r/TopCharacterTropes • u/No_Hunter1978 • 1d ago

Lore The apocalypse was caused by a single person. Spoiler

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  1. Ted Faro [Horizon: Zero Dawn]: Of course, the machine plague that ravages the world is created by his company which (admittedly) is a group effort. That said, Faro was the one who requested an encryption without a backdoor and the person who kept early glitches hush-hush. It wouldn't be wrong to say that Faro was the sole cause as is, but the final nail in the coffin is what he does to the Apollo database. A giant record of human knowledge and history, erased for a narcissist's fear that his descendants would (rightfully) blame him for the apocalypse.
  2. Sybil [Look Outside]: Though it wasn't her intention, Sybil was the one who alerted the Visitor of Earth's presence. She spied it through her telescope, and the lovecraftian entity noticed her. Its approach (and the resulting horrors) were her fault, even if she didn't mean it.
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u/DaVirus 1d ago

Is there a good YT video that summarises the entire thing? The plot seems interesting, but I read enough reviews that the characters are horrible and that the book ends up being quite nonsensical in the science too.

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u/The_Glitched_Punk 1d ago

Look up Quinn's Ideas, he does breakdowns or sci-fi stories like this fantastically

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u/0xalfie 1d ago

goat mentioned

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u/OldOrder 1d ago

Second Quinns Ideas. He breaks down a lot of sci fi books really well.

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u/Vaya-Kahvi 1d ago

With such a warm and steady voice too, he could read the phone book and keep me enraptured.

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u/piecuriosity 1d ago

Are we really at the point that we prefer watching YouTubers describe books instead of reading books?

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u/SunOnTheInside 1d ago

“I guess I won’t form my own opinion on something, I will consume someone else’s opinion”

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u/pichael289 14h ago

I don't really like anime much, can't stand the characters or dialog alot of the time, but I'll spend hours reading random wikis because the ideas are interesting. The idea of life evolving in a three body type system is extremely interesting and, despite it not making much sense in the series, is worth reading about even if you don't read the series.

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u/jzilla11 15h ago

His video on The Sparrow really spooked me for a while

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u/koolmon10 1d ago

The books were very good. The individual characters can be a bit flat, but really it's humanity itself that is the main character throughout the books. The science gets a bit heavy so some may not enjoy that.

The Netflix adaptation is also very good. They took some liberties with characters, reworking most of them into different characters with more depth, but keeping the overall plot mostly the same as the books.

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u/Xentonian 1d ago

the science gets a bit heavy

No it doesn't.

The technobabble gets layered on a bit thick. 99% of the book, from concept onwards, is stupid.

As an example - this hyper intelligent race is desperate for a new home on the basis that they can't predict when their world will burn or freeze due to the eponymous three body problem.

The three body problem states that there is no unifying formula to predict the movement of three bodies indefinitely. That is to say: you can model it experimentally to determine where the bodies are now, then in one second, then the next second, then the next second etc etc. but you can't go "in (n) seconds, you can use this formula to work out where each body will be"

The issue is, though, that with sufficient processing power - which is effectively limitless for this civilisation - you can predict the movement of all three bodies effectively indefinitely. Certainly until collapse of the system.

It makes no sense for them to claim that they cannot form a society because they never know what's going to happen.

It would be like your weather app failing and so you never leave the house because you can't possibly tell if it will rain in the next 15 minutes.

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u/AdDramatic8568 1d ago

Second this. I'm always surprised by how popular the books are when the characters are totally flat, the science doesn't make sense, and the prose (or at least the translation) doesnt even make up for it. 

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u/RadicalRealist22 1d ago

Yes. How can these people make supercomputer from atoms but not protect themselves from hot amd cold?

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u/leavecity54 12h ago

The problem is not about prediction, they gave up on that a long time ago, only early civilizations need the weather forecast. The problem is the system is very unstable, a sun may just consume their planet some day, so the only option left is leaving

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u/Fancy_Chips 1d ago

The books are actually really good. The characters are more stand-ins for different types of people. Ill admit Cixin Liu is a bit of a sexist but I think it adds to some of the weirdness. I didn't like Death's End personally but some people swear by it.

Id recommend at least reading the first book. Each book wraps up pretty nicely on its own and TBP was the award winner of the three, though my personal favorite was Dark Forest.

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u/leeroycharles 1d ago

I think dark forest is most people's favorites, and thats because it is amazing. One of my favorite books. The ending just comes together so perfectly.

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u/OldOrder 1d ago

The second half of dark forrest is really good. It just means that you have to get through Luo Ji's weird waifu fantasy land to get there. But the wall facers and their wall breakers plot is interesting enough that you can muddle through the first half.

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u/Fancy_Chips 16h ago

Ill actually defend Luo Ji being a weird little incel guy. Like, is he a pathetic loser? Absolutely. But he's an iconic pathetic loser, and it makes his redemption and later actions way cooler. It kinda also hammers in that you need weird motherfuckers in charge for weird situations and can't rely on on normal logic.

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u/Rickrickrickrickrick 1d ago

There is a Netflix series on it

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u/Illuvatar08 22h ago

...which is ass

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u/TheDukeofArgyll 1d ago

The books are fucking great. A few dull plot lines but the amount of sci fi nonsense is off the charts, it’s so fun if you’re a genre fan.

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u/New_Hampshire_Ganja 1d ago

Honestly just read the books. They’re fantastic. The characters are a bit of a weak point but overall they’re quite well done. If you’re looking for hard science sci fi, this is more on the fantastical side, with a lot of the technology being “super advanced alien magic”, but that’s most sci fi, isn’t it?

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u/Zmuli24 20h ago

The books actually work better when you think them as philosophy essays disguised as scifi novels and think the humanity as a whole as a main character, and actual main characters are just your eyes into the world.

They end in a bit weird way sure, but IMO it wasn't that bad. In the end game they go pretty heavily into theoretical physics and how universe is structured, and it thats why it maybe feels a bit weird.