Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)/Headscratchers/The Deathly Hallows

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The Deathly Hallows (General)

  • Why does Harry need to know about the Hallows? How does the whole legend help? Here's what happens if Dumbledore didn't plant the kid's book with Hermoine: Harry still runs around with the cloak, the Elder Wand still won't be able to kill Harry, and, since the Resurrection Stone apparently has nothing to do with keeping Harry alive (D explains at King's Cross that it was Harry's blood in V, etc. that saved Harry), Harry could just stride into the forest to get "killed" by Voldemort. I don't see why letting Harry know about the Hallows is anything other than a wild goose chase, and a dangerous one at that. What did the Hallows have to do with anything that Harry actually needed to do?
    • WMG: Dumbledore was planning on Harry getting the hallows so he would believe he'd survive the suicide run. Harry actually surviving wasn't part of the plan.
      • Debatable. It's possible Dumbledore knew he'd survive based on Lily's sacrifice and Voldemort using harry's blood. Dumbeledore specifically tells Snape that Voldemort has to be the one to kill him. It's likely Harry could have been killed by anyone/thing and the part of Voldemorts soul would have been destroyed. He tells snape this as it is likely the only way harry could survive So it's very possible that Dumbledore did plan on Harry to survive, but his plan relied on Harry being willing to sacrifice himself, or Harry would not have survived. So he kept that part of the plan to himself.
  • What's with all of this Arbitrary Skepticism regarding the legend of Death and the Three Brothers? As far as I've seen, this alternative explanation, which was suggested only once in the book by Dumbledore, is used over and over again to Hand Wave the inconsistancies regarding the Invisibility Cloak and the fact that every other character seems to be able to see through it. In a world full of magic and prophecy, where you have ghosts flying around everywhere, creatures that can suck your soul out, and a stone that can summon loved ones' spirits from the afterlife, why is it so difficult to consider that Death may in fact be an actual spectre capable of confronting and interacting with the living?
    • Magic A Is Magic A. There are no gods in the Harry Potter universe, at least; nothing of the sort is described.
      • How do you know there are no gods of anysort. In book 7 there are Bible verses on the gravestones of the Dumbledores and the Potters. And since there is obviously an afterlife why can't death be real?
        • Bible verses prove nothing other than the fact that Christianity exists in the Harry Potter universe. Besides, if Christianity was true, Death as its own independent entity would be false anyway. JKR doesn't imply any kind of god existing throughout the series. I exclude god from the series for the same reason anyone else will exclude Fanon ideas.
        • It's also not clear there is an afterlife. Wizards seem to agree that there is a soul (what with Dementors and all) but the Dumbledore in the station said he didn't know what was beyond limbo - there could be nothing, just plain unknowing death. And let's not forget the whole station thing could be only Harry's hallucination (and the Dumbledore seems to agree with that). If you read closely, everything Dumbledore says in that chapter could be concluded by Harry by himself. I see the limbo scene as Harry's unconscious catching up with Dumbledore's clues.


The Elder Wand

  • This hasn't been mentioned above (or otherwise I missed it), and it, well, just bugs me: We know the Elder Wand is passed if it's taken from its owner against his will, right? However, the reason everyone wants the Elder Wand so badly is because if you're the true owner and using it in battle, you're invincible right? Well, then there's one point I can't understand - how was Dumbledore able to get the wand from Grindelwald in 1945? Obviously, they duelled, and Dumbledore won - against someone invincible. How's that possible? And, if we assume Grindelwald lost on purpose (for whatever reason), the wand wouldn't have been taken against his will, so Dumbledore hadn't been the true owner either. Therefore - how did Dumbledore ever become the true master of the Elder Wand?
    • Either Dumbledore somehow tricked Grindelwald and won through no fault of the wand, or, more likely, the reputation of the wand is inflated and it's not actually unbeatable just far superior in power than any other wand.
      • This is it exactly. The wand's reputation for invincibility is inflated. In fact it's not invincible at all - the one consistent thing about its entire history is that every one of its owners has been defeated, most often specifically because they owned the wand.
        • To expand on this point: None of the Hallows is infallible. Moody and Dumbledore appear to see through Harry's invisibility cloak, the resurrection stone only brings back ghosts, and the elder wand is more powerful but not invicible and induces Suicidal Overconfidence in its users.
    • If Grindelwald lost on purpose, then he effectively surrenders the wand's allegiance to Dumbledore - who planned to do the same thing to give the allegiance of the Elder Wand to Snape.
      • No, Dumbledore planned to die willingly at Snape's hand and thus die with the wand's allegiance and thus destroy much of its power as no one could properly use it anymore.
        • The Wand actually IS the most powerful wand in existence ... but it can be defeated/Mastered thanks to a couple of caveats. 1) Not even Mad Eye Moody is capable of maintaining CONSTANT VIGILANCE. All it takes is a moment's inattention at the wrong time and ... bye bye wand. 2) You have to know spells and how and when to use them. Having the deathstick does you NO good if you don't know the incantation for so much as a simple shield spell or refuse to use it. That basically means that in a stand-up fight between two wizards of comparable power levels, so long as the one holding the Deathstick doesn't get cocky, they win. If, however, they get cocky, or a challenger manages to surprise them in some manner, they're S.O.L.
  • Dumbledore was hoping that if he died without being defeated, that the Elder Wand would become a normal wand. However, that was just guesswork, and might fail. He could have encased it in rock, dumped it in an oceanic trench, and made himself Secret Keeper for its location. Then, unless it's a One Ring type artifact which wants to be found, no one will ever find it, making it a much surer bet than Dumbledore's actual plan.
    • Even if it was not like One Ring, it was still an immensly powerful artefact and as such would emit lots of magical radiation or something like that making it easier to find. Hogwarts was supposed to be one of the safest storages in the world. The Keeper part makes sence though. But does the Fidelius charm pertain after the Keeper is dead?
    • Presumably because the next person who found the wand would become its owner. IIRC, it's mentioned in DH that the Fidelius Charm which protected Lily and James 'died with them', which Dumby presumably knew.
      • So? They weren't the ones who cast it, they were the ones being protected. Presumably if the elder wand had been under a Fidelius and then destroyed then the Fidelius Charm would 'die' with the wand. Dumbledore's Fidelius on Sirius' house lasted past his death.
        • According to Word of God, when the Secret-Keeper dies, the Fidelius Charm they are linked to is weakened; everyone else who knew the secret is now like a Secret-Keeper in their turn, and able to share it with other people. That is why when Dumbledore died everyone who knew where 12 Grimmauld Place was could bring new people to it; Dumbledore had been the original Secret-Keeper for 12 Grimmauld Place.
  • Harry makes a point of saying that the Elder Wand's power will die if Harry dies a natural death. Uh... Harry? You do realise you announced the fact you're the master of the wand in front of a room full of hundreds of people? I'm willing to accept that nobody left in the Great Hall was evil enough to steal the wand, but presumably the fight would be covered in great detail in the Daily Prophet, and surely someone out there will read the article and say to themself, "Wow, the Elder Wand! I could sure use that!"
    • It's been discussed before (but was deleted) but suffice to say that although an oversight on his part it can easily be covered up by publicly claiming to return it to Dumbledore's grave, but instead he can put a touch-activated portkey wand there to have the aurors deal with anyone stupid enough to try and steal it.
    • Which would completely pointless, since in order to become the master you have to beat Harry, not steal the wand itself. Which Harry has told everyone by explaining why he is the master. The explanation might be that any bad guy who isn't dead or in prison by that point is probably thinking "That guy beat frickin' Voldemort, I'm not gonna mess with him".
      • Except that there is no requirement to defeat the wielder in a fair fight; you can entirely murder him in his sleep and then loot the wand from his corpse. That is straight from the original legend about the creation of the Deathly Hallows. The one every wizarding child knows.
      • Made worse by the fact that Harry decides to get a job as an AUROR. Okay, you intend to go through the rest of your life without being defeated in battle a single time, ever, as a policeman? Even without people actively hunting him down to become the master of the Elder Wand, he's throwing himself into situations where the wand's loyalty could jump on a daily basis.
      • This troper likes to think immediately after leaving the Headmaster's office, Hermione figured this out, Disarmed Harry, handed the wand back, then Obliviated it from Ron and Harry. The best way to ensure that that the Elder Wand dies is to make sure that no one knows who has the actual loyalty. (Well, or convincing some person to attack Harry, then kill themselves.)
        • If any of those who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts are mortally wounded, but still strong enough to manage one last Expelliarmus, a visit to the triage ward in the Great Hall could've sorted that out as well. Heck, Harry should've probably gone there anyway, as the Elder Wand could probably mend Dark Magic injuries like George's ear if it can fix a broken holly wand.
  • Okay, so the Elder Wand can't kill its master, but what would've happened if Harry hadn't used Expelliarmus on Voldemort? Nothing?
    • Possibly, the same thing that happened in the forest - they both get knocked out for a few seconds. Then Neville runs up with the sword and stabs Voldy in the forehead, or some such.
    • This is my theory. When the first AK was cast by Voldemort in the forest, it hit the horcrux which was in Harry and sends him to place between the world and the afterlife. Harry couldn't go further because of his mom's protection, Harry couldn't die while Voldemort was alive. Because Harry is the master of the Elder Wand, it rebounces on Voldemort but the curse was only powerful enough to send them to this place. When AK is cast again by Voldemort, it totally rebounces and kills Voldemort. Harry using Expelliarmus and catching the wand is more like Rule of Cool.
      • Original question asker here. That seems anti-climactic :(
  • Voldemort deduced that he wasn't the true master of the Elder Wand because it didn't conjure any differently from his own wand. He decided he had to kill Snape to master the wand and so he did and...then what? Shouldn't he have realised that the wand still performed on the same level as before and thus that something was wrong? Or what, in that hour when he was waiting for Harry to come to him, he didn't even test the wand at least once? He did use the Sonorus spell to demand Harry to come, so what the hell?
    • It's likely that he didn't think anything else could go wrong after he'd killed the previous master (in his mind Snape). Regardless he was probably very distracted by killing the only one that could defeat him and by that point didn't care that the wand didn't feel stronger.
      • Why are your hands suddenly moving in such...wavery motion?
  • All right, so the above discussion on the Elder Wand didn't seem to address this one. Harry was supposedly the master of the Elder Wand because he disarmed the previous master. But he didn't actually take it from said previous master. He won Draco's own personal wand. So we're supposed to believe that the Elder Wand allies itself with whoever disarms its master of any wand at any time? And if this is the case, Harry putting the wand away at the end so that the chain would be broken wouldn't really do much, would it, because if he ever got disarmed at all, the wand would then have a new master...?
    • True however it depends on whether he wants to be disarmed or not. Dumbledore's original plan wanted him to be disarmed by Snape and thus the loyalty would never have left him. However he didn't want Draco to disarm him thus change in loyalty. If Harry did get disarmed against his will it will then depend on where Harry hid the Elder Wand. It wouldn't matter who was the master if the wand had stayed in Dumbledore's grave.
    • I just took it to mean that the Elder Wand has a very generous definition of "defeat". If its current owner loses at anything, the Wand goes to the other guy instead. In theory, the Elder Wand could be transferred in a game of Rock Paper Scissors. Meaning that for Dumbledore to have held onto it for as long as he did, he had to win every battle, competition, and game in his life.
      • It may just be that Voldemort had never been the wand's master. It went from Dumbledore to Draco to Harry. It's possible that if Harry had defeated Draco somehow, but Draco still got his hands on the Elder Wand, it would still have worked for him. Rowling is (possibly intentionally) vague on the rules of wand ownership, probably because she'd spent the last decade or so putting up with everyone questioning and picking apart every magical rule she laid down.
    • Okay, but still none of you have addressed the issue (as the OP so long ago, I know what I was asking, and it still bugs me to this day). "And if this is the case, Harry putting the wand away at the end so that the chain would be broken wouldn't really do much, would it, because if he ever got disarmed at all, the wand would then have a new master...?"
      • There are two possibilites:
        • 1: Harry never allows himself to be defeated outside of consenting duels, or defeats anyone who defeats him.
        • Or 2: Harry intends to be disarmed at some point, and then let that person be disarmed, etc, until the true Master of the Elder Wand is lost simply through lack of knowledge of who actually owns it.
        • That one's my personal take on the matter. If Harry's smart, the first thing he'll do after departing from Hogwarts is Apparate to a Muggle pub and pick a fight, until "ownership" of the Wand has passed from person to person enough that no one knows who its Master is. The Wand's power would therefore be forever consigned to be wasted on Muggles who have never even heard of it, and thus be functionally "broken."
      • Also, when it say defeated, it means: being killed, stunned or disarmed, through physical or magical action, without ones consent. Thus, Snape killing Dumbledore would not have transfered the allegience of the wand as Dumbledore asked for it, but Harry punching Malfoy and taking the wands did.
  • Maybe that's why they changed the ending in the movie: Harry snaps the wand and throws over the bridge that leads to Hogwarts, into a river IIRC. You think one of the scriptwriters saw this page?
  • Grindelwald stole the Useless Stick from Gregorovich and that counts as Mastery: Riddle stole the Useless Stick from DD and that does not count as Mastery because???
    • My best guess is that it was because Gregorovitch tried to stop him. If he had just let him go the Wand's power would not have transferred, but since he started to run after Grindelwald and was Stunned in return, the conditions for "winning" the Wand were apparently satisfied (whereas they obviously could not if stolen from an unmoving corpse).
    • No, it was because by the time V stole the Wand, DD had already lost its ownership to Draco.


The Resurrection Stone

  • Like all the other Hallows, it is useless and does not do what it says on the can. To Peverell, it sent him a hologram of his dead girlfriend who persuaded him to suicide. To Harry, it sent him holograms of his family who persuaded etc.
    • Seing how "the can label" pretty much amounts to legends and fairy tales, you can't safely claim that you know what it is supposed to do.

The Invisibility Cloak

  • So, if Harry's cloak is the unbeatable artifact it's claimed to be, what's stopping the owner of the cloak from just waltzing up behind someone and nailing them with a killing curse? Invisibility isn't a defense, it's a weapon. If somebody had realized this, wouldn't it have made the climactic battle at the end decidedly less climactic, and by extension, bloody for the Hogwarts side?
    • Harry only has one cloak. Plus, I'm sure you can just imagine the chaos if everyone stopped and went "Harry, quick! Gimme that coat!"
    • The legend behind the cloak is inflated and Harry knows that. Moody's eye can see through the cloak as is evidenced in book 4. Who's to say that 'Homenum revelio' wouldn't reveal his location instantly for someone to take him out after he got one or two enemies down? Invisibility is a good tactic but that alone won't win the war. Besides at that time he was using it to hide himself rather than attack others.
  • This irritates me more than anything else in this story: The Invisibilty Cloak. Its job is to keep you concealed from detection. The Deathly Hallows Invisibility Cloak is supposed to be the ultimate invisibility cloak. What should an ultimate invisibility cloak do? Well in a world full of magic, such a cloak would be able to keep you concealed from EVERYTHING, right? Not a single spell could penetrate it, no wizard or witch, no matter how powerful would be able to see through it, nor would any magical creature - not even DEATH HIMSELF could see you wearing it. "Constant and impenetrable concealment" Yet Mrs. Norris can see through it, Dementors can see through it, Moody's eye can see through it, Luna's weird glasses can see through it, and half a dozen times in both the books and the movies people around Harry seem to be able to sense his presence, despite the fact that he's supposedly wearing the "Ultimate Invisibility Cloak".
    • The most common counter I get is that "the cloak's true power is not wearing out like other normal cloaks". To me this is silly because if this cloak does a poor job of concealing you from such a vast number of eyes and spells, then who cares how long it lasts? I'd rather have a cloak with a finite lifespan that keeps me hidden from everything no matter what, rather than a flawed cloak that can be seen through by so many exceptions that lasts forever. Regardless of whether it was Death or Ignotus Peverell that made it, you'd think in making an Ultimate Invisibility Cloak you'd put a big emphasis on the primary function, rather than lifespan (but then again, why not create a cloak that has BOTH?).
      • Who says "that a cloak with a finite lifespan that keeps me hidden from everything no matter what" is even possible? There's absolutely no indication throughout the books that "lesser" cloaks (such as those owned by Barty Crouch and Alastor Moody) are immune to magical detection; indeed, as Sturgis Podmore was detected under Moody's cloak by Lucius Malfoy, we could possible infer that they may be even less effective in that regard. Certainly they're likely to be Summonable, which the Third Hallow is not; in other words, the "true Cloak" has all of the strengths of its imitators and a few others besides, while sharing some but not all of their weaknesses. Any weaknesses that still exist may simply have been beyond the Peverells' power to avert.
        • Who says a wand that can beat any other is even possible? Who says a stone that can resurrect the dead is even possible? Asking whether or not something is even possible seems rather moot when you consider we're talking about a world of magic and especially a legendary magical artifact. Why wouldn't a cloak that can conceal you from everything that lasts forever be possible?
      • This seems to be an even more pertinent point with regards to the original legend: The cloak wasn't extremely special because the guy wore it his whole life, it was special because it hid the man from death itself. And yes, since the over-arching moral of that fairy tale was "You cannot escape death" then the cloak's ability to hide things had better be legendarily good, even if it can't actually make a person immortal just by wearing it.
    • Another thing: The Elder Wand beats any other wand, without fail. The Resurrection Stone brings back anyone's spirit from the dead, without fail. These two things have a good reason to be legendary. But then we get to the cloak, which fails at concealing you from all kinds of things, but its mediocre invisibility lasts forever. Who wants that? Also, lots of people like to Hand Wave its mediocrity by stating that it probably wasn't created by Death, and thus it's a human creation with flaws, despite its fellow Hallows being flawless in their respective abilities. So if it wasn't created by Death, and it's such a flawed device, then WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT IT?
      • You're working from a false premise. The Elder Wand cannot beat any other wand without fail; in fact, it is probably the Hallow that has been outright overpowered the most, since that is one of the very few ways to take it and successfully use it. The Wand's power has been inflated by reputation just as much as the Cloak's has; it has a lot of raw magical energy, sure, most likely because it is particularly well-crafted and possesses a very unique core, but it can still be bested in a duel if the opponent is skilled enough (i.e. Dumbledore). And as for the Stone, it's the Hallow that's used the least so we don't really know much about its strengths or weaknesses, but presumably it has them. The "shades" seem to have no abilities other than speech and Dementor-protection, and fade after a while...not to mention that whole, ya know, "could drive a less stable man to suicide out of longing" thing.
    • You gotta be kidding me. Your list of people, things and creatures who can see through the Cloak is flawed at best. Mrs. Norris CAN'T see through it, this is only something Harry has entertained some times. She can probably tell Harry is there because she's a f-ing cat! She can hear and smell him. Dementors not only CAN'T see through the Cloak but they can't see ANYTHING. They only sense the person's presence; again, similar to the cat. And Luna can only see through in the movie, get your facts right. We don't really know what Moody's eye in fact does. It's possible that he can't really see through the Cloak - but he infers that there is someone invisible there because he can't see through the things that are behind the Cloaked person. And I would like to mention the Cloak's other incredible powers no one seems to remember: it cannot be summoned and you can fire spells from under it! So, even though it is solid, you can point your wand at something from underneath and not simply set the whole thing on fire! It can block light, but allow your spells to pass through. This is amazing.
      • I recall from Goblet of Fire that Harry was waving to Moody and silently mouthing "It's mine!", which was what prompted Moody to retrieve the Marauder's Map he had dropped; Moody had to have seen Harry explicitly in order for that to have happened. He saw Harry through the cloak.
      • Also, you say Mrs. Norris could sense Harry simply because she's a cat? So the Legendary Cloak of Invisibility can hide you from DEATH HIMSELF but it can't hide you from a cat???
        • Even if we accept that the cloak actually came from Death and isn't just a product of the Peverell's own magic power, we should remember that it's actually a part of Death's own cloak. The magic that produced it would be specific to Death, so it makes a degree of sense that it would work on him better than others.
      • I think it needs mentioned that Luna never actually saw through the cloak. Her Spectre Specs let her see the "nargles" that were buzzing around Harry at the time. As for Mrs. Norris, as stated above, it is alluded that her other senses were likely what tipped her off to the presence of an invisible Harry. In GoF, it's directly mentioned that Harry regretted using so much of the scented soaps and foams in the prefects' bathroom, while investigating the Second Task clue. Moody's Eye? Well, that's something I hadn't considered, but it's established as Awesome, yet Practical, so we can let it slide.
    • Even more so than that: Fridge Brilliance time. Being the Cloak of Invisibility, the Cloak has some degree of foresight and intelligence. So, when in Book 1 the Cloak senses Dumbledore waiting for Harry, it knows Dumbledore is trying to save Harry from being consumed by the mirror, so it allows Dumbledore to see through the Cloak - thus protecting Harry far better than if it had just blocked all magic. It also realizes fake!Moody means no harm (yet) and could help Harry, so lets the eye (which Dumbledore probably enchanted with the Elder Wand), There is further evidence for this in that in Book 7, when Harry & Co. Apparate to the booby-trapped Hogsmeade, they are not discovered, when you would think that the Death Eaters would have had spells to sense presence, like Dumbledore did in Book 1: the Cloak knows that Harry's in very deep crap, so keeps him hidden. Come to think of it, it could also have alerted Aberforth to the danger. Mrs. Norris never actually tells on Harry - it's probably always his imagination. Luna seeing through it is only in the film.
      • At this point I'd like to point out it's called the Cloak of Invisibility, not the Cloak of Nothing Can Detect Me. You can't reasonably expect the thing (when it's stated only to give invisibility) to hide you from anything. As for Mad-Eye seeing through it... maybe it only gave him an infrared signature on Harry, which allowed him to see Harry waving his arms when Snape was about to take the map.

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