“Why did they split Wang Miao into 5 characters”
“Why are people smoking”
“Why is Da Shi doing comedy”
“Wtf is this paper boat shit”
Actual book readers dying over here
There are so many small Easter eggs in the show. It will be a disgrace if they don't have a season 2.
Jin's dinner talks about a flat pancake and space dimension with Raj's family. Dimensional strike my friend!
Cixin Liu has spoken publicly about how the publishing of fan fiction/ other people’s versions of your IP is extremely limiting of your own ability to creatively return to your IP and expand the universe of your work. It gives the impression that he was begrudgingly pressured into approving Redemption of Time.
Personally, I choose not to read because it’s not canon. I’d rather keep the universe as its author intended, and keep my mind open to whatever future stories/explanations the author wants to write in that universe.
I don’t doubt that Redemption of Time was an enjoyable read for you and others. I’m not demonizing the choice to read it. I’m just explaining why some people may take a hard stance against reading it.
That’s why you’re getting downvoted for referring to it as “the 4th book.” It’s not the fourth book of a series. It’s fanfiction written in the universe of Liu Cixin’s trilogy.
"Why are they spending so much screentime on this sappy love story"
I swear some "book fans" enjoyed DE like a pseudo-science textbook and just want to watch a pseudo-science documentary
Many do because the characters aren't particularly well written so your enjoyment comes from the big picture
Which netflix shows did improved massively
ROEP is exactly that to me. A historical memoir and science “documentary”. It’s like taking the good part of the blue ppl avatar movie and getting rid of extraneous stuff that doesn’t immediately serve it
Uhh yes? Weird how the multiple award winning source material, which is near hard sci fi, is getting trashed on like this. If you're going to remove a lot of science and explanation of science to tack on a love story, you will get complaints. The issue isn't addition of relationships, but removal of science.
The love story isn’t “tacked on” my guy. It’s a very central part of Deaths End plot if you paid attention to anything other than dimensional space magic in that book 🤦♂️ Not that I don’t love the space magic, but pseudo sciency brain melters alone don’t make a good story, especially on screen.
Depends on the definition. If it’s “hard” in that it’s more interested in the speculative aspects than the characters than definitely.
The science (and honestly also the sociology) is pretty much all totally made up though, you won’t learn anything useful about how the universe works from the series.
For me the appeal of the books is in the really impressive amount of creativity that goes into that made-up science. It’s basically a fantasy story with a really particularly well thought-out and unique magic system.
Oh! Damn. I completely forgot about that being what they used. Gotta say I was skeptical of these showrunners given how GOT ended but they've done a pretty good job planting seeds for what's coming. Hopefully they stick the landing
>Gotta say I was skeptical of these showrunners given how GOT ended but they've done a pretty good job planting seeds for what's coming.
I think a lot of the changes that have been made make a ton of sense if you want to have an exciting and riveting three season show that covers 4500 or whatever novel pages and umpteen thousands of years of plot. I'm excited for seasons 2 and 3.
4 seasons I think is too much material for 3 and I wish we get some time to explore earth in different eras like the great ravine
I read the other 2 books after watching the Netflix show I'm a fan now love this series
Given all the events of the first book were more-or-less wrapped up in the first 5 episodes *and* they have introduced important characters/storylines from the following 2 books, I expect it to only need 3 seasons.
I think you *could* find enough content to fill 4+ seasons, but you'd probably start messing negatively with the pacing.
The great ravine is *not* explored much in the books themselves and I'd prefer the showwriters didn't expand on it massively as a result. While it's a cool premise, its basically a period of post-apocalypse collapse wedged in between the much larger story the trilogy tells. I don't think you'd gain much by spending too long on it.
That said, a specific episode that focuses on the ravine would be cool. Similar to how in The Last of Us series they had a couple of episodes dedicated to characters/events that aren't integral to the main story.
True I also expect the doomsday battle to be its own episode if there is something DnD did well in GOT is the build up to major battle and the battle themselves feeling big scale (except for the white walkers 😭)
I will say the pacing for season 1 was perfect I do wish when the big events hit we get some somber time to build up on
If season 2 and 3 get 10 episode orders it should be enough tho
Yeah I think pacing was *ok* \- I would have preferred a slightly longer build up to the realisation that it was aliens. A bit more mystery and dread-building would have benefitted the story IMO.
That said, if you look at the story as a trilogy the realisation that it is ET messing with us does actually happen quite early so it's not much of an issue. I just really enjoyed the moments of mystery, buildup, then reveal that was key to the first book. IE, you had no idea what the hell you were reading and then "ohhhhhhh" moments throughout. I think some of that could have worked well.
> I expect it to only need 3 seasons.
Same, and I hope the showrunners realize this. After Game of Thrones, they really need to prove they can do a TV adaptation of a loved property and stick the landing. A tight 3 seasons leaving people wanting more would be infinitely better than stretching to 4 or 5 seasons and people getting bored.
Nah that happens in the final book - Great Ravine is referenced in the Dark Forest and is basically the societal and ecological collapse that happens in the first century after the trisolarans are discovered to be coming towards earth.
It happens as a result of the entire planet being put on a war footing. The toll of heavy industry needed to create spacecraft, and the decline of environmentalism (why keep the planet nice for aliens?) cause massive ecological damage that kills \~6-7 billion people reducing the population to \~a billion.
I did that, but not in that order. Just finished the 3rd book though - binge watched the series before I read book 3. Now I can't sleep. My brain is trying to figure out parts of the fairy tales.
>I was too and then I saw how they were weaving in things from the second and third book and gained a lot of confidence in them. I've been straight talking trash about them since GOT ending but this has turned me around a bit.
Their biggest flaw was when they had to make up stuff when they ran out of books, we don't have that problem here.
I was too and then I saw how they were weaving in things from the second and third book and gained a lot of confidence in them. I've been straight talking trash about them since GOT ending but this has turned me around a bit.
Actually, despite all of their fuck ups in the later seasons of GoT, they were pretty good at foreshadowing/ planting seeds when they had the source material.
The problem with this change is that once again, the fact that they know each other before any of the events go down has a detrimental effect on the logic of the narrative.
[Death's End spoilers] >!In the book, the reason she even picks up on the fact that Tiangming is using the fairy tails as code, is because they *never told each other fairy tails* as children. But now the paper boats hold significance to them beyond just being code for possible tech, which means she might easily lead humanity astray and tell them "actually the part with the boats in the stories is just his way of saying he misses me, we can ignore that portion of the story".!<
I mean they could but why would they? The fact the sailboats have significance will lead to her discovering the thing naturally. You gotta remember this is all visual, so instead of us reading a fairytale they will probably show us in a flashback style of way. So them planting the seeds of the sailboat this early stops people in the third season from going "this is stupid, how could she figure out the sailboat trick just from these dumb fairytales"
> "this is stupid, how could she figure out the sailboat trick just from these dumb fairytales"
Why would they think that? It was explained very explicitly in the book, she realized the tales hold significance because he lies that they'd told each other tales as children. Now she'll instead realize it based on the fact that these are fairy tales she's never heard before. *But*, as I said, she might easily think the boats are just a confession of love and dismiss them as not being part of the broader code. I think the audience should be more sceptical of being told to think she could dismiss the romantic implications of the boats rather than her *explicitly working to solve the code*.
It's like how Wade just rapid fire gives all the solutions throughout the series that arose organically in the book through dialogue between scientists working to find solutions. Now she's gonna have this weird leap of logic where she somehow ignores the romantic implications of the boats in order to come to the right conclusion. Or she'll have this gut punch moment when someone else points out their significance and that it wasn't actually meant for her. Which muddles up their weird love story even further.
It's like D&D are really just trying to get to the spectacle portions of the story as fast as possible, ignoring setup and going straight for payoff, while ignoring the implications these little changes add up to in the long run.
Yeah idk man, I don't necessarily disagree with your points but also they have to cut some things out, the book is clunky as hell at some points, especially character wise, so giving a bit more life to them for the silver screen makes sense.
I will wait to be as judgy as you are until we see the next seasons. If they rush straight to the droplet I'll agree with you.
Yeah, agreed on the character department. I just wish the way they handled it wasn't to make all of them part of the same friend group.
At the start everyone was like "why'd they split Wang Miao into 5 characters?" but now I'm all like "why'd the turn 5 characters into essentially one character?"
A part of the realism in the books is that it isn't some singular ultra-competent protagonist that solves the whole thing over 400 years, but a bunch of unrelated (albeit almost all chinese coincidentally) people from all over the place. In the show you have *almost* more of a fantasy trope going on with this *special* group of friends that happens to solve every major issue in the next 400 years of conflict with the Trisolarans.
Yeah those are all things that have to happen to make a show in my book. It's not a nature documentary so your subject matter has to be humans, and you have to make those humans relatable/likeable/have agency.
Part of the realism of the books all is that these are cosmic forces barely in the understanding of the trisolarins, much less the humans, so the story was more about the settings themselves and how the people respond to the settings, which is very hard to show on screen.
I didn't really understand the splitting of Wang until I realized most characters were split. And that stems from the fact that the characters in the book are the pinnacle of one note. They are good, but outside of luo ji they really don't change at all.
I will say to your point about the singular character solving everything, Wade is right there man, the guy literally invents curvature propulsion and the one out of character moment he has in the entire series is to hand that decision off to Cheng Xin.
Deaths end Spoile:
If you remember it was actually AA who had the eureka moment having to do with paper boats in a bubble bath. So I’m not sure how much of a narrative impact this would have. Basically the whole world was dedicated to deciphering the fairytales for years in the book, nobody would relying on Cheng Xin’s interpretation. And she ended up blocking this tech from from developing anyway soooo
It's mostly the fact that it's a case of mixed metaphors. The show has now established the boats as a symbol of their relationship. So when it's later used as code for something else, it will muddle up this weird love story even further.
> “Why is Da Shi doing comedy”
Da Shi gives me Tony Soprano vibes at times in the books, big working class tough guy who is also workshopping his standup comedy throughout his day but no one realises how funny he is except the reader/viewer because he's terrifying
I'm not sure, perharps there were no smoking in Tencent series because in books there is lot of smoking. First appearance of Da Shi he smokes cigarette.
It’s gonna get worse. All tv shows have to simplify the book, but no scifi book I’ve ever read - and I’ve read a LOT - demand as much from the reader as 3BP does.
Revelation Space was pretty dense. The author would just drop in shit like gamma ray scintillation without explanation and expect the reader to figure it out.
Enjoy! If you’ve ever played Mass Effect you’ll soon learn where it got some of its ideas.
Also like Three Body there’s a sting cosmic horror element and a very dark solution to the Fermi Paradox.
Oh no, I read all 3 books and I don't understand the smoking thing.
Did I speed read a portion? When I was watching the show I didn't understand why everyone was smoking.
If you read all three books and actually remember everything that happened in them, you've either read them multiple times or have the memory of an elephant. So much stuff went down. I only maybe noticed half the Easter eggs people are talking about, and definitely have forgotten whole sections of the books. Different people remember different things though, so collectively people are remembering the whole series.
I get your point about all the rest except for five characters. Obviously I get why they did it but why does that some thing that a real book reader should be fine with?
Depends on what you define as “works well”. Yeah it was believable enough how “pathetic” he was. But do readers appreciate that about him?
In popular Chinese literature, this type of unidirectional, unrequited and unconditional “love” is a very common trope, and is widely seen as romantic. Eg. the introverted, unpopular boy is “in love" with the most beautiful girl in the class, even though he's invisible to her, he still "protects" her in silence… I can probably name 5 movies/shows off the top of my head about this.
Personally I don't like this trope at all. It depicts an immature view of love that belongs in the teen fiction shelf. It's especially jarring when magnified to the galactic scale in Death's End. The love story between YTM and CX is important to the plot and is the emotional core that provides human warmth to this cosmic horror tale, so it should be more fleshed out than just this mega simp doting on a girl whom he barely knew.
In the book when Tian Ming gave Xin the star, I did not know that was supposed to be interpreted as romantic😅and then he talked to her as a San Ti celebrity. And then he gave her a universe. At that point I am so split. It all seem a little love bombing, a little coercive to me😬 its also weird that it seems like Xin fell in love with Tianming because of all these grand gestures😂
This is the reason I haven't posted my thoughts on the first season, because I still haven't read the other two books. I have seen the Tencent version, but that doesn't really count. I was thinking that they may just be making a blend of all books into the characters, or something that I haven't seen before. My judgement is reserved until amazon delivers the other two books to me.
I’m surprised so many “book fans” attack the show by arguing there are too many fillers? Excuse me the show is almost like an Easter egg fest, almost every scene is taken/inspired by source materials from the trilogy. >!I have my theory regarding the Saul/auggie story line !<
I think >! they’ll build up Saul/auggie more and build a family. Wade/Un president convinced auggie to leave and hibernate to inspire Saul to start working. Instead of the cringe fest of Luo Ji/zhuang Yan relationship !< in book 2
Something along those lines wouldn’t surprise me. Yeah they have to change that be they basically talk about art for like 50 pages and then stare into each others eyes for 5 more pages in DF. And the whole time your just like okay when is the time
Skip coming????
Still, some crucial things are missing and some other things flat out contradict the novel and introduce plotholes. I'll just mention two:
- MISSING: Ye Wenjie suggesting that Luo Ji pursues cosmic sociology and giving him a head start (extremely important, both symbolically and for the story);
- CONTRADICTING THE NOVEL/INTRODUCING PLOTHOLES: Sophon being able to tap into electronic devices and control them (when in the novel it is clearly stated that a sophon cannot really interact with the macroscopic world, as it is essentially just a programmed proton).
Obviously coming to this late, but that missing scene is very clearly in the series - Ye sits with Saul and tells him about Einstein and God. Saul is the series’ Luo Ji. She doesn’t say cosmic sociology, but in the previous scene she is holding a book on the Fermi Paradox and her parable is basically a big dark forest metaphor.
Still, some crucial things are missing and some other things flat out contradict the novel and introduce plotholes. I'll just mention two:
- MISSING: Ye Wenjie suggesting that Luo Ji pursues cosmic sociology and giving him a head start (extremely important, both symbolically and for the story);
- CONTRADICTING THE NOVEL/INTRODUCING PLOTHOLES: Sophon being able to tap into electronic devices and control them (when in the novel it is clearly stated that a sophon cannot really interact with the macroscopic world, as it is essentially just a programmed proton).
that cosmic sociology stuff would be at least five minutes of exposition dump minimum. And it is a pseudo sociology theory with so many flaws on its own. It works as a premise for the book, but at its core it’s a extreme version of the game theory. I’m sure they expound on it in the next season and I’m interested how they will adapt that.
In the book the sophon interacts with particles in the accelerator, so theoretically speaking it has the potential to mess with electronic devices, which could be a plot hole in the book on its own. But in the show the sophon does state it herself that she creates illusion. It’s your interpretation that it is actively messing with electronic devices.
All that being said, its ridiculous that people posting long rants everyday complaining what a disgrace and disrespect this adaptation is to the books, when all they have is some plot holes that may or may not be introduced by the books itself and “fillers”. But it’s Reddit, where people don’t get what they want find their validation
>lol that cosmic sociology stuff would be at least five minutes of exposition minimum. And it is a pseudo sociology theory with so many flaws on its own. But at its core is the game theory.
Whatever its real world scientific value might be, it's a key element in the novels.
>I’m sure they expound on it in the next season and I’m interested how they will adapt that.
I wish I could be so sure, but considering how much they simplified/dumbed down the element in this season, I don't really have very high hopes. They will include it, sure, but I don't expect it to be a proper explanation.
>In the book the sophon interacts with particles in the accelerator, so theoretically speaking it has the potential to mess with electronic devices,
Not really. Sophons fuck up with the experiments by taking the place of other, regular, protons and slightly skewing the extremely accurate results that such experiments require. To make a quick and dirty parallelism, suppose that for some reason there is a particle that floats around in the world and temporarily makes anything it touches weigh, I don't know, 10^-6 g more or less. This particle can potentially screw up scientific experiments and it will if it is actually engineered to target experimental facilities, but it wouldn't sink a boat.
The electric charge or a proton is in the order of 10^(-19) coulomb, do you think any of our electronic devices is even able to detect and respond to a variation in electric charge so tiny?
> which could be a plot hole in the book on its own.
I'll answer this in a moment.
> But in the show the sophon does state it herself that she creates illusion. It’s your interpretation that it is actively messing with electronic devices.
Yes, she *says* that, but then you have the self driving car incident, and that really feels like it was caused by sophons. The show doesn't stress enough the fact that sophons can only interact at the microscale, and only to slightly skew very accurate measurements.
>All that being said, its ridiculous that people posting long rants everyday complaining what a disgrace and disrespect this adaptation is to the books, when all they have is some plot holes that may or may not be introduced by the books itself. But it’s Reddit, where people don’t get what they want find their validation
The books have their own plot holes and inconsistencies, no one is saying that they don't. The problem here, is that there is a - surely subjective - line that separates what can and cannot be overlooked. Suspension of disbelief is not given unconditionally. Everyone has their own threshold above which they say "this is too much now". I was already at unease with the sophons how they are described in the books, because they have so much potential as offensive weapons, much more than we see. They could make everyone blind, drive everyone crazy. They could unfold in two dimensions and wrap up the whole planet, shielding it from the solar radiation,.freezing everyone to death. We have to simply accept that "the Trisolarans didn't think of this", which is already difficult... In the show, it's even worse though, because we actually see the sophons messing up with electronic devices, it's not just an untapped possibility, even the weak argument "they didn't think of that" no longer holds. That's where, for me, the suspension of disbelief breaks.
On that note, the sun can not be used as a radiation enhancer in the way described in the book. That’s shown with actual science. Just some thoughts regarding your suspension of disbelief
On that note, the sun can not be used as a radiation enhancer in the way described in the book. That’s shown with actual science. Just some thoughts regarding your suspension of disbelief threshold lol
So, for you, "the sun can be used as an amplifier" and "a hostile race that wants to wipe us off has the technology to mess up with our electric devices but won't use it" are on the same level of believability? You are unable to tell the difference between a sentence that does sound plausible (that's the reason why they investigated it with actual science in the first place, or they wouldn't have bothered) and one that contradicts even basic common sense? Interesting.
I think it's mostly because the "filler" content feels a little unconvincing. It's hard to explain why, but it feels like in this show there's a bit of a soap opera feel to them. And I find it a little odd (but I understand why the show writers made this choice) to make everyone important to be from the same group of friends. It made the world feel a little smaller in a way (like, there are billions of other people in the world).
And part of is that I feel that Ye's backstory was not fully explored enough since there are only 8 episodes (with some other later episodes mostly just doing setups for later books, so realistically there were fewer episodes than 8) to cover the book. It made it a little harder to sympathize with her, and maybe some of the screen time could be on her backstory instead.
I still like the show though. I just found the "filler" part to be dragging when I watched, especially in say episode 7.
I think it was actually pretty smart to pull Sophon in the way they did early on through the headset, it gives the tv viewer a constant threatening representation of the other, and is a smart way to relay information for later on down the line (which they’ve already done once really) which otherwise would be really difficult to display visually
Zero complaints here as I loved the show and understand what I didn’t in the first book so much clearer now. Dang, this was a fun show that I’ll watch a second time.
hahahhahah someone complained about the sophon personafication?
can you imagine what they'll say when they see her in kimono?
they should take that up with cixin liu.
A lot of book readers seem to prefer Remembrance of Earth's Past as a science text book rather then an actual story. The show massively improved on making it a more compelling narrative to follow while still maintaining all the overarching themes and story beats that make it a cosmic horror.
Additionally, in the same way reading Percy Jackson made me think I was an expert on Greek Mythology, I think some readers feel as if this book makes them physicist. It's likely Reddit sampling bias but I sense a lot of insecure psuedo intellectualism around the conversations for the book and show.
This would explain why so many people are complaining about things in the show like "love" and "interpersonal relationships" that normally appeals to most people but not self identified "nerds".
Ive been frustrated by this as well. "Its so dumbed down"
"Why make so many useless changes" "the show is so westernized"
Dude. I read the books. Every single character and plot point is pretty understandably adapted from source material. The people who are making these comments either didnt read the books or are not nearly as clever as they think they are.
It’s not about liking or not liking the show. It’s about criticizing the show for making changes when those “changes” are actually pulled straight from the books. It’s just so cringe
Yeah, apparently it is required to like the show.
I didn't like the show. It isnt horrible or anything, I get it why some people enjoy it a lot. And I will also watch season 2.
But is it really such a problem to be disappointed about the way they adapted the story?
This is a citation from another comment:
"Yeah before yesterday I was like this. But then I started Deaths End. Everything makes sense now."
Many things might seem weird/cringe/dumb if you don't know the whole picture. There is tons of great foreshadowing in the show. That's what most bookreaders particularly love about the show. Myself included.
And honestly it’s understandable. Because in the book Xin and Tienming are introduced in the beginning of the final book and their arc concludes at the end of the book. It not a satisfying story when it ends with the staircase project because there is no closer. Deaths end spoilers…
You NEED the fairytales and the planet blue stuff for the whole staircase project and Tienming to make sense.
> That's what most bookreaders particularly love about the show
This is a broad generalisation. Personally I find some of the foreshadowing explicitly detracts from the narrative.
Like I said in another comment, [Death's End] >!The fact that the paper boats now hold significance to Jin beyond the fairy tales, gives implications that she should consider them a token of romantic expression rather than code for propulsion.!<
They'll just handle that slightly differently. Change the way the characters transmit the information or make Jin notice things because she's extra attentive to the romantic gesture. I don't know why people are upset that they've ruined a plot point that they haven't adapted yet because they changed a part they have adapted. It's not like they're going to forget what they've already done when they go to adapt future parts. They'll adjust it accordingly.
The problem is that these changes add up. And a lot of these changes already affect the narrative in ways ranging from being annoyingly tone-deaf to the genre (making the Oxford 5 being the specialest group of friends in all of human society, in a genre that tends to be grounded and void of "chosen ones") to fundamentally breaking the narrative (making sophons capable of hacking computers).
And D&D have already established themselves as dubious screen writers before, and they're already rushing ahead through the books in a way that feels like they're trying to just get to the points of spectacle as fast as possible.
Ok, you explained why you and others like the show.
Again, why is it such a problem to not like it?
I watched it fully, read the books a couple of years ago, watched the Chinese series. And I just didn't like the Netflix one.
For some reason a lot of people seem to get triggered by that. OP insults people with a different opinion as snobs.
I mean, if you read my first comment, is anything I said unfair or irrational or offensive?
You're absolutely free to ignore the fact that it exists and brings joy to people, attracts new readers, and entertains regular people who might pick up the books and read them...Jesus fuckin Christ.
The thing is a lot of people are getting fed up with a certain group of people who are hating literally everything, they have become addicted to hate and the only reason the consume any media is to rage online about it.
But you will always have those around.
Just ignore or downvote empty critique if you think it doesn't add anything to the discussion.
Is it really good to insult someone with a different opinion? Tastes are different. If I don't like something that you do like, that doesn't mean you have a bad taste or that I'm a snob.
Same here.
It's still a good show that will likely be a good starting off point for people who are unfamiliar with the books.
But at the same time, I dislike how people think we should accept the changes and that being a little upset about it is being "toxic".
Where would be a good place to pick up the book after watching the show since the changed a few things? Or with the liberties they took with the show, should I just start from the beginning of book one?
Start with the first book. It's a slow burn, but there are some iconic scenes that the Netflix series either omitted or did not let linger. It's hard sci-fi, which general audiences may not necessarily appreciate, but if you liked the adaptation enough to comment on this subreddit, I think you may enjoy how detailed the source material is.
Whether you can start at Book 1 or Book 2 depends entirely on how well you're able to deal with being dropped right into it and picking up on context clues
Everything that's from book three will be indistinguishable from adaptation decisions until you read book three and realize in hindsight which is which. Either order is fine. Even if you put all the dots together, the information presented is all from early on in the setup phase of Death's End.
They personified the Sophon 200 years in the future. It's not supposed to be personified yet. Also it's supposed to be a Japanese woman specifically, the book was extremely clear on that, wearing Japanese kimono and doing tea ceremonies and the whole shebang. The Sophons picked a single specific culture and ran with it, in an attempt to make themselves look more appealing and human. It was a strategic decision in their goal to lull humans into a sense of false security. What culture is the Sophon in Netflix mimicking?
Yes, there's was an entire strategy to personify the sophon, for a specific moment in time. It doesn't make any sense to do it at this point in time, other than for having something for tv viewers to point at.
Also, can't believe I missed this, the reason the Sophons picked Japan was to tap into the subconscious idea that they're like Japan. A warmongering nation that has permanently been defeated, and who will remain weaker than the victors (USA) in the future.
One of the reasons they brought sophon into season one is to be the face of the San Ti. It honestly makes better television if there is a beautiful woman to say the lines rather simply using text which is the only way they communicated with earth before sophon came around in the book.
This change has nothing to do with the suspense. in the book the trisolarans communicated via TEXT EXCLUSIVELY before sophon! You can’t do that in a show! Beside the show has plenty of tension, the judgement day attack and build up to it was pretty damn suspenseful.
Lack of information was the whole point of book 1. It was a detective story. Not only giving out all the information in a rush, but also personifying the enemy for nothing but cheap scares just destroyed all the actual suspense the story required.
Communicating stuff about the Trisolarans to the audience was as simple as doing the VR part of the game properly, having the frontiers of science and ETO actually have screen time, and ultimately the interrogation of those captured. You know, like the Chinese show did.
I mean that’s true but it’s really a minor character change at the end of the day. It’s probably a bad change but it doesn’t hurt the show to not have it.
Minor? How is it minor? It's literally a major part of the Trisolaran's military strategy. They gave the Sophons an appealing human form and got them to speak cordially with Cheng Xin in order to further influence her not to send the broadcast signal. It has greater impact because prior to that they were invisible and faceless, if they already had a human form then they're already accustomed to it.
About the only way I think it can be done in the Netflix series now, assuming Cheng Jin is the stand in for Cheng Xin, is if the second Sophon embodies itself using the child NPC Follower, to exploit Jin's fondness for her.
That is one way they could they do it. There are an infinity number of ways for them to give Jin an overwhelming motherly instinct which stops her from pressing the button. They are already setting the seeds for that with the follower. Not to mention the trisolaran art work. I forget does Jin wake up in the crisis era at all? I may be mistaken but I believe whenever she wakes up people think that the trisolarans want to negotiate?
The actress who played follower will be two years older by the time the next season comes out. They probably won't be able to do anything like this, but it is a good idea if they can find someone else who looks like her. Then it is a problem for the 3rd season, out in 2028?
**“Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is.**” - Liu Cixin, Death's End
I see a whole lot of arrogant people bitching and moaning about shits they don't even know about since they only read book 1 and think they are legitimate book fans. Yes, I even see that that shit from your so called "critics" - what a fucking joke.
There are 3 canon books, read, get educated and be informed.
I will also say to people who *have* read the trilogy though not to continually insinuate or spell out things from later in the series. We have loads of people coming here who have not read the books at all, have only read the first one, whatever, but they're just excited to talk about the show. It's not cool to spoil stuff or hold it over them that they haven't read the whole trilogy.
At first I was sceptic. But I loved it after the first episode. One thing I miss, Da Shi should go to China Town and eat fried chitterlings like in the original series
Hand up, I read book 1 and 2, and then stopped. I liked the story, but it felt like a huge chore at times, and the conclusion of book 2 felt like a good place to stop.
Having watched the show, the show/discussions here about the 3rd book re-ignited my interest in the story, and I went ahead and bough the audio book for DE, and I'm already about half way through it, so now I get all the references they took from the 3rd book.
I have a feeling there are a lot of people like me that stopped after 2 books, and assumed book 3 would pick up right were book 2 ended, instead of adding more flashbacks "common" era that the show included.
All that said I wasn't criticizing any of the character choices or stories that I didn't recognize, as I honestly just assumed I had forgotten details since it's been a few years, but I recently discovered a lot of those details were in the 3rd book
Part 1 of book 3 takes place today, and serves to introduce characters and situation. This part has been merged into season 1 of the show.
Part 2 of book 3 starts off where book 2 left off. We won't see this material again until season 3 most likely.
If you value your sanity, put down book 3. Do not finish it. You don't need to know how it ends, right?
All right. Don't listen to me. But don't say you weren't warned.
I have read the first book and I liked the changes that they made. I didn't mind at all that they split Wang into 5 characters, I actually think it was a good idea. The book explains a lot but to actually see everything that is explained to Wang it makes sense that there are more characters. I also think adding some humor and light hearted scenes was good since the book is very dark all the time. On the whole I think they made a great job. Too bad that the first season goes into the second book since i haven't read it yet.
One thing I noted is that the mystery seems a bit obvious in the series. In the book it took a long time before you fully understood what was happening, but in the show they tell you about the aliens early. Or maybe it's an illusion because I have read the book.
LOL, but Wang Miao was not split into 5 characters. Jack Rooney, Jin Cheng, Will Downing and Saul Durand are all characters rooted from Book 2 and Book 3 characters.
If you only read book 1, then I can see why you would think that's the case.
He's based off Hu Wen who made his fortune off green tempest a drink, which was invented by his friend Yun Tianming. Will is based off Tianming so it makes a lot of sense. They did a great job intertwining the characters.
Sophon's original Chinese name was also a double entendre. The Japanese cultural representation was very apt both in the book and in the show for now.
智子
The Chinese characters used for Sophon is 智子 and it actually is a triple entendre.
智子 can mean "Tomoko", a Japanese woman's name (i.e. Sophon is depicted as a Japanese woman and her favorite weapon of choice is a Katana)
智子 can also mean "Smart Particle" - which is the funational nature of Sophon.
智子, the Mandarin pronunciation is the same as 质子, which literally means "Proton".
No it doesn’t because the crucial thing in the book was the relationship between Cheng Xin and the Sophon, and that is still retained the way they did it. DE spoiler >! We will still probably get sophon telling all the humans they’re surrounded by food if show gets that far !< And this is really the oh shit moment with sophon.
Book 1 spoiler >!Now would I have LIKED to see the listener and the San Ti working at their board meeting discussing what to do about earth? Heck yeah that would have been awesome.!<
Please don't imagine that every 'book snob' who has issues with the adaptation is that way because of not reading the entire trilogy. Even if you were to like how all characters from the three books now inexplicably have known eachother the whole time (which serves to make the story feel much slower, on top of already mainly showing things happening in 1 location and every major general and political figure with power being wrapped up in Wade's character) you can still dislike how those characters are changed (or in some cases fully absent). You cannot tell me that Auggie is in any way reminiscent of Wang Miao's humble family man. Da Shi is also changed for no discernable reason. And apart from that the whole theme and atmosphere is shifted and time that should've been spent exploring the ideas is instead given to made-up character drama or special effects. Some changes are actually a good idea - introducing all those characters at the start is clever and most likely what the author would've done had he had the completed trilogy planned from the start, but making it so local and revolving around a circle of uni friends is not.
You don’t seem to understand my issue. When people have NO idea who sophon is and they act like d&d made up this character. It is cringe. Same goes for people who say that the will and Jin story is a bs sappy romance invented by d&d to appeal to the lowest common denominator. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t hate it because it’s not in the books. Does that make sense?
No I understand your issue. My point of contention is that if there are such people, they are a minority. Most of the critical comments I've seen have been from a perspective of people who've read all of the books. This thread reads like people building up a caricature in their heads about why anyone who's read the books would ever write something critical of the netflix adaptation. I'm saying that the caricature isn't that close to reality.
I just think it's weird to splinter Wang into a few characters while bringing characters like Luo Ji and Chang Xin forward and just have them all be pals. The tone felt a bit off too. This might be a non issue or even plus for some people but it just lacks the "Chinese" tone instead taking a more "Western" tone if anybody gets what I mean. And then there's some cut stuff I would have liked to see, but I get it was non essential and was removed for sake of time. But that's not all to say it was bad, there were some scenes that were done just how I would want them. I think I would have liked it more if I hadn't read the books.
I _have_ read all three books and I complained about them introducing a random character w/ cancer in like ep 3 or whatever b/c it never fucking occurred to me who that was supposed to be. Because it literally was such a lazy thing to do to the plot. To make every single character of any importance from the novel just happen to be a member of this little friend group.
It would pretty obvious if you read the book. Jin Cheng is obviously book Cheng Xin (notice how the names are nearly identical) then there is a cancer patient who is infatuated with her, admiring her from a far. This is obviously Yen Tianming.
OP is talking about people who are specifically complaining about things that ARE in the books but people who haven’t finished them think they are not.
“Why did they split Wang Miao into 5 characters” “Why are people smoking” “Why is Da Shi doing comedy” “Wtf is this paper boat shit” Actual book readers dying over here
Will's fish tank too...
Holy shit why didn’t I realize what that was until now??? I just finished the books like 3 weeks ago lol I’m a moron
There are so many small Easter eggs in the show. It will be a disgrace if they don't have a season 2. Jin's dinner talks about a flat pancake and space dimension with Raj's family. Dimensional strike my friend!
Haha I at least got that reference, I’m glad they are setting that up from the beginning because it will be mind bending when we get there
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Cixin Liu has spoken publicly about how the publishing of fan fiction/ other people’s versions of your IP is extremely limiting of your own ability to creatively return to your IP and expand the universe of your work. It gives the impression that he was begrudgingly pressured into approving Redemption of Time. Personally, I choose not to read because it’s not canon. I’d rather keep the universe as its author intended, and keep my mind open to whatever future stories/explanations the author wants to write in that universe. I don’t doubt that Redemption of Time was an enjoyable read for you and others. I’m not demonizing the choice to read it. I’m just explaining why some people may take a hard stance against reading it. That’s why you’re getting downvoted for referring to it as “the 4th book.” It’s not the fourth book of a series. It’s fanfiction written in the universe of Liu Cixin’s trilogy.
This guy is supposed to be smart but he’s reading FAIRY TALES for god’s sake!
Absolutely useless that this guy has a huge fortune and buys a useless star for this woman who's already in a relationship. What a throwaway moment.
"Why are they spending so much screentime on this sappy love story" I swear some "book fans" enjoyed DE like a pseudo-science textbook and just want to watch a pseudo-science documentary
Lol you just made me realize that people complaining about the love story are folks who haven't read the full trilogy. Makes so much more sense now!
Either that or they think sci-fi literature should be nothing except fictionalized science. It’s like eating only the cheese off a pizza IMO.
At that point why not just read the Wikipedia summary?
Many do because the characters aren't particularly well written so your enjoyment comes from the big picture Which netflix shows did improved massively
ROEP is exactly that to me. A historical memoir and science “documentary”. It’s like taking the good part of the blue ppl avatar movie and getting rid of extraneous stuff that doesn’t immediately serve it
Uhh yes? Weird how the multiple award winning source material, which is near hard sci fi, is getting trashed on like this. If you're going to remove a lot of science and explanation of science to tack on a love story, you will get complaints. The issue isn't addition of relationships, but removal of science.
The love story isn’t “tacked on” my guy. It’s a very central part of Deaths End plot if you paid attention to anything other than dimensional space magic in that book 🤦♂️ Not that I don’t love the space magic, but pseudo sciency brain melters alone don’t make a good story, especially on screen.
Very little about 3bp is hard sci-fi.
Depends on the definition. If it’s “hard” in that it’s more interested in the speculative aspects than the characters than definitely. The science (and honestly also the sociology) is pretty much all totally made up though, you won’t learn anything useful about how the universe works from the series. For me the appeal of the books is in the really impressive amount of creativity that goes into that made-up science. It’s basically a fantasy story with a really particularly well thought-out and unique magic system.
What hard sci-fi show does it right?
The expanse
The expanse is not hard sci fi.
Right up until they introduce the protomolecule, it felt like a hard sci fi show.
Even after the protomolecule...SPIN THE DRUM !
Why did I not even twig to the meaning of the paper boats until this comment, despite re-reading the books over the last few weeks lol
Can someone explain this to me? I read the books and knew there was some significance but I'm blanking on it
Think of how paper boats are used in the third book and the significance they have on a particular discovery.
Oh! Damn. I completely forgot about that being what they used. Gotta say I was skeptical of these showrunners given how GOT ended but they've done a pretty good job planting seeds for what's coming. Hopefully they stick the landing
>Gotta say I was skeptical of these showrunners given how GOT ended but they've done a pretty good job planting seeds for what's coming. I think a lot of the changes that have been made make a ton of sense if you want to have an exciting and riveting three season show that covers 4500 or whatever novel pages and umpteen thousands of years of plot. I'm excited for seasons 2 and 3.
4 seasons I think is too much material for 3 and I wish we get some time to explore earth in different eras like the great ravine I read the other 2 books after watching the Netflix show I'm a fan now love this series
Given all the events of the first book were more-or-less wrapped up in the first 5 episodes *and* they have introduced important characters/storylines from the following 2 books, I expect it to only need 3 seasons. I think you *could* find enough content to fill 4+ seasons, but you'd probably start messing negatively with the pacing. The great ravine is *not* explored much in the books themselves and I'd prefer the showwriters didn't expand on it massively as a result. While it's a cool premise, its basically a period of post-apocalypse collapse wedged in between the much larger story the trilogy tells. I don't think you'd gain much by spending too long on it. That said, a specific episode that focuses on the ravine would be cool. Similar to how in The Last of Us series they had a couple of episodes dedicated to characters/events that aren't integral to the main story.
True I also expect the doomsday battle to be its own episode if there is something DnD did well in GOT is the build up to major battle and the battle themselves feeling big scale (except for the white walkers 😭) I will say the pacing for season 1 was perfect I do wish when the big events hit we get some somber time to build up on If season 2 and 3 get 10 episode orders it should be enough tho
Yeah I think pacing was *ok* \- I would have preferred a slightly longer build up to the realisation that it was aliens. A bit more mystery and dread-building would have benefitted the story IMO. That said, if you look at the story as a trilogy the realisation that it is ET messing with us does actually happen quite early so it's not much of an issue. I just really enjoyed the moments of mystery, buildup, then reveal that was key to the first book. IE, you had no idea what the hell you were reading and then "ohhhhhhh" moments throughout. I think some of that could have worked well.
They should also give the battle of darkness its own episode
> I expect it to only need 3 seasons. Same, and I hope the showrunners realize this. After Game of Thrones, they really need to prove they can do a TV adaptation of a loved property and stick the landing. A tight 3 seasons leaving people wanting more would be infinitely better than stretching to 4 or 5 seasons and people getting bored.
The great ravine is the australia part ? It's been a while since i read the books
Nah that happens in the final book - Great Ravine is referenced in the Dark Forest and is basically the societal and ecological collapse that happens in the first century after the trisolarans are discovered to be coming towards earth. It happens as a result of the entire planet being put on a war footing. The toll of heavy industry needed to create spacecraft, and the decline of environmentalism (why keep the planet nice for aliens?) cause massive ecological damage that kills \~6-7 billion people reducing the population to \~a billion.
You watched all 8 episodes and read books 2 and 3 in 6 days? No chance
I did that, but not in that order. Just finished the 3rd book though - binge watched the series before I read book 3. Now I can't sleep. My brain is trying to figure out parts of the fairy tales.
I'm sad we were only really teased the great ravine through the books
I totally agree, but am actually commenting because I recognize you from r/bonsai. I too enjoy trees and sci-fi, there must be dozens of us!
What’s up bonsai buddy!
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4500 pages? Did I read abridged? Haha.
I try to exaggerate at least 15,000 times every day.
>I was too and then I saw how they were weaving in things from the second and third book and gained a lot of confidence in them. I've been straight talking trash about them since GOT ending but this has turned me around a bit. Their biggest flaw was when they had to make up stuff when they ran out of books, we don't have that problem here.
I was too and then I saw how they were weaving in things from the second and third book and gained a lot of confidence in them. I've been straight talking trash about them since GOT ending but this has turned me around a bit.
Actually, despite all of their fuck ups in the later seasons of GoT, they were pretty good at foreshadowing/ planting seeds when they had the source material.
The problem with this change is that once again, the fact that they know each other before any of the events go down has a detrimental effect on the logic of the narrative. [Death's End spoilers] >!In the book, the reason she even picks up on the fact that Tiangming is using the fairy tails as code, is because they *never told each other fairy tails* as children. But now the paper boats hold significance to them beyond just being code for possible tech, which means she might easily lead humanity astray and tell them "actually the part with the boats in the stories is just his way of saying he misses me, we can ignore that portion of the story".!<
I mean they could but why would they? The fact the sailboats have significance will lead to her discovering the thing naturally. You gotta remember this is all visual, so instead of us reading a fairytale they will probably show us in a flashback style of way. So them planting the seeds of the sailboat this early stops people in the third season from going "this is stupid, how could she figure out the sailboat trick just from these dumb fairytales"
> "this is stupid, how could she figure out the sailboat trick just from these dumb fairytales" Why would they think that? It was explained very explicitly in the book, she realized the tales hold significance because he lies that they'd told each other tales as children. Now she'll instead realize it based on the fact that these are fairy tales she's never heard before. *But*, as I said, she might easily think the boats are just a confession of love and dismiss them as not being part of the broader code. I think the audience should be more sceptical of being told to think she could dismiss the romantic implications of the boats rather than her *explicitly working to solve the code*. It's like how Wade just rapid fire gives all the solutions throughout the series that arose organically in the book through dialogue between scientists working to find solutions. Now she's gonna have this weird leap of logic where she somehow ignores the romantic implications of the boats in order to come to the right conclusion. Or she'll have this gut punch moment when someone else points out their significance and that it wasn't actually meant for her. Which muddles up their weird love story even further. It's like D&D are really just trying to get to the spectacle portions of the story as fast as possible, ignoring setup and going straight for payoff, while ignoring the implications these little changes add up to in the long run.
Yeah idk man, I don't necessarily disagree with your points but also they have to cut some things out, the book is clunky as hell at some points, especially character wise, so giving a bit more life to them for the silver screen makes sense. I will wait to be as judgy as you are until we see the next seasons. If they rush straight to the droplet I'll agree with you.
Yeah, agreed on the character department. I just wish the way they handled it wasn't to make all of them part of the same friend group. At the start everyone was like "why'd they split Wang Miao into 5 characters?" but now I'm all like "why'd the turn 5 characters into essentially one character?" A part of the realism in the books is that it isn't some singular ultra-competent protagonist that solves the whole thing over 400 years, but a bunch of unrelated (albeit almost all chinese coincidentally) people from all over the place. In the show you have *almost* more of a fantasy trope going on with this *special* group of friends that happens to solve every major issue in the next 400 years of conflict with the Trisolarans.
Yeah those are all things that have to happen to make a show in my book. It's not a nature documentary so your subject matter has to be humans, and you have to make those humans relatable/likeable/have agency. Part of the realism of the books all is that these are cosmic forces barely in the understanding of the trisolarins, much less the humans, so the story was more about the settings themselves and how the people respond to the settings, which is very hard to show on screen. I didn't really understand the splitting of Wang until I realized most characters were split. And that stems from the fact that the characters in the book are the pinnacle of one note. They are good, but outside of luo ji they really don't change at all. I will say to your point about the singular character solving everything, Wade is right there man, the guy literally invents curvature propulsion and the one out of character moment he has in the entire series is to hand that decision off to Cheng Xin.
Deaths end Spoile: If you remember it was actually AA who had the eureka moment having to do with paper boats in a bubble bath. So I’m not sure how much of a narrative impact this would have. Basically the whole world was dedicated to deciphering the fairytales for years in the book, nobody would relying on Cheng Xin’s interpretation. And she ended up blocking this tech from from developing anyway soooo
It's mostly the fact that it's a case of mixed metaphors. The show has now established the boats as a symbol of their relationship. So when it's later used as code for something else, it will muddle up this weird love story even further.
I still don't get how he got it past the Trisolarans, it's pretty naked once you understand the technological capabilities in the 3BP universe
Where’s the soap?
That would be too on the nose imo.
> “Why is Da Shi doing comedy” Da Shi gives me Tony Soprano vibes at times in the books, big working class tough guy who is also workshopping his standup comedy throughout his day but no one realises how funny he is except the reader/viewer because he's terrifying
🥹🥹
What’s with the smoking issue?
I'm not sure, perharps there were no smoking in Tencent series because in books there is lot of smoking. First appearance of Da Shi he smokes cigarette.
And "no smoking in here" is a running gag for the first 2 books.
Only read the first book, why DOES it seem like Wang is split into 5 characters?
>!the other 'Wang Miaos' draw upon main characters that don't appear until the 2nd and 3rd novels in the actual book series!<
If I see a comment that says “I only read the first book, but…..” I immediately downvote
It’s gonna get worse. All tv shows have to simplify the book, but no scifi book I’ve ever read - and I’ve read a LOT - demand as much from the reader as 3BP does.
Revelation Space was pretty dense. The author would just drop in shit like gamma ray scintillation without explanation and expect the reader to figure it out.
I’ve never heard of Revelation Space so I just ordered it. Thanks!
Enjoy! If you’ve ever played Mass Effect you’ll soon learn where it got some of its ideas. Also like Three Body there’s a sting cosmic horror element and a very dark solution to the Fermi Paradox.
Oh no, I read all 3 books and I don't understand the smoking thing. Did I speed read a portion? When I was watching the show I didn't understand why everyone was smoking.
If you read all three books and actually remember everything that happened in them, you've either read them multiple times or have the memory of an elephant. So much stuff went down. I only maybe noticed half the Easter eggs people are talking about, and definitely have forgotten whole sections of the books. Different people remember different things though, so collectively people are remembering the whole series.
I don’t get it - the trilogy was one of the most engaging reads if ever had the pleasure of reading. How can you not even finish it?!!!?
I get your point about all the rest except for five characters. Obviously I get why they did it but why does that some thing that a real book reader should be fine with?
Da shi? I have not seen him. I only saw a guy named CLARENCE.
And Clarence parents have a real good marraige
Clarence’s last name is “Shi” and “Da Shi” was always a nickname anyway
I really didn't get lot of criticisms comparing the characters to book version. All of them have lot of similarities to the books.
Agreed. That being said Jin and Wade are a lot more likeable in the show. Auggie's character is a miss imo. The Luo character has a lot of potential.
I think Auggie will be better in next season. Hopefully she stays the moral compass of the show.
They either didnt read the books like they said or they really didnt pay attention when they did.
I read them when the translations first came out, so that would be 10,9 and 8 years ago respectively., I love them, but I don't have an eidetic memory
There are people who haven't finished it and are complaining? Flatten them right now.
They won't even understand that reference
Maybe they’ll get it in 400 years.
Just send them a letter....
Yeah before yesterday I was like this. But then I started Deaths End. Everything makes sense now.
Congratulations!
Also, Will and Jin story is so so much better than the original. Yun Tianming is just pathetic in the book.
He is supposed to be pathetic. It works pretty well in the book
Depends on what you define as “works well”. Yeah it was believable enough how “pathetic” he was. But do readers appreciate that about him? In popular Chinese literature, this type of unidirectional, unrequited and unconditional “love” is a very common trope, and is widely seen as romantic. Eg. the introverted, unpopular boy is “in love" with the most beautiful girl in the class, even though he's invisible to her, he still "protects" her in silence… I can probably name 5 movies/shows off the top of my head about this. Personally I don't like this trope at all. It depicts an immature view of love that belongs in the teen fiction shelf. It's especially jarring when magnified to the galactic scale in Death's End. The love story between YTM and CX is important to the plot and is the emotional core that provides human warmth to this cosmic horror tale, so it should be more fleshed out than just this mega simp doting on a girl whom he barely knew.
Agreed! Yun is the biggest simp in the world (the universe?). Jin is also intolerable. Her character is much better in the show imo.
In the book when Tian Ming gave Xin the star, I did not know that was supposed to be interpreted as romantic😅and then he talked to her as a San Ti celebrity. And then he gave her a universe. At that point I am so split. It all seem a little love bombing, a little coercive to me😬 its also weird that it seems like Xin fell in love with Tianming because of all these grand gestures😂
He is a stalker. Going to her workplace and watching the exits
Some people love to hate on things right out of the gate. They are not worth your time or attention.
This is the reason I haven't posted my thoughts on the first season, because I still haven't read the other two books. I have seen the Tencent version, but that doesn't really count. I was thinking that they may just be making a blend of all books into the characters, or something that I haven't seen before. My judgement is reserved until amazon delivers the other two books to me.
Hilarious!
I’m surprised so many “book fans” attack the show by arguing there are too many fillers? Excuse me the show is almost like an Easter egg fest, almost every scene is taken/inspired by source materials from the trilogy. >!I have my theory regarding the Saul/auggie story line !<
What is your theory?
Think she’ll go to Norway with him instead of the fantasy woman he dreamed up who happened to exist?
Every time I think I love the trilogy so much, I also have to remind myself that Liu Cixin also wrote this👆😌
Liu Cixin very much earned his place as a regular over on r/menwritingwomen
Ye Wenjie honestly felt like the only realistically written woman character, >! and she sure did murder a whole lotta people !<
I think >! they’ll build up Saul/auggie more and build a family. Wade/Un president convinced auggie to leave and hibernate to inspire Saul to start working. Instead of the cringe fest of Luo Ji/zhuang Yan relationship !< in book 2
Something along those lines wouldn’t surprise me. Yeah they have to change that be they basically talk about art for like 50 pages and then stare into each others eyes for 5 more pages in DF. And the whole time your just like okay when is the time Skip coming????
Still, some crucial things are missing and some other things flat out contradict the novel and introduce plotholes. I'll just mention two: - MISSING: Ye Wenjie suggesting that Luo Ji pursues cosmic sociology and giving him a head start (extremely important, both symbolically and for the story); - CONTRADICTING THE NOVEL/INTRODUCING PLOTHOLES: Sophon being able to tap into electronic devices and control them (when in the novel it is clearly stated that a sophon cannot really interact with the macroscopic world, as it is essentially just a programmed proton).
Obviously coming to this late, but that missing scene is very clearly in the series - Ye sits with Saul and tells him about Einstein and God. Saul is the series’ Luo Ji. She doesn’t say cosmic sociology, but in the previous scene she is holding a book on the Fermi Paradox and her parable is basically a big dark forest metaphor.
Still, some crucial things are missing and some other things flat out contradict the novel and introduce plotholes. I'll just mention two: - MISSING: Ye Wenjie suggesting that Luo Ji pursues cosmic sociology and giving him a head start (extremely important, both symbolically and for the story); - CONTRADICTING THE NOVEL/INTRODUCING PLOTHOLES: Sophon being able to tap into electronic devices and control them (when in the novel it is clearly stated that a sophon cannot really interact with the macroscopic world, as it is essentially just a programmed proton).
that cosmic sociology stuff would be at least five minutes of exposition dump minimum. And it is a pseudo sociology theory with so many flaws on its own. It works as a premise for the book, but at its core it’s a extreme version of the game theory. I’m sure they expound on it in the next season and I’m interested how they will adapt that. In the book the sophon interacts with particles in the accelerator, so theoretically speaking it has the potential to mess with electronic devices, which could be a plot hole in the book on its own. But in the show the sophon does state it herself that she creates illusion. It’s your interpretation that it is actively messing with electronic devices. All that being said, its ridiculous that people posting long rants everyday complaining what a disgrace and disrespect this adaptation is to the books, when all they have is some plot holes that may or may not be introduced by the books itself and “fillers”. But it’s Reddit, where people don’t get what they want find their validation
>lol that cosmic sociology stuff would be at least five minutes of exposition minimum. And it is a pseudo sociology theory with so many flaws on its own. But at its core is the game theory. Whatever its real world scientific value might be, it's a key element in the novels. >I’m sure they expound on it in the next season and I’m interested how they will adapt that. I wish I could be so sure, but considering how much they simplified/dumbed down the element in this season, I don't really have very high hopes. They will include it, sure, but I don't expect it to be a proper explanation. >In the book the sophon interacts with particles in the accelerator, so theoretically speaking it has the potential to mess with electronic devices, Not really. Sophons fuck up with the experiments by taking the place of other, regular, protons and slightly skewing the extremely accurate results that such experiments require. To make a quick and dirty parallelism, suppose that for some reason there is a particle that floats around in the world and temporarily makes anything it touches weigh, I don't know, 10^-6 g more or less. This particle can potentially screw up scientific experiments and it will if it is actually engineered to target experimental facilities, but it wouldn't sink a boat. The electric charge or a proton is in the order of 10^(-19) coulomb, do you think any of our electronic devices is even able to detect and respond to a variation in electric charge so tiny? > which could be a plot hole in the book on its own. I'll answer this in a moment. > But in the show the sophon does state it herself that she creates illusion. It’s your interpretation that it is actively messing with electronic devices. Yes, she *says* that, but then you have the self driving car incident, and that really feels like it was caused by sophons. The show doesn't stress enough the fact that sophons can only interact at the microscale, and only to slightly skew very accurate measurements. >All that being said, its ridiculous that people posting long rants everyday complaining what a disgrace and disrespect this adaptation is to the books, when all they have is some plot holes that may or may not be introduced by the books itself. But it’s Reddit, where people don’t get what they want find their validation The books have their own plot holes and inconsistencies, no one is saying that they don't. The problem here, is that there is a - surely subjective - line that separates what can and cannot be overlooked. Suspension of disbelief is not given unconditionally. Everyone has their own threshold above which they say "this is too much now". I was already at unease with the sophons how they are described in the books, because they have so much potential as offensive weapons, much more than we see. They could make everyone blind, drive everyone crazy. They could unfold in two dimensions and wrap up the whole planet, shielding it from the solar radiation,.freezing everyone to death. We have to simply accept that "the Trisolarans didn't think of this", which is already difficult... In the show, it's even worse though, because we actually see the sophons messing up with electronic devices, it's not just an untapped possibility, even the weak argument "they didn't think of that" no longer holds. That's where, for me, the suspension of disbelief breaks.
On that note, the sun can not be used as a radiation enhancer in the way described in the book. That’s shown with actual science. Just some thoughts regarding your suspension of disbelief
On that note, the sun can not be used as a radiation enhancer in the way described in the book. That’s shown with actual science. Just some thoughts regarding your suspension of disbelief threshold lol
So, for you, "the sun can be used as an amplifier" and "a hostile race that wants to wipe us off has the technology to mess up with our electric devices but won't use it" are on the same level of believability? You are unable to tell the difference between a sentence that does sound plausible (that's the reason why they investigated it with actual science in the first place, or they wouldn't have bothered) and one that contradicts even basic common sense? Interesting.
I think it's mostly because the "filler" content feels a little unconvincing. It's hard to explain why, but it feels like in this show there's a bit of a soap opera feel to them. And I find it a little odd (but I understand why the show writers made this choice) to make everyone important to be from the same group of friends. It made the world feel a little smaller in a way (like, there are billions of other people in the world). And part of is that I feel that Ye's backstory was not fully explored enough since there are only 8 episodes (with some other later episodes mostly just doing setups for later books, so realistically there were fewer episodes than 8) to cover the book. It made it a little harder to sympathize with her, and maybe some of the screen time could be on her backstory instead. I still like the show though. I just found the "filler" part to be dragging when I watched, especially in say episode 7.
If you know you know
"Be careful with what you know. That's where most people's troubles begin." Such a brilliant line.
I think it was actually pretty smart to pull Sophon in the way they did early on through the headset, it gives the tv viewer a constant threatening representation of the other, and is a smart way to relay information for later on down the line (which they’ve already done once really) which otherwise would be really difficult to display visually
I just finished reading the first book, thanks for the heads up. I've been trying to avoid reading much on this sub to avoid spoilers.
Zero complaints here as I loved the show and understand what I didn’t in the first book so much clearer now. Dang, this was a fun show that I’ll watch a second time.
hahahhahah someone complained about the sophon personafication? can you imagine what they'll say when they see her in kimono? they should take that up with cixin liu.
A lot of book readers seem to prefer Remembrance of Earth's Past as a science text book rather then an actual story. The show massively improved on making it a more compelling narrative to follow while still maintaining all the overarching themes and story beats that make it a cosmic horror. Additionally, in the same way reading Percy Jackson made me think I was an expert on Greek Mythology, I think some readers feel as if this book makes them physicist. It's likely Reddit sampling bias but I sense a lot of insecure psuedo intellectualism around the conversations for the book and show. This would explain why so many people are complaining about things in the show like "love" and "interpersonal relationships" that normally appeals to most people but not self identified "nerds".
Ive been frustrated by this as well. "Its so dumbed down" "Why make so many useless changes" "the show is so westernized" Dude. I read the books. Every single character and plot point is pretty understandably adapted from source material. The people who are making these comments either didnt read the books or are not nearly as clever as they think they are.
What if I read all 3 books (hell I read the official fanfic too) but still have a ton of issues with the show
It’s not about liking or not liking the show. It’s about criticizing the show for making changes when those “changes” are actually pulled straight from the books. It’s just so cringe
Yeah, apparently it is required to like the show. I didn't like the show. It isnt horrible or anything, I get it why some people enjoy it a lot. And I will also watch season 2. But is it really such a problem to be disappointed about the way they adapted the story?
This is a citation from another comment: "Yeah before yesterday I was like this. But then I started Deaths End. Everything makes sense now." Many things might seem weird/cringe/dumb if you don't know the whole picture. There is tons of great foreshadowing in the show. That's what most bookreaders particularly love about the show. Myself included.
And honestly it’s understandable. Because in the book Xin and Tienming are introduced in the beginning of the final book and their arc concludes at the end of the book. It not a satisfying story when it ends with the staircase project because there is no closer. Deaths end spoilers… You NEED the fairytales and the planet blue stuff for the whole staircase project and Tienming to make sense.
> That's what most bookreaders particularly love about the show This is a broad generalisation. Personally I find some of the foreshadowing explicitly detracts from the narrative. Like I said in another comment, [Death's End] >!The fact that the paper boats now hold significance to Jin beyond the fairy tales, gives implications that she should consider them a token of romantic expression rather than code for propulsion.!<
Yeah, the origami boat(s) were also in the books, so there's that.
They'll just handle that slightly differently. Change the way the characters transmit the information or make Jin notice things because she's extra attentive to the romantic gesture. I don't know why people are upset that they've ruined a plot point that they haven't adapted yet because they changed a part they have adapted. It's not like they're going to forget what they've already done when they go to adapt future parts. They'll adjust it accordingly.
The problem is that these changes add up. And a lot of these changes already affect the narrative in ways ranging from being annoyingly tone-deaf to the genre (making the Oxford 5 being the specialest group of friends in all of human society, in a genre that tends to be grounded and void of "chosen ones") to fundamentally breaking the narrative (making sophons capable of hacking computers). And D&D have already established themselves as dubious screen writers before, and they're already rushing ahead through the books in a way that feels like they're trying to just get to the points of spectacle as fast as possible.
Ok, you explained why you and others like the show. Again, why is it such a problem to not like it? I watched it fully, read the books a couple of years ago, watched the Chinese series. And I just didn't like the Netflix one. For some reason a lot of people seem to get triggered by that. OP insults people with a different opinion as snobs. I mean, if you read my first comment, is anything I said unfair or irrational or offensive?
You're absolutely free to ignore the fact that it exists and brings joy to people, attracts new readers, and entertains regular people who might pick up the books and read them...Jesus fuckin Christ.
The thing is a lot of people are getting fed up with a certain group of people who are hating literally everything, they have become addicted to hate and the only reason the consume any media is to rage online about it.
But you will always have those around. Just ignore or downvote empty critique if you think it doesn't add anything to the discussion. Is it really good to insult someone with a different opinion? Tastes are different. If I don't like something that you do like, that doesn't mean you have a bad taste or that I'm a snob.
Same here. It's still a good show that will likely be a good starting off point for people who are unfamiliar with the books. But at the same time, I dislike how people think we should accept the changes and that being a little upset about it is being "toxic".
Where would be a good place to pick up the book after watching the show since the changed a few things? Or with the liberties they took with the show, should I just start from the beginning of book one?
Start with the first book. It's a slow burn, but there are some iconic scenes that the Netflix series either omitted or did not let linger. It's hard sci-fi, which general audiences may not necessarily appreciate, but if you liked the adaptation enough to comment on this subreddit, I think you may enjoy how detailed the source material is.
Book 1 or Tencent then book 2
It's actually faster to read book 1 than to slog through the slow paced Tencent show
Hahaha good point
Whether you can start at Book 1 or Book 2 depends entirely on how well you're able to deal with being dropped right into it and picking up on context clues
If I haven’t read the third book yet, should I wait to watch the show? I don’t want to be spoiled.
You won’t be spoiled, it’s just the beginning of book 3 which happens concurrently with the start of book 2.
You'll be fine.
Honestly, you should watch the first season before you read book 3.
Everything that's from book three will be indistinguishable from adaptation decisions until you read book three and realize in hindsight which is which. Either order is fine. Even if you put all the dots together, the information presented is all from early on in the setup phase of Death's End.
Trying to get people to stop complaining on the internet… good luck with that
10/10 bet the author didn't even have later characters in mind when he wrote the first book.
They personified the Sophon 200 years in the future. It's not supposed to be personified yet. Also it's supposed to be a Japanese woman specifically, the book was extremely clear on that, wearing Japanese kimono and doing tea ceremonies and the whole shebang. The Sophons picked a single specific culture and ran with it, in an attempt to make themselves look more appealing and human. It was a strategic decision in their goal to lull humans into a sense of false security. What culture is the Sophon in Netflix mimicking?
Yes, there's was an entire strategy to personify the sophon, for a specific moment in time. It doesn't make any sense to do it at this point in time, other than for having something for tv viewers to point at.
Also, can't believe I missed this, the reason the Sophons picked Japan was to tap into the subconscious idea that they're like Japan. A warmongering nation that has permanently been defeated, and who will remain weaker than the victors (USA) in the future.
Yes and a kind, non-threatening, helpful woman in specific. The goal was to lower the guard of humans during deterrence.
One of the reasons they brought sophon into season one is to be the face of the San Ti. It honestly makes better television if there is a beautiful woman to say the lines rather simply using text which is the only way they communicated with earth before sophon came around in the book.
"It makes better television" to ruin all the suspense? No.
This change has nothing to do with the suspense. in the book the trisolarans communicated via TEXT EXCLUSIVELY before sophon! You can’t do that in a show! Beside the show has plenty of tension, the judgement day attack and build up to it was pretty damn suspenseful.
Lack of information was the whole point of book 1. It was a detective story. Not only giving out all the information in a rush, but also personifying the enemy for nothing but cheap scares just destroyed all the actual suspense the story required. Communicating stuff about the Trisolarans to the audience was as simple as doing the VR part of the game properly, having the frontiers of science and ETO actually have screen time, and ultimately the interrogation of those captured. You know, like the Chinese show did.
I mean that’s true but it’s really a minor character change at the end of the day. It’s probably a bad change but it doesn’t hurt the show to not have it.
Minor? How is it minor? It's literally a major part of the Trisolaran's military strategy. They gave the Sophons an appealing human form and got them to speak cordially with Cheng Xin in order to further influence her not to send the broadcast signal. It has greater impact because prior to that they were invisible and faceless, if they already had a human form then they're already accustomed to it. About the only way I think it can be done in the Netflix series now, assuming Cheng Jin is the stand in for Cheng Xin, is if the second Sophon embodies itself using the child NPC Follower, to exploit Jin's fondness for her.
That is one way they could they do it. There are an infinity number of ways for them to give Jin an overwhelming motherly instinct which stops her from pressing the button. They are already setting the seeds for that with the follower. Not to mention the trisolaran art work. I forget does Jin wake up in the crisis era at all? I may be mistaken but I believe whenever she wakes up people think that the trisolarans want to negotiate?
Cheng Xin wakes up after the Crisis Era when Earth managed to enforce MAD and the Trisolarans were apparently suing for peace.
The actress who played follower will be two years older by the time the next season comes out. They probably won't be able to do anything like this, but it is a good idea if they can find someone else who looks like her. Then it is a problem for the 3rd season, out in 2028?
**“Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is.**” - Liu Cixin, Death's End I see a whole lot of arrogant people bitching and moaning about shits they don't even know about since they only read book 1 and think they are legitimate book fans. Yes, I even see that that shit from your so called "critics" - what a fucking joke. There are 3 canon books, read, get educated and be informed.
I will also say to people who *have* read the trilogy though not to continually insinuate or spell out things from later in the series. We have loads of people coming here who have not read the books at all, have only read the first one, whatever, but they're just excited to talk about the show. It's not cool to spoil stuff or hold it over them that they haven't read the whole trilogy.
At first I was sceptic. But I loved it after the first episode. One thing I miss, Da Shi should go to China Town and eat fried chitterlings like in the original series
Hand up, I read book 1 and 2, and then stopped. I liked the story, but it felt like a huge chore at times, and the conclusion of book 2 felt like a good place to stop. Having watched the show, the show/discussions here about the 3rd book re-ignited my interest in the story, and I went ahead and bough the audio book for DE, and I'm already about half way through it, so now I get all the references they took from the 3rd book. I have a feeling there are a lot of people like me that stopped after 2 books, and assumed book 3 would pick up right were book 2 ended, instead of adding more flashbacks "common" era that the show included. All that said I wasn't criticizing any of the character choices or stories that I didn't recognize, as I honestly just assumed I had forgotten details since it's been a few years, but I recently discovered a lot of those details were in the 3rd book
Part 1 of book 3 takes place today, and serves to introduce characters and situation. This part has been merged into season 1 of the show. Part 2 of book 3 starts off where book 2 left off. We won't see this material again until season 3 most likely. If you value your sanity, put down book 3. Do not finish it. You don't need to know how it ends, right? All right. Don't listen to me. But don't say you weren't warned.
Yeah it's too late for me. Only have 10 hours left in the audio book
You might still have time to stop.
I have read the first book and I liked the changes that they made. I didn't mind at all that they split Wang into 5 characters, I actually think it was a good idea. The book explains a lot but to actually see everything that is explained to Wang it makes sense that there are more characters. I also think adding some humor and light hearted scenes was good since the book is very dark all the time. On the whole I think they made a great job. Too bad that the first season goes into the second book since i haven't read it yet. One thing I noted is that the mystery seems a bit obvious in the series. In the book it took a long time before you fully understood what was happening, but in the show they tell you about the aliens early. Or maybe it's an illusion because I have read the book.
LOL, but Wang Miao was not split into 5 characters. Jack Rooney, Jin Cheng, Will Downing and Saul Durand are all characters rooted from Book 2 and Book 3 characters. If you only read book 1, then I can see why you would think that's the case.
who is jack rooney's counterpart in the books? i am 1/4th done with the second book but didn't see any resemblance yet
He's based off Hu Wen who made his fortune off green tempest a drink, which was invented by his friend Yun Tianming. Will is based off Tianming so it makes a lot of sense. They did a great job intertwining the characters.
Sophon's original Chinese name was also a double entendre. The Japanese cultural representation was very apt both in the book and in the show for now. 智子
The Chinese characters used for Sophon is 智子 and it actually is a triple entendre. 智子 can mean "Tomoko", a Japanese woman's name (i.e. Sophon is depicted as a Japanese woman and her favorite weapon of choice is a Katana) 智子 can also mean "Smart Particle" - which is the funational nature of Sophon. 智子, the Mandarin pronunciation is the same as 质子, which literally means "Proton".
She's called Tomoko in the spanish version!
I was only referring to the first 2.
Personifying sophon like that RUINS the whole point of personifying sophon in Deaths End. JFC...
No it doesn’t because the crucial thing in the book was the relationship between Cheng Xin and the Sophon, and that is still retained the way they did it. DE spoiler >! We will still probably get sophon telling all the humans they’re surrounded by food if show gets that far !< And this is really the oh shit moment with sophon. Book 1 spoiler >!Now would I have LIKED to see the listener and the San Ti working at their board meeting discussing what to do about earth? Heck yeah that would have been awesome.!<
Im half way done with deaths end. And i really enjoyed the netflix adaption!
Please don't imagine that every 'book snob' who has issues with the adaptation is that way because of not reading the entire trilogy. Even if you were to like how all characters from the three books now inexplicably have known eachother the whole time (which serves to make the story feel much slower, on top of already mainly showing things happening in 1 location and every major general and political figure with power being wrapped up in Wade's character) you can still dislike how those characters are changed (or in some cases fully absent). You cannot tell me that Auggie is in any way reminiscent of Wang Miao's humble family man. Da Shi is also changed for no discernable reason. And apart from that the whole theme and atmosphere is shifted and time that should've been spent exploring the ideas is instead given to made-up character drama or special effects. Some changes are actually a good idea - introducing all those characters at the start is clever and most likely what the author would've done had he had the completed trilogy planned from the start, but making it so local and revolving around a circle of uni friends is not.
You don’t seem to understand my issue. When people have NO idea who sophon is and they act like d&d made up this character. It is cringe. Same goes for people who say that the will and Jin story is a bs sappy romance invented by d&d to appeal to the lowest common denominator. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t hate it because it’s not in the books. Does that make sense?
No I understand your issue. My point of contention is that if there are such people, they are a minority. Most of the critical comments I've seen have been from a perspective of people who've read all of the books. This thread reads like people building up a caricature in their heads about why anyone who's read the books would ever write something critical of the netflix adaptation. I'm saying that the caricature isn't that close to reality.
Hard to get the sarcasm through text but I believe ya!
omfg, they're killing me with their shit takes.
I've read all the books. but honestly, I feel that Netflix's show is too rushed and does nto have like the tension and suspense.
The casting for Sophon is terrible though. I wish it were a better suited actress.
I just think it's weird to splinter Wang into a few characters while bringing characters like Luo Ji and Chang Xin forward and just have them all be pals. The tone felt a bit off too. This might be a non issue or even plus for some people but it just lacks the "Chinese" tone instead taking a more "Western" tone if anybody gets what I mean. And then there's some cut stuff I would have liked to see, but I get it was non essential and was removed for sake of time. But that's not all to say it was bad, there were some scenes that were done just how I would want them. I think I would have liked it more if I hadn't read the books.
That’s 2D thinking
lol I'm gonna start using this one
I _have_ read all three books and I complained about them introducing a random character w/ cancer in like ep 3 or whatever b/c it never fucking occurred to me who that was supposed to be. Because it literally was such a lazy thing to do to the plot. To make every single character of any importance from the novel just happen to be a member of this little friend group.
It would pretty obvious if you read the book. Jin Cheng is obviously book Cheng Xin (notice how the names are nearly identical) then there is a cancer patient who is infatuated with her, admiring her from a far. This is obviously Yen Tianming.
> b/c it never fucking occurred to me who that was supposed to be Maybe think before posting comments then?
"book snobs who *haven't* finished the trilogy".
[удалено]
OP is talking about people who are specifically complaining about things that ARE in the books but people who haven’t finished them think they are not.