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Notes -
It's been quite some time since I've seen it, so I may have forgotten some details, but I don't think the family elder is a good person. Yes, the movie wants us to see him in a sympathetic light, but why should I care about the authorial intent?
His children are portrayed as an ungrateful bunch yes, but as the meme goes "My brother in Christ, you raised the children". What I see here is a story of a man who lucked into having a world-class talent in something (writing), and when his kids turned out to be only ordinary people he used his status to instill lifelong inferiority complexes in all of them. Taunting them about how they didn't manage to escape the long shadow of his fame, and when they grew up resentful and bitter using that bitterness as a proof that he was right to taunt them in the first place.
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