When I reread Erards essay, I ended up discovering that metaphors are something this are unnecessarily complicated. Sure, there are some things that pertain to metaphor that cant be oversimplified, but Erard does a good job of meshing the two together. He over analyses some metaphors to the extent that people who would not be able look past the metaphor can not just see the metaphor as something beautiful and precious, but go deeper and really understand the concepts of it. I came to think of metaphors as something more powerful than any weapon. I went into reading this the second time with that belief in mind. I found myself to be biased toward what Erard wrote.
As well, I kept in mind the “Dangers” of metaphor. I came to realize new things about the dangers of misinterpretation and misuse of wording. People high in power can misinterpret a metaphor, and pass that misinterpretation to millions of people. Thus spreading falsehood and fallacy across an unknown area.
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This brings me to the word I did not completely understand, Analogical. My first impressions of this word was that it meant ‘similar’. Come to find out that it means finding something through analogy.
Excellent! Continue to work on articulating why you think metaphors are so powerful. It’s possible you could use your insights in your first paper!