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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 156542

> > Pippin
> > wondering if the Faith-ist position shouldn't be that Snape is
> > good, since he has turned out to be on Harry's side in every other
> > book in the series
> >
> 
> Neri:
> Hmmm. Faith believes what canon places before her, but she isn't Naïve
> or Gullible (she's only their first cousin). Since Snape saved Harry's
> life (or tried to, anyway) several times, Faith certainly believes
> that Snape is likely to do so in Book 7 too. However, to conclude from
> this that Snape must be good, that would be gullible. After all, Faith
> also has to believe that Snape tormented orphans placed under his
> authority, tried to turn in two innocent men to be soul sucked, and
> killed Dumbledore on the tower with an Unforgivable curse. The most
> straightforward interpretation of this is that Snape is bad. So Faith
> would ask: can Snape be a bad man *and* try to save Harry's life?
> Turns out it's not only possible, but is strongly implied in canon.
> Yep, Faith would go with that.

Pippin:
If Faith believes all that, I'm afraid she's been subverted and no
longer adequately represents her position <g>

The straightforward interpretation of canon is that we don't have
enough information to determine whether Snape is good or bad, since
all of Book Seven is needed to establish this. If everything hinges
on what happened on the Tower, Faith ought to be agnostic since
there is contradictory evidence. It certainly looked to Harry as if 
Snape had killed Dumbledore with an unforgivable curse.
OTOH, a trickle of blood is straightforward evidence that Dumbledore
had been dead for far less than half an hour when Harry found him.

The straightforward interpretation of canon is that  Snape thought 
that Sirius and Lupin were guilty when he threatened them. 

It is equally straightforward that  Dumbledore knows how Snape 
behaves towards Harry and Neville and has some epitome of
goodness reason for allowing it, though naturally Faith would
not presume to speculate about what it is.<g>

Pippin