Fandom is an interesting entity. Nobody can quite tell how people will react to anything, making the creation of a popular work a crapshoot. However, it's assumed that most creators hold an equal or greater amount of affection for their work than their fans. After all, they had to actually make it in the first place. So obviously, anything that's popular must be something the creator likes, right? Or perhaps they just really do hate the work they created after all this time. The reasons are as myriad as the reasons a fan might choose to like their work in the first place.