Posted in: TV | Tagged: 3 Body Problem, Fermi's Paradox, Game Theory, Jovan Adepo, Liu Cixin, netflix, Rosalind Chao, The Dark Forest

3 Body Problem: That Einstein Joke Is The Key to Everything (SPOILERS)

In the Netflix adaptation of 3 Body Problem, that Einstein joke should be the key to everything - if the series gets additional seasons.

Warning: You should finish watching Netflix's adaptation of Liu Cixin's 3 Body Problem before reading this because it's ALL spoilers… for the night is dark and full of spoilers. Seriously. We jump right into spoilers from the start to after this; there's no turning back. You've been warned…

That All-Important Joke in "3 Body Problem"

The Netflix adaptation ends with the alien San-Ti en route to invade Earth, with humanity having no way to fight them. They've sabotaged Earth's scientists' means of understanding any further advanced scientific research that would advance the means of developing the technology that can fight them. Humanity is nothing more than bugs to the San-Ti, waiting four hundred years for them to arrive and squash all the humans. All seems lost, or is it?

Near the end of Episode Seven of 3 Body Problem, Ye Wen Jie declares to the San-Ti that she still has some tricks up her sleeve, and when they arrive on Earth, there may be a fair fight or "no fight at all." She arranges to meet her daughter's former student Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo) at her daughter's grave and tells him a joke: Einstein dies and goes to heaven. He's brought his beloved violin with him and wants to play a duet with God. The angels warn him not to because God is a saxophonist. Einstein hears God in the distance playing the sax and decides to play his violin to accompany Him. As he plays, the saxophone stops. God appears in front of Einstein, snatches his violin, smashes it to pieces, and kicks Einstein in the balls before storming off. As Einstein writhes in pain, clutching his balls, an angel comes over and tells him, "We warned you. Don't play with God."

What That Joke Means…

Ye Wenjie tells Saul it's a "private joke between two people." This is due to her knowing the San-Ti can see and hear everything everyone on Earth says with their surveillance using sophons, which makes any attempt to talk about how to fight them impossible. She knows, though, that the San-Ti don't understand lies or metaphors since they can only take what everyone says at face value. As in the original 3 Body Problem books, the San-Ti communicate by projecting their thoughts, which makes it impossible for them to lie. Until Mike Evans (Jonathan Pryce) made the mistake of telling them, they had assumed humans were the same, and it was their discovery that humans can lie that makes them afraid of us. The San-Ti can't read minds.

The joke is a metaphor for what Ye Wenjie did when she received the signal from the San-Ti. A pacifist there is begging Earth not to answer, as it would lead his people to conquer the Earth. Disillusioned with humanity, Ye sent a message back inviting them to invade, believing that humanity sucks and needs to be saved from themselves. Ye Wenjie is Einstein in the joke who chose to "play with God" despite being warned not to, and now the San-Ti are coming to kick the human race in the balls.

Ye Wenjie has figured out how to fight the San-Ti, and not only is the answer in the joke but also why she told it to Saul. She knows he would eventually figure it out. The San-Ti are watching and listening, so they also figured out she picked Saul as Earth's protector. This is why he gets selected for the role of Wallfacer and why the San-Ti want him dead. He doesn't know hearing that joke makes him a threat. This is different from the book, where instead of telling the joke, Ye Wenjie encourages Luo Ji to invent Cosmic Sociology, a field of study he will use to work things out.

From "The 3 Body Problem" to "The Dark Forest"

So what is Saul going to do to save the world? Like Luo Ji, his original literary counterpart, does at the end of the second book, "The Dark Forest," of course. You could just go read the books yourself and find out, but you've read this far, so I might as well tell you. Here's a spoiler for the first big payoff of the 3 Body Problem saga in future seasons that haven't even been greenlighted yet.

Remember the two books Ye Wenjie was looking at before she met Saul? One was about Fermi's Paradox, which asked why Earth hasn't found evidence of alien life. The other is about Game Theory, which is about constructing mathematical models to work out zero-sum games. The answer to the first is "The Dark Forest," which declares that the universe is hostile and civilisations should keep quiet so that superior races don't find out where they are and come to destroy them like the San-Ti with Earth. Game Theory is how Saul will find the scenario to even the odds and prevent a fight altogether when the San-Ti arrive – he's going to create a zero-sum game where he threatens to expose the location of both Earth and the San-Ti's world to the cosmos, which would attract even more advanced civilisations to attack and destroy them all. The only way for the San-Ti to prevent their own destruction is to back off. If the San-Ti attacks, Saul will play a fiddle and tell God where Earth and the San-Ti are. Mutually assured destruction.

Now if you read the 3 Body Problem books and the series gets a second season, you're going to feel soooooo smug when that payoff hits, like Game of Thrones book readers were when the Red Wedding happened.

3 Body Problem is streaming on Netflix.

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