How do you take inspiration from something without falling into “copies what worked in X piece of media w/o understanding why it worked”?
Have a point. The shortest way I can put it is simply make sure what you're doing has a point to it.
Here's the thing: When people accuse something of ripping off a different piece, it's effectively to answer why something is in a story. If what you're doing has a point to the internal narrative, then you already clear that. As an example: One could have the kneejerk reaction of hearing "Oh yeah, four different schools of some sort of magic and our heroes are going to have all of them except the evil one because all of this one sort is evil. Yeah, I read Harry Potter too."
BUT Avatar doesn't get that thrown at it for a reason despite for two seasons ALL firebenders being evil besides Iroh, which could be as a Snape parallel. This is because the four nations have their own cultures, identities, feels, etc. like that outside of what Harry Potter does and the distinction in elements gives limitations to characters and an arc to Aang's power. It feels like a real part of the story.
This is actually a problem that the fantasy genre ESPECIALLY faces. After all, a LOT of people take inspiration from Tolkien. If you just slap orcs into your setting though as generic monsters, people might kind of roll their eyes because they've seen it and even the Uruk-hai in Lord of the Rings were more interesting. They can feel very generic and feel like they're there simply because it's a fantasy setting.
This also goes for asshole elves. How many stories literally just copy and paste Tolkien elves? And... Usually it's fine because Tolkien's elves have a rich culture but face value they are just long lived assholes. Need an in tune with nature asshole for your adventuring party? Make him an elf and elves have a point to exist now. They're the assholes.
This is actually how you get the formation of tropes. Even if a story isn't taking from one source specifically, you can start seeing these reused elements over and over again because they simply work and because they work... People start taking them for granted. X story usually has Y tropes so an author might assume they don't have to think about it beyond that.
If your story is about racial equality and not judging books by their cover though, then having all orcs be evil and stereotypical suddenly makes no sense. But it's a fantasy setting. It needs orcs. And orcs are evil. So... What do?
A good writer gets creative. A bad writer plows through that narrative issue while screaming "LALALALALA!" This is where the claim of copy and paste storytelling comes from. Yes, for this sort of story Y works. But it only works MOST of the time and still needs to actually be integrated into the rest of the story. If it's plopped in without that effort to make it more seamless, then it's going to stick out to the audience.
And when something sticks out to the audience like that, they're going to ask why. They might blame tropes or they might blame it for taking inspiration from something else. Modern media analysis doesn't help with that either because at this point we have SO MUCH MEDIA that you can usually easily to SOMETHING else that did it worse or better depending on the point you're trying to make.
And here's the thing: This works for things that DO get the point too. If they're taking inspiration from something but then stumble by copying too much without grace, then it's going to lead to the same question as a weaker piece of media. Why is this here? It'll get glossed over more easily because the rest is good and that's what suspension of disbelief is for. To help smooth over those hiccups because what you're getting in return for ignoring an homage or ripoff is something you're enjoying.
If you're not enjoying it though... Well, that's where you get tropes being considered purely evil. How many stories have done liar reveal plots that have no point to them other than being a cheap source of conflict? Honestly, I thought the trope was so bad I'd never touch it until forty chapters into one of my own stories, I paused and went "Holy shit. I'm only NOW realizing that this is a lair reveal as the liar is being revealed!?"
Is that bad? Not necessarily. If I didn't realize I was using a trope or following a story format, that means my choices were at least mostly the organic ones for the story I was going for.
They had a point. Which made it so when the liar was revealed, it was playing into a full, proper character arc, there were multiple levels to it, whether or not the character was still lying at that point was even coming into question as they hit a crossroads of what their lie would give them versus what they actually wanted and the confrontation brought that to a boil in a dramatic way.
And that to me helped illuminate why Liar Reveal exists. But when it's just thrown in as basic miscommunication for cheap, pointless drama and complication, the audience feels that. Feels the payoff they want being pulled away by something that's lacking a reason to actually be there.
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