The poster for the Netflix sci-fi series The 3-Body Problem hides a small allusion to the original language of the book, Chinese. A particular ideogram has been discreetly integrated into the logo.
It’s the kind of detail that can easily go unnoticed, but shows how much thought went into every single element. The Netflix series The 3-Body Problem, released on March 21, 2024, is a huge success thanks to its thrilling plot and its rigorous scientific approach. However, despite the popularity of the series, a detail of the poster of the 3 body problems seems to have escaped many spectators: a Chinese ideogram is hidden in the image.
An ideogram that was not put there by chance
It’s one of the very first characters we learn in Chinese: 三 (pronounced sān), which means “three”. It can be found at the top of the poster, in the title, replacing the “ E ” of ” problem “.
For those who know a little about the series, this will not be a surprise: a large part of the action takes place in China, and many characters are also Chinese. The fact that an ideogram is on the poster is therefore not a graphic coincidence, but rather a nod to Chinese culture and language. This reference is all the clearer given the name of the series, and what this number really means. The 3 refers to the famous “3-body problem” which is discussed in the series, and which is inspired by a real scientific puzzle: the N-body problemin celestial mechanics.
This is also the origin of the name of San-ti, the aliens of the series. In the French version of the book, the aliens are named Trisolarian, a name which once again evokes the number 3. Hiding a “三” in the title of the series is therefore doubly clever.
If the illusion is perfect on the English version of the poster, in French (see below), it is not quite the same. We can see in this French version that a serious accent has been added above 三, imitating the accent found in “problem”. This accent slightly spoils the pun and the hidden meaning — but it could have been very different. In Chinese, 三 is very close to 兰 (lán), an ideogram which designates orchids. We didn’t get far from a play on words that had nothing to do with it.
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