The 3 Body Problem: Why was Saul Durand chosen to be a wallfacer?

The 3 body problem is a novel written by the author Liu Cixin and recently adapted to screen by Netflix. It follows the life of Ye Wenjie, a physicist’s daughter, who was killed by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in China. She worked in a laboratory made for the sole purpose of communicating with aliens. She figured out a way to amplify signals by bouncing them off the surface of the sun, which got the attention of aliens on another planet, called the trisolarians or San-ti-ren.

The first message she received from the trisolarians was a pacifistic message asking that she not contact them again or risk bringing war to Earth. Ye Wenjie got the opportunity to confront the red guard who killed her father, who was remorseless, insisting that if she got the opportunity, she would do it again.

Ye Wenjie sent out a second signal with the message that humanity was hopeless and invited the aliens to invade Earth.

The next part follows 5 scientists, all brilliant proteges of Vera Ye, the daughter of Ye Wenjie, and a brilliant physicist as well. Jin Cheng is a particle physicist, Augustina Salazar is a nano tech scientist, Jack Rooney is a brilliant Entrepreneur, Saul Durand is a physics researcher and Will Downing is a Physics professor.

At the end of the series, Saul Durand gets chosen as a Wallfacer. Here are 8 reasons Saul Durand works perfectly as a Wallfacer.

1. He was a side character: Having no major role in the planetary defense council, Saul has a lot of time on his hands, with the required brains and background to work out a solution unhindered.
2. Saul never played the three-body game. He didn’t even put on the headset. So he has no specific recorded bio metrics with which to analyze his thinking patterns.
3. Saul is laid back, non-effort expending, and is greatly suited to thinking and planning as opposed to action.
4. Saul is unformed scientifically. He has no dearly held theories, and therefore is more open to change and accepting different and more complex theories.
5. Ye Wenjie’s joke: She gave him an answer/weapon against the trisolarians whether he knows what it is or not.
6. Trisolarians tried to kill him directly and personally, therefore he’s very important.
7. Saul has no records of war strategy anywhere, he also doesn’t play video games. In terms of war, he’s an unknown quantity unlike the other 2 wallfacers. Also, as he said “I know all kinds of things”. Saul has a wide database of information to draw from, things related and unrelated to his field.
8. Saul is mentally strong. He has the right reactions in most situations, which helps him manage his emotions and process information properly.

If there’s one thing that would succeed in this sort of situation, it’s an unknown mind. Since sophons can reach everything and everyone, Saul needs to be unknowable, unpredictable and untouchable.