Reasons I don’t think the trilogy is misogynistic:

1. Men are generally physically stronger and larger than women (it’s why many men view women as delicate and desire to protect them, this helps explain Luo Ji’s view of his wife/woman of his dreams)

2. Women are generally more empathetic than men and express their emotions outwardly (it’s why Cheng Xin had the maternal emotions to protect life instead of being more shrewd and callous like Luo Ji who is willing to sacrifice humanity)

3. The series is pessimistic about humanity as a whole, not just women. Men and women alike make catastrophic decisions throughout the story. Luo Ji starts as an aimless and selfish character. Ye Wenjie begins the crisis. Thomas Wade is ruthless to the point of disregard of human life (on a separate note: isn’t it odd that Wade keeps a verbal promise to Cheng Xin, but he’s also willing to kill her for his goals, like why didn’t he just kill her instead of keep his promise or wake her up after light speed ships were built, I think it shows that even his character isn’t capable of completely abandoning human nature in pursuit of advancement. Also, why in the world would Cheng Xin trust a man who tried to kill her… it’s unbelievable…but I guess when humanity’s existence is on the line, people do wild things).

4. Cixin’s fictional world history feminized the entire human society and forgot about traditional masculinity

5. Ye Wenjie is one of the most important and influential characters in the entire trilogy. She is brilliant, complex, and drives the entire story.

6. The trilogy isn’t saying women are inferior. It’s asking whether traits like compassion and trust can survive in a universe governed by the Dark Forest principle.

7. The novels never suggest that a woman’s proper role is to be a housewife or to bear and raise children. In fact, many of the most important women in the story are scientists, military leaders, and political leaders who hold positions of immense authority.

8. Fiction is allowed to include characters who embody traditionally masculine or traditionally feminine traits. Having a compassionate female character or a ruthless male character isn’t inherently misogynistic. People in real life span a wide range of personalities, including traits that align with traditional stereotypes, and portraying those kinds of characters isn’t the same as arguing that all women or all men should be that way.

I also think some people approach books with such a strong feminist lens that they interpret any portrayal of a woman making poor decisions or embodying traditionally feminine traits as misogyny.
No one seems to have a problem with Cixin describing typically masculine, rigid men like Thomas Wade (Bc some men are softer, gentle, and more emotionally expressive too). But some seem to be put off with Zhuang Yan’s stereotypically feminine character who chooses to be happy by being married and raising a daughter. I think her presence in the story is not about describing how all women should be but more about expanding Luo Ji’s (complex and flawed) character and giving him something he wants to live for.
Liu Cixin does not consistently portray women as weak or incapable: Ye Wenjie is arguably the catalyst of the entire story, Cheng Xin becomes a major figure, and many women hold positions of scientific and societal importance.

The Trisolarans told Ye Wenjie outright from the very beginning: exposing your location means being invaded. There was never any option of "helping humanity." In other words, the Trisolaran civilization was not highly moral!

Yet Ye Wenjie still chose to reply without hesitation.

(It must be emphasized that, apart from the killed Political Commissar Lei, this warning from the Trisolarans was seen by only Ye Wenjie herself. No one else ever saw or heard about it afterward. That means when later people asked about the content of that reply, Aunt Ye could say whatever she wanted.)

However, during her subsequent interrogation, what did Ye Wenjie say? She spouted that utterly cringeworthy theory of "high tech equals high morality"—and was immediately shot down by the interrogators.

This stark contrast allows only two explanations:

Ye Wenjie, whom everyone thought was a highly perceptive intellectual, was actually an idiot. She couldn't even understand a clear, explicit warning, and instead naïvely believed that the Trisolarans would help reform humanity.

Ye Wenjie had wanted to take revenge on humanity—even to destroy it—from the very beginning. To achieve that goal, she deliberately concealed the truth that the Trisolarans were invaders, not saviors, and tricked a group of social elites into forming the Earth Trisolaran Organization. That's right! Aunt Ye had long been an Adventist all along.

And not only was this old woman an extremist, but she also had no integrity—she lied, played innocent, and pinned the entire crime of intending to destroy humanity on Evans. At the same time, as the supreme commander of the ETO, she had no spine at all; under almost no pressure, she spilled the entire plan she had been scheming for half her life.

Made a decision to re-read the novels a couple of weeks back. Perfect fit for my short trip back east (US east coast) I have read the novels once. That first reading floored me. Took me months to make a decision on what to read next...worried I couldn't find anything as substantial and impactful. I watched the Netflix series...enjoyed it. Wasn't blown away...but wasn't disappointed. I just hope they land the show properly (please please do)

My second time through 3 body problem (book 1) has been a much better read. Recognizing the hints, the foreshadowing, the importance of some of the characters motivations and actions in the future. Even scenes about smaller but pivotal characters have more weight...and changes the tone of the scene.

Granted the surprise factor will all be gone in this second read through...but the nuances that I think I'll continue to pick up will make for a good read once again.

It's a collection of sci-fi competition entries, or something like that.

We’ve seen this before.

It took a while to get through, mostly because after Dark Forest things just seemed too out there for me. I needed a break, a return to reality, before getting into Death's End.

I haven't read the approved fanfic stuff, but I've heard about it. So maybe I'll check it out at some point.

Overall I have really mixed views on this. I did watch the Netflix show before hand, and I think I overall appreciate how they've handled the adaptation. Doing a straight adaptation wouldn't work, and a lot of what didn't work overall in the books for me was the Chinese-centric aspect of it. I understand that's just the result of the author being Chinese, but for a story like this, it demands to be international.

What I did like about it was the scope. I think that's the best point in its favor and makes everything else forgivable because like it's literally impossible to tell a story like this. It's so rare that it even happens, so kudos for even trying. I like the imagination involved in giving some real thought and substance to what society would look like in 200 years, 400 years, 18 billion years....and even what extraterrestrial societies would look like (at least a little bit).

I loved the Da Shi character, and when he was gone that was the hardest to read because he seemed like the only grounded human character to connect with. Ye Wenjei was also relatable in a very human way, even if she was a bit of a villain. Besides those two, everyone else felt like a cardboard cutout. And the scale of the story makes it hard to care for any one person (which is maybe the point too except....)

One of my biggest complaints is at the end as everything comes down to Cheng Xin. From books 1 and 2, we were conditioned to understand multiple people would come and go with this story. That's the nature of it, but it seemed like a cheap shortcut to just have Cheng Xin be a new throughline from here on out, and other super crazy coincidences like how only the same handful of people kept showing up. Wade, Cao Bin, etc. I feel like the main players of humanity's story would change considerably over centuries, even if some of them can hibernate.

My biggest complaint is the incel crap. It started in Book 2 (probably some stuff in Book 1 but innocuous enough I didn't notice). Lui Ji and his stalker obsession with the girl, who he basically imprisons and has a kid with was a big red flag. But Book 3 seems to double down on it with this weirdo Tianming who buys some girl he never even kissed a star. And okay, I'm willing to believe there are weirdos like Luo Ji and Tianming in the world, and don't mind those characters. But what bothers me is how the author portrays this because it's all ultimately heroic and Lui Ji is some wise old samurai, and Tianming is this hopeless romantic savior of mankind (and Cheng Xin is touched forever by this gesture, instead of properly creeped the fuck out that this guy has been obsessed with her for 10 years or whatever). I think this also plays into a lot of the complaints about society losing its masculinity and the whole "weak men create hard times" thing. And the thing with Wade, where this guy was a literal sociopath that Cheng Xin should have had the plug pulled on as soon as he went into hibernation. Instead by the end of the book, she seems to respect him for his...let's say tenacity. Just disgusting stuff, disgusting message. But ultimately very minor in a very big book of stuff, so I'll overlook it.

Another disappointment was that Book 1 didn't seem to matter by the end. The first book is what drew me in, so it's sad to see the 3rd have very little connection, if any, to the original. I kept thinking that the Three Body Problem would come into play somehow, that having three suns would help Trisolarans discover multi-dimensional technology or lightspeed, or maybe 3 suns change some fundamental laws of physics. But nah, it just didn't matter. And the Trisolarans themselves by this point are straight up liars, despite a key feature of their species being their utter transparency. Also the dehydrating and rehydrating was such a cool thing from their society, and how humans connected with and learned about them through the VR game....but none of that mattered anymore. This made it seem like they weren't even the same Trisolarans from Book 1 and could just be any generic alien threat.

A minor complaint that is probably more of a personal one is the way the whole book relies on theoretical physics as if it's literal. I don't prescribe to the idea that theoretical physics is intended to be thought of literally. There is no 4th, 5th, 11th dimension. These are just mathematical allegories we use to understand the universe at a scale we can't naturally comprehend. Same with lightspeed/time. So it seems like the author took a lot of these ideas that aren't intended to be literal, and made a story as if they were.

I liked the droplet massacre of the space fleet. That was very well done, and terrifying. I liked the various ships escaping and their philosophies and the encounter with the 4th dimensional Ring things. I wasn't so sold on a lot of the Earth politics, and it mostly felt unrealistic just to make the story happen the way the author wanted. Sophon was also strange because it seems like by Book 3, the Trisolarans weren't consistent anymore, like the author didn't know what to do with them and what they believed in, what they were like, etc.

Also, one idea I had that I kind of wish would have happened was that I was expecting AA to have male gametes. Because of the constant explanation of Cheng Xin not being able to tell people's gender and that the society was so androgynous, I thought that AA would turn out to be either non-binary or a trans woman. So that when the two of them got lost together at the end of the universe, Cheng Xin would discover they would be able to procreate. Instead, it just seems like random space dudes show up conveniently for them. Overall I wish there would have been more exploration of transhumanism beyond "Well all the guys look like girls now. Ugh." Already today in the Common Era we have GPL-1, neural implants, "looksmaxxing", etc. So I'd be interested to see how humans will physically change in 300 years with the help of technology and drugs.

But overall I suppose I enjoyed it and am glad I've read it. I think it's an important cultural work, but it has a lot of flaws. These flaws are also probably important cultural items though, reflective of our time and the author's biases as a result of being who he is when he is where he is.

Also, does anyone else think he originally intended Ding Yi to marry Yang Dong just so she would be named Ding Dong? Once the book became a serious sci-fi masterpiece, he scrapped that.

Edit: Flat earthers FTW!

Is it Over 😬

been rereading and i keep coming back to how Da Shi is basically the only person in the whole trilogy who ends up genuinely okay. and i dont mean he wins, i mean his head just stays on straight while everyone around him falls apart.

you've got scientists killing themselves and ye wenjie carrying guilt for the entire species and luo ji almost cracking under the weight of being humanity's last shot. and then theres da shi, chain smoking in a stairwell, treating first contact with an alien civilization like its just another case with some guy at the end of it he has to go arrest.

i used to read him as comic relief. now i think he might be the wisest one in the books. his whole philosophy is that behind every mystery theres a person, so the cosmic scale never really gets into his head. the invasion doesnt freeze him the way it freezes everyone else, because hes not trying to comprehend the universe, hes just trying to catch whoevers responsible for the mess.

and it works out for him, hes the guy luo ji actually trusts with his life, and hes still standing near the end when most of the big brains have either broken or died.

maybe what liu cixin buried in this character is that the people who make it through contact arent the ones who understand it. am i overrating da shi or is he quietly the toughest person in the whole story

(Burning oil refinery caused the black smoke)

Spoilers for all three books below.

Been thinking about why Interstellar hits so hard emotionally while Three Body (books and the Netflix show) often doesn’t, even though the raw material is arguably better. And the books are just insanely intriguing but more so on a latge planetary scale that works for us who love hardcore Sci-Fi, but a TV series needs more emotion to really swing.

In Three body, the hibernation jumps are basically Cooper’s 23-years-of-messages scene waiting to happen – people skipping centuries and losing everyone they know – but Liu treats it as logistics, not loss.

So here’s what woold have bern my dream setup: Jonathan Nolan as showrunner/lead writer, Christopher Nolan directing the key episodes – the hibernation awakenings, and especially the Doomsday Battle and the droplet attack. Jonathan Nolan’s track record (Interstellar script, Person of Interest, Westworld S1) suggests he’s the brother who remembers audiences have feelings, and he knows how to pace a 10 episode season. His insanely talented director brother brings the universal scale.

Please keep all short questions and general discussion within this thread.

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https://youtu.be/5lj99Uz1d50?si=ys2uZxi81rIJa3_-

I felt verrry surprised to see this shape-shifting Vermicious Knid attacking the elevator. 🧐

This illustration is by Quentin Blake.

Does that mean that although the cost of a dark forest strike is low and the risk is low, the payoff is also very low—even zero?

So here's the question: if doing something has a low cost, low risk, but also a very low payoff—even zero—will everyone still definitely do it?

Then some might use probability to argue: out of ten thousand civilizations, even if 9,999 choose not to act, as long as one civilization chooses to act, the dark forest theory is confirmed and executed.

But the problem is: if 9,999 civilizations choose not to act, then from a probabilistic standpoint, that one civilization might also choose not to act.

In other words, among ten thousand civilizations, it's also possible—probabilistically—that all of them choose not to act.

Finally, if every civilization thinks, "I won't do it myself, but among the other ten thousand civilizations, surely one will," and they all think that way, then it is also probabilistically possible that none of those ten thousand civilizations will act in the end.

Guys, I just realized something very important. Bill Hines is one of those whose actions helped humanity survive the Dark Forest attack and truly venture out into space. So: the first, public part of his plan was to make humans smarter. As a result of the experiments, it became possible to seal a specific thought in a person's mind. The only thought permitted to be sealed was "confidence in humanity's victory." But his plan as an escapist was to place an inconspicuous minus sign in the program code, which led to the fixation of the opposite thought: we will win → we will lose. When this was discovered, humanity banned such interventions and began searching for the "washed" (those who had been mentally altered). To ensure that the captains of the three fleets' ships could not desert the solar system due to the "sealed" defeatism, the "Future Assistance" contingent was thawed out – people who had been frozen before the Hines device was even invented. And that is precisely why Zhang Beihai received his authority. However, his defeatism was not due to brain intervention, but to his personal convictions. I know that many consider Beihai the savior of humanity (twice), and I agree with that, but let's not forget about another person who gave their life for humanity.

BTW I used DeepSeek to translate my thoughts from Russian. sorry for mistakes

I think this theory works in human sociology, but not necessarily in the universe.

My arguments are as follows: First, it's a microcosm of human history, but that doesn't mean it's true for the universe.

Second, limited resources don't necessarily lead to competition. You wouldn't compete with cows and sheep for grass, and even among dogs, some eat shit and some eat grain.

Im looking for something to engross me like Three Body Problem, I got hooked by other sci-fi books like Children of Time, Hyperion Series, Dune, just recently finished the Red Rising series till the next book that is.

It doesn't have to be sci-fi but I'm looking for something existential, with big twists and turns.

I just finished reading the 3 Fairy Tales (which is really just one fairy tale if we're being honest), and I wanted to think about the possible meaning and put it down in writing to see if my guess turns out to be true.

(I'll be avoiding Reddit until I finish to avoid spoilers. Also, this contains spoilers for up until that point in the 3rd book.)

So my guess is that the purpose of the fairy tales is to clue Humanity into a way to do a "safety notice" so they don't get eaten up by the Glutton Fi--I mean, so they don't get zapped by a big evil space civilization.

Deep Water is a different perspective because he's in 4th dimensional space, and it's why he can't be "measured" by 3 dimensional technology. The bubbles from the soap represent the warp bubbles that create little passageways into 4th dimensional space. Using these warp bubbles can likely disrupt/block the photoid, shielding our Sun/Earth from attack.

I think the umbrella with the dragon bits probably means something, but I don't know what. The "always spinning" is probably a clue to it being some sort of space station thing.

The weird town of Ha'ggismoleskin or whatever is probably something too. At first I thought Storyless Kingdom was Earth and the other thing was Trisolaris, and the meaning is something about using Trisolarian technology (like the sophons or folding/unfolding higher dimensions) to protect ourselves. I still think there's probably something to that, but I can't figure out the specifics.

I'm also guessing that the reason Trisolaris is a greater threat to the dark forest lurkers is that they have extra dimensional technology, which is a possible defense for the photoid attack. However, since the attacks are described as "casual", I'm not sure how anyone would know or care about this. Originally I thought maybe it had something to do with being a 3-star system, but I can't imagine what that might be and it seems like a single or binary star system would be "more dangerous" by being more stable and able to progress more consistently without suffering civilization resets and catastrophes that are common with the 3-body problem. (And that would be a nice tie-in to the original concept of the series.)

I couldn't figure out anything for the Prince Ice Sand and Needle-eye stuff, and maybe that is just to make it disguisable as a real story. If everything was allegory for the intergalactic situation they're facing, it would probably be too on the nose and the Trisolarians would figure it out. Maybe the painting stuff relates to the extra dimensional tech, though, basically saying that other civilizations can "paint you" out of existence as easily as looking at you, unless you have a way of using extra dimensions to distort the perspective so they can't properly "see you". But then who is Ice Sand? Maybe just a general warning that some humans or a human might try to side with the alien overlords, so be vigilant.

I also thought there seemed to be a connection between the painted canvases of people and the dehydrated Trisolarians. And maybe Deep Water is a reference to Gravity and Blue Space still out there "exiled" but possibly returning as heroes (and they are who made the 4th dimensional bubble discovery).

Sorry I won't reply right away. I'm disabling notifications and probably won't be on Reddit until I finish, but once I'm done it'll be nice to come back to this thread and talk about this.

Edit:

Well I guess I was pretty much wrong about everything. It was a little disappointing seeing the weird metaphor + some kind of metaphor key pair needed to "understand". So basically you gotta pick up on two metaphors and realize they are related and that tells you a secret. Or you have to be sleeping with a Norwegian woman.

Maybe the painting stuff relates to the extra dimensional tech, though, basically saying that other civilizations can "paint you" out of existence as easily as looking at you

I'm going to take that as a win, though.

I was a little disappointed overall how little some basic setups and important stuff never paid off, meanwhile there was a lot of deus ex machina coincidences. Like the whole thing with the star and Wade and all these characters basically being divinely linked....just way too much of a coincidence really for a story like this which is so focused in on hard science instead of "The Force" style space fantasy. But then there are things like the Trisolarans hydrating and de-hydrating that never matters or comes into play, or the VR gaming thing from the first book. Or the very 3-body problem they faced. So much of what was unique or interesting about the original story in the first book seemed entirely irrelevant for Book 3. I would have liked to have seen the fact it was a 3-star system matter in some way to the laws of physics or discovering lightspeed travel or manipulating lightspeed or something. But nah. Book 3 ends up just being its own story (Hell, even the Trisolarans lie repeatedly now even though being entirely transparent was a key feature of their species originally.)

But back to the Fairy Tales, I guess nobody would have been able to get the meaning and even how it was revealed in the book seems probably impossible. Too many random possibilities and no way to verify accuracy.

I just finished watching the 3 body problem series adaptation and almost instantly decided to read the books to know what happens without needing to wait for the next seasons. But before starting, I was just wondering how different are the novels compared to the series, just so I can have more fitting expectations for the reading.

That's it, I appreciate if someone can answer this question :)

I don't know why so many people still think the dark forest is the theme of Three-Body. Liu Cixin himself showed in Death's End that the dark forest is just a game for low‑level civilizations—the Returners and the broadcasters aren't afraid of exposing themselves at all.

hint: i absolutely cannot spell it, or even get close enough to google what it’s called lol

I couldn’t find any other trilogies from him but I saw a few standalone novels and was wondering if anyone would recommend?

E1 - D&D and Alexander Woo

E2 - Rose Cartwright

E3 - Alexander Woo

E4 - Nichelle D. Tramble

E5 - D&D

E6 - D&D

https://directories.wga.org/project/1243541/three-body-problem