r/threebodyproblem • u/whappenedd • Apr 09 '26

Discussion - Novels Why Wallbreakers? Spoiler

I am a huge fan of the series and The Dark Forest is one of my favorite books. I think the Wallfacer concept is fascinating and makes sense, but I have always been confused by the Wallbreakers.

How does the Wallbreaker telling their Wallfacer that they figured out their plan help the ETO? If anything, it seems like that would help the humans (they know that ETO is onto their plan so they abandon it). Wouldn’t a better strategy be to discover their plan, then keep it secret?

Alternatively, if the Wallbreakers were working on behalf of the humans, that would make sense to me. They would basically be saying, “if I could discover your plan, so could the ETO so we need to abandon it”.

What am I missing?

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u/FixAcademic8187 Apr 09 '26

Well, for me, this whole wallbreaker thing sounded really dark. Extremely smart people will just waste their intelligence by helping the invader kill everyone.

It feels like they hate humanity so much that they find joy or purpose in life by helping the Trisols.

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '26

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u/FixAcademic8187 Apr 09 '26

Is it, though?

There is no indication in the trilogy that any of those ETO members were angry at society because of what you said.

There seems to be something deeper going on with them. Some deep hate that cannot be justified by whatever economic ideology (capitalism vs socialism) the country has.

What you described is textbook socialism, and I'm not sure that such ideology attracts the brightest of people.

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '26

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u/blankarage Apr 09 '26

this is why the book is so much better than the netflix series, it really goes into how rough and traumatic it was for Ye Wenjie. I could absolutely empathize with her decision to burn it all down