A lot of "tough shit" responses here. I like to sympathise with sensitive people - I think Tolkien was clearly a very sensitive, quiet, private man, and Christopher similarly. I don't think Tolkien ever imagined his work becoming as popular and mass-culture as it did. He took it so seriously I think it would have shocked him. And from the way this article describes it, Tolkien's work formed the bedrock of a very sensitive, private, tender father-son relationship - and that bedrock is now being smeared around every cinema and toystore in the world. Rightly or wrongly, that must hurt a lot for Christopher.

Perhaps nothing should be allowed to remain private. Perhaps privacy is an affront to the rights of the people. But I don't think so. I think everyone has special, private things from their lives - special things they would be upset to see appropriated and distorted at will by other people with little to no understanding or reverence for the meaning those things hold to you. Christopher is only different because the things that made his childhood special and to which he feels protective have become an unstoppable blockbuster film series.

Hell, I can sympathise. Maybe it's just snobbery, but damned if I don't feel disgusted by the shameless, opportunistic faux-Tolkienism whipped up by by New Zealanders in the wake of the films. Nobody in New Zealand gave a shit about Tolkien before the movies. It was only when people realised that it was going to be huge that suddenly everyone became a lifelong Tolkien fan and every farmer next to a film site was running a Hobbit tour... You know, my grandpa read The Hobbit to me when I was young, and he even has a photo from when he met Tolkien (before the books took off.)

Edit: On another note, I think it's a bit rich for Hackernews readers to criticise Christopher for snobbery/possessiveness - after all, the whole bloody point of Hackernews is to discourage average internet users, prevent that 'Eternal September' thing - and maintain a conversation to an elite-defined standard. Everyone has their own snobbish preferences I think.