Columbina probably wasn't supposed to be the Moon, and that's alright.
Columbina has had some design elements changed, including her color palette being shifted to a calmer blue to better suit her current role. She was also clearly an angel from her revealed design, but she was made to take on a more Lunar one later on. Her winged elements don't even appear on the rest of the Moon Sisters, so she really stands as the odd one out. I assume its because you can't remove such a prominent feature that was revealed almost 4 years ago in 2022, but because of this, and because Nod-Krai was never one of the planned regions, but a stop-gap to slow the game, a whole bunch of people cried rewritten.
How I've rationalized this is that its more likely that the devs were encountering spacing issues rather than Columbina being rewritten. The game is almost done and there's too many harbingers left. Genshin is usually very farsighted, being up to a year in advance (or more in the case of Sumeru) in writing new content, but 2022 was ages ago. Inconsistency and a realization that maybe Genshin's lore is way bigger than they thought it to be was bound to create scale issues for future writing teams.
What I dislike about Nod-Krai isn't really personal characterizations, but general wastefulness in the region as in there virtually zero immersion in the cultures and peoples, and while I can name a reasons why, the biggest one is because there is such a hyperfixation on the main cast. Everything about the factions/locals are done perspectives so few characters (Lauma, Nefer, Flins, and Varka) and Genshin seems to have forgotten how to delegate roles to NPCs, so much of the early Nod-krai story felt like a sitcom instead of a regional quest.
How I've rationalized this is that its more likely that the devs were encountering spacing issues rather than Columbina being rewritten. The game is almost done and there's too many harbingers left. Genshin is usually very farsighted, being up to a year in advance (or more in the case of Sumeru) in writing new content, but 2022 was ages ago. Inconsistency and a realization that maybe Genshin's lore is way bigger than they thought it to be was bound to create scale issues for future writing teams.
What I dislike about Nod-Krai isn't really personal characterizations, but general wastefulness in the region as in there virtually zero immersion in the cultures and peoples, and while I can name a reasons why, the biggest one is because there is such a hyperfixation on the main cast. Everything about the factions/locals are done perspectives so few characters (Lauma, Nefer, Flins, and Varka) and Genshin seems to have forgotten how to delegate roles to NPCs, so much of the early Nod-krai story felt like a sitcom instead of a regional quest.
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If she wasnt an eldritch horror, she must be the complete opposite, one of the two must stick aah theory
Besides, don't have to assume OP was one of the people hating on 'Columbina not being what she was teased as'
I'm just saying if one "theory" doesnt work, the complete opposite must work instead. Thats the thought process
And also not always are angels depicted as eldritch horrors. Only some folklore has them as such, most media paints them the complete opposite
You sure?
Meanwhile OP is actually saying something different, and is also explicitly saying that the 'changes' aren't necessarily bad, just that Nod Krai isn't great. A take to be sure, but not the one that they're getting fire for.
They are not, they are described in a multitude of ways, and eldritch horror is just one of them.
I swear, people are so hung up on surface level depictions of Lovecrat creatures that nowadays any being described in abstract ways or ressembling octopus/fish gets into category "scary horror" from the looks alone and gets treated as if it should deduce Call of Cthulhu sanity points from the presence.
BTW when angels were saying "don't be affraid" they were never showing in the abstract way, but mostly simply as people. There is not really concept of "angel looking so weird it drives people insane".
It genuinely feels like somoene thought winged angels are boring, noticed few weird descriptions and decided to propagate something in completly different direct that is not not really accurate.
Also related "in ancient myth, Hades is actually nice guy and Persephone wanted it and he has no blame on his own" which is overcorrection after "Hades is basically devil", but in the opposite direction
They think he is zaraki kenpachi from bleach
The delusion is strong in this one lmao if they think minimum 3 years worth of content is "almost done"
If you're thinking Im talking about EOS, then fucking no obviously, but I mean about the main story of the traveler. The story will have to evolve from there maybe the traveler will reunite with their sister and you're gonna get back on your ship to visit other worlds or something with Teyvat just being one of the world you can return to to play 'Genshin'.
That's not even mentioning that Hoyo positioned themselves in such a way, that we can continue explore Teyvat (planet) outside of Teyvat (continent) with some new threat or the like, if they want to
Her name literally means "little dove" but sure.
*"Columbine is a stock character in the commedia dell'arte. She is Harlequin's mistress, a comic servant playing the tricky slave type, and love interest of Pierrot."*
I am.
>her design language was clearly that of an angel's.
This is where you're losing me. What part of her design screamed angel to you? The wings and her aloofness are easily connected to a dove, not necessarily an angel.
>The name Columbina is of Italian and Latin origin, **directly translating to "little dove"**. It is a feminine, diminutive form of Columba, **symbolizing peace, purity, and gentleness.**
You know what else represents "peace"? Doves on every single peace related icon in the world
Simulanka
There you go
But seriously. Dove is a symbol and fits Columbina very fell. What it comes to angels and how they should look... Genshin Impact is free to make their very own version of angels. So they did. Real question is: does Columbina have any features that make her similar to other known angels in the game?
Nicole despite being a newer character and whom she shares no common lore with does a bit with her winged elements to the sides of her head and some interwoven patterns, but thats all since they given new lore only recently. They were supposed to be blank designs since the seelie are their devolved forms, and Genshin does begin development of characters and elements long before their release, so if they decides the Angels are supposed to have wingelts around their ears, then it must have been an old design choice. We'll see if newer angel characters will have them as well.
Ill be proven right or wrong depending on what Genshin will release in the developers notes for Columbina. They did for some characters like with Xiao, Kazuha, or Childe and included releasing prototype designs, but its not guaranteed for Columbina as not too many characters get the treatment.
In anycase, there's a reason why this is an opinion, but I'm not pulling it out of my ass at least or whining about spilled milk. Columbina's old. Lazzo was almost 4 years ago, and Sneznhaya is the last major region left. Everything afterwards isn't going to be an Archon Quest, but tying the last knots before the story goes into freefall or evolution depending on how Hoyo wants to run a post-journey Genshin.
your literal only factual points i this post are slight hue change and that she has wings on her design
You take these 2, and somehow that definitely means she was an angel and was rewritten. Clearly.
>Columbina likely had several iterations on what they planned to do with her before settling with being the moon. This is NOT a bad thing.
>I speculated this because she had several design elements that didnt seem to match the Lunar themed factions or even the Moon sisters themselves. Not sharing the same design language and not making obvious changes could mean a conservative approach in shifting her role since it doesnt make sense to remove what was essentially art of her from 4 years ago. Sandrone's redesign what just a change in clothes than visual identity. This is NOT a bad thing.
>The first half of Nod-Krai especially before Rerir was done felt like a sitcom with its tunnel vision story telling, talking about the moon and the story of the land only for the POV to be on Lauma, Nefer, Varka, and Flins 24/7. Genshin seems to have forgotten how to delegate roles to NPCs.
I also genuinely cant believe more than half the replies here are talking bout some headcannons or eldritch horror narrative. Like what??? Even im getting irrate over this nonsense. The fact that literally only 1 guy engaged in my last point shows that the vast majority of the people here are are Columbina dogpilers ready to fight ghosts like a service dog with PTSD.
I WASNT even complaining or mad about Columbina's role being the Moon, only pointing out that its likely the Harbinger saturation and the fact that Sneznhaya's coming around and more than half of them haven't even been given a role in the story when Fontaine ended means that Columbina was the obvious choice in taking up the Lunar role.
Even if that wasnt her original role, im LITERALLY just speculating about it. Like holyshit bro, im sorry if having my own thoughts offended your image of you goddess. Go outside and look a pond with koi fish lil bro and cool your head.
2. I don't know on what world you think saying "She was also >>clearly<< an angel from her revealed design, but she was made to take on a more Lunar one later on" is speculation.
The world clearly by itself implies the truth of the statement.
I might as well say that Kokomi was clearly hydro sovereign since she has "dragon" in her constellation
3. I couldn't care less if you think rewrite is good or not. I do care, though, when you push this bs as "speculation" based on literally slight hue shift and Columbina having a few angelic details, which, as I pointed in another reply, if your really want to look deep into them, is specifically Seraph, which she DOES SHARE some traits with. It doesn't have to be literal seelie angel. Might as well say Mona is related to angels cuz she has names of archangels on her scry glass
And coming back to Kokomi, These type of posts is the reason some people still somehow think that she WAS supposed to be hydro sovereign (no, that was not a joke example, that's something I was literally told by some people)
Like, it's not speculation when you state: yeah, she was supposed to be an angel. If your post was about how it could have been a point in Thibodaux and all the reasons why, yeah, that would be speculation. But you take it as a base fact and majority of your post is "speculation" about how that means she was rewritten and what else was rewritten. That's not speculation at that point
As for literally everything else, its literally valid to say clearly because no other faction she was associated with shares the same design language with her, not the Scions, not even her sisters. Not least till her dress was revealed and they did away with the old tassels. And here im literally calling a spade a spade and people were arguing so hard against it for whatever a reason.
Edit: Copypasted from one of my other comments: "Nicole despite being a newer character and whom she shares no common lore with does a bit with her winged elements to the sides of her head and some interwoven patterns, but thats all since they were given new lore only recently. They were supposed to be blank designs since the seelie are their devolved forms, but Genshin does begin development of characters and elements long before their release, so if they decided the Angels are supposed to have winglets around their ears, then it must have been an old design choice. We'll see if newer angel characters will have them as well.
Ill be proven right or wrong depending on what Genshin will release in the developers notes for Columbina. They did for some characters like with Xiao, Kazuha, or Childe and included releasing prototype designs, but its not guaranteed for Columbina as not too many characters get the treatment."
The Kokomi comparison is hardly valid because she was already preestablished to the pristess of Watatsumi island who worshipped a different god. And genuinely, did people actually believe that she was the Hydro Sovereign?
The next one is less valid because I literally had to look up that scry glass thing. TIL. Its not an in your face detail versus the previous comparison, this is scrapping the bottom of the barell kind of comparison.
My speculation for why she ended up in her current role is also like because in nearly four years of operation, only 4 Harbingers had been named since Fontaine, and Natlan only had Capitano for a new face. The Harbingers needed to be assigned roles asap and why not use a popular legacy character?
So while yes, Nod Krai as a whole might feel less 'alive' with less notable named NPCs (Voynich Guild where?), if that's the price we pay to get more character focus for the actual playable characters, I'll take that trade. Plus the World Quests have interesting characters, like Netochka or the Conch Gang.
/s
Nod krai didn't come out of nowhere last minute, nor was columbina heavily rewritten just because she didn't fit your head canon.
So thanks for proving my point I guess.
Before Sneznhaya, the Mare Jivari might even be its own whole region as part of Natlan 2.0 to deal with the unclaimed Pyro Gnosis.
Im speculating, but its at least more grounded than saying they finished the Nod-Krai story quest in Sumeru lol. They literally go into detail in their video content how their development cycles works, its not instant. Everything is subject to change why are you so adamant it isn't.
I never said they finished nod krai in Sumeru. Perhaps learn to read.
You came up with a head canon for Columbina, which was never stated anywhere and now you're saying they changed everything because you're upset. It's pretty pathetic.
Also what. Im literally just speculating that Columbina's probably had several iterations before they figured out what to do with her. Look at her. She's literally has design elements not related to the moon, and the best other people got with me was telling me 'well, its actually a dove'.
Bro, where in the world, fictional or not, do doves have 6 wings and an eyemask. She was literally riddled with seelie imagery and patterns on her eye mask and headband with that of the Seelie Court.
Not that there's anything wrong with her being the moon, but its pretty clear this isn't her first iteration. Im surprised they didn't show this much care for detail in designing the moon goddesses too with her having little in the way of sharing a design language and whether that was laziness on their part matters little.
Also, why are you seemingly so fundamentally opposed to the idea of me suggesting that a finished product *might* have a prototype phase. Are you seriously just disagreeing with me because you *think* im from FatuiHQ?(Someone else has commented this also), so brother, check my profile and see if I interact with any of those morons. They're literally just people like you, but with the opposite set of beliefs.
Literally all the lore about the moons starting from 1.0???
Like, aside from dragon relations in specific, almost everything about the moon sisters and moons were alluded to OR known even beforE Natlan or Fontaine.
But even if you wanna argue for more blatant stuff - literally Arlecchino and her signature lore. Everything was setting up for what we got in NK. And I doubt they started rewrite her mid Fontaine so that's, at the very least, start of Fontaine. And wouldn't you look at it, aligns perfectly with what she's said about making stuff 1-2 years in advance
Because that would imply huge incompetence on their part, for waiting until NK to properly adress past lore points
It means they sacrificed good writing only to deliver it just recently in Nod-Krai?
Also, there was plenty of good writing and lore before Fontaine, they just didn't make all of it spoon fed to you on a silver platter.
2. Having angelic visual indicators doesn't mean she literally was an angel. The same way having Dragon in the name of constellation doesn't literally mean that character should be related to dragons (yes, I'm talking about Kokomi here). Heck, even Arle has smaller similar details with wings. Must have also been an angel and rewritten, right?
3. Even if we ignore previous point, the type of angel few people did theorize about before we got any info is important, as it was specifically Seraph, and you just spend a few minutes of the wiki, you'll see that, hey, Columbina DOES have some similarities in her current state AND it works as related to moons by nature of those being dragon made (and seraph in some instances being the same as "fiery flaming serpent", a name that, iirc 1:1 to xiuhcoatl's through whom we got most moon lore in Natlan basically)
4. Nod-krai didn't somehow rewritten all the lore. Devs literally told you point blank, that it's supposed to tell existing lore in your face, as majority of people didn't get it. Yes, main plot was most likely made for NK, maybe some NK characters which had less importance, but everything else has no reason to just be made up now
Read my the second most recent comment from my profile after this so you can understand that im not even standing for half of the nonsense you think im arguing about.
Also, you could also treat some elements of Nefer design as ressembling Seraph wings a bit. Is she an angel too?
The Arlecchino we know wouldn't do that, so it must be the other Knave. But how is that possible? Arle was a teen when she killed Crucabena, and probably in her late 20s right now
Do we assume those Fatui were serving Crucabena in a symbolic way or what? Acting rogue for years and never repositioned into another Harbinger's group?
Also, we knew nothing about any other Knave existing. Not even from Wanderer voice lines, who was there when Arlecchino received her title. And he was recruited around 400 years ago by Pierro