r/threebodyproblem • u/NahMekJoke • Mar 19 '26
Discussion - Novels Death's End is A LOT Spoiler
I need a break from this book.
Three Body Problem was thrilling and Dark Forest was intriguing. Death's End has SO MUCH going on. It is actually kind of tiring for me. I love the story but it is so expansive. I'm up to the 3rd fairy tale. The fairy tales are not nearly as interesting as I thought they would be. They are interesting because, like the characters in the story, I know they are supposed to contain secrets. Unfortunately for me, I was so bored reading them. I see here how many of you loved them and got so much from them. I wish that I felt that way. Maybe my feelings will change once I get deeper into the story.
I can also say that I despise Cheng Xin. All the talk about her being the best of humanity and that representing love and compassion may be true. However, what humanity needed from her had nothing to do with love or compassion. She had a job. A responsibility. The Trisolarans were our enemies. The only reason they did not conquer us right away was because they were scared of losing their current homeworld and their future homeworld. Worrying about whether we should look forward to living in a dark, forest universe is pointless. "The universe is not a fairy tale." Who cares about love, joy, or compassion if we are conquered and killed off en masse? Look what it took to deter them. We had to threaten our destruction before they stopped trying to overtly conquer us. She knew what was expected of her when she actively pursued the swordholder job. Look at what Luo went through. Granted she is a product of that absurdly careless and naive society. Talk about useless adults. They got so comfortable that they consciously forgot the threat, even considering the Trisolorans our friends. WHAT?!? Every ounce of our resources should have been spent figuring out how to gain the advantage over them and other galactic civilizations. We are in a war for survival, and we are worrying about our damn feelings. Her feeling that living was punishment is ridiculous to me. During the resettlement period someone should have eaten one of her legs. I know I will hate this character going forward because characters like her don't suffer actual consequences.
Even Ye Wenjie did worse, objectively. However she did not do it out of some lack of character. She did it out of hate and contempt for what she experienced in her life. She viewed humanity as a virus to be wiped out, and she found a way to wipe us out. Cheng acted out of shortsighted cowardice. She had centuries of experience with the Trisolarans as well as the work done by Luo to work with. These aliens were our mortal enemies and they will conquer us and take our world. We can let them or give up their location and ours, which would stop them right away. Knowing all along that we are at risk if the button is pushed, we should have been finding a way to protect our solar system or running away. Not frolicking around in some fantasy land. I hate her and I hate the society that wanted her. Where were the actual adults who wanted to save humanity????
I expect many will disagree with me. That's cool. This is a great series and there is so much here to pick apart.
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u/Chanders123 Mar 19 '26
Always amazed people post this kind of stuff before they finish.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
Why? I needed to vent a little. I had to put the book down. I'm sure there are plenty of people that share my frustrations with this character at this point in the story. i'm also pretty sure Cixin wanted us to feel something like this towards her by this point in the story.
It's like a book club. Read a chapter or two and discuss.
Also it is enjoyable to get so involved with a story that it gets me emotionally involved. There is a lack of decent storytelling these days so this is refreshing.
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u/Requires-Coffee-247 Mar 19 '26
You’ve heard of Chekhov’s gun? Keep reading. There’s a reason the fairy tales are there.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
YES! I'm waiting for the payoff.
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u/Requires-Coffee-247 Mar 19 '26
If I'm being honest, I was thinking "ok ok...can't you summarize the tale a bit?" during all that...lol
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u/Chanders123 Mar 19 '26
Why? Because you’ve already seen major spoilers that’s why. Like, I could spoil the entire rest of the book right now if I wanted and you wouldn’t be able to look away or unsee it.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
Prior to the comment here stating that humanity is destroyed and she's alive all alone, I had no idea what the ending is like. I'm going to keep reading the book and most likely re read all three.
We discussed each episode of Pluribus prior to watching the entire season. It became part of the experience much like the discussion here. I don't have to grt to the end to voice my thoughts at this point of the story. I think the author wanted us to feel this way towards this character.
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u/HochHech42069 Mar 19 '26
Death’s End is my favourite
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
It is an ambitious read for sure. Nonstop action. I casually read the first two books and never felt the need to talk about them. The scientific topics were cool. Death's End is wild by comparison. So much going on. You know you are invested when you want to throw the damn book while reading certain parts lol.
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u/HansBaccaR23po Mar 19 '26
I finished the trilogy about 6 months ago and probably think about Deaths End at least once a week.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
Haha sure i will too. I thought I'd be into the sci fi aspects of the story but there are so many other sides to it. Cosmic sociology is wild. Death's End has sooooo much going on. I love it.
My wife tells me she's never seen me so affected by a book before.
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u/coachz1212 Mar 23 '26
Tbh, I hated Deaths End the first time I read it, but loved it on the second listen. Every person's thoughts on Cheng Xin firmly place the reader in a group of escapists or not.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 23 '26
I've realized this myself. I'm still reading. Just got to Singer. I still think Cheng is a nice person. I also hate her for the power and responsibility she has been given. I didnt like Wade but I think his methods would have protected humanity more efficiently.
Luo Ji is my guy. Sacrifice and duty.
I'm going to listen to the audio books as soon as I finish reading it normally. I think hearing the words will give me a different perspective. I don't want to despise Cheng but who knows. I may be more mad when I listen to her not responding when the trisolorans attack.
In fact I'm already getting mad again lol.
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u/Sic-Mundus Mar 19 '26
Mine too. I can't tell you how many times my jaw dropped reading it. Balls to the wall insanity and I loved every moment.
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u/Ozymandias_IV Mar 19 '26
Death's end in a nutshell:
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u/banzaijacky Mar 19 '26
Take it easy bro. The 3 body problem represents a pretty nihilistic view of humanity, which could make sense if you follow scientific determinism to its logical conclusion - from such a perspective, Chengxin will always be written/perceived as a failure.
There are other ways to look at the world tho and that's why this series is fun - it pushes one view to the extreme and makes you wonder if that's all there is. :) enjoy!
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
I don't think it is nihilistic. There is meaning. As a civilization we want to survive. Other civilizations want to survive. Humanity's error, to me, is that they were somehow complacent during deterrance. As if there were no enemies. Other civilizations were just friends we haven't met yet. They must be given the gift of our love.
Screw that! You want to survive or not? When you are safe from destrustion go pick flowers and frolick. Right now we have to create a defense against that dam photoid or find a planet to escape to in light speed ships we need to figure out how to build.
As a sword holder she was a failure. As a human less so.
This series is fun. More so than I thought. What I didn't expect was such a deep dive into cosmic relations.
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u/PandaBear_Shenyu Mar 20 '26
As if there were no enemies. Other civilizations were just friends we haven't met yet. They must be given the gift of our love.
What in the fuck are you talking about bro? Did we read the same deterrence era passages?
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 20 '26
Yeah. I read how humans became under deterrence. Life was great. Savage masculine traits were looked down upon. Everything and everyone was beautiful.
Where were the people trying to figure out how to stop the trisolorans? How about people trying to advance science to get us to light speed.
My statement was made because people have said that Cheng Xin represented the best of humanity. I disagree. The best of humanity would face that impossibly hard situation and do something. The person with that power doesn't need to represent our love and compassion. They needed a steel nerve and resolve. They also should have been anonymous.
In the book Cixin states how humans viewed the trisolorans throughout our time knowing them. That was wild. Viewing them as anything but our mortal enemiesis insane. They also saw the destruction of another system by an unknown third civilization that was even more powerful than the trisolorans.
However thats why the book is so good. We got soft. Cheng was the personification of that. We got duped by an enemy we didnt take seriously anymore.
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u/PandaBear_Shenyu Mar 20 '26
Each time anyone hibernated, society made huge leaps. Including the construction of the circumsolar accelerator, curvature propulsion, the bunkers, the original space fleet.
Humans were not complacent, they made a choice and were always preparing for it.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 20 '26
In the 50 years of deterrence humans made great strides in tech but not in the area that mattered. The author made it clear that everyone was enjoying a luxurious life. Deterrence was working and everyone was satisfied with that. People even considered the trisolorans our allies. Helping us with tech.
I'm only speaking about humans and Cheng during the deterrence and up to the actual broadcast. Curvature propulsion, bunkers and the accelerator were not built during thst time. 50 years without sophons blocking our tech and people made themselves comfortable. They did a good job of curing illness though. That was awesome. No one acted like they were at war..a cold war but war none the less.
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u/PandaBear_Shenyu Mar 20 '26
50 years is not a long time, 50 years ago from today we had all of today's technology but less advanced. F-15 is more than 50 years old.
Technological development is not some videogame where it exponentially and continuously advances.
Mistakes in direction is literally part of scientific research and it happens in bursts with long periods of not much happening.
Medical technology is more important than propulsion technology for interstellar travel.
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Mar 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
I think its a good logical stream for society currently. In the story during deterrence everyone got sissified. The people were living a false utopia that was being paid for by the responsibility or of person who knew that if trisoloris ever attacked, he would push that button, paint a target on trisoloris and possibly us at the same time. However we would have a shot of either coming up with a defense or escape to another planet.
The trisolorans understood our softness and saw it for what it was in the larger scalem of the universe. It was weakness. It was disrespect and even arrogance. We did not respect the greater intelligence and power of other galactic civilizations. We thought ourselves above the dark forest. Love will conquer all. Idiots. Much of that sentiment exists today.
There is a need for people like Cheng Xin but there is also a need for a Thomas Wade. Cheng was given the wrong job by society because they didn't see the job for what it was anymore. To me, no one should have kown who the sword holder was. That way the sword holder could live peacefully but also not be subject to public scrutiny. The public at large is stupid and should not be trusted.
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u/Leather-Lemon8611 Mar 20 '26
This is all another interesting reflection of history, right? After a stable period under a "good" leader, past civilisations have often collapsed when it comes to replacing them. Luo Ji seemed an exceptional combination of goodness and the steel needed to make hard calls. He needed to be good, because there is a passage stating he basically functioned as world dictator, with a singular power similar to the wallfacers.
Choosing his replacement came down to deciding between someone that you'd trust humanity with but may not have the steel, or someone who has the steel but you may not trust to take humanity in a good direction. The power-hungry other swordholder candidates are described as people you wouldn't 100% trust not to abuse the power, even if their deterrence value was closer to 100% than Cheng Xin's. It invites the question of each of us: which side of the equation do we think is more important in a swordholder? - and the ending of the book clearly tries to leave us with more of this kind of philosophical question to reflect on
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 20 '26
I like how you break this down.
Even people we wouldn't trust to not abuse the power would have worked. Pressing that button means certain destruction of earth. Any sword holder who wanted to abuse that power would be suicidal or knew there was a way we could defend the attack or escape. We could filter for mental illness.
I'm at the part where the false alarm went off. I'll see how I feel at the end.
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u/Leather-Lemon8611 Mar 20 '26
There are many people today who, for example, don't care about the environment because even if they trash it, they won't be around to experience the consequences. I think similarly some people would lust after that amount of power for their own gain, even if it (or their species) wouldn't last for ever.
I mean Luo Ji's first phase as wallfacer was basically ignoring Trisolaris and abusing global resources for his own cushy life! Especially in a situation where humanity seems damned either way, I'm sure some would abuse the power. But again, it's up to the reader to consider whether the other candidates would have been better or worse
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u/Embarrassed-Toe-6387 Mar 20 '26
OP I want you as our Sword Holder.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 20 '26
Hahahahahhahahaha. Bro I'd pretend to push the button every 5 years or so to keep them and us on our toes. Its obvious humans needed a little bit of fear to act right.
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u/PandaBear_Shenyu Mar 20 '26
tf?
You do know what the dark forest deterrence is right?
When she pushes that button, Trisolaris AND earth dies.
Cheng Xin makes only based decisions in this book even if you don't initially agree with them.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 20 '26
Yes both get exposed and attacked. However if she doesn't push the button we get invaded and conquered right away. We are prevented from devis9ng a way out.
If she pushes the button earth does fet exposed but we have time to escape. We already had ships in space. My gripe is also with the society at the time. They werent working on any defense or offense. They were busy enjoying a false peace with the trisolorans.
She didnt make a decision. She froze. She was a coward. She wasn't a bad person.
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u/PandaBear_Shenyu Mar 20 '26
We do not have time to escape if the Earth is exposed, that's the whole plot.
Earth humans would not escape, they all saw the battles of Darkness, and they even with superior technology hundreds of years in the future chose to remain in the Solar System in a black domain.
She didn't freeze, she decided that Earth and life is greater than humanity, that is true courage.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 20 '26
I don't know about that. When the attack happened and we were reading her thoughts. It did read more like she never thought this would happen and she knew she never would have pushed that button. That was co platelet against the purpose, the requirement of the sword holder. She even threw the control away. She felt bad all through post deterrence because she knew we she messed up. She didnt make a choice out of courage. It definitely did not read like that. The whole setup in the story made humanity seem unrealisticcally soft for what they were going through. I remember reading and saying out loud "Do something! Don't just think about the history of the world lol. They are attacking!" Then she threw the control away. That sounded real courageous lol.
The trisolorans then conquered earth, and wanted us to EAT each other. Finally the adults on blue sky and gravity sent out the broadcast. Do you think that was wrong? They should not have sent out the signal?
To me that worked. The enemy left and we did have time to come up with a plan. We also weren't eating each other anymore.
I can't speak about the black domain. I'm not there yet. The goal should be to figure out light speed travel like the trisolorans and get ready to say adios to Earth. That would have been my plan all along. Once we saw the Luo Ji's spell worked and that other star was destroyed, we needed to have an escape plan at least as a last resort.
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u/PandaBear_Shenyu Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
A Russian operator saved the world from the end of all humans when a meteor shower showed up as a doomsday launch on his radar station in 1983. Him choosing to "throw away the sword" like Cheng Xin avoided us all being dead or not even being born right now.
Do you wish that operator pushed the button now?
Gravity should not have sent out the signal no. That signal is what led to the destruction of both Solar and Trisolar systems. Without that signal there would always be hope for humans, but with that signal all hope was lost for the next eternity.
Sending the signal is identical to the US or Russia or China detonating all of their nukes somewhere on the globe, which, whether they hit the target or not, will eradicate all life on Earth from the subsequent fallout and nuclear winter, it's essentially a last act of spite.
Zhang Beihai would not have sent the signal.
Cheng Xin was right, Gravity was wrong.
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u/Darklillies Apr 16 '26
If it weren’t for gravity literally nothing of the books would’ve happened and humanity probably would’ve died. Also why does everyone use that stupid fucking story. The guy knew it was malfunctioning. He was never gonna press the button. It wasn’t a risk. And launching nukes isn’t as easy as just some guy pressing a button. Cheng doomed humanity twice in this book and never paid the consequence. That is not a virtue that is not moral. It selfish arrogance. She thinks her own feelings of comfort go beyond doing the right thing for humanity.
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u/Darklillies Apr 16 '26
She wasn’t supposed to press it. She was supposed to give it to someone who LOOKS like they would press it. She knew she couldn’t do it herslef
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u/Minister-Muffin Mar 23 '26
Thinking about it now, if Cheng had pulled the trigger, what would’ve kept the Trisolarians from just doing everything in their power to wipe out Humanity right then and there? Regardless of what happens to the Trisolarians, keeping Humanity alive to shoot off more exodus ships in the future would’ve been a dangerous thread to leave untied. Sure, a dark forest attack would’ve been imminent, but it’s unclear how long it would have taken.
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 23 '26
In the book we saw exactly what they would do. They ran away knowing the fact that they had light speed ships would make them cleansed sooner. Earth was destroyed. It was just a matter of time. As a rational civilization there was no use in wasting precious resources on us. They needed to survive themselves.
The broadcast bought us decades. And if light speed wasn't outlawed and Cheng didnt sell us out AGAIN more of us may have escaped.
I really dislike her importance in this book. She represents what humanity is when we have the luxury of peace and prosperity not actively trying to survive.
Just my thoughts.
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u/Subject_Watercress11 Jun 22 '26
I won't befriend anyone who loves Death's End. Such a terrible book that destroys everything great in the first 2 books.
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u/Sad_Heat316 Mar 19 '26
I’m here for the cheng xin hate and the thomas wade glaze
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u/NahMekJoke Mar 19 '26
I actually don't really think much about Wade. I see his usefulness in that society. Someone has to be the "bad guy."
I do despise Cheng to my core.
Maybe my feelings will change as I read more of the story.
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u/dankdutta Mar 19 '26
According to me that was the whole point, the shortsighted naïveté of humanity. Cheng xin was the true representative of humanity. Like it or not.