(I’m literally at the beginning of Part ll where it’s 5 years later and Tyler is visiting Lui Ji. Tyler meets Zhuang Yan and her and Lui Jis child)
Zhuang Yan! It’s like a teenager writing fan fiction of their crush? Luo Ji is in his 30s, searching for the woman of his dreams who turns out to be a woman in her early 20s. Zhuang Yan being in her 20s isn’t itself THAT terrible but the way Lui describes her kinda irritates the crap out of me.
Talking about how doe eyed and innocent she is. How he loves how naive and dumb she appears. How she jumps around like a child when she’s happy? (Women can jump around but it’s his comparison to children that rubs me the wrong way). He loves that she has no clue what’s happening around her as he basically kidnaps her so he can wify her up? Lui even throws in some bullshit background about how poor, innocent, and defenseless Yan Yan was after she graduated; the poor little thing just needed rescuing! So Lui Ji kidnapping her was actually justified because she needed to be saved and he needed to be a savior? It’s all very strange to me.
Like, why is her character always being compared to a child??? (And I don’t care if Shi Quaing found her cause he can find anyone. Shi based his search off of Lui Ji’s semi-creepy criteria. He found someone that fit Lui Ji’s description). Lui Ji could barely describe her as a person but had plenty to say about how she looked.
What’s even stranger is that she’s making some astute observations and has better ideas than he does (so far) when it comes to planning out how to deal with the Trisolarians; and Lui Ji just kinda nods along with a “awe shucks, ain’t she just the cutest when she thinks???” type of attitude.
Again, I’m not far into the book but I’m wondering if anyone felt the same way? If Zhuang Yan’s story arc develops into something more please tear me to shreds in the chat. I dont want FUTURE spoilers but…freak I don’t know what I want…
by whiningloser
46 Comments
It’s been a while since I read the book. I remember that I didn’t read the book for interpersonal relationships but for its grand philosophical ideas. But if a book describes a character viewing another character in a certain way which seems unsympathetic, maybe the author wants you to view him as unsympathetic as well.
This was easily my least favorite part in the whole trilogy, it’s fairly easy to push through but i remember thinking the whole time “jesus fuck this is some men writing women shit”
Luo Ji is not supposed to be likable in the early going of Dark Forest. You are supposed to wonder “What’s wrong with this guy?”
That’s one of my DNF. Aside from wondering if the translation into English might be the problem, I came away from the first book with the impression that the lesson is the intellectual elite are the “If I can’t have ___, NO ONE CAN!” So I haven’t reached the part of the story where Zhuang Yan proves to be more than a manic pixie dream girl.
Only the very, very intelligent can enjoy the 3 Body Problem game. Yes, yes, the woman suffered horribly. The world was cruel. And the most important person in the world? It’s not Luo Ji.
To me, of course, Columbo is the most important person in the world. I mean, Shi Quaing, because he’s the best person in the books so far, as you know.
But the story is largely about how women will be the end of the world, so.
Did not read the 3rd book because of this it didn’t get better.
The actual plot of the remainder of the book was actually pretty interesting, but I couldn’t get over the fact that her presence in the story basically seemed like the author’s wish fulfillment and couldn’t bring myself to read the last one.
Boring books. All three of them. Very high concept, but… meh! The only character that I liked was the grumpy policeman. If the stories had been told from his perspective, they might have been interesting. Anyway, I listened the the audio books on Amazon Audible, and slept through most of them. I didn’t bother to rewind to pick up what I had missed.
I think people take characters in stories too literally to represent the author’s view. Although this may be Luo Ji’s perfect woman, that doesn’t mean it’s the author’s. Hell, the author could be poking fun at the men who do want a girl like this, when in reality that girl is smarter than them. It could be making fun of this absurd view.
There’s a long and proud tradition of science fiction writers being terrible at writing female characters.
I’m looking at you particularly PJF!
Luo Ji is a strange weirdo on purpose.
The trilogy is full of interesting ideas, but it complete fails as a work of literature.
It’s super annoying. But you just kind of have to roll your eyes and keep going
> Talking about how doe eyed and innocent she is.
lol, that’s most female characters in Liu Cixin stories…
I would say you are in the Hero rejects the call to action part of the story. Meanwhile, the other wallfacers have something to ground them to their humanity and the objective. Lui Ji doesn’t at this point of the story. Another comment said you are not supposed to like Lui Ji at this point and I agree. I finished the series last week and it’s hard to say anything that doesn’t have spoilers in it.
My main suggestion would be to skim through the lovey dovey parts. It’s mainly showing how much Lui Ji loves someone compared to when he was first picked to be a wallfacer.
If that doesn’t help, I would suggest pondering that China has a different culture and a lot of Western media portrays the woman in distress trope a lot. If its any consolation, the main character of the 3rd book is a woman and one of my take aways was how reckless men can be.
That whole “love story” in the middle of Dark Forest is definitely odd, but I think that’s kind of the point. It’s worth continuing to read!
Cultural differences mate. It’s a Chinese story.
That whole segment’s location should’ve been broadcast to outer space.
There is some pretty sexist stuff throughout the book series, particularly later on when a theme emerges that women are too soft hearted to make the tough decisions humanity needs. You just have to either take it as it comes or stop reading.
The beginning was so hard to get through for this reason. It would be OK if other female characters were written better but they’re all in submissive roles narratively speaking, even when they’re technically highly educated or in positions of power.
I will say that the latter parts of the book were great and I loved the ending. But you have to power through this bullshit.
I thought it was hilarious?
If there was more silly, sad stuff like that in the book I might have finished it.
Yeah, this whole subplot was pretty gross. It diminished what was an overall excellent trilogy.
If I remember correctly her plotline gets worse, not better.
3BP is one of my favourite modern sci fi series.
However. This portion of the series is…frustrating to say the least and almost made me quit the series.
I had to put iBook 2 down a few times as I found it was devolving from an intricate high concept sci fi to cring-worthy YA romance with absolutely no self awareness. Like the author wanted to flex that he could write more than just sci fi.
I wanted to quit. But everyone said it got better. So I stuck with it.
Eventually I began reading this portion the same way that someone watches a ‘so bad its funny’ movie. And it changed the experience entirely. Made it more enjoyable to the point where I was laughing through certain descriptions and character decisions.
But then it levels out and it gets back to form.
TLDR It gets better; persevere. But the experience will remove the sheen and the good will the author built from the first novek for the rest of the series.
The author is also a product of his time and environment, there are a lot of questionable quotes in the original Chinese version, especially with topics regarding women, but most of them are patched by the translator that made it more acceptable to the English readers.
And what you’ve read is just part of the original text that cannot be patched.
I mean yes, that’s the point. Lui Ji is a weird guy, his approach is unusual, and he basically used the project to gratify himself.
I really enjoyed it, interpreting it as more commentary on how predictable and simple men can be when it comes to romance. Lui Ji has spent all this time “inventing” his perfect woman, imagining her to be so special and unique and tailored to him and impossible to find, AND using the idea of her as an excuse to never have romantic relationships. Then boom they grab her off the street in 5 minutes and all it takes to fall in love is a cute first date and some staring into each others eyes.
Shi Qiang (I think?) event makes it a point to mention “it was not hard to find this simple sexy baby woman, and she’s not all mens style.”
If the some of Dark Forest is a meditation on the concept of exceptionalism or meritocracy vs populism, and the elevation of individuals based on how “uniquely qualified” they are, Lui Ji’s story is deconstructing that idea imo.
This series has some great ideas and I honestly liked most parts of it, but some bits made me roll my eyes so hard. The part that still sticks in my head is how the author described that times of plenty led to the genders becoming more alike in dress and manner (meant to be derogatory, of course), and times of hardship led to a greater distinction between men and women in terms of presentation and social role. I think this was described as “men being needed again” (paraphrasing). I’m not certain that’s how people work.
I have been reading science fiction for 25 years. The trilogy is the most inventive I have ever read. I found no flaws in it, personally.
Yeah, it seemed like a translation/cultural thing to me. I was just struck that the first book didn’t seem to have that awkward translation as much as the second book did. But as other people were saying, maybe it was intentional.
I’ve been struggling through this exact section of the book.
The first book also had some weirdness to character interactions, like someone getting murdered in the same room (on at least two occasions) and the characters essentially not reacting at all and carrying on their conversations.
But at least that was just odd and disrupted suspension of disbelief. This section of Dark Forest, by contrast, drags endlessly and seems so out of place. Hopefully it’ll get better if I push through.
Liu Cixin’s writing style as a whole annoys the living fuck out of me – the descriptive stuff (landscapes, buildings) is quite detailed and vivid, but characters feel like they’re cardboard cut-outs. I gave up on the remembrance of earth’s past trilogy half-way through (couldn’t bring myself to finish The Dark Forest).
Luo Ji starts off that way so you can see him grow over the book.
As a character, Luo Ji smacks you in the face with his unlikability from his introduction. He’s wandering through life doing jack all, overtly using women for intentionally shallow short-term relationships, and when given the Wallfacer’s resources, uses them exclusively to indulge himself out of depression and spite. So when he builds the fire and tells Zhuang Yan that his only job for her is to make herself happy, he’s still clearly not registering the fact that he essentially just gifted himself a wife via extraordinary rendition. He’s irresponsible, self-serving, and doesn’t have functional relationships with women.
He demonstrates a lot of growth over the course of the book and you’ll be sooooo so glad you read it. Luo Ji and my beloved Gigachad Zhang Beihai aren’t everyone’s favorites for nothing.
It’s a story, not an endorsement. Unsavory characters exist in fiction as well as reality.
I’m so confused. Whose voice do you think you are hearing? I see so many of these posts on this sub…
I don’t want to gatekeep but it sounds like some of you need to develop some critical thinking skills before attempting literary criticism.
Does Reddit think every controversial character is an author insert? Every questionable action described an endorsement?
The author clearly has issues with women in all three books. While his heroines are really shallow, the villain of book 1 and a lower level villain of book 2 are fleshed out, and there *are* a few background women who are not fleshed out but written like normal people. I think the problem is Cixin Liu’s preferences when it comes to women are pretty, ah, regressive, which is funny because hyper-macho men being deemed problematic is a major issue in book 3.
While I think a lot of the 3 books are political allegory >! (there’s a set of 3 stories within book 3 that are obviously intended to make that clear because they’re all about the difficultly of getting around censors) !< , the portrayal of women and non-gender-conforming people in book 3 is absolutely atrocious. It was deeply painful to read and honestly depressing.
That said regarding portrayal of women in book 2, you *may* want to keep reading the series because (spoiler):
>! While the wife is written like a manic pixie dream girl on quaaludes, she has her own plan. The problem is just that the Luo thinks her ephemeral characteristics are super hot. There’s actually a second woman in the book shown as a perfect wife, but it turns out she also has her own plan. Too bad women in these books are at their best when they trick men and lie. !<
Edit: sensors to censors lol
I enjoyed 3 Body Problem but I had to put Dark Forest down. It was such a dropoff in quality that it was jarring. The dialogue is wooden, clunky, and artificial. Everything to do with the “dreamgirl” including the abrupt intro of his one possible love that “taught” him to envision this dream persona (and then admits she has one too) is bizarre, feels out of place and, worse, fake as fuck. No one does this…no one with severe mental illenss, that is. The main character’s descriptions of her are painful, like a 14 yr old trying to articulate how he feels for the super cool sophomore he’s never met but has a crush on. The level of infantalizing juxtaposed with idealizing reads like the author has never been romantically involved with a woman and learned about them by reading reddit posts. She is picked up at his request, like a possession, brought to the main character, and acts like everything is normal- they have a casual conversation and then go sightseeing. This woman was basically KIDNAPPED and then broght before a strange man to stay ad infinitum, realizes her skills are in no was are useful to his wallfacer role, and doesn’t deduce, or have a problem with, her value only as an object of desire. I’m not sure if this has to do with the traditional submissive female role we see more often in asian cultural imports but it stuck me as unnatural and bogus and took me out of the story…one of many things that did this. The “science” in the book is laughable- I won’t even go into those details. The “ideas” from the other Wallfacers are obvious. I thought these brilliant guys were supposed to develop SECRET strategies IN THEIR HEADS because the sophons could intercept everything else but instead they go the military bases and, via their requests and requisitions, make it totally obvious what their unimaginative plans are. There are too many unearned “ah ah!” moments. A character will discuss A and B and realize A+B=C but then through a ridiculous leap of logic and science they will be like “OF COURSE, THIS MUST MEAN Z!!”. There will be nothing to justify this but, of course, it will end up being true. The broadest problem with the book is that people don’t ask or sound like real people: character reactions are stilted to drive the plot forward and converse with each other in clumsy expository ways. I could go on. While I’m sure some of the problems are due to a less successful translation that alone can’t excuse the awkward and unorganic progression of the plot and the terrible artificial characterization.
Liu Cixin’s depiction of women does not get better as the series progresses.
Give a man infinite power and resources. His only duty is to prevent something that won’t happen in his lifetime. Deceit is the best weapon in his arsenal to achieve the goal.
Given this premise I can honestly picture far worse behaviors from the average man compared to what Lui Ji does.
Yeah. I was very bothered by that, and I’m glad I’m not the only one. The trilogy is cool and innovative, but that part was hard to get through.
There are some cultural differences at play here, asian beauty standards are really quite different.
Bro, just keep it up! I just finished the third book and as a whole the series was incredible.
Everytime this book series comes up, I bring this exact topic up. Everytime. I don’t know how people can proclaim their love for this series when you got this creepy stuff going on everywhere
I enjoyed *Three Body Problem* despite its flaws, but it’s probably worth mentioning Cixin Liu is a full-on genocidal fascist ([source](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/25/netflix-liu-cixin-adaptation-uighur-comments-the-three-body-problem)) who supports existing concentration camps. He’s a really, really nasty guy (I think some more mysognistic stuff was changed in translation), and his extreme nationalism shows a lot in his books (as well as that film he was involved with).
It’s such a bizarre part of the book and it stands out in my head as so hokey and unnecessary but I am reading the final book now about 200 hundred pages in and it is so good. That whole dream girl storyline should have been cut out but even with it in it doesn’t ruin the overarching experience. Also the final book is translated by Ken Liu and if I remember correctly the middle book has a diff translated to to the first and third and it doesn’t work quite as well in my personal opinion with all due respect to the translator who worked hard on it no doubt.
Edit: i also want to add that I don’t mind not liking a character I just thought the whole thing about finding this real tangible manifestation of his dream girl he’d literally made up in his head was laughable. Luo Ji as a character was as beige to me morally as any other character in the series I just thought that whole thing was plain dumb.
Liu is a great sci-fi author, but he’s definitely not a romance author.
Be thankful he didn’t go overboard on boobs like so many others (Eg., “Her boobs boobed boobily as she rushed down the stairs”)
Maybe these passages read better in the original Mandarin? I just overlooked these parts as an author indulgence and skimmed past them.
OP mistakenly expected high romance in the cosmic genocide trilogy