Indeed. It's always "just" or "simply" the same <n> basic stories. But it's hardly simple to go from the 3 words "overcoming the impossible" to Lord of the Ring

Indeed. It's always "just" or "simply" the same <n> basic stories. But it's hardly simple to go from the 3 words "overcoming the impossible" to Lord of the Rings. Specifically, the power of the <n> basic stories meme is that it implies a lower information content of our stories than we supposedly realize. The meme makes you feel smart by inducting you into the enlightened set. But in fact, the low information content is in the supposed categories, not our stories. They throw out all the details that actually make a story. Even if one of the categories was the ridiculously specific "tiny man makes treacherous journey to destroy dangerous magical object, also there's a wizard", that's still a far cry from reconstituting LotR.