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, Ding, and Wang all get drunk at Ding’s house together. Though Shi still has hope for humanity, the other two men are hopeless; Wang knows that even though he can continue to improve his nanomaterials, this technology is like a primitive spear compared to what the Trisolarans have. “Long live bugs!” shouts Ding, giving a toast. “Long live sophons! Long live the end of the world!”
As in the metaphor of the shooter and the farmer, Wang and his friends now realize that what to them seemed like vast technological progress was in fact insignificant in the larger scheme of things. For the final time in the novel, the men turn to drinks, trying to cope with theoretical crisis by finding a brief moment of social respite.
Themes
In an effort to cheer Wang and Ding up, Shi decides to bring them both to his hometown. When they arrive, Wang and Ding see that the town is plagued by locusts. They ask Shi why he has brought them here, and he replies simply: “Is the technological gap between humans and Trisolarans greater than the one between locusts and humans?”
If in the previous passage, Wang and Ding zoom out to see themselves in comparison with the Trisolarans, Shi now shifts the sense of scale yet again, forcing his friends to step into the shoes of some actual “bugs.” Though the bugs are much less advanced than humans, they are still able to exist—and still able to thwart the more technologically-advanced beings around them.
Themes
This question causes Wang to reflect on the fact that, though highly intelligent humans have tried to exterminate bugs for thousands of years, they have never been able to do so; “the bugs have never truly been defeated.” Wang and Ding toast the bugs, and Wang realizes he has a lot of work to do—after all, humans might just stand a chance.
