Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Three-Body Problem, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Technology, Progress, and Destruction
Scientific Discovery and Political Division
Trauma and Cyclical Harm
Theory vs. Lived Experience
History and Legacy
Summary
Analysis
Shi brings Wang to another meeting at the Battle Command Center, and Wang is amazed to realize that “for the first time in history, the armed forces of the world’s nations faced the same enemy.” General Chang explains that the human race must fight against the Trisolaran aliens—which, right now, means fighting against the human members of the ETO.
Even though humans are united against a common enemy, the only way they can deal with that enemy is by means of more humans—division, in other words, is impossible to avoid. Or as Shi Qiang puts it, “all this must be the work of people.”
Themes
Specifically, Chang’s mission is to intercept the messages from the Judgment Day ship without destroying the ship itself. Now is the time to strike, as the ship is about to pass through the Panama Canal. Different military experts propose options for how to do this: they could work with spies on Judgment Day, or they could use advanced weaponry like a neutron bomb or nerve gas. But all of these ideas pose huge logistical risks, and Chang—along with his colleague General Stanton of the United States—vetoes all of them.
Just as the book began with the idea that modern history can be understood through the lens of weaponry, the conversation about how to save the world involves many technologies designed to destroy it. So many human inventions, the novel constantly reminds readers, center around new ways of doing violence to other people.
Themes
Though the military men do not take him seriously, Shi has an idea even when the others fall silent. Before he reveals his plan, Shi boasts that his years of dealing with petty criminals has made him uniquely able to “think outside the box”; this brag further frustrates General Stanton.
Shi’s experience in the weeds of problem-solving allows him to see the world in a different light than the more credentialed generals and scientists around him. As he himself says, while everyone else is looking up the sky, he is paying attention to what is on the ground.
Themes
Finally, Shi explains his vision: as the Judgment Day passes through the Panama Canal, it will be sliced by “Flying Blade,” a razor-sharp, invisible string of nanomaterial. Since Wang is the foremost expert in nanomaterials, all of the generals turn to him to verify if Shi’s plan is indeed possible. After some quick calculations, Wang confirms that Flying Blade is a viable option.
Though most of the weapons suggested earlier were more abstract (like the neutron bomb), Wang’s flying blade is in some ways a relatively simple technology—and as always, the nanomaterial suggests a synthesis of theory and practical knowledge. That middle ground between abstraction and reality will be essential in stopping the Trisolarans.
Themes
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The people at the Battle Command Center decide that they will string the nanomaterial right across the narrowest point of the canal, at the Gaillard Cut; this project will be called Operation Guzheng. Shi notes that they must do this during the day—at night, all the soldiers on the ship will be lying down asleep, and the sharp filament might miss them. Though one of the diplomats at the meeting is shocked by Shi’s “demon[ic]” thoughts, General Stanton congratulates him for his quick thinking, giving Shi a Cuban cigar as a token of his respect.
A guzheng is a specific kind of Chinese string instrument; the thin strings of nanomaterial in many ways mimic the strings of a guzheng. More important, however, is Shi’s focus on the particulars of bodily experience (namely, when the ship’s crew will sleep). And it is also worth taking in the geopolitical significance of an American general giving a Chinese policeman Cuban cigars—the old wounds of the Cold War, while not healed completely, seem a thing of the distant past.
Themes
Four days later, Wang and Stanton arrive at the Gaillard Cut section of the Panama Canal. Wang notices that here, too, there has been widespread deforestation. Stanton and Wang keep close watch as the invisible net of Flying Blade filaments—held up by two pillars on either end of the canal—is put into place. While this happens, Stanton reflects on all the other times he has been in Panama; though in those days, he thought he was “witnessing history,” now it all seems “so insignificant” by comparison.
There are two key ideas in this passage. The first is that even as Wang is fighting to save humanity, he notices how much damage people are doing to themselves and their planet (by deforesting). The second takeaway is that the scale of history has shifted; all the wars and conflicts that once seemed giant now seem so small. Once again, humans have been trapped in the perceptual trick of the shooter and the farmer, in which the world as they know it is actually only a piece of the truth.
Themes
Wang’s heartrate speeds up as the Judgment Day approaches the invisible net. Though Stanton tries to calm Wang down with conversation, Wang can barely breathe. At last, the ship passes through the Flying Blade, but nothing happens right away. Only after a few seconds does a thin antenna at the top of the ship split in two, showing Wang that his plan has worked after all. Moments later, the ship falls apart entirely—both people and mechanical parts are sliced in two, and the Judgment Day splits into 40 separate slices. As dozens of soldiers descend on the shipwreck, Wang takes out a pair of binoculars to look more closely at the wreckage. He thinks he sees blood.
Antennas have recurred throughout the novel as a kind of shorthand for threatening, mysterious communication. The fact that the antenna is the first thing on the ship to break apart thus symbolically heralds the severing of the Adventists’ ability to contact the Trisolarans. Also, Wang must face for the first time that even his own beloved technology can be used for violence—the blood in the water has his name on it.
Themes
The interrogation transcript resumes again, and Ye’s interrogator presses her to explain why she automatically trusted the Trisolarans. When Ye cannot give a “scientific” answer for her trust, the interrogator guesses that her faith in the Trisolarans stemmed from her love of her father. Ye says nothing in reply. The interrogator then explains that Evans has been killed, and that the world’s military forces have successfully intercepted the Trisolaran messages. Nervously, Ye at last reads what this alien society has written.
Just as Shi was able to stop the young ETO member from detonating the bomb with (fake) news from her mother, the interrogator successfully links Ye’s trust in the aliens to the betrayal of her father’s death. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the narrative, then, this passage shows the long shadow trauma can cast—Ye has altered and betrayed the world because she herself was once altered and betrayed.
Themes
