Department of Queries: Wand Allegiance

As I said in a post a few days ago, we are starting a new series here on SR. This series, Department of Queries, attempts to answer some of the conundrums within the series. Paige and I have compiled a long list of questions during our readings this summer, but this is also a chance for you to throw in a few of your own. So here is our first post:

Question: What influences the allegiance of wands?

        Well I suppose the best place to begin is how does a wand align with a person in the first place? What makes a wand choose its owner? How does Ollivander know what wands someone will need, and how does he know which he should make? So basically, that is what Paige and I used as our starting point (we will get to changes in allegiance in just a second). I have always been under the assumption that Ollivander just has some kind of inspiration. He makes a wand when he feels he has a good core and wood that will make a great match. There must be some kind of science behind it, as Griphook says that Wizards refuse to share the secrets of wandlore with the Goblins. I always figured that Ollivander has a shop full of wands because he makes a wand without any person in mind, then it is ready for whenever the right person comes along. On to how Ollivander figures out what kind of wand will be likely to choose a certain person. Well, we think that the cores and woods posses certain qualites (supple, unyeilding, good for charm work, etc.) that lend them to a certain kind of person. Ollivander understands wands better than anyone in the world, so we can assume that he understands these characteristics and uses them to make wands. We also found it interesting that he measures people before giving them wands to test. Does this indicate that size of person has an impact? I have wondered this ever since the books said that Hagrid had a wand that was very large, while Umbridge had a very short wand. Perhaps height has an impact on the length of wand that will be best for you.

        So for the most part, Paige and I saw eye to eye on this first question. But when it comes to allegiances changing, we not only found the questions harder to answer, but we also didn’t always agree. We started this part of the conversation off with the question, what would happen if a won wand was returned to its original owner? Paige sees wand alliances as a bit more black and white than I do. I think that the wand would probably return its allegiance to its owner, especially if returned (or won back) immediately. I kind of feel like wands and wizards form a bond between each other, and they sort of learn from each other. So a wand going back to its original owner, especially if it was hardly used by anyone else, wouldn’t change. Paige had problems with that; she thought that once a wand was won it would be a bit harder to regain its allegiance, because the new person was already in charge of it. She wondered how the wand would react if it realized that it was fighting its old master. Would there be some kind of defense to where it wouldn’t work properly against the old master, like the Elder Wand or Harry and Voldemort’s when faced against each other? We finally decided that neither of us knew nearly enough about wandlore to answer this question (hopefully Pottermore will help). Next, we talked about why Hermione’s wand worked so well for Harry, while almost none other did. We thought that the intention of the owner had an impact on how the wand would work for other people. So since Hermione lent him the wand and intended that the wand work for him, the wand would obey her wishes and work without much resistance. But in the instance of the Blackthorn wand, when it was taken by force but not won by Harry, the wand didn’t work properly. The Snatcher neither intended to hand over his wand nor let someone else use it, so it was resistant to all of the magic that Harry tried to do. Paige and I struggled with this a little, as with the next topic. What happens to a wand’s allegiance when the owner dies or becomes incapacitated? Paige and I both agreed that the allegiance would die with the owner, or perhaps be passed to a person who was similar to the owner, like a relative. The Elder Wand was able to change allegiance easily, because it was a particularly power thirsty wand, but we thought that a normal wand would most likely not function that way. We both found it interesting that some wands worked well with other members of the same family, like Ron with Charlie’s wand and Neville with his dad’s, and we think that it may be because of the similar characteristics of the people that have to do with why the wand suits them (as mentioned above).

        Our final topic that we discussed was the biggest head-scratcher of all. Could one person have more than one wand’s allegiance? Paige and I could not come to a consensus on this. I had this feeling that you couldn’t have more than one true wand at a time, as it would take away all the meaning of a loyal wand. But then you have the Harry/Draco Elder Wand conundrum. Both Harry and Draco had the allegiance of Draco’s wand at the same time as they had the allegiance of the Elder Wand. How is this possible, and how did the change in allegiance of Draco’s wand also change the allegiance of the elder wand? What was the allegiance of the Phoenix and Holly wand during this period? Did Harry possibly have three wands at his beck and call at once? Well, Paige and I never could figure this out, but we would (as always) love to hear what you think about this, or anything else in this post.