And thus, the stars were born.

Sun symbolism for Grace is just soooo good, he doesn't know how many people revolves around him back on Earth: his students, Eva, Carl, the Petrova Taskforce, etc., so he always feels alone (even tho it's self inflicted most of the time). He's unaware of the people he's managed to capture into his gravity, forever falling into his light and warmth (*ugly sobbing*)

Icarus symbolism tho...hear me out. Let me yap abt the myth of Icarus, so he's the son of Daedalus, who is imprisoned in a labyrinth that he himself built (not his choice, blame King Minos and his greedy ass). Minos lets Icarus visit his father bec the man was aging and was needing help in maintaining the labyrinth. Long story short, Daedalus had been working on an escape plan and roped his son into it and eventually they got out of the labyrinth. We all know how that ended, prideful Icarus flew too close to the Sun and melted the wax keeping his wings together, burning himself, and sending him crashing into the sea.

Grace already fell from grace (lmao) when we see him in the book/movie, he's a little more reserved, patient and calmer. But when the astrophage came into the picture, he immediately (movie) jumped into action, and thought of his kids after reflecting (book) as the reason for why he's doing all this. Little did he know, this decision of coming back (book) and demanding for astrophage samples (movie/book) was him unknowingly building the very wings that'll cause his own demise. Suddenly he was in the middle of the ocean, suddenly he was lead astrophage expert, suddenly he was the Project's first officer. He was suddenly too important, and even though he was unaware of it, Stratt had groomed him into the mission's tertiary science expert. This was when he began to fly too high into the sky, and the explosion at the Cosmodrome was when the wax of his proverbial wings melted off. The only difference to the myth is that Grace's story did not end when he fell into the sea, in fact it's there where it begins.