[Iris Alantiel]

I can't remember if Tolkien actually mentioned the lighting of the beacons in his writing, but historically, that's how people would call for help or signal danger in the days before we had telephones and radios and such. Those who spotted the danger would start a fire, and the next watchtower would see it and start a fire, and so on and so forth until the people at the end of the line saw the last fire and learned of the danger. Chances are LotR and Mulan both took this idea out of history, rather than LotR stealing it from Mulan.<P>As for the scene where Aragorn and the crowd bows to the hobbits, I think it was probably the easiest way to show that Aragorn, although he is the king and powerful and mighty, recognizes, honours, and values the contributions the hobbits have made to the defeat of Sauron. But I guess they could have taken inspiration for the idea from the comparable scene in Mulan.