Having just read The Eye of the World (WoT #1) for the first time, and midway thru book #2, i too am struggling to find the blatant rip offs of Tolkien. There are some definite similarities and tropes that are used in fantasy as a whole, but aside from "small town boy goes on journey with mysterious wizard-like person", and perrin = perregrine/pippin in name at least....i just dont see it. Maybe the Myrdraal (sp?) can be compared loosely to the Nazgul (faceless/black cloaks/etc) but that gets blown up in book 2 pretty quick.
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America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive.