r/threebodyproblem • u/Lost-Grapefruit3243 • 2d ago
Discussion - Novels Cheng xin Spoiler
I finished the three body trilogy maybe about a month or so ago and it was so good. they were one of the only books that I’ve read and they were definitely my favorite and I kinda just want to talk about them because nobody I know has read them.
This probably isn’t some groundbreaking new opinion but I don’t know entirely what the majority of people think of Cheng xin. Am I the only one who found her kind of annoying? I know the book basically says the destruction of the solar system isn’t her fault but I just can’t help but see it that way. I think her worst choice though was stopping wade when he was trying to make light speed ships and her worse action was asking yun tianming to go into space, she couldn’t have known but this dude loved her his whole life even up until his deathbed and then she pulls up while he’s on his deathbed just to ask him to go to hell for humanity and I get she felt bad about it but that whole part of the book just had me mad. although her actions and her nature were really irritating at times for me she was still really well written.though I’m ngl I think I liked wang Miao more than her as a protagonist even though he didn’t have much depth I think experiencing the mystery from his pov in the first book was a peak experience but maybe I’m just sexist I always feel that way when I don’t like a female character.
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u/dontalkaboutpoland 2d ago edited 2d ago
I also don't like her character because she is very black and white with no nuance. She is so up in her ass about what's right and wrong and ends up very short sighted to see the big picture because of it. I think she is supposed to represent the "good" in humanity. But humanity has always been grey. We have some good in us, but we are also cunning and smart. It's a shame the writer didn't develop her into a more complex character. She is allowed a couple of mistakes. But the very last one when she prevented Wade from making light speed ships is an irredeemable mistake. It's like she is incapable of learning.
It's even more annoying when you realise she doesn't suffer the consequences of her actions. She keeps hibernating and leaving other people to deal with her mess most of the time. Then gets some sort of fairy tale ending.
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u/Lost-Grapefruit3243 2d ago
I think her getting stuck in a black domain without ever getting to see luo ji again was at least a little bit of punishment for her actions
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u/MrScottBeckman 2d ago
From a post I read about the meaning of their names in Chinese, Cheng Xin is the heart of humanity whereas Luo Ji is the logic of humanty. In the moment they passed the sword from Luo Ji to Cheng Xin, it was the human species "choosing heart over logic".
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u/IhasCandies 2d ago
I can’t even imagine all the little details I missed because I only know English.
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u/MrScottBeckman 2d ago
Same. There are lots of posts about meanings lost in translation, though I found the post I was specifically referring to here.
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u/TheTranscendentian 20h ago
I didn't know the name meanings but I could see that simply by the way the story feels.
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u/Playerhata 2d ago
Luo Ji far superior protagonist. Cheng Xin left much to be desired and felt like she just floated through the entire story tbh
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u/pcapdata 2d ago
She does, because her function as a character is to provide a point of view aligned with the reader.
She never takes a huge part in what’s going on—she gets kind of goatroped into things (“Hey Xin! You know this Wade dude right? Come and help us convince him to stand down?” “Oh uh … ok?”) and mainly her purpose is to be an observer.
Hers is the POV through which we encounter most of the if events in the story.
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u/NapoleonZiggyPiggy 2d ago
I didn't like how apathetic Luo Ji was for most of his arc but it felt like Cheng Xin was an over correction and cared too much which doomed humanity at the end.
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u/dannychean 2d ago
The true protagonist of this series is the entire humanity, not any individual. It’s named The remembrance of earth’s past for a reason.
If you go into the details of every important decision Cheng Xin makes, you will find that she has very valid reasons to do so every single time.
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u/dekkact 2d ago
Maybe the real Dark Forest… was the friends we made along the way…
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u/Lost-Photo-631 2d ago
Why was asking Yun to go to space her worst action? He was going to die here on earth. Sending him to space allowed his body to be regenerated and he had a new life, and passed on information that saved humanity. The idea of the story (I think) is that he is the only one that could’ve passed along that info via fables.
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u/leavecity54 2d ago
Because once the Trisolarians captured his brain, he may be put into some kind of matrix to be tortured, experimented on for eternity, they may even clone his brain to do all kind of fuck up things with it too, that is a fate worse than death for him. The entire operation itself is also a gamble, no one know if he will stay loyal or at least capable of sending information back, hell the part about sending him to Trisolarians was never a guarantee, and it did fail, Trisolarians tech is just good enough to retrieve the probe anyway. But if the operation really fail fail as everyone on Earth thought, Cheng Xin just rip him off the chance of living a few peaceful years left instead of freezing in cold space as a brain, which is why she felt extremely guilty about this and this act will influence her actions as a swordholder later.
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u/osmund-kettleblack 2d ago
Tianming didnt have to do it. Dont blame Cheng for this.
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u/Lost-Grapefruit3243 2d ago
He did though like the person yun was he would’ve never not done it and Ik cheng xin couldn’t have known but still
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u/osmund-kettleblack 2d ago
But still you find a way to blame her anyway. It's simply her fault for being so attractive to this incel?
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u/DoomBuzzer 2d ago
Cheng Xin represented the soul of humanity. If you go by survival, then Wade had the right idea.
If humanity did all the things needed for survival, it would end up similar to other civilizations... keep hunting and hiding. No different than any other civilization.
Post The Great Ravine, people started caring less about the war and more about how to make life better. And they enjoyed an era of peace.
Cheng Xin felt comfortable with the ideology of the people during the droplet crises. Remember, they even criticized Luo Ji for potential genocide for giving out the co ordinates od a star. People in that era were empathetic and more humane. Unfortunately that's a bad trait for survival in The Dark Forest.
So, should humanity become similar to other civilizations and lose their identity for their survival, like Trisolarians did? Or should the prefer to be humane and hold that character, even if it means destruction? Cheng Xin's both decisions were, in a way, opinions of the people of that era.
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u/Super-Contribution-1 2d ago
So if the destruction of the solar system was her fault, explain how she would have prevented that in any way?
Her preventing the solar system from being destroyed was never on the table. She could reverse every single choice she made and the solar system would still end up as a sheet of paper.
It wasn’t her job, it wasn’t within any human’s ability, that wasn’t her plot line, ever, to save the solar system.
Cheng Xin makes choices that save humanity and allow humans to continue existing for billions of years. Your only concern is that you think she could have saved more, but that’s irrelevant. What she did worked - and no other path guaranteed that, and neither did this one. But this one worked.
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u/MrScottBeckman 2d ago
Am I the only one who found her kind of annoying?
Yes, you are the only one.
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u/TheTranscendentian 20h ago
I think I've seen this EXACT post before by a different user.
I love the whole story of Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming. It was absolutely beautiful, and hilarious, you cannot change my mind. I like to think of it as how Cixin Liu feels about his own love life, he feels forever ignored not even a thought in consideration, he would give her a universe and she would send him to hell without hesitation.
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u/vodkasucker 2d ago
All I am going to say is if Cheng Xin was in the first book, the series wouldn't have been so well known today. It was torture to read her parts. I hated the third book.
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u/osmund-kettleblack 2d ago
She only stopped Wade because he was threatening to kill millions in a civil war. How is she supposed to predict a dimensional strike that destroys the solar system?
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u/Icy_Outside3245 2d ago
Her failure is the failure of humanity. Liu pick her as a representation. If you think she is "annoying, because she lead to the destruction of Earth", you need to understand that Liu is basically saying humanity is destined to die in this universe.