out of the frying pan and into the fire

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else ... may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds.

Those were happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of different race, even between Dwarves and Elves.' It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned,' said Gimli. I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves,' said Legolas. I have heard both,' said Gandalf[.]

And what do you wish?' he said at last. 'That what should be shall be,' she answered.

Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there.

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).