Voldemort was powerful enough that he could defeat a couple of fully armed Aurors with wands pointing at him, so the threat of Harry raising his wand and casting a spell at him was negligible, as proved by him dodging a killing curse cast by a much stronger wizard than Harry.
Even if Harry was so powerful to be able to raise his wand, cast a spell quick enough at Voldemort so that he couldn’t dodge it, the Death Eaters would have stunned Harry instantly, and even if a spell cast by Harry destroyed the body of Voldemort, he could easily make himself a new one.
So what was your prior on Voldemort being more afraid of Harry keeping his socks than of keeping his wand? What was your prior that Voldemort, afraid of Harry, would rather screech at 37 Death Eater to make sure Harry doesn’t raise his wand, rather than just order Harry to drop the wand?
All these arguments are backwards—you start from the conclusion that Harry needed to keep his wand for an authorial reason, and excuses are being made to explain that.
But the breaking of suspension of disbelief comes exactly when we see the authorial hand too strongly overriding what would have been the natural character decisions, much like Harry’s suspension of disbelief couldn’t accept four different groups arriving at the same time at the door, if a single mind wasn’t orchestrating it. It doesn’t have to do with excuses you give afterwards, it has to do with the plausibility you’d give the events in advance.
What was your prior that Voldemort, afraid of Harry, would rather screech at 37 Death Eater to make sure Harry doesn’t raise his wand, rather than just order Harry to drop the wand?
Voldemort knows that Harry understands game theory, and has no incentive to drop his wand if he ends up dead and cannot save everyone anyway. If he orders Harry to drop his wand, Harry might refuse, and then he has to kill him before being able to extract information out of him.
We have to weight the probability of Harry being able to raise his wand before the Death Eaters can cast (deemed impossible, as we’ve seen how fast a grownup wizard can cast) and cast a spell which defeats Voldemort against the probability of Harry refusing to drop the wand and being required to be killed before telling any secrets. I strongly suspect the later one is many orders of magnitudes larger.
Voldemort knows Harry has knowledge he has not, but this doesn’t necessarily mean Harry knows spells or has the magical power required to cast strong enough spells to harm him.
Voldemort knows that Harry understands game theory, and has no incentive to drop his wand if he ends up dead and cannot save everyone anyway
So now you’re saying that Voldemort can order Harry to keep his wand lowered and threaten him with death if he raises it, but he can’t order Harry to drop the wand and threaten him with death if he refuses?
I somehow doubt that you would have come to this rather very specific conclusion if you hadn’t needed to explain-after-the-fact the things we saw occur in the story.
I can’t prove it because I didn’t write it down, but this very question bothered me after reading chapter 113, and I made up this explanation before reading chapter 114.
Voldemort knows that Harry understands game theory, and has no incentive to drop his wand if he ends up dead and cannot save everyone anyway. If he orders Harry to drop his wand, Harry might refuse, and then he has to kill him before being able to extract information out of him.
There are two possible answers to this argument.
1) If Harry is refusing to give up his wand, this suggests that Harry thinks that with the wand he has a non-0% chance of escape. In that event, getting the wand off him takes priority over questioning.
2) Expelliarmus. One of Voldemort’s 36 followers must know it, and if not, frankly Voldemort could probably teach them on the spot.
Voldemort knows Harry has knowledge he has not, but this doesn’t necessarily mean Harry knows spells or has the magical power required to cast strong enough spells to harm him.
“Power he knows not” strongly implies the ability to do or achieve something, rather than abstract knowledge with no immediate applications.
But that isn’t relevant. It doesn’t matter what Voldemort’s assessment of Harry’s abilities is. He knows three things:
1) Harry has unknown powerful secrets
2) Prophecy says Harry has power Voldemort knows not
3) Any failure on Voldemort’s part to stop Harry could be all it takes to end the world
When you know for a fact that you are missing information, and you know for a fact that you can’t afford the consequences of failure, you take every step you can think of to ensure success. Voldemort has already shown that he knows this with his plan of how to kill Harry.
The step of disarming Harry is both obvious and carries no costs to Voldemort, so it should be one of the first steps he takes.
Voldemort was powerful enough that he could defeat a couple of fully armed Aurors with wands pointing at him, so the threat of Harry raising his wand and casting a spell at him was negligible, as proved by him dodging a killing curse cast by a much stronger wizard than Harry.
Even if Harry was so powerful to be able to raise his wand, cast a spell quick enough at Voldemort so that he couldn’t dodge it, the Death Eaters would have stunned Harry instantly, and even if a spell cast by Harry destroyed the body of Voldemort, he could easily make himself a new one.
So what was your prior on Voldemort being more afraid of Harry keeping his socks than of keeping his wand? What was your prior that Voldemort, afraid of Harry, would rather screech at 37 Death Eater to make sure Harry doesn’t raise his wand, rather than just order Harry to drop the wand?
All these arguments are backwards—you start from the conclusion that Harry needed to keep his wand for an authorial reason, and excuses are being made to explain that.
But the breaking of suspension of disbelief comes exactly when we see the authorial hand too strongly overriding what would have been the natural character decisions, much like Harry’s suspension of disbelief couldn’t accept four different groups arriving at the same time at the door, if a single mind wasn’t orchestrating it. It doesn’t have to do with excuses you give afterwards, it has to do with the plausibility you’d give the events in advance.
Voldemort knows that Harry understands game theory, and has no incentive to drop his wand if he ends up dead and cannot save everyone anyway. If he orders Harry to drop his wand, Harry might refuse, and then he has to kill him before being able to extract information out of him.
We have to weight the probability of Harry being able to raise his wand before the Death Eaters can cast (deemed impossible, as we’ve seen how fast a grownup wizard can cast) and cast a spell which defeats Voldemort against the probability of Harry refusing to drop the wand and being required to be killed before telling any secrets. I strongly suspect the later one is many orders of magnitudes larger.
Voldemort knows Harry has knowledge he has not, but this doesn’t necessarily mean Harry knows spells or has the magical power required to cast strong enough spells to harm him.
So now you’re saying that Voldemort can order Harry to keep his wand lowered and threaten him with death if he raises it, but he can’t order Harry to drop the wand and threaten him with death if he refuses?
I somehow doubt that you would have come to this rather very specific conclusion if you hadn’t needed to explain-after-the-fact the things we saw occur in the story.
I can’t prove it because I didn’t write it down, but this very question bothered me after reading chapter 113, and I made up this explanation before reading chapter 114.
There are two possible answers to this argument.
1) If Harry is refusing to give up his wand, this suggests that Harry thinks that with the wand he has a non-0% chance of escape. In that event, getting the wand off him takes priority over questioning.
2) Expelliarmus. One of Voldemort’s 36 followers must know it, and if not, frankly Voldemort could probably teach them on the spot.
“Power he knows not” strongly implies the ability to do or achieve something, rather than abstract knowledge with no immediate applications.
But that isn’t relevant. It doesn’t matter what Voldemort’s assessment of Harry’s abilities is. He knows three things:
1) Harry has unknown powerful secrets
2) Prophecy says Harry has power Voldemort knows not
3) Any failure on Voldemort’s part to stop Harry could be all it takes to end the world
When you know for a fact that you are missing information, and you know for a fact that you can’t afford the consequences of failure, you take every step you can think of to ensure success. Voldemort has already shown that he knows this with his plan of how to kill Harry.
The step of disarming Harry is both obvious and carries no costs to Voldemort, so it should be one of the first steps he takes.