The kind of thing that hit you 'aha!' as you were reading; or the kind of things your English literature teacher would have pointed out in grade school, blowing your mind; or the kind of things countless YouTube videos pick apart, especially in films.
It can be a major element in the book, or it can be something minor—either way is totally fine! It can be thematic, or just an Easter egg, or anywhere in between. It can be widely agreed upon by readers, or it can be something you've just noticed yourself and have a theory or take on.
Be sure to explain the element (and use a spoiler tag if needed), and don't just say 'such-and-such book has great hidden symbolism in it' and leave us hanging without any indication of what the symbolism is and how it was communicated.
For example (yeah, I know this example is a movie), it was not till the final scene of The Banshees of Inisherin on the beach that I finally understood what on earth that movie was about. Then it all clicked, and I understood, and the whole movie turned on its head—or I was turned on my head. The whole story is an allegory for the relationship between the Republic of Ireland (represented by Pádraic) and Northern Ireland (represented by Colm). I suppose it should have been obvious to me—'Inisherin' just means 'Isle of Erin', i.e., Ireland. But I didn't catch on! Or, to use an example from the silver screen, how in Arrested Development there are constant blink-and-you-miss foreshadowings in things like "army office" being blocked to read "arm off", hinting that Buster will lose his hand; or Buster, a character constantly under his mother Lucille's thumb, having his undoing be a "loose seal".
by SagebrushandSeafoam
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The Kingkiller Chronicle.
The Book of the New Sun.
Terra Ignota Series.
The Dresden Files (lots of connections, foreshadowing and easter eggs).
> the kind of things your English literature teacher would have pointed out in grade school
I thoroughly hated the way teachers would treat certain symbolisms as objective truths the author put there on purpose. I feel like so often when an author is asked to confirm specific symbolism they say it wasn’t intentional, or that it’s up to the reader to decide.
James Joyce’s *Ulysses*, of course. And his *Finnegan’s Wake*, or so I’ve heard.
In fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories of Middle Earth, Robert Jordan’s *The Wheel of Time*, Steven Erikson’s *The Malazan Book of the Fallen*, and Terry Pratchett’s *Discworld*.