I wasn't talking about the legal situation. I was trying to sympathise with why this man might feel wounded - after all, he was young when that decision was mad

I wasn't talking about the legal situation. I was trying to sympathise with why this man might feel wounded - after all, he was young when that decision was made, and he didn't make it. And neither he nor Tolkien everimagined how big LotR would become. But he still has to accept and deal with something very private and special to him being reshaped and reappropriated for the whole world, in a way completely alien to his own feelings about the works. Like I said, maybe he is wrong to feel possessive, maybe not. But I still think just writing him off as a hyper-sensitive, overly-possessive snob, as a few HN readers have done, is very mean-spirited.