I need to do something. I think I'll have to take up writing again. The big fantasy world. 

How do I make it different? How do I escape the Tolkien trap? Do I want to escape the Tolkien trap? How do I write a book like LOTRs without copying LOTRs? 

Is the template so rigid and inviolate that it can't be altered except by simply putting each important piece with something equal? If you do try to escape the trap, do you simply destroy the trap and make it something completely different?

I've seen authors make LOTR's more violent and brutal, I seen Frodo replaced by a rapist and murderer, I've seen all the background elements simply made bigger or more complicated. I've seen settings in every conceivable historical parallel. I've seen the characters' gender and race changed into every gender and race. I seen every kind of religious and political construct. 

But at the base of it all, it's just switching one thing for another same kind of thing. 

To write the grand fantasy, you still need the quest. You still need the talisman. You still need the innocent hero's journey. You still need the companions. You still need the great evil. 

Change any of these things and they become what? Something other than heroic fantasy. Steampunk, cyberpunk, urban, romance, SF, magic realism, whatever. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it isn't any longer LOTR's. 

I know. It's stupid question. You can't do a LOTRs without doing LOTRs light. You'll never have the breath of background in setting, language, knowledge of mythology that Tolkien had. Everyone who tries it comes across as a shallow reflection.