I did read all 3 books after watching the show, in part to compare and in part to see how well they adapted it. And there are parts better than the books (the opening, the ship/wire, and even some of the VR), but you nailed it: it's taken a book with flaws (written by a Chinese who has it most of it happening in China, and a mostly Chinese set of characters) and filled it with DEI and worse.
Not to rip it all down, but most importantly: the main females are directly responsible in the books for EVERY bad thing, from Aliens finding the Earth (in TV show), to (spoilers!!!), Concentration Camps for all Earthlings, and eventually the descruction of the entire solar solar system. In the meantime, the strong based male figures (the 4 left intact in the TV series) are directly responsible for saving mankind and/or would have done better if only the women hadn't been allowed to interfere.
In other words, Season 2 and beyond will either require those men to be the heroes, or more likely they will rewrite more to shift the blame.
Jeez, here I was ready to hold the novelist in equal contempt. But it kinda' figures. Even the Chi-Coms are more based than us when it comes to gender roles.
Thanks, Scruffy. I probably still won't read the books, but your perspective as somebody who has read them is helpful and interesting.
>The main females are responsible for every bad thing
Definitely a soy based work, you can always recognize those because the female lead(s) do more damage than the villains, and everyone would be objectively better off if the men allied with the villains against them.
"the female lead(s) do more damage than the villains"
While that's true in reality, it's usually the inverse in modern/postmodern entertainment. There are parts of this plot (I assume) left over from the novels, like the Chinese chick inviting the Shang-Ti in the first place that the script doctors failed to pozz. That and the glimpse into how communism works in reality simply slipped through the cracks.
"There are parts of this plot (I assume) left over from the novels, like the Chinese chick inviting the Shang-Ti in the first place that the script doctors failed to pozz."
Yeah, there was no way to alter that as it was a critical element to the storyline. They glossed over much of the hardship of her life in Communist China (despite the opening scene), where her disgust of how society was run was the driving factor in her decision to invite them.
The Heroes are Wade (intact enough and actually given some meat by the show), DaShi the cop (kept reasonable intact and remains a based figure). The Navy Guy could end up heroic in S2+, his character in the books basically ends up doing some "bad" things to shift things his way , which in the long run turns out the right choice. And finally Luo Ji (anglosized and raceswapped into Saul Durand), who starts off as a womanizing ner'do'much and ends up being the only person who prevents Humanity from bad things thru finding his inner Bad Ass Samurai Dead Man Switch self, which the Aliens are forced to a stalemate. And literally 5 minutes after he is finally replaced by Jin Cheng years later, (who on the show are friends, but not in the books), the Aliens know she won't pull the DeadMan Switch, so they win. 5 minutes. I kid you not.
The irony is they aren't... I don't know if the translation from Chinese is a factor but the characters are mostly flat, the overall plot has holes, and the ending is wholly unsatisfying, to the point of IMHO ruining the whole thing.
Book 2 is basically the Luo Ji stuff, and ends with his "victory", Book 1 you basically saw in S1, but they added bits of Books 2+3 (much of last few episodes). Book3 is the disaster in my mind...
It usually is even more true in the soy based "entertainment". They just pretend otherwise.
There was another series where the man gets shit done repeatedly, and the female repeatedly endangers her outlaw squad, then throws a tantrum like a brat because not telling someone your entire life story means that you are lying, along with the absolutely brilliant suggestion of "Let's give this manipulative scheming enemy LITERAL MIND CONTROL POWERS, surely she will cut off the attack if we empower her further!"
Being a soy novel, the man of course falls for the emasculating influence, and we should consider ourselves lucky she did not invoke the ginger anagram.
I'm seriously considering canceling my Netflix subscription. With really no exception, they've made it abundantly clear that they hate me and everyone who looks like me.
They do. And the same can be said for every single mainstream organization and institution in the West. It started with the ones connected to the arts in some way, though.
I did read all 3 books after watching the show, in part to compare and in part to see how well they adapted it. And there are parts better than the books (the opening, the ship/wire, and even some of the VR), but you nailed it: it's taken a book with flaws (written by a Chinese who has it most of it happening in China, and a mostly Chinese set of characters) and filled it with DEI and worse.
Not to rip it all down, but most importantly: the main females are directly responsible in the books for EVERY bad thing, from Aliens finding the Earth (in TV show), to (spoilers!!!), Concentration Camps for all Earthlings, and eventually the descruction of the entire solar solar system. In the meantime, the strong based male figures (the 4 left intact in the TV series) are directly responsible for saving mankind and/or would have done better if only the women hadn't been allowed to interfere.
In other words, Season 2 and beyond will either require those men to be the heroes, or more likely they will rewrite more to shift the blame.
Jeez, here I was ready to hold the novelist in equal contempt. But it kinda' figures. Even the Chi-Coms are more based than us when it comes to gender roles.
Thanks, Scruffy. I probably still won't read the books, but your perspective as somebody who has read them is helpful and interesting.
>The main females are responsible for every bad thing
Definitely a soy based work, you can always recognize those because the female lead(s) do more damage than the villains, and everyone would be objectively better off if the men allied with the villains against them.
See:
https://shinichihaku.substack.com/p/why-soyciety-is-collapsing-and-thats
There was another one addressing the specific instance in question but I can't find it.
"the female lead(s) do more damage than the villains"
While that's true in reality, it's usually the inverse in modern/postmodern entertainment. There are parts of this plot (I assume) left over from the novels, like the Chinese chick inviting the Shang-Ti in the first place that the script doctors failed to pozz. That and the glimpse into how communism works in reality simply slipped through the cracks.
"There are parts of this plot (I assume) left over from the novels, like the Chinese chick inviting the Shang-Ti in the first place that the script doctors failed to pozz."
Yeah, there was no way to alter that as it was a critical element to the storyline. They glossed over much of the hardship of her life in Communist China (despite the opening scene), where her disgust of how society was run was the driving factor in her decision to invite them.
The Heroes are Wade (intact enough and actually given some meat by the show), DaShi the cop (kept reasonable intact and remains a based figure). The Navy Guy could end up heroic in S2+, his character in the books basically ends up doing some "bad" things to shift things his way , which in the long run turns out the right choice. And finally Luo Ji (anglosized and raceswapped into Saul Durand), who starts off as a womanizing ner'do'much and ends up being the only person who prevents Humanity from bad things thru finding his inner Bad Ass Samurai Dead Man Switch self, which the Aliens are forced to a stalemate. And literally 5 minutes after he is finally replaced by Jin Cheng years later, (who on the show are friends, but not in the books), the Aliens know she won't pull the DeadMan Switch, so they win. 5 minutes. I kid you not.
The novels sound much more interesting as you describe them.
The irony is they aren't... I don't know if the translation from Chinese is a factor but the characters are mostly flat, the overall plot has holes, and the ending is wholly unsatisfying, to the point of IMHO ruining the whole thing.
Book 2 is basically the Luo Ji stuff, and ends with his "victory", Book 1 you basically saw in S1, but they added bits of Books 2+3 (much of last few episodes). Book3 is the disaster in my mind...
It usually is even more true in the soy based "entertainment". They just pretend otherwise.
There was another series where the man gets shit done repeatedly, and the female repeatedly endangers her outlaw squad, then throws a tantrum like a brat because not telling someone your entire life story means that you are lying, along with the absolutely brilliant suggestion of "Let's give this manipulative scheming enemy LITERAL MIND CONTROL POWERS, surely she will cut off the attack if we empower her further!"
Being a soy novel, the man of course falls for the emasculating influence, and we should consider ourselves lucky she did not invoke the ginger anagram.
I'm seriously considering canceling my Netflix subscription. With really no exception, they've made it abundantly clear that they hate me and everyone who looks like me.
They do. And the same can be said for every single mainstream organization and institution in the West. It started with the ones connected to the arts in some way, though.