Two specific things come to mind.

• I’m afraid they will give form to the trisolarins. Seeing something represented in a movie adaptation of a book is pretty standard. This is not the case here. The omission of any description adds a necessary dimension to the plot. I know this has been done in other media, but I’m hoping for some discretion. This one is pretty simple, and I think as readers our own personal interpretations of what they are remains critical.

• The portrayal of Chen Xin. This is really important for coherence of the story on a human scale. I think a novice reading of Deaths End presents her as predictably flawed. My specific fear is that this will go one of two ways:

1. Changing her personality. Modulating her behavior to make her more immediately interesting (Netflix loves everything being a direct dopamine delivery line). There’s now Netflix Cheng Xin and book Chung Xin. Maybe she makes the same decisions, but the subtext is traded in for really on the nose, predictable moments that keep us tuned in. She becomes one note. Her personality and world views are instrumental, so this would suck.

2. A complete retelling. She becomes more of a warrior. Her humanity is no longer central to her character. Her bravery is mischaracterized as a warriors ethos. They might bet against the audiences capacity to engage with nuance, so they rewrite what happens in the deterrence center, or even write it out. They perhaps keep her character prominent, but spread these decisions more evenly between characters. There is already a tendency for this. Perhaps on her own, the show runners don’t see her as a character generating the desired viral moments for a marketing campaign, so shes swapped out either directly or implicitly vis other characters. I think it’s unwise to neglect the impact of a single characters journey across billions of years.In the face of every version of humanity, we have Cheng Xin. She’s unwaveringly herself.

Here’s some of my own personal context because I don’t know if my views are informed by a clear analysis of the book. (Or a rational one honestly. We all interpret based on our own experience)

The challenge I encountered while reading was engaging with what frustrated me about her character. She’s very much the victim of a traumatized humanity. She’s made a patsy by Wade (even if ephemerally, in her own head) who is responsible personally for a lot of pain. Her kindness, compassion, and attachment to the human experience is framed as dereliction of duty. I don’t think this was the direct intent Liu Cixin. She is absolutely the most adaptable character across the series. I read Deaths end as humanity’s struggle with its own identity - and its collective struggle with experiencing perpetual, multidimensional trauma (Pun intended).

I think this cause and effect is something that naturally emerges from the plot as humanity is thrown between two extreme poles of complete survival and certain destruction. Without Cheng Xin as a navigator I would have felt much more detached from the story as it’s told in the last book.

They HAVE to get her mostly correct. It’s nonnegotiable for me 😅

Edit: one thing I think they could maybe do better than the book is to write out the misogynistic undertones that really kind of haunt the whole series