Should everything in your story world be symbolic?
The facts of terrain, era and physics take no moral side, and physics must not, because a rule that bends for the good side at the climax picks the ending instead of a choice.
Not every raindrop is a symbol. The ground, the era and the laws of physics take no side in your story.
Separate two things. The facts of a place, like where the high ground is or what a body can survive, make things harder for everybody. The way a place is shown, how the rain feels and how the light falls, can carry your story's argument.
In The Martian, the planet is the whole opposition and it has no opinion about anybody. It would kill any astronaut the same way.
Physics gets the strictest rule. A limit has to bind your protagonist and your antagonist alike, and the solution has to work inside it.
In Interstellar, every hour on one planet costs everyone there years back home. That rule is fair, and it's why the years Cooper loses with his kids mean something.
Fair doesn't mean meaningless. Groundhog Day's loop lets nothing carry forward except inner change, and it would reward anybody who changed.
A loss under rules that bind everyone feels fair. A contest that bends for one side loses everyone's trust.
So check your climax. If a rule of your world bends for the good side right when it's needed, the world picked your ending instead of your protagonist.
Want to work through this in your own story?
Come build your world's rules in StoryDNA. The World Constraints question asks for the one rule that binds every character equally, so your climax has to work inside it. It's one of 16 about your world.
We also posted this one on Instagram.