Giants Among Us
On Giants, God, and the Tragedy of Sterilized Order.
In The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin tells the story of Ye Wenjie, a woman profoundly shaped by the trauma of China’s Cultural Revolution. Disillusioned by the cruelty of her fellow humans, she turns outward—seeking refuge not in God or philosophy or self-improvement, but in contact with an alien race, the Trisolarans. Yet the beings she calls upon, though technologically superior, are no more virtuous. Like humanity, they are locked in a brutal struggle for survival, and their interest in Earth is not salvation but conquest.
This tragedy raises a disturbing question: Can one escape oppression by appealing to a higher power if that higher power is itself governed by survival?
Plato’s Republic offers a striking alternative to Ye Wenjie’s path. For Plato, salvation does not come from aligning with a superior race, but from the soul’s ascent toward the Good—an inner transformation so profound it reconnects the human spirit with consciousness—the wine of Dionysius—capable of generating entire dimensions and ecstatic flight. This vertical journey is metaphysical: the soul, rightly ordered, may break free into a realm that is wholly its own by the grace of God.
The deeper point, perhaps overlooked by many, is that the regime which imposes order can be as oppressive as the Cultural Revolution itself. The noble lie is false only in form, for the value it assigns to the soul’s metals is not innate but realized through the order imposed by the regime. Liu Cixin describes the same regime that “cut down the giants” is like a world saturated in pesticides—designed to eliminate threats, yet toxic to life itself. Ye Wenjie—and humanity—is caught between two brutal realities: on one side, a system that enforces order through moral absolutism; on the other, individuals like herself, shaped by scarcity and disillusionment, who fight each other to manipulate the system for survival and gain.
Ye Wenjie’s cry for help is horizontal. Rather than turning inward and upward, she looks outward—toward the giants—for rescue. Prince Deep Water—the fairy tales serve as a reflection on the broader story? But what she finds is not someone willing to help, only another species locked in struggle. Her cry reaches power, but not wisdom nor God. And perhaps this is precisely Liu Cixin’s point of the entire series? Embedded within the novel is a critique not only of failed utopias, but of a deeper human dilemma: material reality is marked by scarcity, and in clinging to it, we turn on one another—especially when the higher powers we appeal to offer not wisdom, but merely a new form of tyranny disguised as order.
But was there a reason for this scarcity? What if, in a time before order, there was a wild communion of magical beings—an unstructured world without lack? Was human life better then? Historically, Plato and others suggest the opposite. Before the rule of law, there was an age of wild communion—when gods and mortals mingled, when heroes strode the earth, when giants were real. All these—regardless of what the fantasies call them—are, in truth, beings defined by their higher consciousness. It was a world alive but unstable, luminous but dangerous. Then came disaster. In those ancient times, as the old writers tell it, abundance was not a blessing but a curse. When nothing was scarce, humanity lost its way. Because without wisdom, even a world of plenty becomes ruinous. It’s not more resources or distant powers we need—it’s wisdom and grace we must call upon, not spacefaring saviors. The giants were slain, the sky silenced, and in their place rose the Republic: structured, disciplined, rational—a cultural revolution cloaked in pesticides?
In the Book of Enoch, the Nephilim, giants born of divine beings and human women, become agents of corruption, bringing chains instead of winged flight. Plato’s dialogues echo this same caution. Emerging in the aftermath of the Trojan War, they reflect on an age when gods and mortals mingled freely, giving rise to heroes—giants in spirit, boys with wings, beings who crossed thresholds. But like the Nephilim, these offspring did not usher in peace. They brought chaos, war, and ruin. The ambition of the half-divine scorched the earth, and what followed was not emergence, but the need for restraint.
According to Plato’s mythic framework, this devastation necessitated a new order. Humanity, too dangerous in its original form, was divided—literally cut in half, as described in the Symposium, no longer whole, no longer divine. In response, two counsels were established to govern mankind. Together, these were meant to restrain the chaos born of unregulated power and restore balance between the human and the divine. Aristophanes' birds found their refuge high in the clouds.
But as the novel’s protagonist reflects in a metaphor about pesticides, even the most well-intentioned interventions can turn destructive. Is it truly virtuous to eliminate evil if, in doing so, we also poison the good? If, in trying to improve mankind—or the food we consume—we blanket everything in chemicals that sterilize life itself, have we not lost our way? The same question applies to the regime of “order” imposed after humanity’s fall from grace. If that order severs us from the divine, if it leaves us trapped in a world where we no longer know truth from illusion, spirit from matter, then what exactly have we preserved? A stable society, perhaps—but one haunted by disconnection. In seeking to restrain chaos, have we only exiled ourselves from God?
Liu’s novel is a modern retelling of this mistake: appealing to external, material power to heal a deeper moral wound. The Trisolarans, like the Nephilim or ancient kings, possess power without wisdom. They are not guided by truth, only by necessity. In turning to them, Ye Wenjie exchanges one form of tyranny—or prison—for another. Her disillusionment with humanity blinds her to the path that Plato, mystics, and even Christ pointed to: the path within. As Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Salvation does not come from the stars if the soul lacks wisdom?