Historically, King Zhou was an ancient Chinese ruler who lived during the 10th century B.C.E. and is widely considered to have been a brutal and erratic king. The book presents King Zhou as a computer-generated leader in the game Three-Body, where he rules over the first level of the game. Like the other game leaders that will follow him (namely Mozi, Pope Gregory and Qin Shi Huang), Zhou is violent, impatient, and obsessed with his own grandeur.
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King Zhou Character Timeline in The Three-Body Problem
The timeline below shows where the character King Zhou appears in The Three-Body Problem. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7. Three Body: King Wen of Zhou and the Long Night
...Wen has his own idea for a calendar, and right now, he is visiting King Zhou at his palace at Zhao Ge in order to share his vision.
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As they at last approach King Zhou’s palace, Wang hears a sound like thunder—and he realizes it is actually the sound of...
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The two men arrive in the Great Hall, where they see King Zhou on his throne. Next to him there is a man clad in all black. Zhou...
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...rises at the beginning of what Wen has predicted will be a prolonged Stable Era. Zhou gives the order to rehydrate, and Wang watches as soldiers enter thick-walled buildings known as...
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...however, the sun does not rise—Wen was wrong, and the Stable Era is already over. Zhou gives the order to dehydrate, and he tells Wen that he, too, must jump into...
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Chapter 11. Three Body: Mozi and the Fiery Flames
...he logs back in to Three Body. Immediately, Wang is back in front of King Zhou’s palace, though this time it looks Aztec instead of Egyptian; he is instinctively certain that...
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Chapter 15. Three Body: Copernicus, Universal Football, and Tri-Solar Day
...Pope Gregory calls for Wang to be burned, with the same strange glee that King Zhou once had.
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Chapter 17. Three Body: Newton, Von Neumann, the First Emperor, and Tri-Solar Syzygy
...palace, they are greeted by Qin Shi Huang, who has the “same eyes” as King Zhou and Pope Gregory. Qin tells the men to ask for help from Europe, as Europe...
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Chapter 19. Three Body: Einstein, the Pendulum Monument, and the Great Rip
...behind the building, looking out at a modernized version of the giant pendulums from King Zhou’s time. Upon his arrival, everyone greets Wang as “Copernicus, the man who crossed five eras.”...
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