Yes! The metaphors are inadequate analogies for capturing the complexity of his feelings for both men and their three dimensional personalities. That’s something that Laurie also learns throughout the book: when he tries to apply the platonic model to his love interests, he denies them their humanity. He thinks he can protect Andrew’s “innocence” but robs him instead of his agency. He tries to dismiss Ralph as the unruly immoral dark horse (“too many Bunnies”), which prevents him from seeing Ralph’s innocence (both his innocence in the accusation of visiting Andrew, and his “curious innocence” about love and sacrifice, as Alec tells Laurie at the party).
I disagree with the analysis that Laurie betrays his convictions and let the black horse win. It is rather sloppy literary analysis, in my opinion, to look at the protagonist’s growth and change at the end of a coming-of-age novel and call it a “betrayal” of their convictions. In the end, Laurie learns that there is more to love than the model of love as a ethical ideal, the love as the shared pursuit of philosophy presented in the Plato, more than following the “hard logic” of the platonic model. Laurie learns through his relationship with Ralph that love is also forgiveness, kindness, compassion. In the end, he finally sees Ralph’s vulnerability and innocence about love, and is then able to fulfill his long cherished desire to protect and save Ralph. By doing so, he levels the playing field between them: he now protects and takes responsibility for Ralph as Ralph does for him. In Renault’s rewriting of the charioteer myth at the very end, the black horse doesn’t win, but rather the white and black horses are reconciled, only for one night because they can never be reconciled forever: it’s the human condition to be pulled in two directions by reason and emotion. I would also note here that when Laurie was with Andrew, the black horse was fully suppressed, which mirrors how Laurie’s pain and physical senses were suppressed by medication. His journey to true medical recovery and the return of his sexual desire coincides with and is facilitated by his reunion with Ralph. Laurie is not “destined to be Ralph’s lover for now because Andrew is not ready to face the truth”, Laurie is Ralph’s lover because he chooses to confide in Ralph and spend time with Ralph again and again, because they have so much in common: their disabilities, war experiences, their shared past, their tendency to interfere in other people’s lives, their shared sense of humor, their shared intellectual (!!!) interest in queer philosophical and literary figures. Furthermore, Andrew is not ready to face the truth because Laurie chooses to keep him at arm’s length as the platonic ideal rather than get to know him as a human being. Note how we and Laurie don’t see Andrew’s room, his belongings, his quirks, but we get details of Ralph’s quirks and belongings. I believe Laurie uses protecting Andrew from sexual knowledge as an excuse to reject Andrew’s attempts to deepen their friendship. Andrew is treated like a vessel for philosophical intercourse (which seems to be the purpose of love in Plato’s model) and a surface for protecting Laurie’s platonic ideals, but the close third person narrator never observes how he eats, how he likes his tea (!!!!), what few personal belongings he has in his room that he shares with other people, what books he likes to read, what his friends and acquaintances are like as people, and what he thinks of them. Laurie is Ralph’s lover because he loves Ralph, and has learned to stop feeling guilty about loving him in an emotional and sexual way. Laurie is Ralph’s lover because he has finally found some compassion for himself and his love for Ralph in a world and ethical system with very little compassion for queer people. Oh, and because he knows how Ralph likes his toast and Ralph knows how he likes his tea~ (that was a long rant but ranting at other academic papers is something they train you to do in grad school lol)
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