I just finished rereading Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End). It is one of the most complex series I’ve read.
While the series has many memorable, cinematic moments that will stick with me for some time (flying blade, the droplet) - it is some of the characters (and what they represented) that I would like to talk about today.
Needless to say, spoilers below.
The grounded pragmatist
Da Shi is a character that’s written so well that he almost disappears into the background - yet is instrumental to carrying the series forward. That quiet, unshakeable confidence, the sense that he’s seen worse and knows exactly what needs doing.
Everyone around him spirals into existential panic about Trisolarans and sophons, and Da Shi just… solves the immediate problem in front of him. His job is simple: keep people motivated, keep the work happening, protect who needs protecting. He does it with almost paternal efficiency (in a good way).
The “bugs have never been defeated” scene is perfect. Wang Miao needs hope, and Da Shi gives him the simplest, most concrete version: humans are resourceful, we adapt, we survive. Simple as that.
Later, when humanity emerges into the “new world” after the Great Ravine, Da Shi represents the Common Era people - those who lived through the Crisis Era and remember the old world. His generation had grit, practical wisdom, the kind of competent groundedness that knows how to handle crisis. The contrast with the softer, more idealistic generation that grew up during deterrence is stark.
Liu uses Da Shi as embodiment of the old world’s quiet strength in a universe that demands needs it.
The true wall-facer
While he was never anointed as one, Zhang Beihai is in the truest sense a Wallfacer. For decades, he maintains complete ideological secrecy, works silently and relentlessly (even committing murder to advance his plan), and successfully hijacks Natural Selection to ensure humanity’s escape - all while appearing to be the model of optimism and duty.
There are allusions to his being a true Wallfacer - General Chang keeps wondering at his true nature and intentions. Beihai’s father advises him to “Think first, and then act” - advice that Zhang carries out to the end.
Zhang understood that humanity had zero chance against the Trisolarans. His defeatism proved correct for understanding cosmic reality, even if humanity eventually found other survival paths. His actions created the only section of human society that eventually managed to survive the Dark Forest.
The cynic who carried world(s)
Luo Ji is the character that changes the most - and is the most interesting precisely because the transformation happens involuntarily. He starts as a hedonistic academic who literally dreams up an ideal woman because real relationships are too complicated. He doesn’t want to be a Wallfacer, and actively flees responsibility.
But when he finally accepts his role, he commits totally. Fifty-four years alone in that chamber, carrying the weight of two civilizations, never wavering. What makes him effective is that same clarity that made him a cynic: he sees things as they are, not as he wishes them to be. No vanity to exploit, no ambition to redirect.
The Trisolarans respected him because he understood the game completely. He wasn’t eager to broadcast, but he absolutely would. That made him the perfect deterrent - a rational actor who’d do exactly what he said.
There’s something almost Daoist about his approach: strategic patience, going with the flow until the moment demands action, then acting with complete commitment. Not a bad model to aspire to, honestly.
Perfect deterrence
Thomas Wade is impressively (and almost impossibly) one-dimensional: “advance, advance at any cost!”.
Wade would have been the perfect Swordholder. The Trisolarans would never have attacked with him holding the trigger because his threat was completely credible. He wasn’t interested in glory or morality. He’d have pulled that trigger without hesitation, which paradoxically meant that he’d never have needed to.
What was interesting to me was his relationship to Cheng Xin. He lost twice to Cheng Xin, and both times was ultimately proven right. First when humanity chose her as Swordholder instead of him; second when she ordered him to stand down on lightspeed research. Both defeats doomed humanity.
And yet, at the final confrontation, he defers to her completely. Why?
I think - he saw her as the personification of what humanity actually wanted at that moment. Or maybe simpler: she represented the humanity worth saving. If you have to destroy what Cheng Xin represents to preserve the species, what exactly are you preserving?
The tragic center
Cheng Xin seemed to have doomed humanity with her decisions. But one soon realizes she is more a symbol than a full character (at least in the later half of the book) - she is a mirror to show how humanity and human values are changing.
What makes her tragic rather than just frustrating is that her “failures” aren’t really hers. She doesn’t want to be Swordholder; it’s forced on her by democratic vote. The Federation chose her to be Swordholder specifically because she was a “mother figure” - nurturing, unwilling to harm - and that’s what human values have evolved to. That’s exactly what made deterrence fail.
She’s perpetually young, perpetually inexperienced, waking up to make civilization-defining decisions with almost no context. Humanity keeps putting her in impossible positions, wanting her to embody their values, then blaming her when those values lead to catastrophe. She chooses to stop Wade from pursuing lightspeed research wishing to avoid a war - and dooms humanity once again.
Is Liu saying feminine values doom humanity? Or is he paraphrasing the saying “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times” in his own way? I think it’s the latter, but the text doesn’t make it easy to separate the two.
The ending drives the tragedy home. After building up this cosmic romance between Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming across millions of years, they miss each other by… eighteen million years. Another parallel to the cosmic indifference of the Dark Forest.
The woman who doomed and saved humanity
Ye Wenjie’s arc is perfectly constructed - her hatred of humanity earned through brutal experience during the Cultural Revolution, her decision to invite the Trisolarans as “saviors,” and then her eventual disillusionment with them too.
What makes her fascinating is that moment with Luo Ji when she reveals cosmic sociology. Why tell him? Why give humanity a weapon after spending decades trying to destroy it? I think she wanted to give humanity a fighting chance - and this leads to her closing the loop on what she started with the unauthorized broadcast all those years ago.
The parallel with the pacifist Trisolaran is beautifully written (perfectly mirroring prose) - two individuals on opposite sides, both trying to save the “enemy” civilization.