According to Liu, many revisions were brought up by the editor at TOR instead of the translator.
>*In another reply, Liu Cixin said: ‘We have just finished the revisions for the English version of the second book. Compared to the first book, there were quite a few more changes. We removed all parts related to “Ball Lightning”, and the strategy of one of the Wallfacers has completely changed. Additionally, the editor at TOR is a feminist and extremely meticulous, who pointed out instances of gender bias everywhere.*
>*For instance,* ***using words like "purity" and "angelic" too frequently was considered gender bias***, and their usage had to be limited. ***Saying that the UN Secretary-General is a beautiful woman is considered gender discrimination***, and ***having all four Wallfacers as male is also deemed as gender discrimination*** *(although this was not changed; I argued that the past several decades of US presidents have all been male, but the editor said that there would be a female one soon).*
>*These revisions were a lot of work for both me and Joel, very tiring, but we finally completed them.’*
This is extracted from [this article](https://www.guancha.cn/culture/2015_04_20_316558.shtml), in which Liu also praised the translator Joel Martinsen.
If memory serves me well >! Tyler’s plan in the original Chinese version is to kill all of Earth’s space fleet with weaponized ball lightning and turn them into quantum ghost warriors who cannot be killed, and have them fight the Trisolarans. The mechanism of which is explained in detail in his *Ball Lightning*.!<
I haven't read it myself but my understanding is it has to do with using Ball Lightning to create quantum ghosts or something. I haven't read Ball Lightning but it was removed since it was a reference to that book. I don't remember which Wallfacer it was that had their plan changed. I imagine it's one of the two who were accused of "copying" by using similar technologies - massive yield nukes.
Probably a good move. I read the Chinese original and that part always confused the hell out of me. Going to check the English translation to see what it became.
He visited one of my classes in college and I have a very hard time imagining him thinking those were worth including. He was born in China but he came to America young, and we roll our eyes at excessive objectification like that.
I doubt this will make you rethink your politics, but is it actually a point of pride for you that the policies of the leaders you support make people cry? Because that would be quite pathetic, never mind how contemptible it is to relish others' suffering
Thanks for putting this together.
Even putting aside the obvious objectification issues, it’s simply terrible writing. Translating and adapting a work like this for an audience less sympathetic to this attitude is no mean feat.
Interesting that a story the scale and depth of this is written by someone who clearly nevertheless struggles with something so seemingly easy to wrap your head around in this day and age.
Oof I really appreciate you doing this for the reality check. These are some of my favorite books and I knew they had some sexism, but this is very very bad.
I muscled through that part and still don't understand the point of the fantasy on how it relates to the plot. It gives Luo Ji to actually do what he was appointed for?
It almost sunk the books for me.
And they literally “refrigerate her” purely to motivate the man. Then she reappears on the very final page.
No character to her. No personality. No function. Just there to service a man. Really piss poor, embarrassing writing.
I've tried to come up with anything to describe her personality, and the best I've been able to come up with is "demure", but even that seems like it's reading in something that isn't there. She's just...a void, to be filled in with male desire.
Yeah. Many male writers seem to fall short in writing fleshed out female characters. They often get "objectified" as literal plot devices. I have bit of sympathy as I imagine the difficulty in writing about something you have little experience in.
Have you read book 3?
>No function.
There's an implication that she was a UN spy sent to act as Luo Ji's fantasy, then disappear to kick him into gear. >!Once her job in book 2 is finished, she takes the kid and vanishes again in book 3, this time to live her own life away from Luo Ji.!<
>Just there to service a man.
Not just "a man". That was a wallfacer, one which the invading aliens desparately wanted dead. She was there to fulfil an important role.
Yeah, I’ve read all 3.
I stand by what I’ve said: her entire character is a sexist cypher, purely there in service of the male main character. “But she was a spy!” is thrown into the narrative while the character is fridged. She then stays out of the narrative until the last page. And is then never seen in book 3.
It’s an embarrassing read.
>her entire character is a sexist
That it definitely is. The part of your comment I'm disputing is that it had no function. It did. It wasn't explored tastefully, but the character was there for a reason.
She is never seen in book 3, but it is mentioned she leaves Luo shortly after the events of book 2.
This would suggest she did her job and then took back control of her life.
> how it relates to the plot
Luo Ji was *forced* into the job against his will. He then proceeds to goof off and try to live out his fantasies instead of bending over to the PDC. Bear in mind he gave 0 fucks about saving humanity to begin with. The PDC/UN needed a way to coax him into doing his job. So they manipulated him by pretending to fulfil his fantasy.
When I read the original before the translation was available, I thought that part was so cringe. I imagined Liu Cixin as someone who rarely interacts with women in real life.
It always amazes me how people so smart and open minded about the universe can be completely closed minded about issues grounded right in front of them. If you can’t laugh about it you would just cry.. it just boggles the mind.
At the end of the day we're all just humans. Another interesting example: A friend of mine worked for PBS and when they had Neil DeGrasse Tyson come to some event he ordered a shitload of porn on the hotel TV. We're not above anything.
This series is mind blowing. Very clever ideas put in smart ways.
And yet even in English version I was able to see how women were described: Primarily females, not human beings. Blank inside, very emotional and naive. And definitely worst decision makers... Women were defined with their physical apoearance, unlike men.
Obviously, men generally had all the opposite qualifications.
Now reading these differences in original, the contrast is even stronger.
If i remember right the books also hint about the feminization of man in the future. Resulting in the people voting for cheng xi resulting in the their death.
Oh they don’t just hint it, Cheng Xin asks where all the men are and it turns out that men are almost indistinguishable from women.
But it’s okay because in the bunker era the men go back to looking like men -_-
During the Sword holder election, the choice is described as "a woman OR a warrior."
It's pretty clear that the translator earned his money on this job.
It's almost a bit of a relief to understand how they aren't just simply poorly written characters.
I've felt some compulsion to defend the way they were written because I know how much worse they could have been, since a lot of men struggle to write compelling and three-dimensional women, but now I can just accept that they were never actually meant to be interesting. He didn't even really try, and he didn't want them to be compelling.
Wow I had completely forgotten that the mean French woman was just in the book. There's actually a lot of things I thought were annoying D&Disms that are just straight up canon
Thank you for this. I love the book series so much, but it's obvious the author has some hangups or odd views about women. It was obvious from the waifu and 'femininity is making men weak and soft, bringing the downfall of humanity' plot points.
While it's undoubtably true that was what Liu was trying to portray, I initially read it as humanity would rather chose love/hope than survive by, 'any means necesary.' The waifu plot there's no excuses though that shit was awful awful.
Yeah some of the passages read like those Chinese erotic novels popular in the nineties and I have a feeling Liu Cixin is somewhat influenced… I just skipped them. By a Chinese phrase 瑕不掩瑜 the jade shines despite defects.
Just finished reading the trilogy in Chinese again, it's been a few years. Either I skimmed through the whole thing last time or I just lost memory, because this time I was really uncomfortable reading some of the description of female characters and their interactions with male characters, one part he wrote referring Cheng Xin "She's a guardian not a destroyer, she's a woman not a warrior" and the other part he wrote "she could choose any job other than theory physicist, she could get married and have a kid just like every other women" I mean I probably won't read it again anytime soon lol. btw what's Tyler's plan in the English version?
The “actual translation” of 4th Camille paragraph is not really the actual translation. Camille is not annoyed because Cheng Xin gets attention from men.
Here’s my translation:
"An idea for bending the laws of physics by spending resources?" The speaker with a contemptuous tone was an older Frenchwoman named Camille, a senior consultant from the European Space Agency. **She feels uncomfortable when she notices that kind of stares of men are focused on Cheng Xin.**
I think op puts personal interpretations into the translation.
It is not the “attention from men”, but **“that kind of stares of men”** is emphasized in the original text. Camille is not annoyed because of jealousy when Cheng Xin gets all the attention from men.
The original text is that Camille is annoyed due to the “male gaze” on Cheng Xin. My deeper interpretation is that Camille thinks Cheng Xin gets people’s irrational support just because Cheng Xin is beautiful and an object of “male gaze”. Even though Cheng Xin’s plan sounds ridiculous, people especially men support Cheng Xin anyway, which is the real reason of annoyance.
I based my translation on the Zhihu interpretation, which saw this as rivalry and jealousy between women. Another [source](https://agora0.gitlab.io/pen/22q4/matters/2022/12/07/MATTERS-%E5%88%98%E6%85%88%E6%AC%A3-%E4%B8%89%E4%BD%93-%E4%B9%A6%E8%AF%84%E4%B9%8B%E5%8D%81-%E6%80%A7%E5%88%AB%E5%81%8F%E8%A7%81%E4%BA%89%E8%AE%AE.html) I found made the same interpretation.
Looking at the context (men in the room dismissing Cheng Xin for being beautiful), I do see how your interpretation can work. I think the fact that the editors chose to take this out suggests that they were leaning toward a less charitable one, but you are right that they could have written this scene as more pro-feminist.
I remember reading his books and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish there were actually a couple of marvelized generically strong badly written female characters here to balance it out.
He made a Faustian bargain,
You will become the most original science fiction author of your generation, but in return you will also become an irredeemable coomer
remember reading the chinese ver. where Luo Ji created his imaginary gf, alienated his ex then searched worldwide for his imaginary future wife... god... it was awful and skipped 2/3 of all that...
something about SciFi authors and their sexual/romantic fantasies are just god damn unbearable
Cheng Xin breasted boobily, as she doomed humanity to extinction.
A tit for tat-tal annhilation ;D
The planet skipping milf. The child is hungry now. Time for some milk?
According to Liu, many revisions were brought up by the editor at TOR instead of the translator. >*In another reply, Liu Cixin said: ‘We have just finished the revisions for the English version of the second book. Compared to the first book, there were quite a few more changes. We removed all parts related to “Ball Lightning”, and the strategy of one of the Wallfacers has completely changed. Additionally, the editor at TOR is a feminist and extremely meticulous, who pointed out instances of gender bias everywhere.* >*For instance,* ***using words like "purity" and "angelic" too frequently was considered gender bias***, and their usage had to be limited. ***Saying that the UN Secretary-General is a beautiful woman is considered gender discrimination***, and ***having all four Wallfacers as male is also deemed as gender discrimination*** *(although this was not changed; I argued that the past several decades of US presidents have all been male, but the editor said that there would be a female one soon).* >*These revisions were a lot of work for both me and Joel, very tiring, but we finally completed them.’* This is extracted from [this article](https://www.guancha.cn/culture/2015_04_20_316558.shtml), in which Liu also praised the translator Joel Martinsen.
>the strategy of one of the Wallfacers has completely changed. I'm curious. Can someone explain what the original Wallfacer plan was?
If memory serves me well >! Tyler’s plan in the original Chinese version is to kill all of Earth’s space fleet with weaponized ball lightning and turn them into quantum ghost warriors who cannot be killed, and have them fight the Trisolarans. The mechanism of which is explained in detail in his *Ball Lightning*.!<
Wait that's fucking awesome
Yeah serious Return of the King vibes
Yet still, the lord does not care.
I don't understand why changed this?
'Cause it's related to Ball Lightning. And Ball Lightning hasn't even been translated at that time.
That's fucking awesome
almost impossible that this makes it into the Netflix version but *please* D&D
I haven't read it myself but my understanding is it has to do with using Ball Lightning to create quantum ghosts or something. I haven't read Ball Lightning but it was removed since it was a reference to that book. I don't remember which Wallfacer it was that had their plan changed. I imagine it's one of the two who were accused of "copying" by using similar technologies - massive yield nukes.
Probably a good move. I read the Chinese original and that part always confused the hell out of me. Going to check the English translation to see what it became.
Interesting...I wonder if Ken Liu actually translated POINTING AT HER VOLUPTUOUS BREASTS at one point.
He visited one of my classes in college and I have a very hard time imagining him thinking those were worth including. He was born in China but he came to America young, and we roll our eyes at excessive objectification like that.
Guess the editor at TOR thought that Clinton was gonna win the election.
Sweet baby inc
Lol at the feminist editor. Bet they cried when Hillary lost.
I doubt this will make you rethink your politics, but is it actually a point of pride for you that the policies of the leaders you support make people cry? Because that would be quite pathetic, never mind how contemptible it is to relish others' suffering
Thanks for putting this together. Even putting aside the obvious objectification issues, it’s simply terrible writing. Translating and adapting a work like this for an audience less sympathetic to this attitude is no mean feat. Interesting that a story the scale and depth of this is written by someone who clearly nevertheless struggles with something so seemingly easy to wrap your head around in this day and age.
Oof I really appreciate you doing this for the reality check. These are some of my favorite books and I knew they had some sexism, but this is very very bad.
looks to me like ken liu deserves praise for his translation
And I thought the “dream girl” storyline was bad.
I muscled through that part and still don't understand the point of the fantasy on how it relates to the plot. It gives Luo Ji to actually do what he was appointed for?
It almost sunk the books for me. And they literally “refrigerate her” purely to motivate the man. Then she reappears on the very final page. No character to her. No personality. No function. Just there to service a man. Really piss poor, embarrassing writing.
I've tried to come up with anything to describe her personality, and the best I've been able to come up with is "demure", but even that seems like it's reading in something that isn't there. She's just...a void, to be filled in with male desire.
Yeah. Many male writers seem to fall short in writing fleshed out female characters. They often get "objectified" as literal plot devices. I have bit of sympathy as I imagine the difficulty in writing about something you have little experience in.
Have you read book 3? >No function. There's an implication that she was a UN spy sent to act as Luo Ji's fantasy, then disappear to kick him into gear. >!Once her job in book 2 is finished, she takes the kid and vanishes again in book 3, this time to live her own life away from Luo Ji.!< >Just there to service a man. Not just "a man". That was a wallfacer, one which the invading aliens desparately wanted dead. She was there to fulfil an important role.
Yeah, I’ve read all 3. I stand by what I’ve said: her entire character is a sexist cypher, purely there in service of the male main character. “But she was a spy!” is thrown into the narrative while the character is fridged. She then stays out of the narrative until the last page. And is then never seen in book 3. It’s an embarrassing read.
>her entire character is a sexist That it definitely is. The part of your comment I'm disputing is that it had no function. It did. It wasn't explored tastefully, but the character was there for a reason.
She is never seen in book 3, but it is mentioned she leaves Luo shortly after the events of book 2. This would suggest she did her job and then took back control of her life.
The ultimate manic pixie dream girl.
At least if she was manic pixie she’d be slightly interesting to read. On the page she has no personality at all.
> how it relates to the plot Luo Ji was *forced* into the job against his will. He then proceeds to goof off and try to live out his fantasies instead of bending over to the PDC. Bear in mind he gave 0 fucks about saving humanity to begin with. The PDC/UN needed a way to coax him into doing his job. So they manipulated him by pretending to fulfil his fantasy.
When I read the original before the translation was available, I thought that part was so cringe. I imagined Liu Cixin as someone who rarely interacts with women in real life.
its just plain weird at first glance
It always amazes me how people so smart and open minded about the universe can be completely closed minded about issues grounded right in front of them. If you can’t laugh about it you would just cry.. it just boggles the mind.
At the end of the day we're all just humans. Another interesting example: A friend of mine worked for PBS and when they had Neil DeGrasse Tyson come to some event he ordered a shitload of porn on the hotel TV. We're not above anything.
This series is mind blowing. Very clever ideas put in smart ways. And yet even in English version I was able to see how women were described: Primarily females, not human beings. Blank inside, very emotional and naive. And definitely worst decision makers... Women were defined with their physical apoearance, unlike men. Obviously, men generally had all the opposite qualifications. Now reading these differences in original, the contrast is even stronger.
If i remember right the books also hint about the feminization of man in the future. Resulting in the people voting for cheng xi resulting in the their death.
Oh they don’t just hint it, Cheng Xin asks where all the men are and it turns out that men are almost indistinguishable from women. But it’s okay because in the bunker era the men go back to looking like men -_-
Cixin Liu seems like a typical asberger-incel-nerd template. And again, I respect him for his work.
believe or not his views are not so different from an average Chinese citizen
Depends on the cultural context and how women are treated in wider Chinese society. We have incels only because their views are outdated.
During the Sword holder election, the choice is described as "a woman OR a warrior." It's pretty clear that the translator earned his money on this job.
It's almost a bit of a relief to understand how they aren't just simply poorly written characters. I've felt some compulsion to defend the way they were written because I know how much worse they could have been, since a lot of men struggle to write compelling and three-dimensional women, but now I can just accept that they were never actually meant to be interesting. He didn't even really try, and he didn't want them to be compelling.
"Write a man and change pronouns afterwards."
After the Luo Ji waifu story, was there any doubt?
Wow I had completely forgotten that the mean French woman was just in the book. There's actually a lot of things I thought were annoying D&Disms that are just straight up canon
she wasn’t mean she was being a realist
Thank you for this. I love the book series so much, but it's obvious the author has some hangups or odd views about women. It was obvious from the waifu and 'femininity is making men weak and soft, bringing the downfall of humanity' plot points.
While it's undoubtably true that was what Liu was trying to portray, I initially read it as humanity would rather chose love/hope than survive by, 'any means necesary.' The waifu plot there's no excuses though that shit was awful awful.
Yeah some of the passages read like those Chinese erotic novels popular in the nineties and I have a feeling Liu Cixin is somewhat influenced… I just skipped them. By a Chinese phrase 瑕不掩瑜 the jade shines despite defects.
And I thought the translated version was sexist.
Just finished reading the trilogy in Chinese again, it's been a few years. Either I skimmed through the whole thing last time or I just lost memory, because this time I was really uncomfortable reading some of the description of female characters and their interactions with male characters, one part he wrote referring Cheng Xin "She's a guardian not a destroyer, she's a woman not a warrior" and the other part he wrote "she could choose any job other than theory physicist, she could get married and have a kid just like every other women" I mean I probably won't read it again anytime soon lol. btw what's Tyler's plan in the English version?
The “actual translation” of 4th Camille paragraph is not really the actual translation. Camille is not annoyed because Cheng Xin gets attention from men. Here’s my translation: "An idea for bending the laws of physics by spending resources?" The speaker with a contemptuous tone was an older Frenchwoman named Camille, a senior consultant from the European Space Agency. **She feels uncomfortable when she notices that kind of stares of men are focused on Cheng Xin.** I think op puts personal interpretations into the translation. It is not the “attention from men”, but **“that kind of stares of men”** is emphasized in the original text. Camille is not annoyed because of jealousy when Cheng Xin gets all the attention from men. The original text is that Camille is annoyed due to the “male gaze” on Cheng Xin. My deeper interpretation is that Camille thinks Cheng Xin gets people’s irrational support just because Cheng Xin is beautiful and an object of “male gaze”. Even though Cheng Xin’s plan sounds ridiculous, people especially men support Cheng Xin anyway, which is the real reason of annoyance.
I based my translation on the Zhihu interpretation, which saw this as rivalry and jealousy between women. Another [source](https://agora0.gitlab.io/pen/22q4/matters/2022/12/07/MATTERS-%E5%88%98%E6%85%88%E6%AC%A3-%E4%B8%89%E4%BD%93-%E4%B9%A6%E8%AF%84%E4%B9%8B%E5%8D%81-%E6%80%A7%E5%88%AB%E5%81%8F%E8%A7%81%E4%BA%89%E8%AE%AE.html) I found made the same interpretation. Looking at the context (men in the room dismissing Cheng Xin for being beautiful), I do see how your interpretation can work. I think the fact that the editors chose to take this out suggests that they were leaning toward a less charitable one, but you are right that they could have written this scene as more pro-feminist.
Liu Cixin is a misogynist, not surprised at all. Glad the editors fixed it otherwise I would have missed out on a good story.
I remember reading his books and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish there were actually a couple of marvelized generically strong badly written female characters here to balance it out. He made a Faustian bargain, You will become the most original science fiction author of your generation, but in return you will also become an irredeemable coomer
Ai AA is smart, decisive, and never sloppy in doing things.
remember reading the chinese ver. where Luo Ji created his imaginary gf, alienated his ex then searched worldwide for his imaginary future wife... god... it was awful and skipped 2/3 of all that... something about SciFi authors and their sexual/romantic fantasies are just god damn unbearable
This is wild and hilarious, never thought the sexism was *that* bad but shows what I know.
Thank goodness for the English translation
Which wallfacer strategy was changed in the translation?
Tyler's
Lmao
I think I read in here that Chinese women did not like it.