julian calling the greek class (minus bunny and richard) "magpies" is so fun to me bc . while they are symbolic of intelligence and resourcefulness they are also symbolic of deceit and opportunism
richard didnt eat his lamb chops at his first dinner with the twins and bunny ate richards chop instead . lamb could be a religious ref to following, how richard is not quite yet in the thick of it with the group, not yet a follower of henry/andor julian . but later in the book he does eat lamb in camillas room at the hotel if i remember correctly , perhaps he is consuming his own innocence, his own morality . finally accepting his role as a follower maybe . also something to do with morality
Henry as death, as Satan/the devil (Richard has described him as Satan, some girl at a party said the greek class were all devil worshippers and Who do they worship except Henry)
Rot and death, particularly rotting fruit -- something about opulence and overindulgence: richard says in his notebook from when he was 18: “There is to me about this place a smell of rot, the smell of rot that ripe fruit makes. Nowhere, ever, have the hideous mechanics of birth and copulation and death-those monstrous upheavals of life that the Greeks call miasma, defilement-been so brutal or been painted up to look so pretty; have so many people put so much faith in lies and mutability and death death death” and then the first few days at hampden (literally 2 pages later) “stunned and drunk with beauty ... Trees creaking with apples fallen apples red on the grass beneath, the heavy sweet smell of apples rotting on the ground”
Richard first name John: john the apostle . outlived all the other apostles .beloved . follower . etc . interesting the things that could be associated with that; john also means “graced by god”so that could also be looked into; could be that richard abandoning his given name that he has abandoned any grace that could have been given him . could be that he is the apostle to Henry in a way that the others weren't .... could be he has fallen from grace; extremely interesting to me that richard as a name has zero biblical references and means "brave ruler" . something something about the front richard was putting on . the grandiose he wanted so badly to imitate but in the end couldnt and he will always remain but a humble john follower and apostle . perhaps