I find the Animal Farm example funny because it's always seemed to me to be a monumentally dumb and unnecessary work.

More on-topic, I can't speak for others but I really don't think I'm a rabid Tolkien fan because of some cultlike cognitive dissonance over his glaring flaws. I freely acknowledge that his writing is not great literature in any meaningful sense of that phrase. (But this does sound like a really good explanation for Objectivists (okay, and Wagner and Joyce too), so who knows.)

Actually, on reconsideration I think that what Bond calls "monumental badness" is closely related to "lack of accessibility". Joyce/Wagner/Tolkien/various cult movies and TV shows all have the quality of rewarding intense study and background knowledge, and frequently are off-putting to the casual reader/viewer because they assume that knowledge. This can be as simple as having watched all the previous episodes in a series, or as challenging as knowing the slang of 1904 Dublin. Therefore these works generate the feeling of belonging to an exclusive in-group of initiates (with internal hierarchies and everything), and feeling superior to outsiders who "just don't get it" (a.k.a. hipsterism). Whereas a work that is well-crafted, and thus makes everything clear on the first reading, will not generate this fanaticism.