Skip to main content

wandlore - What was Dumbledore's plan for the Elder Wand? Why didn't he bequeath it to someone (Harry, Snape...) for safekeeping?


Dumbledore clearly put a good deal of thought into his plans regarding his last will, as well as the circumstances that would surround his demise.


Based on his final gifts, and his conversation with Harry on the matter, he clearly intended for Harry, Hermione, and Ron to discover the Deathly Hallows (albeit only gradually). It also seems that he very much did not want the Elder Wand's power to fall into improper hands. So why did he neither bequeath the Wand to the trio (even in an obscured or protected way, as with the Resurrection Stone) or to a trusted protector?


It would seem that, by not expressly stating a preference for the handling of the wand following his death, he puts its ultimate fate up to a great deal of risk. Why allow that?




Answer



Dumbledore intended for the Elder Wand to go to Snape for safe-keeping.



‘But you expected him to go after the wand?’

‘I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort’s in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by superior skill. Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything. Yet the borrowed wand did no better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus ...’

‘If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder Wand, didn’t you?’

‘I admit that was my intention,’ said Dumbledore, ‘but it did not work as I intended, did it?’

‘No,’ said Harry. ‘That bit didn’t work out.’

Deathly Hallows - Pages 577-578 - British Hardcover - Adult Edition



Dumbledore wanted Snape to keep the Elder Wand safe after Dumbledore's death. However, when Draco Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore at the top of the Astronomy Tower the night Dumbledore died, he unintentionally, and unknowingly to all at that point, became master of the Elder Wand, even though it was Snape who ultimately killed Dumbledore. At the end of Deathly Hallows, with Harry as master of the Elder Wand, Harry plans to put the Elder Wand back with Dumbledore in Dumbledore's tomb:



‘I’m putting the Elder Wand,’ he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with enormous affection and admiration, ‘back where it came from. It can stay there. If I die a natural death like Ignotus, its power will be broken, won’t it? The previous master will never have been defeated. That’ll be the end of it.’

Dumbledore nodded. They smiled at each other.

Deathly Hallows - Page 600 - British Hardcover - Adult Edition



Dumbledore did have a plan; it just didn't work out.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more