Characters can be explored structurally, but every interpretation must preserve the difference between visible form, sound relation, documented history and meaning.
Graphic — shared or transformed form.
Sound — phonetic or historical sound relation.
Historical — attested forms, borrowing, simplification and differentiation.
Semantic — documented sense relation and contextual use.
modern sound similarity does not prove common etymology · visual decomposition does not prove original character motivation · useful reinterpretation may be retained as a learning hypothesis, not relabelled as historical fact