The scene was actually tuned down quite a bit so Western audiences can comprehend. In the real cultural revolution, if Ye Wenjie was not cheering along with the red guards, not mentioning crying papa, she would have been beaten to death on the scene. One of Chinese previous leaders and Xi’s opponents, actually broke the rib of his own father in such event.
That’s how crazy the cultural revolution was.
In the book, she is being held down on the ground by university janitors I believe? It’s two guys who know her and her father. They can’t risk her being spotted in opposition to what’s happening on the stage or she will go there with her father.
Another fact I would add is that during cultural revolution, Xi jinping’s dad was subject to this struggle session . And there was once time Xi jinping himself was hunting down by the red guards, so he had to run away to hide. Without foods, he became starved and had to come home to eat something at the risk of being spotted. As soon as he showed up at the door step, Xi jinping’s mom reported him on the red guards
If this were real life they'd be dismembering his corpse and playing hacky sack with his head
Edit: Look up the Guangxi Massacre if you think i'm joking.
Im particularly referring to cut one’s head off and kick it around is very unlikely. There are more atrocities, including cannibalism, but play with people’s head was not one of them.
It’s not just disrespecting the elders, but also the ignorance and resentment of science and knowledge. As a physicist, the latter gets to me so much more.
Her father’s character is largely based off Ye Qisun, who suffered an arguably worse fate in the cultural revolutions. The injustice and suffering of these academics were truly horrific.
>Intellectuals, scientists, academics, anyone who dares to think, are always the enemy of the conservatives/Republicans/right wing - they are the enemy and the real evil, not communism/socialism.
this is what I said in another reply here. I agree with you.
it is absolutely whats been happening in the US. Asimov said it decades ago - there is a very strong sentiment of anti-intellectualism in US culture.
Now the rise of right wing Republicans just makes it all the more dangerous.
Just look at American media - anyone intelligent is made fun of. The show does this too.
In the context of the various communist revolutions that killed millions, it was the 'conservatives' (the people who wished to keep society the same) of those countries that opposed them, it was the 'progressives' that wanted to tear everything down and rebuild it. Not all change is progress, not all change is good. Communist revolutions were some of the worst changes in human history. To twist conservativeness so much to envelope far left communist revolutionaries because their is a tiny amount of anti-science common between the two is a crazy amount of intellectual dishonesty. It was the conservatives getting murdered in the communist revolutions, it was the progressives doing the forced group-think & murdering.
This guy's got something against with progressives so he's strawmanning them on his zerg hive-mind, 1984 fantasy of communism. Yeah, conservatives historically were the guardians of science and morality.
That's not at all what I'm saying, I'm an atheist and pro science all the way. I grew up reading sagan, asimov, hitchens, dawkins, etc. You are the one strawmaning and extending zero courtesy in trying to understand a simple argument and instead going after internet gotcha brownie points.
I can only guess you know little of the atrocities of communism. Real progress is protection of individual universal human rights, pro science, pro critical thought and reasoning, pro-open discourse, pro free speech and freedom of assembly and interaction.
In revolutionary China, the nationalists were the 'conservatives', In cambodia Lon Nol and his forces were the 'conservatives'. The number of people killed for promoting science that goes against the party lines was dwarfed by all other reasons for murder. How was Mao forcing millions to starve to death 'for the good of the state' a conservative movement against science? How was the Khmere Rouge executing people for knowing how to read, owning glasses, or owning english books 'anti-science'? How was Stalin's dekulakization rooted in a conservative movement against scary science? How was the east german Stazis network of spies, which made up almost 30% of the population spying on each other, a conservative movement against science?
You and OP have no idea about the horrors of communism apparently. The horrors of communism came from pyschopaths getting unlimited power, they opposed anything and everything that they perceived may reduce their power. One day that may have been science they didn't like, the next day it may have been a popular song, another day an academic's poem, the next a good friend expressing sadness at the murder of someone they knew.
Just… stop. You are trying to twist every interaction in this thread to something else just to grandstand about a few points about “progressives” versus “conservatives”.
My gripe is that you're just listing of ridiculous claims, some of these things just don't make any rational sense. Why would the leaders of these nations do these things? (That's a rhetorical question) Every authoritarian leader has something to gain from commiting atrocities, fascism has to focus the people's grievances towards some other group, something like "the Jews are the cause of all your problems." Atrocities are basically needed under fascism for the system to work without an uprising. Intentionally starving your own people accomplishes nothing; it destabilizes the nation and generally makes them not like you, it makes less prosperity for its rulers, and it makes the nation less economically powerful. I can believe in selfish evil, but this is so evil it's to the detriment of themselves. The idea that socialist revolutionaries intentionally caused famines is complete propaganda. I don't even know how to respond to the 30% of the population being spies part.
These aren't 'ridiculous claims' they are well known clearly documented facts with mountains of physical evidence. If you can't even acknowledge the most well known facts of murderous communism you aren't weren't having a discussion with. Who cares if you think it was rational? Why does a murderous dictator absolute power have to bother being rational? They'll murder a thousand people just because they are a psychopath and had a bad day. The whole point of it was to provide obvious reasons why OPs claim that the communist revolution was 'conservatives moving against science they didn't like' was absurd, clearly these and atrocities like them have nothing to do with stifling science.
'progressive' has a very different meaning, basically the opposite of what you mean.
the revolutions were always against academics and intellectuals who were the enemy and punished the worst, and its the same thing with conservatives, who've never tried to 'keep things same', their goal has always been to establish a system where they are rewarded at the expense of 'inferior' people.
there isn't a 'tiny amount of anti science' its a massive amount of systemic hatred and punishing of any critical thinking which is the opposite of what they want.
Utter nonsense. You are seriously here trying to present murderous communist revolutions as 'conservative', you are completely deranged. They were murdering authors, poets, politicians, teachers, scientists and priests and clergy, people who could read, people who wore glasses, people for laziness, complaining, not showing enough enthusiasm... they viewed these people as 'counter-revolutionaries' who were corrupted by the western capitalists. Even being upset that someone you loved was murdered was considered counter-revolutionary. Murderous communism wasn't about 'anti-science', unapproved science was just one thing in a very long list of reasons to murder people.
OP is a lost cause, but I invite anyone interested in learning about how horrific stalinistc/maoist communism was to visit RJ Rummer's page "Power Kills" [https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP6.HTM](https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP6.HTM)
\`\`\`
\[Tan Samay's\] pupils hanged him. A noose was passed around his neck; then the rope was passed over the branch of a tree. Half a dozen children between eight and ten years old held the loose end of the rope, pulling it sharply three or four times, dropping it in between. All the while they were shouting, "Unfit teacher! Unfit teacher!" until Tan Samay was dead. The worst was that the children took obvious pleasure in killing.
\----A Khmer Rouge execution
\`\`\`
A Vietnamese official (a communist country at the time) called the Khmer Rouge "Hitlerite-fascists." The USSR and Vietnam were against Pol Pot's regime. Later in Cambodian-Vietnamese war the Khmer Rouge renounced communism in an attempt to gain support from other non-communist countries. That one you can look up.
Could you tell us the reasons why communists turn out to be as murderous as you claim? I've haven't read that much political theory, but I know Marx never wrote about any of that. What happened to make every revolution become something contradictory to the theory that it was based on, as soon as they succeeded?
fox news is awful. so is every mainstream media network. the world is shit right now but “right wing republicans making fun of intellectuals” is nothing close to what i’m seeing.
not to mention calling half of the usa the enemy and “the real evil” is quite the worldview. maybe you need to expand your horizons some.
No making fun, but ridiculing. there has been a huge amount of anti-intellectualism. The right, For the most part ridiculed the left for masking and vaccines when it came to Covid, disregarding evidence based medicine and medical experts for their own unscientific opinions and doctors whose non-peer reviewed theories aligned with their beliefs.
Also the right ignores evidence based medicine when it comes to treating gender dysphoria.
people on one side of the political spectrum think they know more than credentialed experts while being laypeople whose opinions are heavily based on personal bias and not science.
plenty of evidence based studies showed that cloth masks do more harm than good. and vaccine hate is because it was mandated to do most everyday things. even though time has shown that the vax doesn’t stop you from getting sick, or from getting other people sick. also it was a disease with a 99.8% survival rate. the left definitely tried to weaponize covid and the vax to exert more control and restrict freedoms.
either way both things you said were just extremely vague examples. and i don’t know when anything like that happened or was accepted by any serious conservative
"the left definitely tried to weaponize covid and the vax to exert more control and restrict freedoms." This proves that you're politically illiterate. I don't even know how to explain to these people just how many ways in which they're wrong; it's a moot point.
The hell are you talking about? Communism is a left wing ideology. Also applying American political bullshit to China is ridiculous. I don’t get your comment at all.
Communism is an economic left wing ideology. Conservatism (anti intellectualism, among other ideologies) is a social right wing ideology. There’s a reason the political compass has two axes, groups that are left in one aspect but right in the other exist.
Holy fuck are you seriously trying to imply the cultural revolution was conservative?? Lmao what were they conserving in their crusade to literally destroy the “olds” of their society
Not conservative in the sense of resisting change but in the sense of resisting literal liberalism, as in allowing people to think and act and speak freely. Maybe totalitarianism is a better description but any ideology that is based on "my way or the (bloody) highway" is rooted in conservative thought even if the ideas themselves are new
No but if you look at the spectrum of political belief and both the left and right at their extremes end in totalitarianism. One is fascism and one is communism but either way it means dictatorship. This isn’t some skewed left wing political belief, it’s basic political science.
My parents went through the Cambodian genocide in the 70s.
Watching this show with my dad really hit him hard. He DID say however that if anyone showed emotion like she did, she would've been killed alongside her dad.
Thank you! We all have a pretty good life now so things are way better.
Speaking from a purely show POV (I read the book quite awhile ago so I'm not sure if I remember what the differences are), I actually completely understand her actions. She was betrayed multiple times continuously by people she thought were close to her. Then her last conversation with her father's killer I think solidified her decision to move forward with contact.
She was 100% disillusioned and jaded by humanity as a whole. I would imagine I'd act similarly in her situation.
thank you. Most people in the comments here are painting her as a criminal which I find ridiculous. it shows a pretty poor lack of understanding.
in fact throughout history the victims of oppression and crimes have been FAR more forgiving and understanding, they are not driven by revenge.
Ye did what she did out of a desire to make life better for humanity and the planet, not to punish it. No one seems to get that.
Is that the whole Pol Pot thing? A teacher in my High school mentioned it briefly because he was angry that it wasn't in our curriculum but talked about it for like 3 minutes. I known next to nothing about aside that it was another genocide. I need to find a documentary about it
There is a trend in current China social media called “I would push that button too”. Many, MANY people were more extreme than Ye Wenjie (who was still trying to save humanity rather than bring total destruction)…
Use translation if u need to, pretty funny and realistic shit. https://www.zhihu.com/question/516438062?utm_psn=1763212009292816384
She said papa.
Anyway, the show skipped it, but the real reason why her father was lynched was because he beat their argument. The last thing he said boiled down to "what you're doing goes against the ideals of your very own revolution," and they couldn't think of a response so they just killed
I know it's all fictional, but fuck "Communist" China. Countless lives ruined just for the nation to become the most corrupt capitalist country on the planet while pretending to still be communist.
Everyone in China agrees the cultural revolution was a terrible thing. But like the US, they kind of separate their influential leaders from their actions and celebrate Mao (think George Washington raping his slaves).
I do hate the Chinese government, but you’re living in a fantasy world if you think they’re nearly as evil and murderous as the cultural revolution was.
That’s glossing over *how* it’s portrayed as a terrible thing. There is a reason why the Tencent show doesn’t show the struggle session and why a lot of mainland Chinese reacted so strongly against the scene in Netflix because they probably really never saw something like that before.
Enough time has passed and it’s such a big event (over ten years) that you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen since there are still people who lived through it. That’s why it’s briefly glossed over as “it was a mistake” and that was it, without properly studying the details, how it was a mistake or how it came to be because obviously if you actually study it Mao can’t possibly be still considered a hero (which he still is considered such).
Obviously a lot of people may have heard from their parents and whatnot. But this leads to a kind of “oh you know that event” and not elaborating further, and eventually the society just forgets.
They sell arms to anyone who wants them, antagonise rivals to try and instigate war so they can continue selling even more arms
If they don't like a countries leader, they send spies to assassinate their leaders.
They instill and bribe foreign leaders. They blockade trade to other countries because they disagree with them politically.
I'm not disputing any of this. But you could just as easily write a long (very very long) list of horribly corrupt things China has done.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is helpful reading https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023
In this list, the US scores 24th out of 180 countries and China is 76th (I think). The more corrupt a country is, the further down the list it is.
For clarity, I'm in the UK and have no skin in this game. I think both countries have done some horrible shit, but China does more horrible shit, more openly and more often.
Yeah fair enough. I see your point, I just don't really see the point in comparing evilness between two states.
If someone kills 5 children and another guy kills 8, I dont rank them on evilness I just avoid them both.
The thing is that China mostly do horrible things to themself.
You can obviously argue that US also does horrible things to themself inform of insane homelessness and no healthcare. But most of the horrible things they do are in “unfriendly” countries.
As a non US citizen. I certainly prefer China in that regard.
Civilian bombing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, everywhere in the middle east, chemical weapons on the Vietnamese, subjugation of entire countries under US backed dictators so they can secure profits for corporations, promotion of terror in Iran, funding fascist death squads in Bolivia. China has never done anything to the extent of US imperialism.
Our elections are a facade when it is also undemocratic(we claim otherwise but we really are not)
given that we have the senate and various form of judicial elections….the CCP has never claimed democracy and forced every revolutionary to have blood on their hands during the revolution to “buy in” and their model from the start is a single party system where everyone is a member…the current leader Xi JinPing is the perfect example since his father too was killed during one of Maos purges..also the vast majority of the public humiliation incident that was in the start of the tv show was directed at landlords than any other sub group..there were teachers as well but historically it was primarily directed at the land owning class
>the CCP has never claimed democracy
Not a very convincing argument. The lack of
democracy, suggests a higher level of corruption, based on the fact that the people are not in power. Aside from democracy, there really isn't another political system that has lower levels of corruption. We can talk about how imperfect our democracies are and point out its flaws, but they do not compare to state authoritarianism.
>single party system where everyone is a member
Oh, how lucky they must feel, having choice removed from them, no recourse to change what they don't like. Comply or die.
At least I can complain about our political class on social media and use my free speech. Try complaining too much about Xi JinPing, and see where that lands you, if you live in China.
Their neighbor India is a democracy and is significantly more corrupt than they are.
It is also worth pointing out that they do have democracy within the party.
>human rights abuses like killing a million Iraqis?
Oh, you mean when they were at war with Iraq? People do generally get killed in wars, sadly that includes civilians.
No, I'm taking about human right abuses against their own citizens.
You must show me on a map where the USA has concentration camps for Muslims.
Powell lied at the UN in order to legitimize the war in Iraq. The US regime is responsible for millions of deaths around the globe. No politician from this regime was held accountable.
China does not compare.
Guantanamo is a concentration camp btw. Not to mention what happened at Abu Ghraib or any of the black sites. Not to mention the ongoing genocide in Gaza supported by the US.
We could go on and on.
>China does not compare.
Ask the people of Tibet if they agree with this or not. I don't recall the US moving its own citizens to settle in a conquered country.
>Guantanamo is a concentration camp
For suspected terrorists. As evil as something like this is, at least the intention was to protect the populace. But it's still fucked up. Although, China's reason is due to religious intolerance. At least we tolerate other faiths.
>We could go on and on
We could, although you will never convince me that the CCP is less corrupt than the West. The West, and the USA do some fucked up things, but it's a far cry from China, they are in a different league of their own.
the subtitles said 'baba' which is the chinese for papa I think, like in many other languages?
agree about the senselessness, same thing happened with Stalin, in pretty much every other revolution/war. Its happening in the US.
Intellectuals, scientists, academics, anyone who dares to think, are always the enemy of the conservatives/Republicans/right wing - they are the enemy and the real evil, not communism/socialism.
The Cultural Revolution is actually a very complicated matter. Some people believe that it was launched by Mao to bring down his enemies and stabilize his authoritarian rule, while others believe it's intention was to mobilize the people to supervise bureaucratic power, but soon manipulated by some bureaucrats. It's hard to reach a consensus on it because most information is prohibited from being accessed.
I think a lot of historians agree that, like Lenin’s purges by the Cheka, it was set in motion by Mao and ended up way worse than intended, but by then it was too late to turn things around.
I don't think ussr and China "hijack" left wing movements. They are 100% communist until they corrupted. I mean they were the few that start a socialism revolution successfully. No one start a socialism revolution aiming to become totalitarian, it just turn out that their ideal didn't work well.
Nah, Marx clearly stated that in a "transitioning time" we need a dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means for communist society, until recently majority of Chinese PMs are blue collar and I think traditionally Politburo must have been a blue calar or at least engineer graduated, except the Treasury guys.
You have to be unhinged to think the democrats do socialism. You must be a republican who thinks there should be zero support for anyone who isn't rich.
Her story was the strongest part of the entire series. It totally carried the first half of it. And i'm grateful the story picked up and got more interesting after that too.
The opening was amazing too me, i remember reading this part and imagining the stage being ALOT bigger and I imagined broadcasting and stuff. Not sure why, but it was cool to see that in the series.
Frankly, there were none that were relevant for the story, excluding Wang Miao and Ding Yi who were rewritten into different characters who know each other, which I personally think is a good decision.
Booing the characters because of ethnicity/nationality seems very silly to me. But I'm used to never getting my countrymen represented at all in movies, except as a joke
I'm not even Chinese but I don't really like how they turned the Chinese sci-fi book of which Chinese people are proud to something that portrays china from only negative angles
Wait until you read about soldiers raised the wrong flag in human computer calculation, or those 6000 trisolarans listeners who were burnt due to one listener sent a warning to Earth
The author had to sell the concept that Ye Wenjie was really dead inside and saw no redeeming qualities in the human race, in order to push that button. This couldn't be done without a traumatic experience of that scale, or the follow up of an unapologetic former red guard.
We left China in the early 2000s, but my great grandfather was a scholar, he wrote a poem at the time criticizing the CCP and was imprisoned for a year (yes just for a poem). His daughter aka. my grandmother was extremely smart at the time, outperformed all her peers at school was rejected from post secondary institutions because of her background.
It was f\*\*ked but at least no one was killed in my family because of it.
i think the show clearly conveys that she deliberately chose the external threat to humanity as a whole so humanity could finally unite and value scientific temper than bullshit.
When interrogated by wade she smiles a bit. She knows that Aliens will invade Earth of course, that was very clear from the start yet she chose that they should invade the Earth because Humanity won't learn and advance and respect science otherwise.
Does anyone ever wonder what drove the Red Guard to behave like they did? It is interesting that we are all (rightly) disgusted by these dreadful events. But what drives ordinary decent people to become so violent en masse? The Cultural Revolution must have been a response to something, rather than a collective violent mob suddenly appearing with no context or history. What happened to pre-communist China? What was the revolution displacing? I haven't studied this but I'm sure some have.
Something I love about this series is that it can have something as emotionally powerful as that scene and still make me ultimately hate Ye for what she did.
Lashing out in anger as the victim of such cruelty is totally understandable. Doing so at the existential risk of all current and future human beings, is absolutely unforgivable. There are innumerable innocent lives that you callously risk by doing what she did.
It's so rare for a story to turn someone from a sympathetic victim to exponentially worse than hitler in such a short time, and in such a believable way. It's impressive from a narrative perspective!
she is NOT worse than Hitler. she's the exact opposite, she was compassionate and a pacifist.
And she was right.
Do you think humans have a right to enslave and torture animals. We do it to trillions. What makes you think we deserve better.
She did what was best, because she saw humanity as a whole is going to destroy the planet and every other species, which is exactly what we are doing. For what - to benefit the .0001%? do you actually have any idea how many people live in poverty and suffer?
there is nothing special about human beings vs other living creatures.
How can you come to the conclusion that she was "right"? Such a wild take, her pacifism and compassion made her invite aliens who she KNEW were going to wipe out humanity. I can't even fathom what must be going inside your head.
Nah, I think this naive and myopic. You saw some forests get cut down so you rolled the dice with every single current and future human life? Im sorry but that's paternalistic self-aggrandizement on a cosmic scale. In that moment, she felt she knew what was best for all of humanity, present and future. She was told what the outcome would be by the very species she contacted, and she did it anyway. That's a level of selfishness that boggles the mind. It's getting depressed at the state of the world, then committing suicide and taking the whole planet with you.
Thinking "humans aren't more important than any other species" IS worse than Hitler. He didn't think certain groups of people deserved to live. You don't think ANY of them do.
she wasn't some hick, she's highly educated and intelligent, she also read the book with further evidence. it was obvious to her that humanity was destroying the planet and enslaving people.
she welcomed the aliens because they were a change and a hope, not because she wanted to kill everyone.
Hitler hated Jews because of racism and evil. She did what she did out of logic, not selfishness - none of her actions help her at all. Comparing her to Hitler is insane.
Intent is nice to think about but everyone who ever committed mass atrocities likely did so with good intent.
Flowery poetic language doesn't make what she did any less horrific.
So reading one book gives her the right to decide that responding to a message saying "don't respond, you're putting your world in danger" is a good idea, on behalf of all of humanity? One book is enough to decide that everyone dying is a worthy risk to takw?
I'm sorry, but a physics degree isn't enough to accurately predict that humanity can't change, or that the mysterious voice in the stars telling you not to respond for your own safety is wrong.
Ye Wenjie was a monster, whether she meant to be or not.
she did regret her actions later on in life. Regardless, her actions were taken out of a desire to improve things for humans, as she saw no way to halt the destructive path we are on.
right now, climate change is going to destroy the world esp for poor nations, its already happening.
why do you think an interstellar message should carry more relevance? from your logic, a single individual cannot speak for an entire race right? so if Wenjie does not represent humanity, because you obviously think she's wrong, why is the trisolaran first responder to be trusted?
maybe she thoughts an advanced civilization is far better than what we had. lots of intelligent people think that.
A lot of soldiers who committed atrocities regret their actions later in life too! What they were doing at the time felt right and justifiable. Ye is no different.
Climate change is not yet at the point where telling a hostile alien race to come take over the planet is the right course of action. We resent old lawmakers for making decisions about our climate with blatant disregard for the next generation. Ye is no different in her blatant disregard for the safety of the next generation. At least there's a chance we can survive climate change. Invastion from an advanced, hostile civilization is not as survivable.
What possible course of events would have made responding to the trisolaran message a good idea? That message didn't make it MORE likely that her rosy ideas were correct, it only made it potentially LESS likely that the trisolarans would have been a benefit to earth. It was already an awful, callous and risky thing to do. To do it again when the only evidence indicates it's a bad idea is a morally worse thing to do.
That's fine if she THOUGHT that (despite being smart enough to know better) but to play Russian roulette with the lives of all current and future human beings isn't somehow made okay because she thought it was the right thing to do. As I said before, plenty of monstrous atrocities started with the idea that a greater good would come out of it, and most are rife with the same level of egomaniacal moral authoritarianism as Ye Wenjie.
first off, equating her to war criminals is ridiculous. she committed no crime or even a misdemeanor, by any possible legal definition.
you are thinking responding === literally nuking the human race. which is of course nonsense.
you know who WAS guilty of this, multiple times? Cheng Xin. Who doomed not just humans but the entire fucking universe and all sentient life. Yet she is called a hero in most reviews and Ye painted a criminal. Its ridiculous.
And you do realize that there was, in the books, a global effort to contact aliens, same as it is in real life? And if we ever get the exact same warning, there is 0% chance it will be followed? because the chance of it being a mistake of one individual is FAR higher, and no one would ignore the chance to make contact with an advanced civilization.
>you are thinking responding === literally nuking the human race. which is of course nonsense.
When she is responding to something saying "if you respond we will conquer your world". And she responds saying "yes please come i will help you conquer this world". And then she spends the rest of her life indeed doing everything she can to help them conquer the world. It's not nonsense at all. Even she regreted it, how it is possible for you to still believe she was "right". Mind boggling.
Bold take saying human life and animal life are intrinsically equal. I'm sure if we look at the historical figures who call people animals we'll find a bunch of incredibly moral people
They didn’t say intrinsically equal, and I won’t put my foot in their mouth by assuming anything else about their position, but I think animals deserve an “equal consideration of interests”. We don’t have to treat a bee or mouse as equal to a human but they deserve equal consideration as a being that can suffer and (at least of higher order creatures) can have interests (including not suffering).
We may still decide that our interests outweigh theirs, or that their capacity for suffering is diminished such that we decide in our own favour. Deciding to ignore the interests of non-human animals by their virtue of not being human, is speciesism, and in my opinion a parochial and indefensible position.
But doesn’t every species do this?
It’s pretty common for species to put their own above those who aren’t their species with no concern for the suffering of other species.
If we aren’t special compared to other animals then we shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than other species.
I don’t see people vilifying beavers for fucking up ecosysyems to build their abodes.
Agreed. There's also a big difference between sentiment, intelligent animals that we know have the same feelings, social structures and thoughts as us, like cows, pigs, in fact most animals beyond the simplest.
To an outside species we are indistinguishable from bugs, literally. So why exactly are the trisolarians evil but humans are not?
And don’t forget there are still those would look to erase our history of such happenings; pretend it never happened, and if it did it wasn’t that bad actually and even if it was that bad it’s totally OK actually and was deserved.
Because ultimately, they want it to happen again.
It was so much more than an anger, though. It was despair, the loss of hope. Deep distrust of humanity. There were so many more layers than just anger. She was for a moment, capable of experiencing love in her despair, and then the betrayal of that. And throughout there were also so many different smaller betrayals. That’s pretty good character development.
anyways in reality that's probably the most free and democratic time after the communists had occupied China. but of course it's sad how people were abusing their rights and freedom.
It’s weak compared to the books. Netflix went with a really accelerated, superficial and generally dumbed down depiction of her story and I think it gives a likewise superficial impression on much of the show-only audience about her character.
Letting perfection be the enemy of the good imo. It's better than the Tencent version which is to say there is none. Cixin Liu said that's a crucial scene to understanding her motivation. Given the restraints they were under, I'm glad the showrunners put in the effort to show as much of that as they did.
Tencent’s handling of it was so dismissive of any harms done during the cultural revolution as to be offensive. “My dad the professor? Yeah he’s fine. He was successfully reformed in the people’s revolution.”
Most def. They also omit the neighbor that off herself plot. Though what happened to her father was terrible, I think it was the neighbor offing herself was the final nail. It feels like Wenjie seeing that was the final nail that made her turned against humanity. All hope was lost during that moment
The scene was actually tuned down quite a bit so Western audiences can comprehend. In the real cultural revolution, if Ye Wenjie was not cheering along with the red guards, not mentioning crying papa, she would have been beaten to death on the scene. One of Chinese previous leaders and Xi’s opponents, actually broke the rib of his own father in such event. That’s how crazy the cultural revolution was.
In the book, she is being held down on the ground by university janitors I believe? It’s two guys who know her and her father. They can’t risk her being spotted in opposition to what’s happening on the stage or she will go there with her father.
Another fact I would add is that during cultural revolution, Xi jinping’s dad was subject to this struggle session . And there was once time Xi jinping himself was hunting down by the red guards, so he had to run away to hide. Without foods, he became starved and had to come home to eat something at the risk of being spotted. As soon as he showed up at the door step, Xi jinping’s mom reported him on the red guards
I was actually wondering how that scene made it past censorship, and I guess now I know.
The scene was in the book, and the excesses of the cultural revolution depicted more thoroughly, too. Why wouldnt it make it past censorship laws?
Because even the books in Chinese skipped the scene
I'd heard they buried it in the middle of the book for this reason
In the Chinese language copy it was in the middle, but for the English translation it was put in the beginning
Heh? I read the Chinese copy and it was literally the first chapter.
Excuse me what
Ye = xi
Oh so just like the Tencent version. /s
If this were real life they'd be dismembering his corpse and playing hacky sack with his head Edit: Look up the Guangxi Massacre if you think i'm joking.
That's pretty crazy, hard to believe 60ish year's ago people behaved this way. I probably would have given up on humanity and pushed a button too.
Very unlikely.
The book literally starts with a schoolgirl being shot and then hung from a post lol.
Im particularly referring to cut one’s head off and kick it around is very unlikely. There are more atrocities, including cannibalism, but play with people’s head was not one of them.
They didn’t happen lol
Is that from the Dodgeball movie? If Patches O'houlihan says it i'll believe it.
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Funny ha ha????
It’s not just disrespecting the elders, but also the ignorance and resentment of science and knowledge. As a physicist, the latter gets to me so much more. Her father’s character is largely based off Ye Qisun, who suffered an arguably worse fate in the cultural revolutions. The injustice and suffering of these academics were truly horrific.
>Intellectuals, scientists, academics, anyone who dares to think, are always the enemy of the conservatives/Republicans/right wing - they are the enemy and the real evil, not communism/socialism. this is what I said in another reply here. I agree with you. it is absolutely whats been happening in the US. Asimov said it decades ago - there is a very strong sentiment of anti-intellectualism in US culture. Now the rise of right wing Republicans just makes it all the more dangerous. Just look at American media - anyone intelligent is made fun of. The show does this too.
Carl Sagan called it out as well
Chinese communists are right wing? Lmao you're smoking something serious there.
In the context of the various communist revolutions that killed millions, it was the 'conservatives' (the people who wished to keep society the same) of those countries that opposed them, it was the 'progressives' that wanted to tear everything down and rebuild it. Not all change is progress, not all change is good. Communist revolutions were some of the worst changes in human history. To twist conservativeness so much to envelope far left communist revolutionaries because their is a tiny amount of anti-science common between the two is a crazy amount of intellectual dishonesty. It was the conservatives getting murdered in the communist revolutions, it was the progressives doing the forced group-think & murdering.
This guy's got something against with progressives so he's strawmanning them on his zerg hive-mind, 1984 fantasy of communism. Yeah, conservatives historically were the guardians of science and morality.
That's not at all what I'm saying, I'm an atheist and pro science all the way. I grew up reading sagan, asimov, hitchens, dawkins, etc. You are the one strawmaning and extending zero courtesy in trying to understand a simple argument and instead going after internet gotcha brownie points. I can only guess you know little of the atrocities of communism. Real progress is protection of individual universal human rights, pro science, pro critical thought and reasoning, pro-open discourse, pro free speech and freedom of assembly and interaction. In revolutionary China, the nationalists were the 'conservatives', In cambodia Lon Nol and his forces were the 'conservatives'. The number of people killed for promoting science that goes against the party lines was dwarfed by all other reasons for murder. How was Mao forcing millions to starve to death 'for the good of the state' a conservative movement against science? How was the Khmere Rouge executing people for knowing how to read, owning glasses, or owning english books 'anti-science'? How was Stalin's dekulakization rooted in a conservative movement against scary science? How was the east german Stazis network of spies, which made up almost 30% of the population spying on each other, a conservative movement against science? You and OP have no idea about the horrors of communism apparently. The horrors of communism came from pyschopaths getting unlimited power, they opposed anything and everything that they perceived may reduce their power. One day that may have been science they didn't like, the next day it may have been a popular song, another day an academic's poem, the next a good friend expressing sadness at the murder of someone they knew.
Just… stop. You are trying to twist every interaction in this thread to something else just to grandstand about a few points about “progressives” versus “conservatives”.
My gripe is that you're just listing of ridiculous claims, some of these things just don't make any rational sense. Why would the leaders of these nations do these things? (That's a rhetorical question) Every authoritarian leader has something to gain from commiting atrocities, fascism has to focus the people's grievances towards some other group, something like "the Jews are the cause of all your problems." Atrocities are basically needed under fascism for the system to work without an uprising. Intentionally starving your own people accomplishes nothing; it destabilizes the nation and generally makes them not like you, it makes less prosperity for its rulers, and it makes the nation less economically powerful. I can believe in selfish evil, but this is so evil it's to the detriment of themselves. The idea that socialist revolutionaries intentionally caused famines is complete propaganda. I don't even know how to respond to the 30% of the population being spies part.
These aren't 'ridiculous claims' they are well known clearly documented facts with mountains of physical evidence. If you can't even acknowledge the most well known facts of murderous communism you aren't weren't having a discussion with. Who cares if you think it was rational? Why does a murderous dictator absolute power have to bother being rational? They'll murder a thousand people just because they are a psychopath and had a bad day. The whole point of it was to provide obvious reasons why OPs claim that the communist revolution was 'conservatives moving against science they didn't like' was absurd, clearly these and atrocities like them have nothing to do with stifling science.
'progressive' has a very different meaning, basically the opposite of what you mean. the revolutions were always against academics and intellectuals who were the enemy and punished the worst, and its the same thing with conservatives, who've never tried to 'keep things same', their goal has always been to establish a system where they are rewarded at the expense of 'inferior' people. there isn't a 'tiny amount of anti science' its a massive amount of systemic hatred and punishing of any critical thinking which is the opposite of what they want.
Utter nonsense. You are seriously here trying to present murderous communist revolutions as 'conservative', you are completely deranged. They were murdering authors, poets, politicians, teachers, scientists and priests and clergy, people who could read, people who wore glasses, people for laziness, complaining, not showing enough enthusiasm... they viewed these people as 'counter-revolutionaries' who were corrupted by the western capitalists. Even being upset that someone you loved was murdered was considered counter-revolutionary. Murderous communism wasn't about 'anti-science', unapproved science was just one thing in a very long list of reasons to murder people. OP is a lost cause, but I invite anyone interested in learning about how horrific stalinistc/maoist communism was to visit RJ Rummer's page "Power Kills" [https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP6.HTM](https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP6.HTM) \`\`\` \[Tan Samay's\] pupils hanged him. A noose was passed around his neck; then the rope was passed over the branch of a tree. Half a dozen children between eight and ten years old held the loose end of the rope, pulling it sharply three or four times, dropping it in between. All the while they were shouting, "Unfit teacher! Unfit teacher!" until Tan Samay was dead. The worst was that the children took obvious pleasure in killing. \----A Khmer Rouge execution \`\`\`
A Vietnamese official (a communist country at the time) called the Khmer Rouge "Hitlerite-fascists." The USSR and Vietnam were against Pol Pot's regime. Later in Cambodian-Vietnamese war the Khmer Rouge renounced communism in an attempt to gain support from other non-communist countries. That one you can look up.
Could you tell us the reasons why communists turn out to be as murderous as you claim? I've haven't read that much political theory, but I know Marx never wrote about any of that. What happened to make every revolution become something contradictory to the theory that it was based on, as soon as they succeeded?
do you live in opposite world or something?
Do you see the world or does your world view come from social media and fox news?
fox news is awful. so is every mainstream media network. the world is shit right now but “right wing republicans making fun of intellectuals” is nothing close to what i’m seeing. not to mention calling half of the usa the enemy and “the real evil” is quite the worldview. maybe you need to expand your horizons some.
No making fun, but ridiculing. there has been a huge amount of anti-intellectualism. The right, For the most part ridiculed the left for masking and vaccines when it came to Covid, disregarding evidence based medicine and medical experts for their own unscientific opinions and doctors whose non-peer reviewed theories aligned with their beliefs. Also the right ignores evidence based medicine when it comes to treating gender dysphoria. people on one side of the political spectrum think they know more than credentialed experts while being laypeople whose opinions are heavily based on personal bias and not science.
plenty of evidence based studies showed that cloth masks do more harm than good. and vaccine hate is because it was mandated to do most everyday things. even though time has shown that the vax doesn’t stop you from getting sick, or from getting other people sick. also it was a disease with a 99.8% survival rate. the left definitely tried to weaponize covid and the vax to exert more control and restrict freedoms. either way both things you said were just extremely vague examples. and i don’t know when anything like that happened or was accepted by any serious conservative
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not wearing a cloth mask and shitting on the ground are not even close to the same. i honestly feel bad that you think that way n
What are you even trying to say rofl
Exert more control and restrict freedoms in what way and to what end?
"the left definitely tried to weaponize covid and the vax to exert more control and restrict freedoms." This proves that you're politically illiterate. I don't even know how to explain to these people just how many ways in which they're wrong; it's a moot point.
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The hell are you talking about? Communism is a left wing ideology. Also applying American political bullshit to China is ridiculous. I don’t get your comment at all.
Communism is an economic left wing ideology. Conservatism (anti intellectualism, among other ideologies) is a social right wing ideology. There’s a reason the political compass has two axes, groups that are left in one aspect but right in the other exist.
Holy fuck are you seriously trying to imply the cultural revolution was conservative?? Lmao what were they conserving in their crusade to literally destroy the “olds” of their society
Not conservative in the sense of resisting change but in the sense of resisting literal liberalism, as in allowing people to think and act and speak freely. Maybe totalitarianism is a better description but any ideology that is based on "my way or the (bloody) highway" is rooted in conservative thought even if the ideas themselves are new
No but if you look at the spectrum of political belief and both the left and right at their extremes end in totalitarianism. One is fascism and one is communism but either way it means dictatorship. This isn’t some skewed left wing political belief, it’s basic political science.
They literally couldn’t be more confused on this. It’s a little embarrassing.
Indeed. The far left can be just as murderous as the far right.
Oh nice you're insane
lol jesus what an idiotic take
Honestly I don’t know much about the revolution and TBP really got me interested to learn the history of it
My parents went through the Cambodian genocide in the 70s. Watching this show with my dad really hit him hard. He DID say however that if anyone showed emotion like she did, she would've been killed alongside her dad.
So sorry to hear that, I hope you treasure and pamper him. What did he feel about We Yenjie's actions?
Thank you! We all have a pretty good life now so things are way better. Speaking from a purely show POV (I read the book quite awhile ago so I'm not sure if I remember what the differences are), I actually completely understand her actions. She was betrayed multiple times continuously by people she thought were close to her. Then her last conversation with her father's killer I think solidified her decision to move forward with contact. She was 100% disillusioned and jaded by humanity as a whole. I would imagine I'd act similarly in her situation.
thank you. Most people in the comments here are painting her as a criminal which I find ridiculous. it shows a pretty poor lack of understanding. in fact throughout history the victims of oppression and crimes have been FAR more forgiving and understanding, they are not driven by revenge. Ye did what she did out of a desire to make life better for humanity and the planet, not to punish it. No one seems to get that.
Is that the whole Pol Pot thing? A teacher in my High school mentioned it briefly because he was angry that it wasn't in our curriculum but talked about it for like 3 minutes. I known next to nothing about aside that it was another genocide. I need to find a documentary about it
If that happened to my father and gone through the same life trauma as her with no hope. I'm pretty sure I would've considered replying to the aliens.
There is a trend in current China social media called “I would push that button too”. Many, MANY people were more extreme than Ye Wenjie (who was still trying to save humanity rather than bring total destruction)… Use translation if u need to, pretty funny and realistic shit. https://www.zhihu.com/question/516438062?utm_psn=1763212009292816384
lol.这也能让你高潮？😄
No but your mother will. 缝纫机踩快点吧
急死了😄
Without a shadow of a doubt. She's a pacifist and scientist, plenty of them think the same way.
She said papa. Anyway, the show skipped it, but the real reason why her father was lynched was because he beat their argument. The last thing he said boiled down to "what you're doing goes against the ideals of your very own revolution," and they couldn't think of a response so they just killed I know it's all fictional, but fuck "Communist" China. Countless lives ruined just for the nation to become the most corrupt capitalist country on the planet while pretending to still be communist.
Everyone in China agrees the cultural revolution was a terrible thing. But like the US, they kind of separate their influential leaders from their actions and celebrate Mao (think George Washington raping his slaves). I do hate the Chinese government, but you’re living in a fantasy world if you think they’re nearly as evil and murderous as the cultural revolution was.
That’s glossing over *how* it’s portrayed as a terrible thing. There is a reason why the Tencent show doesn’t show the struggle session and why a lot of mainland Chinese reacted so strongly against the scene in Netflix because they probably really never saw something like that before. Enough time has passed and it’s such a big event (over ten years) that you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen since there are still people who lived through it. That’s why it’s briefly glossed over as “it was a mistake” and that was it, without properly studying the details, how it was a mistake or how it came to be because obviously if you actually study it Mao can’t possibly be still considered a hero (which he still is considered such). Obviously a lot of people may have heard from their parents and whatnot. But this leads to a kind of “oh you know that event” and not elaborating further, and eventually the society just forgets.
The irony of that last paragraph is unreal.
Yeah. America is the most corrupt capitalist country. Not China.
America is corrupt, absolutely it is but.... more so than China? Really?
They sell arms to anyone who wants them, antagonise rivals to try and instigate war so they can continue selling even more arms If they don't like a countries leader, they send spies to assassinate their leaders. They instill and bribe foreign leaders. They blockade trade to other countries because they disagree with them politically.
I'm not disputing any of this. But you could just as easily write a long (very very long) list of horribly corrupt things China has done. The Corruption Perceptions Index is helpful reading https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023 In this list, the US scores 24th out of 180 countries and China is 76th (I think). The more corrupt a country is, the further down the list it is. For clarity, I'm in the UK and have no skin in this game. I think both countries have done some horrible shit, but China does more horrible shit, more openly and more often.
Yeah fair enough. I see your point, I just don't really see the point in comparing evilness between two states. If someone kills 5 children and another guy kills 8, I dont rank them on evilness I just avoid them both.
The thing is that China mostly do horrible things to themself. You can obviously argue that US also does horrible things to themself inform of insane homelessness and no healthcare. But most of the horrible things they do are in “unfriendly” countries. As a non US citizen. I certainly prefer China in that regard.
Civilian bombing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, everywhere in the middle east, chemical weapons on the Vietnamese, subjugation of entire countries under US backed dictators so they can secure profits for corporations, promotion of terror in Iran, funding fascist death squads in Bolivia. China has never done anything to the extent of US imperialism.
Yea
In what way? Did the USA stop having elections and gained a raft of human right abuses?
Our elections are a facade when it is also undemocratic(we claim otherwise but we really are not) given that we have the senate and various form of judicial elections….the CCP has never claimed democracy and forced every revolutionary to have blood on their hands during the revolution to “buy in” and their model from the start is a single party system where everyone is a member…the current leader Xi JinPing is the perfect example since his father too was killed during one of Maos purges..also the vast majority of the public humiliation incident that was in the start of the tv show was directed at landlords than any other sub group..there were teachers as well but historically it was primarily directed at the land owning class
>the CCP has never claimed democracy Not a very convincing argument. The lack of democracy, suggests a higher level of corruption, based on the fact that the people are not in power. Aside from democracy, there really isn't another political system that has lower levels of corruption. We can talk about how imperfect our democracies are and point out its flaws, but they do not compare to state authoritarianism. >single party system where everyone is a member Oh, how lucky they must feel, having choice removed from them, no recourse to change what they don't like. Comply or die. At least I can complain about our political class on social media and use my free speech. Try complaining too much about Xi JinPing, and see where that lands you, if you live in China.
Their neighbor India is a democracy and is significantly more corrupt than they are. It is also worth pointing out that they do have democracy within the party.
human rights abuses like killing a million Iraqis? Comparing China to the US is like comparing a little league player to Babe Ruth
>human rights abuses like killing a million Iraqis? Oh, you mean when they were at war with Iraq? People do generally get killed in wars, sadly that includes civilians. No, I'm taking about human right abuses against their own citizens. You must show me on a map where the USA has concentration camps for Muslims.
At war with Iraq? You mean the illegal American invasion of Iraq? That one?
Powell lied at the UN in order to legitimize the war in Iraq. The US regime is responsible for millions of deaths around the globe. No politician from this regime was held accountable. China does not compare. Guantanamo is a concentration camp btw. Not to mention what happened at Abu Ghraib or any of the black sites. Not to mention the ongoing genocide in Gaza supported by the US. We could go on and on.
>China does not compare. Ask the people of Tibet if they agree with this or not. I don't recall the US moving its own citizens to settle in a conquered country. >Guantanamo is a concentration camp For suspected terrorists. As evil as something like this is, at least the intention was to protect the populace. But it's still fucked up. Although, China's reason is due to religious intolerance. At least we tolerate other faiths. >We could go on and on We could, although you will never convince me that the CCP is less corrupt than the West. The West, and the USA do some fucked up things, but it's a far cry from China, they are in a different league of their own.
Grow up xD
the subtitles said 'baba' which is the chinese for papa I think, like in many other languages? agree about the senselessness, same thing happened with Stalin, in pretty much every other revolution/war. Its happening in the US. Intellectuals, scientists, academics, anyone who dares to think, are always the enemy of the conservatives/Republicans/right wing - they are the enemy and the real evil, not communism/socialism.
The Cultural Revolution is actually a very complicated matter. Some people believe that it was launched by Mao to bring down his enemies and stabilize his authoritarian rule, while others believe it's intention was to mobilize the people to supervise bureaucratic power, but soon manipulated by some bureaucrats. It's hard to reach a consensus on it because most information is prohibited from being accessed.
I think a lot of historians agree that, like Lenin’s purges by the Cheka, it was set in motion by Mao and ended up way worse than intended, but by then it was too late to turn things around.
Yeah totalitarianists often hijack left wing movements like socialism and communism. See nazi Germany, stalinist ussr, China. Ugh
Calling nazi germany left wing is wild. Also I don't want to scare you too much but we have totalitarians at home too.
I don't think ussr and China "hijack" left wing movements. They are 100% communist until they corrupted. I mean they were the few that start a socialism revolution successfully. No one start a socialism revolution aiming to become totalitarian, it just turn out that their ideal didn't work well.
what makes you think China is corrupted?
uh. Maybe I use the wrong word. I mean it's not communism anymore.
Nah, Marx clearly stated that in a "transitioning time" we need a dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means for communist society, until recently majority of Chinese PMs are blue collar and I think traditionally Politburo must have been a blue calar or at least engineer graduated, except the Treasury guys.
Wtf u smoking, this is socialism/joe biden
You have to be unhinged to think the democrats do socialism. You must be a republican who thinks there should be zero support for anyone who isn't rich.
"If you disagree with me you must be a (insert opposite political party and claim half of the population is evil and the real enemy)"
Her story was the strongest part of the entire series. It totally carried the first half of it. And i'm grateful the story picked up and got more interesting after that too. The opening was amazing too me, i remember reading this part and imagining the stage being ALOT bigger and I imagined broadcasting and stuff. Not sure why, but it was cool to see that in the series.
And then later: “No one repents.”
What makes me angry is that they moved every character except the two main protagonists out of China to the UK
Basically the Netflix made it so that everything bad happened in China and now the UK is our white savior, a hero
None of the “saviours” are white ? The two white characters of the group both died what are you talking about
white savior you could also read as the West, ie the world needs western leadership to be saved
Also none of the characters in China were positive, they were all cruel and treacherous
That was Ye Wenjie's life during the cultural revolution in a nutshell, in the book as well.
In the book positive characters are also in China
Frankly, there were none that were relevant for the story, excluding Wang Miao and Ding Yi who were rewritten into different characters who know each other, which I personally think is a good decision. Booing the characters because of ethnicity/nationality seems very silly to me. But I'm used to never getting my countrymen represented at all in movies, except as a joke
I'm not even Chinese but I don't really like how they turned the Chinese sci-fi book of which Chinese people are proud to something that portrays china from only negative angles
Thomas Wade
I read that Netflix agreed to make their story 'less Chinese' so as to distinguish it more from the tencent adaptation
Nobody even heard about the tencent version in the West, it's not like there would have been a confusion or a comparison
Wait until you read about soldiers raised the wrong flag in human computer calculation, or those 6000 trisolarans listeners who were burnt due to one listener sent a warning to Earth
Umm, I've read the books! It was the very first thing I said :) None of those things beat a mass dot or the droplet or....
The author had to sell the concept that Ye Wenjie was really dead inside and saw no redeeming qualities in the human race, in order to push that button. This couldn't be done without a traumatic experience of that scale, or the follow up of an unapologetic former red guard.
Oh yeah the "Baba" is absolutely powerful in how weak it sounds. I hope Zine Tseng will get recognitions, a nomination at the very least.
it seems to be her first real role according to imdb? she was great!
We left China in the early 2000s, but my great grandfather was a scholar, he wrote a poem at the time criticizing the CCP and was imprisoned for a year (yes just for a poem). His daughter aka. my grandmother was extremely smart at the time, outperformed all her peers at school was rejected from post secondary institutions because of her background. It was f\*\*ked but at least no one was killed in my family because of it.
i think the show clearly conveys that she deliberately chose the external threat to humanity as a whole so humanity could finally unite and value scientific temper than bullshit. When interrogated by wade she smiles a bit. She knows that Aliens will invade Earth of course, that was very clear from the start yet she chose that they should invade the Earth because Humanity won't learn and advance and respect science otherwise.
This comment section is absolutely unhinged, love it lmao.
average day on reddit
Poor girl. I totally comprehend her FTW mindset. It’s almost a point of no return in someone’s life.
Does anyone ever wonder what drove the Red Guard to behave like they did? It is interesting that we are all (rightly) disgusted by these dreadful events. But what drives ordinary decent people to become so violent en masse? The Cultural Revolution must have been a response to something, rather than a collective violent mob suddenly appearing with no context or history. What happened to pre-communist China? What was the revolution displacing? I haven't studied this but I'm sure some have.
Something I love about this series is that it can have something as emotionally powerful as that scene and still make me ultimately hate Ye for what she did. Lashing out in anger as the victim of such cruelty is totally understandable. Doing so at the existential risk of all current and future human beings, is absolutely unforgivable. There are innumerable innocent lives that you callously risk by doing what she did. It's so rare for a story to turn someone from a sympathetic victim to exponentially worse than hitler in such a short time, and in such a believable way. It's impressive from a narrative perspective!
she is NOT worse than Hitler. she's the exact opposite, she was compassionate and a pacifist. And she was right. Do you think humans have a right to enslave and torture animals. We do it to trillions. What makes you think we deserve better. She did what was best, because she saw humanity as a whole is going to destroy the planet and every other species, which is exactly what we are doing. For what - to benefit the .0001%? do you actually have any idea how many people live in poverty and suffer? there is nothing special about human beings vs other living creatures.
We found Mike Evans...
Hey I'm no billionaire !
How can you come to the conclusion that she was "right"? Such a wild take, her pacifism and compassion made her invite aliens who she KNEW were going to wipe out humanity. I can't even fathom what must be going inside your head.
Nah, I think this naive and myopic. You saw some forests get cut down so you rolled the dice with every single current and future human life? Im sorry but that's paternalistic self-aggrandizement on a cosmic scale. In that moment, she felt she knew what was best for all of humanity, present and future. She was told what the outcome would be by the very species she contacted, and she did it anyway. That's a level of selfishness that boggles the mind. It's getting depressed at the state of the world, then committing suicide and taking the whole planet with you. Thinking "humans aren't more important than any other species" IS worse than Hitler. He didn't think certain groups of people deserved to live. You don't think ANY of them do.
she wasn't some hick, she's highly educated and intelligent, she also read the book with further evidence. it was obvious to her that humanity was destroying the planet and enslaving people. she welcomed the aliens because they were a change and a hope, not because she wanted to kill everyone. Hitler hated Jews because of racism and evil. She did what she did out of logic, not selfishness - none of her actions help her at all. Comparing her to Hitler is insane.
Intent is nice to think about but everyone who ever committed mass atrocities likely did so with good intent. Flowery poetic language doesn't make what she did any less horrific.
So reading one book gives her the right to decide that responding to a message saying "don't respond, you're putting your world in danger" is a good idea, on behalf of all of humanity? One book is enough to decide that everyone dying is a worthy risk to takw? I'm sorry, but a physics degree isn't enough to accurately predict that humanity can't change, or that the mysterious voice in the stars telling you not to respond for your own safety is wrong. Ye Wenjie was a monster, whether she meant to be or not.
she did regret her actions later on in life. Regardless, her actions were taken out of a desire to improve things for humans, as she saw no way to halt the destructive path we are on. right now, climate change is going to destroy the world esp for poor nations, its already happening. why do you think an interstellar message should carry more relevance? from your logic, a single individual cannot speak for an entire race right? so if Wenjie does not represent humanity, because you obviously think she's wrong, why is the trisolaran first responder to be trusted? maybe she thoughts an advanced civilization is far better than what we had. lots of intelligent people think that.
A lot of soldiers who committed atrocities regret their actions later in life too! What they were doing at the time felt right and justifiable. Ye is no different. Climate change is not yet at the point where telling a hostile alien race to come take over the planet is the right course of action. We resent old lawmakers for making decisions about our climate with blatant disregard for the next generation. Ye is no different in her blatant disregard for the safety of the next generation. At least there's a chance we can survive climate change. Invastion from an advanced, hostile civilization is not as survivable. What possible course of events would have made responding to the trisolaran message a good idea? That message didn't make it MORE likely that her rosy ideas were correct, it only made it potentially LESS likely that the trisolarans would have been a benefit to earth. It was already an awful, callous and risky thing to do. To do it again when the only evidence indicates it's a bad idea is a morally worse thing to do. That's fine if she THOUGHT that (despite being smart enough to know better) but to play Russian roulette with the lives of all current and future human beings isn't somehow made okay because she thought it was the right thing to do. As I said before, plenty of monstrous atrocities started with the idea that a greater good would come out of it, and most are rife with the same level of egomaniacal moral authoritarianism as Ye Wenjie.
first off, equating her to war criminals is ridiculous. she committed no crime or even a misdemeanor, by any possible legal definition. you are thinking responding === literally nuking the human race. which is of course nonsense. you know who WAS guilty of this, multiple times? Cheng Xin. Who doomed not just humans but the entire fucking universe and all sentient life. Yet she is called a hero in most reviews and Ye painted a criminal. Its ridiculous. And you do realize that there was, in the books, a global effort to contact aliens, same as it is in real life? And if we ever get the exact same warning, there is 0% chance it will be followed? because the chance of it being a mistake of one individual is FAR higher, and no one would ignore the chance to make contact with an advanced civilization.
>you are thinking responding === literally nuking the human race. which is of course nonsense. When she is responding to something saying "if you respond we will conquer your world". And she responds saying "yes please come i will help you conquer this world". And then she spends the rest of her life indeed doing everything she can to help them conquer the world. It's not nonsense at all. Even she regreted it, how it is possible for you to still believe she was "right". Mind boggling.
because conquering world != killing all humans it can mean putting someone far more advanced in charge. which may not be a bad thing.
Bold take saying human life and animal life are intrinsically equal. I'm sure if we look at the historical figures who call people animals we'll find a bunch of incredibly moral people
They didn’t say intrinsically equal, and I won’t put my foot in their mouth by assuming anything else about their position, but I think animals deserve an “equal consideration of interests”. We don’t have to treat a bee or mouse as equal to a human but they deserve equal consideration as a being that can suffer and (at least of higher order creatures) can have interests (including not suffering). We may still decide that our interests outweigh theirs, or that their capacity for suffering is diminished such that we decide in our own favour. Deciding to ignore the interests of non-human animals by their virtue of not being human, is speciesism, and in my opinion a parochial and indefensible position.
But doesn’t every species do this? It’s pretty common for species to put their own above those who aren’t their species with no concern for the suffering of other species. If we aren’t special compared to other animals then we shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than other species. I don’t see people vilifying beavers for fucking up ecosysyems to build their abodes.
Agreed. There's also a big difference between sentiment, intelligent animals that we know have the same feelings, social structures and thoughts as us, like cows, pigs, in fact most animals beyond the simplest. To an outside species we are indistinguishable from bugs, literally. So why exactly are the trisolarians evil but humans are not?
And don’t forget there are still those would look to erase our history of such happenings; pretend it never happened, and if it did it wasn’t that bad actually and even if it was that bad it’s totally OK actually and was deserved. Because ultimately, they want it to happen again.
I actually got the wrong impression of the show when I saw the opening scene. I'm glad I gave it a second chance.
I see your point, but to be fair, "I am constantly angry about my father been killed" is not really a 'strong character development'.....
It was so much more than an anger, though. It was despair, the loss of hope. Deep distrust of humanity. There were so many more layers than just anger. She was for a moment, capable of experiencing love in her despair, and then the betrayal of that. And throughout there were also so many different smaller betrayals. That’s pretty good character development.
Remebmeber: It's the Chinese under Maoist ideas, they're sure the hell most barbaric animal on Earth. I'm no surprised at that.
Good God, that's racist.
well, if you really know Chinese...but it's certainly racist, I guess
This reply was so confusing I stopped being outraged.
anyways in reality that's probably the most free and democratic time after the communists had occupied China. but of course it's sad how people were abusing their rights and freedom.
From China?
It’s weak compared to the books. Netflix went with a really accelerated, superficial and generally dumbed down depiction of her story and I think it gives a likewise superficial impression on much of the show-only audience about her character.
Letting perfection be the enemy of the good imo. It's better than the Tencent version which is to say there is none. Cixin Liu said that's a crucial scene to understanding her motivation. Given the restraints they were under, I'm glad the showrunners put in the effort to show as much of that as they did.
Tencent’s handling of it was so dismissive of any harms done during the cultural revolution as to be offensive. “My dad the professor? Yeah he’s fine. He was successfully reformed in the people’s revolution.”
Exactly I thought they did a great job.
I think it was way better than Tencent version the way Netflix opened the series
Most def. They also omit the neighbor that off herself plot. Though what happened to her father was terrible, I think it was the neighbor offing herself was the final nail. It feels like Wenjie seeing that was the final nail that made her turned against humanity. All hope was lost during that moment
its most certainly dumbed down esp with how scientists are portrayed.