Re: This shall be Salman Rushdie´s words (Spoiler????)!?

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 156531


> Chrissi:
> This shall be Salman Rushdie´s words.
>
> Rushdie: It has always been made plain that Snape might be an
> unlikable fellow, but he was essentially one of the good guys.
> (Massive cheering) Dumbledore himself has always vouched for him.
Now
> (unintelligible) Snape is a villain and Dumbledore's killed. We
> cannot, or don't, want to believe this. (Cheering and laughter). Our
> theory is that Snape is in fact still a good guy. We propose that
> Dumbledore can't really be dead. That this in fact is a ruse, cooked
> up between Dumbledore and Snape to put Voldemort off his guard.
Harry
> then will have more friends than he knows when he and Voldemort do
> face. So, is Snape good or bad? (Massive cheering). It's plain to
see,
> everything follows from this. (Cheering)
>
> Jo: Your opinion, I would say, is right. However, I see I am going
to
> have to be more explicit and say Dumbledore is definitely dead.
>

Neri:
I read it like this: Rushdie's opinion is that if Snape is good, then
what happened on the tower was a ruse and Dumbledore can't really be
dead. JKR says his opinion is right (that is, that Snape being good
would imply that Dumbledore is alive) but unfortunately, Dumbledore
is definitely dead.

JKR obviously isn't saying that Rushdie's *theory* is right.
Rushdie's theory the way he presented it includes Dumbledore being
alive, and JKR nixed that most explicitly.

So the only question is, does Rushdie's opinion also imply that if
Dumbledore *isn't* alive, then Snape must be bad? I'd say the way he
presented it certainly suggests so, but he didn't state it
explicitly 

wynnleaf
I'm afraid, Neri, that you've set up a very common fallacy.  One of
Rushdie's comments was basically, "[if] Snape is a villian, [then]
Dumbledore's killed."  That's a very obvious conclusion and
practically no one has ever argued against that.  If Snape is evil, he
definitely killed DD.  But that being true, does not make the converse
true.  In other words, the above being true does not in any way imply
that if Dumbledore is really dead, Snape must be evil.  To consider
that to be true is to fall for a very common fallacy, the Latin name
of which I can't recall at the moment, but the basic construction is:
  If A then B, does NOT mean the same as If B then A.

Rushdie's comments don't even come close to saying that if Dumbledore
is dead, Snape must be evil.  Therefore JKR's comment doesn't even
approach validating that notion.

Neri
and therefore the DDM!Snapers are still left, as always,
with some vague shade of hope.

wynnleaf
Hm, I believe the DDM Snapers have got a huge boost from JKR's
comment.  It seems to take a logical fallacy to believe otherwise.