This ‘3 Body Problem’ Character Is a One-Body Problem for the Show

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of 3 Body Problem and spoilers for the books in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy.

The Big Picture

• Thomas Wade’s character in
  3 Body Problem
  differs greatly from the novels, leading to potential narrative issues.
• Wade’s presence in the series removes key aspects of the protagonists’ agency and the global scope of the crisis.
• Wade holds immense power in the series, overshadowing other characters and organizations, potentially reducing their impact.

The San-Ti are finally here, and it didn’t even take 400 years. 3 Body Problem hit Netflix this past week, and fans of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Liu Cixin are treated to a well-developed adaptation created by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo. Many changes had to be made for it to fit the television format, and many characters were either created or completely remixed, like Liam Cunningham‘s Thomas Wade. He is a character in the last novel, Death’s End, and not one that’s likable at all. In the Netflix series, he is the head of the Strategic Intelligence Agency (SIA) and leads the investigation around the countless suicides in the scientific community at the start of the series. By the end, though, he’s become much more. While his part in 3 Body Problem is certainly interesting, it also poses a problem for the series in future seasons – a one-body problem, if you will.

Thomas Wade Is Ruthless in the Books, but Very Different in the Series

Introducing Thomas Wade right in Season 1 of 3 Body Problem may seem crazy at first for book readers. In Death’s End, he is the chief of the Planetary Defence Council Intelligence Agency (PIA), and one of the contenders for the role of Swordholder. In the second novel, The Dark Forest, Wallfacer Luo Ji figures out how to stop the San-Ti invasion by threatening to disclose Earth and Trisolaris’ locations to the universe — and leave them open to be destroyed by other superior alien species — should they continue their plans to invade Earth. This creates a mutually assured destruction stalemate, and Luo Ji himself becomes the first Swordholder, the person who can “press the button” to destroy both humans and San-Ti at once.

When Luo Ji grows older and retires, the role of Swordholder needs someone who is serious about the threat, and many candidates show up, including Cheng Xin (who is equivalent to Jess Hong‘s Jin Cheng in the Netflix series) and Thomas Wade. Cheng developed the Staircase Project to send a human brain to the San-Ti fleet as a reconnaissance tool, while Wade is the chief of the world’s biggest intelligence agency. He’s also a hardcore realist and correctly believes that, when the time comes, Cheng wouldn’t actually be willing to press the button. He is behind assassination attempts on all other Swordholder candidates, including Cheng, but is eventually arrested. Later on, after his release, he and Cheng become trusted allies, and it’s thanks to him that she survives.

In 3 Body Problem, however, Wade is very different. Liam Cunningham portrays him somewhere between a likable grumpy grandpa and a fascist bureaucrat, but it also poses a problem with how the narrative is adapted. It’s never revealed what the SIA really is, only that it seems to even be above national governments. This iteration of Wade is closer to the trope of the “man in black,” a mysterious man in a suit whose motives are unclear and who runs everything from the shadows. Most of what’s compelling about the character comes from Cunningham’s excellent work, while, in the novels, Wade gets a proper narrative, and, as despicable as he is, deep down he has a point.

Wade’s Existence Removes One of the Key Storylines of the First Book

One of the best things about 3 Body Problem is how it remixes the whole book trilogy, adding elements from all three novels in the first season. Thomas Wade is a clear example of that, but, the whole setting of Season 1 is still mostly equivalent to the first novel, The Three-Body Problem. A reduced group of protagonists is dragged into an investigation about serial suicides in the scientific community, which eventually leads to the reveal of an alien race on its way to occupy Earth. It’s the same premise, but Thomas Wade’s presence removes one of its best aspects.

When the protagonist of The Three Body Problem, Wang Miao, gets caught up in this, the scenario he faces is much different from the one the five protagonists of the Netflix series face. Instead of the SIA, he is inducted into a secret war council with representatives of every major government and military in the world. For example, China and the US are working together on joint military missions planned in Chinese territory, something that’s hard to imagine in the our real world today. This gives Wang a clear idea of the true scope of what’s going on, and it’s quite terrifying – what could be big enough to make such opposed sides cooperate? And, from then on, things only get bigger, as new international characters get involved, space fleets get the same status as actual countries, and so on…

Wade’s introduction right in Season 1 removes most of that. While an ordinary citizen might feels the weight of the trouble Earth’s gotten itself into, it’s the protagonists who convey the dread to the audience by witnessing everything firsthand. In that sense, Wade’s presence goes in the opposite direction, being almost reassuring. Every major plan and project for humanity’s defense comes from him. The Staircase Project, the Wallfacer initiative, cryogenics research, development of a defense fleet… It’s all him. And he intends to hibernate and wake up every year for four centuries to assure everything is according to plan, too, so what’s the point of supranational agencies like the UN, or even national governments? He may not be one on paper, but he’s almost a Wallfacer, only leading every single project related to humanity’s more conventional lines of defense.

Wade Removes Most of the Protagonists’ Agency Over What’s Happening

The version of Thomas Wade present in 3 Body Problem may be more likable than the one in Death’s End, but they still share a few key traits. Both are firm believers in humanity’s capacity to overcome the San-Ti crisis, and both have a very hands-on approach to their work. In the Netflix series, for example, Wade does everything, from interrogating Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao) himself to single-handedly conceiving humanity’s best defense plans. The amount of power he concentrates on himself is huge, and he is present at every level of development of everything.

While this may be impressive, it also poses a potential problem in that it removes nearly every character’s agency over what they are facing. The five main protagonists in 3 Body Problem briefly take center stage during the first half of the season when they investigate Vera Ye’s (Vedette Lim) suicide and the VR game that mysteriously shows up at Jin Cheng and Jack Rooney’s (John Bradley) home. Once the San-Ti threat is revealed, every major decision comes from Wade, and no one can do anything about it. Only Auggie Salazar (Eiza González) keeps control over herself and her nanotechnology work by vanishing and going to Mexico, but, before that, she was reacting to the things Wade did or decided, like her friends.

The same goes for other players, like countries and institutions. Wade’s influence is apparently limitless, and, while it does confer him an aura of coolness and mystery, it means no one other than him has any agency over what happens. He may “lend” the UN a sense of agency, but, for the audience, it’s difficult to believe anything from the international community really holds any weight. The only thing keeping him from being an actual Wallfacer is his boundless influence, which means he’s too valuable and influential to develop anything secret. Time will tell if 3 Body Problem‘s gamble with this character will work, but they have not set themselves up for success.

3 Body Problem is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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