would have been enough to transfer ownership.

 

I think the Cutting Curse is only in the movie. In the book I think he essentially just drops Nagini on Snape's head.

My argument for that, besides his mental instability at that juncture, would be that Nagini arguably is him, or at least counts as such, being an extension of his essence as a Horcrux and all that.

 

Yeah, checked the book, my bad. Still relying on such uncertain logic seems like a bad move considering Voldemort is already being fucked over by a artifact operating under unclear rules. It's not like he has any moral issues with doing his killing himself.

And leaving a skilled potions master/spy to die of venom without making sure he really is dead seems doubly so.

 

Regarding wand allegiance, I don't think (aside from the Elder Wand) it can be assumed that a wand is only able to show loyalty to one person at a time. Every time you borrow someone's wand, even if you have it long enough to get good with it, the original owner shouldn't suddenly become unable to use it. Ron spent a year or two using Charlie's old wand, but if Charlie decided to use it for something, wouldn't it work properly? I really think the performance of normal (i.e. non-deathstick) wands are much more dependent on their suitability to the user rather than loyalty, though that is a factor. I think what JKR meant when she said that wands don't easily break allegiance is that someone's wand wouldn't just randomly decide it's not suited to you and start performing like shit. Maybe if you underwent a major life-changing physical or mental transformation, or if you starting using a lot of dark magic with a wand not suited for it, but it's probably relatively rare.

Except for the Elder Wand, which is only "unbeatable" because it switches allegiance to the winning side after the fact. Everyone knew an asshole kid in school that was like that, yes?

The werewolf cub comment really wasn't a plot hole exactly but I still thought JKR's explanation really sucked. People are terrified and make shit up because they don't know or understand werewolves, wasn't that the point? Saying that there actually are werewolf cubs in the forest and offering a weak, piss-poor explanation undermines the books' message about unfair prejudice and misconceptions. But the werewolves are tame and super smart and uber kawaii, so it's okay. :facepalm

Regarding the Trace and Dobby, maybe Dobby somehow mimicked a wizard's magical signature on purpose? I always liked the Trace as a concept - it limited what Harry and co were able to do outside of Hogwarts while offering a plausible example of unfair pureblood advantage encoded into law without a thought. But thinking about how magic is decided to be accidental or intentional introduces some problems: even if we assume anything pre-Hogwarts is wandless and thus automatically classified as accidental, Harry performed accidental magic as late as PoA, so who would be to say that smashing the pudding wasn't an accident when he was pissed off? I know the whole concept is basically explained by the Ministry selectively enforcing it and discouraging kids' magic use by pretending to be able to Trace far more info than they actually do, but the idea still doesn't sit well with me when it comes to Harry's Order guards casting and apparating nearby. Obviously they didn't have a Ministry mole conveniently ignoring the Trace near Privet Drive since the Patronus in OotP got Harry in shit.

 

Well, the Order members don't have the Trace anymore, presumably, and it's not like they were in Harry's house. A passable explanation might be that they simply were not in range of Harry's Trace when they were performing magic, whereas Harry, because it is on his wand, is always in range of his own Trace.

Wow. The more I analyze the Trace, the more fucking ridiculously oppressive it seems.

EDIT: It's like a having a cell-phone you can't get rid of without severely inconveniencing yourself . . . oh wait.

 

Voldemort seems to be good at magically taking the credit for other people's actions... the basilisk killed Myrtle but he used that death to make a horcrux. Nagini killed Snape and he expected that to transfer mastery of the Elder Wand to him.

Makes you wonder why he couldn't just take magical credit for Malfoy defeating Dumbledore, since it was done on his orders.

 

He would have had to make him a Horcrux first, or bind him in some other way. Some part of me thinks he may have been experimenting with possession when the basilisk killed Myrtle.

Some part of me (that ignores JKR's interviews) wants to think that Nagini herself may be a younger basilisk, since she sure as fuck doesn't sound like any actual snake I've ever heard of. And he sure likes to possess her. He seems to have an intellectual affinity with snakes (lol Satan/Sauron, the reptilian mind).

EDIT: But why doesn't being marked as a DE with the kind of link that goes along with that constitute such a binding connection? Was Draco actually markless? Was he earning it at the time?

 

If this list of examples is exhaustive then a Parselmouth may use serpents as an extension of their magical will. Or maybe Voldemort's relationship with the basilisk was something closer to overpowering its mind with his own. Either way, it would mean that forms of mind control can cause damage to the soul of the caster after their target commits cold-blooded murder.

If Voldemort had become fed up with Malfoy's incompetence and Imperiused him to complete the job, would he have fractured his soul again? Would that have forced the wand's allegiance to Voldemort? It would be an interesting story premise.

 

Are we sure about that? I know it's generally accepted, but is actually stated anywhere that it was her and not someone else we don't know of? Maybe some Word of God on the matter?

 

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html

Funny that he needs to use significant objects as the receptacles, but not significant deaths to make them. "An Albanian peasant".

 

I don't think it's stated anywhere, but given that Riddle is only attributed the deaths of his father (used to create the Resurrection Ring horcrux) and Myrtle at that age it's pretty heavily implied.

EDIT: Taure'd.

 

So I guess it's not the act of killing itself, it's the responsibility for the murder. Such as sic'ing a snake completely under your control on someone.

 

Its in the book:

Oh my god, I understand that there are storytelling reasons for not having Lily or James be the secret keeper, doesn't mean its not a plot-hole.

 

If the requirement is a cold blooded murder (among other things) then it might be more natural that the victims are rather meaningless to him, although this doesn't fit with the use of his father...

 

I feel like it's possible to murder someone you "care" about in cold blood, it just depends on how you care. I think by "cold-blooded" she just means first-degree or premeditated murder, which means that no matter how much Tom hated his father, no matter how much he obsessed over the way he was abandoned, that only helped him when it came to showing up at the guy's house one day for the sole purpose of launching an AK at his face.

So many reptilian metaphors. I hadn't really noticed.

 

Er, yes it does. The idea that they can't because it's a weakness of the spell that you can't be your own secret keeper totally would make it not a plot-hole. It would make it completely internally consistent that James and Lily would not be the secret keepers.

It's incorrect it turns out, because Bill Weasley was his own secret keeper. Which was already pointed out immediately. Your response that his justification would still not mean it's not a plot-hole is however also wrong.

 

Personally I chose to believe that it is down to the nature of the secret being held.

When the Fidelius is first described to us they say something along the lines of 'Voldemort could have nis nose pressed against their livingroom window and not see the Potters'. While the functioning of the Fidelius on Grimmauld is that the entire building disappears.

The secret of Grimmauld Place is that the headquarters is No. 12. Thus to conceal that the building has to disappear. The charm also stops a viewer from asking why there is no No. 12.

The Potters secret was that 'The Potters live at Whatever, Godric's Hollow.' This meant that the secret was their presence in the house, not the existance of the house itself.

Had the secret been 'The Potter Home is at Whatever, Godric's Hollow.' the Fidelius would have behaved like the one on Grimmauld, making the building disappear. As it was, instead of the building disappearing, the family disappeared within the building.

The Fidelius would also stop a searcher from finding the house while looking for the place the Potters lived, because it is a secret that they do. So there was no chance of someone not in on the secret of, for example, burning down the house because they suspect the Potters might live there.

The nature of the Potters secret also meant that neither James nor Lily could be the secret keeper. Because they were covered by the secret, it would be impossible for them to make anyone else aware as no-one would be able to see or hear them for them to pass the secret on.

Hence they needed a third party secret keeper.

Simples.

(I admit this does open up other unfortunate issues, like using a Fidelius applied to a person to allow that person to spy without any chance of being detected, but that's outside the current scope)

The other option is that they made a mistake and did something stupid. People do that periodically and it doesn't constitute a plot hole.