[berkes]

Unexpected diss to Robert Jordan for being a copycat.

I love both (I'm one of the few who wrestled through the entire WoT twice and enjoyed that) but your citation shows very pointedly how Jordan was often just copying LoTR.

[ProAm]

I think they both just copied the idiom that history will repeat itself.

[ry_co]

I'm fairly confident that Tolkein didn't write that. It's the prologue to the Fellowship of the Ring movie, and not in the text, as far as I'm aware.

So maybe Jordan is actually the one who got ripped off. Still though, pretty cliché idea, but the formulation is too close to not be influenced one way or another.