Sam2:
Hopefully, with a rebbe, one learns how to learn.
Furthermore, I’ll repeat what I responded to PAA earlier, that default is to assume they are talking straight, but here, the shitta already exists, making it possibly reasonable that there is an underlying premise the rishonim just don’t talk about. This is similar to the Maharals supposed revolution in how to learn aggadata — conventional scholarly understanding would have it that he invented a new approach that the rishonim en masse did not ascribe to whatsoever. However, the truth is that (some/most) rishonim did hold that aggadatas can be understood as describing mystical realities, etc, but they chose not to discuss, and even sometimes seem hostile towards it. I am not definitively claiming this is what is pshat here [techeiles], just a maybe.