Metaphorical expressions do not all work at the same level of reality. In some, the intended referent exists externally or can exist rationally; in others the discourse imagines a property that has no literal existence in the subject.
Death has no physical claws, whereas calling an actual brave person “a lion” applies an animal designation to a real person.
An unusual figure should therefore not automatically be called imaginative metaphor. The reader must identify the transfer, the real referent, and the feature established only in the imagery.