/lit/ - Literature

>women

>>18326493
Some high quality shit. Fuck Cheng Xia, justice for Wade, Luo Ji is a badass.

I can't wait for this series to be adapted

So after finishing Death's End the other day I've been looking in the archives for comments on it, and I found a few describing the ending as nihilistic or horrific, focusing on the universe gradually collapsing in pointless wars between godlike alien hyperhypercivilizations, all it's leading up to is the slate will be wiped clean and it will start all over again in an endless cycle. As one anon put it, "a misanthropic environmentalist message wrapped in hinduistic principles.".

I think though this conclusion might not have stopped one step away from the further message I got from the ending. It's the answer to the debate between the merits of selfishness and selflessness that runs throughout the whole story.

Up until the last chapter, ruthless characters like the Trisolarans, Wade and Luo Ji always come out on top and benefit humanity with their ruthless pragmatism. When they are prevented from doing so by the more empathetic and humanist Cheng Xin's this has always led to poor outcomes e.g. the Trisolaran invasion of Earth, the delay in developing FTL. Selfishness = you win, selflessness = you get fucked.

The ending then abruptly flips this. The final outcome of all this selfish ruthlessness and pragmatism on a cosmic scale is pointless zero sum game wars collapsing the universe. Once you extrapolate the "dark forest" shit up to this level, nobody will really come out on top in the end. The only hope left for any good to come of this is to wipe the slate clean and have a new Big Crunch and then Big Bang. But so many have now taken refuge in their own pocket universes, and taken matter with them, that this may not even happen, instead there may be infinite heat death into oblivion of a dead, one-dimensional universe with not enough gravity to lead to a Big Crunch.

Uncountable people must now overcome their selfishness, and be selfless enough to return to the dying universe and bring their little bit of matter with them. In helping to ensure the universe is reborn, they give up their chance of living to see the rebirth. Their individual contribution will be so small as to be near meaningless, and they have no way to know whether enough others will also do the same such that the cumulative effect will be meaningful. But it must happen, because otherwise there will be no future.

The end of Death's End is, then, I believe, Liu Cixin's final answer to the theme of selflessness versus selfishness, trust versus paranoia which has run all the way from the start of the first book to the end of the third. Whereas ruthless paranoid shit has always won the day and brought benefit in the short term, ultimately only selflessness, cooperation and trust will ultimately bring about a positive outcome in the long run. The very, very long run.

A misanthropic environmentalist message wrapped in hinduistic principles, but perhaps more hopeful than that anon gives it credit for.

Why did the Trisolarians just gave up on humanity as soon as the ships broadcasted the positions of both solar systems
They seem to go from an extremely xenophobic, disdainful vision of humanity (either overtly in the first two books, and then covertly in the third one) to suddenly abandoning all spite and arrogance when both civilisations are doomed.
I understand that they're aliens who function on a higher/different level than we do, but it seems clear to me that the only human they ever respected was Luo Ji and Wade.