[VanimaEdhel]

In my opinion what it comes down to is good storyline. There are certain elements - even in terms of story - that comprise a good, exciting story. There will most certainly be overlap, since, as the expressin goes, "There are no new things under the sun." While that might not be entirely true, there will most certainly be similarities between "good" tales and "good" books or movies.

I mean people compare Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter just as much. Meanwhile, Rowling has never read the Lord of the Rings all the way through (make of that what you will). There's a rough model of sorts for fantasy stories (and even science fiction stories pick up on this) involving good people being persuaded by dark forces, sages giving advice and providing guidance, a great but humble man must come to grips with his role in the world - all of that can be found in almost any fantasy or science fiction story. Whether you want to assert that Tolkien started this tradition or not is up to you, but there are so many things that you can find that are similar to Lord of the Rings in many ways, that you can't presume that there's intention behind it or even that it's unique in its similarity.