Since Voldemort knew that Dumbledore did not kill Grindelwald, why did he think that killing Snape was necessary for him to wield the Elder Wand?

Question

We know that Voldemort knew that Grindelwald was not killed by Dumbledore, as he himself killed Grindelwald.

We also know that Voldemort knew that Dumbledore was the last person to wield the Elder Wand with its full allegiance because he killed Snape in an attempt to inherit that allegiance from him, who he assumed inherited it from Dumbledore.

Now Voldemort is no idiot.

Following this chain of logic, based off of what he knew, he must have realized that Dumbledore didn't gain the wand's allegiance through murder as he never killed Grindelwald, so why did he feel the need to kill Snape in order to win the wands allegiance for himself?

Surely he must have known that disarming him would have been enough. Was he so blinded by his desire for the wand that he was willing to try anything? Or was he so pressed for time that he didn't fully consider the matter?

I can't imagine the latter to be true as Voldemort himself said to Snape before killing him that he considered the matter for a long time, but that, of course, could be a lie.

Or perhaps he decided that what with Snape no longer being a competent spy after being outed that he had outlived his purpose and would be more valuable dead as a result of this last ditch effort to gain the wands true power.

I'm just answering my own question at this point, but I'd like to put it to you all. Is there something I am missing here? Is there any word from JKR that can clear up this seeming lapse in Voldemorts judgement?

Answer 1

Let's take a closer look at the scene in question. Voldemort, when explaining he is going to kill Snape, says the following:

"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."
_{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 32, The Elder Wand}

The first thing this quote reveals is that Voldemort, even after knowing that Dumbledore was able to take the Elder Wand from Grindlewald without killing him, was unable to put two and two together. He claims that "The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner," which, as we know, isn't true. It seems that Voldemort isn't as smart as he seems.

In fact, there are multiple instances where Voldemort fails to pick up the subtleties of a particular branch of magic. For example, he took Harry's blood in The Goblet of Fire without realizing the disastrous effect it would have on him:

"He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort's one last hope for himself."
_{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35, King's Cross}

And there's the fact he repeated his mistake of killing Harry's parents (which gave Harry magical protection against him) by killing Harry, which protected the students of Hogwarts from Voldemort's magic:

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people..."

"But you did not!"

"I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"
_{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 36, The Flaw in the Plan}

The second reason has to do with Voldemort's personality. In the first quote I cited, Voldemort claims that "the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine" while Snape lives. I suspect that Voldemort, regardless of whether he understood the subtleties of wand-lore, would have felt like he didn't own the Elder Wand unless he killed everyone who had a claim to it. Remember, Voldemort is obsessed with killing, and sees it as the solution to all problems. As the above quote shows, he incorrectly assumed that killing Harry would lead to his victory, even though it eventually led to his downfall.

To quote from a 2007 JKR interview on Pottercast:

[T]he Elder Wand knows no loyalty except to strength. So it's completely unsentimental. It will only go where the power is. So if you win, then you've won the wand. So you don't need to kill with it. But, as is pointed out in the books, not least by Dumbledore because it is a wand of such immense power, almost inevitably, it attracts wizards who are prepared to kill and who will kill. And also it attracts wizards like Voldemort who confuse being prepared to murder with strength.

This obsession with killing is probably why he ignored the clear evidence that it is not necessary to kill the previous owner of the elder wand to possess it.

To summarize: it's a combination of ignorance (on a wide variety of magical topics) and an obsession with killing that makes Voldemort kill Snape rather than disarm him.

Answer 2

Simply put, Voldemort is not one for half measures.

Could he be guaranteed the wand’s allegiance by just defeating Snape? What if the wand still did not fully work for him?

Well, then he’d have to kill Snape anyway. So why not take the most logical route for someone with no qualms about murder – just kill Snape and assure the wand’s allegiance.

He has tied up all loose ends in his mind in relation to this wand; Dumbledore is dead, Grindelwald is dead, making Snape dead leaves zero doubt in his mind.

Answer 3

This may not be the best explanation, but to acquire wand allegiance, you need to overpower the owner. If Voldemort wanted the wand's allegiance, he could only do so by defeating Snape in a duel (or killing him). He cannot just ask Snape to stand and then disarm him. Because that won't be overpowering because it had the consent of the owner (Harry couldn't have won Hermione's wand's allegiance when he tried to disarm her with the broken wand.).

“Hawthorn and unicorn hair. Ten inches precisely. Reasonably springy. This was the wand of Draco Malfoy.”

“Was?” repeated Harry. “Isn’t it still his?”

“Perhaps not. If you took it—”

“—I did—”

“—then it may be yours.

........

“I took this wand from Draco Malfoy by force,” said Harry. “Can I use it safely?”

“I think so. Subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will usually bend its will to its new master.”

_{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - The Wandmaker}

And secondly, disarming is a very low level kind of thing, and Voldemort, the greatest Dark Wizard, would have found it in a complete contrast with his position.

Answer 4

Your reasoning is valid:

1. Suppose the owner of the Elder Wand must be killed to obtain its allegiance.
   1. Dumbledore won the allegiance from Grindelwald without killing him.
   2. Contradiction of 1 and 1.1.
2. Therefore, by reductio ad absurdum, the hypothesis is false.

However, your question is flawed:

Following this chain of logic, based off of what he knew, he must have realized

As explained in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone,

“This isn’t magic — it’s logic — a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever.”

Answer 5

I believe your assumption that disarming Snape would have been enough is faulty. The Elder Wand changes allegiance when the previous owner is defeated. If the Dark Lord had disarmed Snape but let him remain one of his most trusted servants, that would not count as a defeat.

When Professor Dumbledore has defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald, he didn't only disarm him and take the Elder Wand. He also put him in a prison cell from which Grindelwald could not escape. This was necessary, because Grindelwald was a powerful dark wizard who could have caused much trouble even without the Elder Wand.

Now if he took some time, perhaps the Dark Lord could also have defeated Professor Snape completely. Maybe he was powerful enough for that. But at that point, Snape would be useless to him, if not dangerous, so the Dark Lord saw no reason to leave him alive. It was easier for the Dark Lord to kill Snape than to defeat him in any other way.

Answer 6

I think the answer might lie in the parallel situation between Snape and Dumbledore. If Voldemort and Dumbledore had similar ideas bout how the ownership of the wand passed on, then it would make sense of their actions. Dumbledore believed that ownership would not pass on to Snape because he was willing, because they weren't actually opposed to each other. The situation Voldie thought he was in was exactly the same, so once he realized ownership hadn't passed on it might be because Snape was willing, and the defeat (however the passing on was handled) wasn't genuine.

If it was the case, if Snape had been a willing follower, Voldie was left in a situation where most of the lesser things he could do wouldn't be defeat because his follower was willing. He couldn't think of someone being willing to die, though, as much as he feared death - so believed it was the easiest and most final way to win ownership.

The wand passes through defeat, but it seems the level of the defeat doesn't matter as much as the intent behind it. So a stun and run wins it for Grindlewald, and a wrestling bout wins it for Harry, but death doesn't win it for Snape because he was playing along, not defeating Dumbledore. That might explain how Malfoy got ownership from Dumbledore in the first place - Snape was only acting, but Malfoy was at least trying, so even a minor victory, even Dumbledore letting himself be disarmed, counted because there wasn't any better claim.

Dumbledore believed setting up his own death with Snape would not count as a defeat, and ownership would not pass on, because he was not genuinely trying to win... and it seems to have worked, or at least prevented the wand from passing to Snape with his death. Contrast this with the ownership passing through Malfoy. Harry wrestling the wand away from him counts - because they were enemies, it was a life and death struggle, and they were both serious about the fight.

And, back to Voldie - there was no real way to make Snape be serious about the fight (if he had been a loyal follower), except to raise the stakes higher than he was willing to give. And even if he had come up with some answer short of death - whatever made Snape willing to fight might have made him Voldie's enemy afterwards, so death was both easier and wiser, given what he knew and assumed.

Answer 7

I don't believe there is a canon answer to your question, but it makes perfect sense in my mind: Voldemort wants to be absolutely sure his action counts as a defeat.

Killing is a very obvious defeat. What Draco and Harry do are not. And while Grindelwald's defeat was also obvious, the idea of capturing someone and putting them in prison just isn't something that Voldemort would do. Why waste the resources guarding someone, or trying to get them into Azkaban, where it has been shown it is possible to escape?

I see Voldemort as often jumping to killing just to be sure. It's why he's so good with Avada Kedavra--causing death is his goto tactic.

Answer 8

Voldemort is not an adept at wandlore, just like an excellent car driver does not need to be a good car mechanic. He has hunted down the best wandmakers for clues, and even those are not masters of wandlore but practitioners. The potterverse's wizards generally are easily distracted and have few scientific leanings regarding discovering the origin of wand magic, or non-wand magic or elf or goblin magic or a number of other things. Even dedicated scholars like Hermione seem to be mostly focused on rote learning rather than deriving methodical access to magic.

Now Voldemort in particular specializes in death in his magic: killing others, saving himself from death. If your only tool is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. Admittedly, to acquire power he can restrain himself to just threatening death, but it's not his natural urge as can be seen when he goes on a killing rampage when brought the bad Gringott's news. "Kill the messenger" is not a reasonable stratagem if you think rationally about it.

So when it turns out that Snape may be a problem, the principal question is whether to kill or not to kill him. The middle way, threatening to kill him, does not appear to make a difference to not killing him with regard to wand magic. Killing him might or might not be a game changer. But if it is, he is not risking to die just because of pussyfooting around.

Voldemort's solution always was "when in doubt, kill" and then some. He would not have it any other way, and in the end kills himself. Because Harry's solution always was "when in doubt, survive". And in the end, he does.

Answer 9

Your assumption, that Voldemort is always perfect, is flawed as a start.

Killing Snape is an example, that shows his extremely bad judgement on things like life, winning and losing. For Voldemort, death is the ultimate defeat while staying alive is the ultimate win - after all he choose 'flight from death' as his new name. So according to his logic in order to win you have to kill your opponent. The fact that it is not necessary does not concern him.

If you think this is his only wrong decision - here a sample collection of his other errors:

• He insisted on personally killing Harry despite failing to kill him around five times in a row (not counting the one in the forest at the end of book 7). A 'kill on sight' order to every Death Eater and supporter would've been much more effective.
• He didn't consider that Kreacher could survive after leaving him in the Horcrux cave
• He created Horcruxes out of notable objects and made it much easier for Harry & Co to find them - a tin box or a pebble thrown in the ocean would've guaranteed his immortality
• He took Harry's blood to revive himself without considering the consequences
• In his anger he usually badly punished or even killed his own followers for just bringing bad news or failing to complete a task. This is something insanely stupid if you want to keep having followers
• Killing Hepzibah Smith was absolutely unnecessary. He could have just stolen Hufflepuff's Cup and modified her memories and the memory of the house elf. Instead he left a trail that was later picked by Dumbledore

The list is much longer.

Answer 10

Plain and simply:

The Elder Wand knows no loyalty except to strength. So it's completely unsentimental. It will only go where the power is. So if you win, then you've won the wand. So you don't need to kill with it. But, as is pointed out in the books, not least by Dumbledore because it is a wand of such immense power, almost inevitably, it attracts wizards who are prepared to kill and who will kill. And also it attracts wizards like Voldemort who confuse being prepared to murder with strength.

~ JKR

Answer 11

An oldie but goodie.

Alright, so let's look at the scene carefully:

Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and precisely as a conductor's baton.

'Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?'

In the silence, Harry imagined he could hear the snake hissing slightly as it coiled and uncoiled, or was it Voldemort's sibilant sigh lingering on the air?

'My - my Lord?' said Snape blankly. 'I do not understand. You - you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand.'

'No,' said Voldemort. I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand ... no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago.''

[...]

'All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here,' said Voldemort, his voice barely louder than a whisper, 'wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner .. and I think I have the answer.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - pp.525-7 - Bloomsbury - Chapter 32, The Elder Wand

So, this isn't a question of Voldemort being unable to use the wand, in the way that Harry is unable to use the blackthorn wand. He is able to perform his extraordinary magic just as well as he ever could but he doesn't sense anything special about it.

Why is this, in his opinion? Why does the wand refuse to be what it ought to be, why isn't it revealing wonders? Because he hasn't earned the wand's respect. He believes true mastery of the wand comes through murder and bloodshed. Then it will not just work it will make him invincible.

Now then, why would Voldemort think that the blithering old fool Albus Dumbledore had won the wand's respect? After all, legend has it that the Elder Wand is "a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner" (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p.331). Dumbledore was an immensely powerful wizard, and yet when he duelled with Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort came off the better.

Why, then, would Voldemort think that "Dumbledore was the last person to wield the elder wand with its full allegiance" merely because he wielded it at all. He had taken possession of it, but need he have won its respect in the Dark Lord's mind? Need he have taken possession of its full powers and range of abilities, merely by winning it from Grindelwald non-lethally? I would say no.

But Voldemort wasn't looking for merely another wand. His old, cherished wand had not defeated Potter. Just another wand, with a different core to Potter's wand hadn't worked. He needed something stronger, something special. He needed the Elder wand as a way to guarantee victory over "the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord", the one who will "have power the Dark Lord knows not". He needed everything it had to give.

'He wanted you to tell him how to overcome the connection between our wands,' said Harry.

[...]

'You told him about the twin cores? You said he just had to borrow another wizard's wand?'

Ollivander looked horrified, transfixed, by the amount that Harry knew. He nodded slowly.

'But it didn't work,' Harry went on. 'Mine still beat the borrowed wand. [...]'

[...]

'We were talking about the other wand, the wand that changes hands by murder. When You-Know-Who realised my wand had done something strange, he came back and asked about that other wand, didn't he?'

[...]

'Yes, he asked,' whispered Ollivander. 'He wanted to know everything I could tell him about the wand variously known as the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny or the Elder Wand.'

[...]

'The Dark Lord no longer seeks the Elder Wand only for your destruction, Mr Potter. He is determined to possess it, because he believes it will make him truly invulnerable.'

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - pp.400-1 - Bloomsbury - Chapter 24, The Wandmaker

He needed its respect. He needed to kill the last person to merely possess it, the last person to merely make it work, he needed to show that he was worthy of the full abilities of the Elder Wand.

And so Snape had to die.

P.S.: Needless to say, I'm suggesting what Voldemort may have thought, given what he knew and believed. I'm not suggesting that Snape really did have to die according to the actual lore of the Elder Wand. I'm trying to show how Voldemort could have believed that Snape had to die, even though Dumbledore was able to use the Elder Wand without having murdered Grindelwald.

Answer 12

To user1807's excellent answer, I will add the conclusion that Voldemort had a fatally mistaken view of what it means to be a master of death.

To him, mastery of death means that death is something that one inflicts on others, at will, but which never happens to oneself.

As Harry later learns (from the wisdom of Beadle the Bard and from Dumbledore), mastery of death means to meet death without fear, at the time and place of one's own choosing.

Answer 13

He had to kill Snape. Snape is very smart, he knew Voldemort would want the Elder Wand, so he was willing to give it up. That would make defeating Snape impossible. How can you truly defeat someone who wants to lose? This is actually how Dumbledore planned to make ownership of the wand end with him as he planned to allow Snape to kill him, which means defeating someone who wants to be defeated does not transfer ownership. If Voldemort was smart enough to understand Snape would be willing to give the wand up - and if he wasn't, the short dialogue with Snape before killing him confirmed it - he would have realized he would have to kill him.

Answer 14

According to the subtle laws governing the ownership of wands - To win a wand, one must overpower and hence defeat its master in some way.

"Subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will usually bend its will to its new master." —Garrick Ollivander

So, the 3 ways possible to win a wand's allegiance from his old master are:

1. Steal the wand
2. Disarm/defeat the original master
3. Kill the original master

One thing that remains common in all 3 is that to win a wand, one must overpower and hence defeat its master in some way, in a way that is against the original master's will and hence, a real defeat.

Given this, now if we consider the case in point, we can see that even if Voldemort was well aware of all these options to win a wand's allegiance, he would still go with killing. Let's see them one by one,

Steal the wand- The moment at which he realised that the wand's not answering to him was a very crucial moment, the one in which he had lost all (but one) of his Horcruxes. Plus he was in the middle of a war. And, hence too disturbed and pre-occupied to make a plan for stealing and definitely not an effort that he would make to save a life (something that he has no consideration unless it's his own).

Disarm/defeat the original master- Say, he thinks of challenging Snape for a duel to defeat him in order to win the Elder Wand. In this case, he would have to explain to Snape why is he (Voldemort) challenging Snape to fight with his own Lord and that too when a war is already going on. And, in that case Snape would willingly accept his defeat (in order to save his life, of course) which would not be a real defeat and hence, won't work.

This leaves us with the last option, which coincidentally is also his most favourite action and of course his one stop solution for all the problems- Kill him!