I think some fans are mad that the Fatui aren’t Comically evil
i keep on seeing takes that Columbina was rewritten to be more likeable, or the fatui have fallen off, and while I do agree with some takes, often It feels like the critique is people being mad their headcanons weren’t proven right. and I blame this on two things: A winter’s night lazzo, the voicelines and Hoyofair.
Firstly, A winter’s night lazzo was a trailer meant to bring hype into the fandom, and as a result, brought in a lot of fan theories and headcanons. and I think these fan theories and headcanons blinded people to the fact that, asides from the fatui giving a intimidating/cool presence that makes you want to know more about them, we don’t get any real information about the fatui. The most we get is that there’s tension between the Harbingers, Pulcinella is cruel (giving a nation half a day’s rest) and Columbina is a little creepy.
Secondly, there’s the Hoyofair, and I don’t think I need to talk much here. The Hoyofair animation hyped people with possibilities with the lore behind the harbingers, and it popularised the biblically accurate Columbina headcanon. And people forget that the Hoyofair animations aren’t canon, even if Hoyoverse approves of it.
Thirdly, the Voicelines. I’ve seen a few people try to use the voicelines as a reason for why it’s disappointing that Columbina wasn’t actually a scary angel villain, which doesn’t make sense because the voicelines are *very* unreliable. They’re supposed to give you information on about how one character sees the other, not as the definitive version of a character. And the two characters people use are Childe and Scaramouche, which… why? Childe frequently gets tricked and doesn’t understand any of the fatui’s plans and Scaramouche is distrustful and hateful of anyone. Their distrust of her wasn’t from anything they saw her do, it was from the fact that she was a young looking girl who was placed as the 3rd Harbinger, which doesn’t inherently mean that Columbina is pure evil.
And this leads to my next point. The idea that Hoyoverse MUST have rewritten Columbina so she could be playable is silly because until Nod Krai, we didn’t know anything about Columbina Asides from the voicelines. And again, they don’t give much on her lore or character. Realistically, Columbina had the potential to be anything and it wouldn’t contradict what little we learned at that point. and right, let’s say we have an evil biblically accurate angel Columbina. What would that bring to the story? Where would that play in the plot? How would it connect to genshin’s themes? And if we’re only considering hype moments and aura here, isn’t a trilunial moon goddess with control over time, space etc. much cooler than a Throne Inspired Angel?
Now, onto my next point, which I’m not sure whether it’s a hot take or not, but I don’t think the fatui harbingers having sympathetic backstories, having soft moments, and being companions with the traveler make them less evil. Them being friends with the traveler means nothing to me because the traveler has shown to have questionable morales and is mostly concerned with saving their sibling. And at the end of the day, they still are high ranking officials of a colonial imperialistic force that tried to colonize Nod Krai, conducted experiments on children, groomed children into being child soldiers and has in some way been part of every attempt to destabilise or destroy another nation since the beginning of the story.
In fact, I think it is realistic of life oppressive armies like to fatui to have evil/morally grey characters who have somewhat sympathetic motivations or reasons for doing the things they’ve done, especially since the main authority of the genshin world is the Heavenly Principals. Evil often has a reason, and just because a character being given an explanation for their atrocities doesnt meant the author excuses them.
But unsurprisingly, I never see these same “we want evil/morally grey characters in Genshin!” People discuss that, quite the opposite actually. It feels like with Fatui fans, they both want the Fatui to be unrepentantly evil but refuse to acknowledge any of the evil their characters actually done. They complain about the female harbingers being too nice, yet would freak out when you point that Arlecchino is a groomer by having an orphanage that takes trafficked and abused children and turns them into child soldiers (despite grooming not being inherently sexual). They want more of Dottore, yet I’ve more than a few people try to place blame on characters like Collei or Scaramouche for being his victims. This is a standard villain fan thing, but I can’t help but think the reason why things are the way they are is because they want to see the Fatui act like one note sexy morally grey villains, and are mad that Hoyoverse doesn’t deliver on that.
Tl;dr: A lot of hate towards the writing of the fatui feels more like people being mad their headcanons arent true, depsite by my grievances with Hoyoverse’s treatment for playable characters. People would be better off reading Nabu Malikata lore instead of getting mad at Columbina being something she never was, and people are better off being decepticon stans instead of getting mad at the fatui for being something they never were.
Firstly, A winter’s night lazzo was a trailer meant to bring hype into the fandom, and as a result, brought in a lot of fan theories and headcanons. and I think these fan theories and headcanons blinded people to the fact that, asides from the fatui giving a intimidating/cool presence that makes you want to know more about them, we don’t get any real information about the fatui. The most we get is that there’s tension between the Harbingers, Pulcinella is cruel (giving a nation half a day’s rest) and Columbina is a little creepy.
Secondly, there’s the Hoyofair, and I don’t think I need to talk much here. The Hoyofair animation hyped people with possibilities with the lore behind the harbingers, and it popularised the biblically accurate Columbina headcanon. And people forget that the Hoyofair animations aren’t canon, even if Hoyoverse approves of it.
Thirdly, the Voicelines. I’ve seen a few people try to use the voicelines as a reason for why it’s disappointing that Columbina wasn’t actually a scary angel villain, which doesn’t make sense because the voicelines are *very* unreliable. They’re supposed to give you information on about how one character sees the other, not as the definitive version of a character. And the two characters people use are Childe and Scaramouche, which… why? Childe frequently gets tricked and doesn’t understand any of the fatui’s plans and Scaramouche is distrustful and hateful of anyone. Their distrust of her wasn’t from anything they saw her do, it was from the fact that she was a young looking girl who was placed as the 3rd Harbinger, which doesn’t inherently mean that Columbina is pure evil.
And this leads to my next point. The idea that Hoyoverse MUST have rewritten Columbina so she could be playable is silly because until Nod Krai, we didn’t know anything about Columbina Asides from the voicelines. And again, they don’t give much on her lore or character. Realistically, Columbina had the potential to be anything and it wouldn’t contradict what little we learned at that point. and right, let’s say we have an evil biblically accurate angel Columbina. What would that bring to the story? Where would that play in the plot? How would it connect to genshin’s themes? And if we’re only considering hype moments and aura here, isn’t a trilunial moon goddess with control over time, space etc. much cooler than a Throne Inspired Angel?
Now, onto my next point, which I’m not sure whether it’s a hot take or not, but I don’t think the fatui harbingers having sympathetic backstories, having soft moments, and being companions with the traveler make them less evil. Them being friends with the traveler means nothing to me because the traveler has shown to have questionable morales and is mostly concerned with saving their sibling. And at the end of the day, they still are high ranking officials of a colonial imperialistic force that tried to colonize Nod Krai, conducted experiments on children, groomed children into being child soldiers and has in some way been part of every attempt to destabilise or destroy another nation since the beginning of the story.
In fact, I think it is realistic of life oppressive armies like to fatui to have evil/morally grey characters who have somewhat sympathetic motivations or reasons for doing the things they’ve done, especially since the main authority of the genshin world is the Heavenly Principals. Evil often has a reason, and just because a character being given an explanation for their atrocities doesnt meant the author excuses them.
But unsurprisingly, I never see these same “we want evil/morally grey characters in Genshin!” People discuss that, quite the opposite actually. It feels like with Fatui fans, they both want the Fatui to be unrepentantly evil but refuse to acknowledge any of the evil their characters actually done. They complain about the female harbingers being too nice, yet would freak out when you point that Arlecchino is a groomer by having an orphanage that takes trafficked and abused children and turns them into child soldiers (despite grooming not being inherently sexual). They want more of Dottore, yet I’ve more than a few people try to place blame on characters like Collei or Scaramouche for being his victims. This is a standard villain fan thing, but I can’t help but think the reason why things are the way they are is because they want to see the Fatui act like one note sexy morally grey villains, and are mad that Hoyoverse doesn’t deliver on that.
Tl;dr: A lot of hate towards the writing of the fatui feels more like people being mad their headcanons arent true, depsite by my grievances with Hoyoverse’s treatment for playable characters. People would be better off reading Nabu Malikata lore instead of getting mad at Columbina being something she never was, and people are better off being decepticon stans instead of getting mad at the fatui for being something they never were.
Commentaires
But anyway...
I will admit I had also kind of been thinking before Columbina actually appeared in the story that she might be a little more unsettling, a little more "inhuman" than she turned out to be. Am I upset with what we ended up with? Not particularly, no. I like how her story progressed and she grew on me as a character.
As far as the voicelines go, people have the amazing ability to conveniently forget that Hoyo liberally employs unreliable narrators and that all of the voicelines talking about other characters are from that character's perspective, not recitations of absolute fact. They're all biased because everybody has their own way of looking at things.
Regarding Arlecchino and the child (whoops, almost typed childe lol) trafficking thing. I remember so many people arguing with me that it was okay because when those kids grew up if they didn't want to stay they could leave and like...that doesn't change what happened to them. That doesn't change that one could argue those that choose to stay are still doing it because they don't feel they have any choice. And up until her character quest, as far as anyone knew, the only way to leave was in a body bag so....
These voicelines are still authorial signaling. The writers deliberately chose:
* who delivers the warning (Childe + Wanderer),
* what tone it has (“something doesn’t feel right,” “stay away”),
* and when we hear it (before she ever appears).
That’s not just a random rumor from a random NPC.
Also, this isn’t just one person’s impression. It’s triangulation: two very different Harbingers converge on unease around her, plus the game frames the top Harbingers as god-level threats and she’s No. 3 in the main antagonist organization. From that baseline, expecting danger / alienness / moral friction is completely reasonable. Not “she must be evil,” just “she shouldn’t immediately read as safe and cozy.”
The issue isn’t “I believed their statements as absolute fact.” The issue is setup vs payoff: if you seed multiple warnings that point to “don’t engage casually,” then the story either needs to (1) validate that risk, or (2) clearly recontextualize why those warnings existed. If the story instead jumps straight into soft slice-of-life with minimal tension, people aren’t “forgetting unreliable narrators”, they’re reacting to a signal that didn’t get paid off.
If we can always dismiss pre-introduction framing as “just bias,” then foreshadowing stops being foreshadowing and becomes decoration. That’s a writing choice, but you can’t pretend the audience is irrational for treating repeated warnings as meaningful.
Even when you meet her in her weakened state, she was willing to fight you (the Traveler) because she didn't want to return to the Fatui and for a moment thought you were with them.
People also seem to think they are very personal with eachother when they work together as Fatui but we have seen that, that's not really the case outside of the 4 that would have a tea party, besides those 4 it's mostly finding out what each member is up to through the grapevine internally or pure vibes because they would withold info between eachother.
why is she blind folded? her excuse in the quest was very very lame and soo last minute.
they hinted her to be something and they made her something else. its natural people are off putted. she is the only nod krai char with signature i pulled because i really like how she is, but its not even a question that she has been rewritten.
edit: im not implying that she was supposed to be really creepy or scary, but definitely different than how she currently is.
- The 6 angel wings imply an entity of extremely high hierarchy (if you want to go by the idea of a “biblically accurate angel”). In Genshin terms, the equivalent of a seraph would be the Moons themselves: elemental beings or draconic angels of the highest rank.
- Her theme around songs and music: this one is more complex and gets explained more deeply in the Remuria lore, where serenades were used as a way to manipulate fate. The Moons were the “weavers” of Teyvat’s destiny long before the Heavenly Principles even came, so it makes total sense that this would be deeply rooted in her character. Not to mention, the very first time we saw her, she was singing at Signora’s funeral.
- Her constellation (a dove shedding a tear): this directly represents her core theme. She’s an innocent character who sought love and genuine connection from the moment she was born, but never truly found it. Even in her final arc, that symbol reflects her bond with the family she lost, and her existence after death continues to embody the longing for the family she once had. This is exactly the purpose of her blindfold, and why she takes it off at the end of her story arc.
- Her hair: this is where things get genuinely interesting. Her hair is black with magenta tones, basically a “night angel,” which fits since she’s a Moon. But the magenta is the really fascinating part. Magenta is a color that technically doesn’t exist in the light spectrum; it’s an optical illusion created when the human eye perceives intense red and blue light at the same time (there is no magenta anywhere from ultraviolet to infrared). Red and blue, the exact colors of kuuvahki, the energy the Moons use to manipulate gravity and space-time.
Even more interesting, magenta appears very rarely in Genshin’s world. One example is the Padisarah flowers originally created by the Goddess of Flowers, Nabu Malikata. The Padisarah we see today are just replicas Rukkhadevata tried to recreate in her honor, but she couldn’t replicate the exact original color. Another case appears in Emilie’s quest, where we see similar flowers grown using magenta light, and those flowers had abyssal properties.
Magenta basically represents an “imaginary light”: it looks like real light, but it has a very particular nature. The Nod Krai quest “The Colors of the Void” reveals something really telling: two kuuvahki entities, one red and one blue, converge and form a “void” that acts as a spacetime portal, taking us to a very strange dimensional area. That’s the exact kind of concept the Moons’ power is tied to.
The nature of the Moons’ power is already described perfectly by the Tarot card The Moon:
"False tranquility, shattered destruction, and in between,
The power to transform the world.
An abstraction of the old world and the spiritual one.
Ruler of the moon, lord of the world of night,
The medium between the surface and the universe,
The ruler of the spiritual world.
The tides, the axis of life,
The calendar of sun and moon,
The master of water, night, and the underworld."
Saying her character design “doesn’t make sense” is honestly just absolute nonsense.
I can't believe this is a serious question. The link between the moon and water should be obvious. Of course, Columbina, as the last moon that absorbed the power of the other moons, must be hydro
the "creepy " character sheet came with another character sheet for capitano that described him as an Alien, and was debunked when the person that distributed that fake set of leaks admitted they just added some headcanon character sheets into some credible leaks from the leaks flood of the time.
And yes, people do tend to inject their own headcanon on these characters and when their expectation doesn't match they get mad.
This is where the need for evil characters comes from, wanting someone who's *actually* treated differently by the traveler and doesn't automatically become whitewashed and friendly once they become playable. If you can't have a real morally grey character, straight up evil is the only other option. Every single harbinger so far has been defanged. Childe is the only one who was never fully against us, and he also served as a more in-depth introduction and connection to the harbingers, so he's excused from this. But Scaramouche? Literally got factory reset. Arlecchino? They came up with a brand new Knave 5 minutes before her release, and shifted all the blame on her to clear Arle's name and soften her up. Columbina? Obviously rewritten and turned into a basic waifu, if you take into account the voicelines, design, lazzo trailer and especially the voice actor cue card leaks, which were ironically proven to be real recently due to Columbina's voicelines in-game. Unless you want to believe that some random guy 2 years ago accurately guessed exactly the words Columbina would use to describe the Rooster when we hadn't even heard her speak yet.
It's disappointment after disappointment as a fatui fan. You can never get the full package of a real, immoral, evil harbinger *who's treated as such* because they'll always be weighed down by the need to be advertised to the target audience of kids and incels. Neither of which are particularly known for their reading comprehension skills. So then hoyo has to spell out that the character is a good person, since the audience can't comprehend 'morally grey' and automatically hates any 'bad guy' who would get in the almighty traveler's way, cheering and drooling once we beat them with the 500th power of friendship cliche. Case in point, Sandrone - psycho colonizer who ripped a guy's tongue out, being called a good person by Paimon because she's confirmed to be playable soon. These are just the grievances of playing a gacha game.
They do leave their evil deeds as canon in the background so people like you can say "uh, ackshually, she or he is still evil so it's okay," but that's not reflected in the story and never will be. For all intents and purposes, the harbingers are our best friends and their crimes functionally don't exist.
It really gives of a strange vibe when are on good terms with most harbringers we've met but when it comes to every other Fatui we attack their soldiers on sight, are always suspicious of them and on guard when talking to them, or stop their plans without a second thought.
Unfortunately, this is the result of some of Childe and Travelers bonding moments post-liyue being locked away in events that a lot of players will never experience (and his story quest.) Traveler and Childe meeting in Fontaine is actually like the 5th time they've met. But if you just did the Liyue > Childe SQ > Inazuma > Sumeru > Fontaine AQ Traveler and Childe go from enemies to friends for seemingly no reason after their 3rd encounter.
We didn't reduce Rosalyne to ashes and besides Childe would've ran the fade on her the second he got the chance to.
I’m more miffed about the fact that genshin simply can’t handle morally gray characters. All of the playable characters are firmly on the morally good side and slightly contentious characters like the fatui harbingers or the hexenzirkel witches get completely sanitized. Paimon throws around the term “good person” when referring to characters like Alice and Arrlecchino because the game REALLY wants you to know that these are good people when they’re certainly not. Look at how Rhinedottir’s crimes are being completely ignored! She shows up at the witches tea party when Andersdotter was asking for help with saving Durin, as if she wasn’t the one who doomed Durin to begin with.
About the witches, Gold is a friend's mother who we have never met. Back in 1.x, Gold's and Rhinedottir's descriptions are quite opposite, and until recently we knew they are one person. She still hasn't been whitewashed yet. Outside Nicole, the witches are quite terrible, including Andersdotter, she was willing to subject mini Durin's early life to the same fate, gamble that he will find the right people to change it in the future.
Kinda funny how the higher the power, the more terrible people we surround ourself with.
Traveller made the Columbina you knows change. Both Arle and Sandrone said she was absent before but changed and she more involved now. Yes the Columbina you know would be sad over Rosalyn death, but the Columbina you met at the start would just care enough to sing at the funeral and that's it. That's what character development is.
>where what we knew about her previously clashes with what we know about her now.
That's the thing OP is talking about. We knew *nothing* and speculating about something is *not a fact*.
>Columbina is not an angel so it feels kinda weird.
She is a goddess lol
>Her hair also clashes a lot with her current design
Not really. Kuuhvaki is either blue, yellow, or read. Purple is what you get when you mix blue and red. She doesn't have yellow but black is a nice contrast.
People are non-stop talking about winter lazzo when all you can see is Columbina singing. And guess what she is doing most of the time ? Singing. As if maybe she likes doing that ? She even sings when she fights.
She wasn't rewritten. She was written.
It has a very strong economy and a very strong army. The fatui use diplomacy to spread it's agents in all countries, and they use coercion when it's needed for their goals, with all their strength at disposal.
They get the gnosis either by fighting, steal, or trading.
That's what the fatuis are. They are diplomats in other countries, who are working for their own country interests. Searching assets, or just doing their diplomat job.
They are not there to destroy other countries, attack them, or just doing pointless evil stuff. They are not there to be nice either.
They are an organisation. They work. It's like a company. It's all business.
If it was an evil organisation, their goal could've been killing people for fun, that would justify calling them evil. BUT NO. What they want is to get godly chess pieces.
People who thinks fatui should be nice, evil, or morally grey are stupid.
It's an organisation dumbasses.
(Harbingers when they are pursuing their individual goals are different. Yes they can be evil, good or morally grey. And yes the harbingers who are playable are good or grey. That's just how gacha is. But if you want evil harbingers you can just look at dottore and all the others, they are designed to be irredeemable evil.)
It was obvious from day 1 that the game would make light of the Fatui in order to sell them, I think the bigger problem is that there's very little commitment to the negative qualities of any character.
We don't need them to be comically evil or even evil, its just the game doesn't care about saying the bad they do or letting it be a part of them it got mentioned once in the past and the moment they're on screen it gets discarded.
I think Nod Krai is a good recent example of this where the Fatui just come off as more of an awkward friend group than mercenaries, soldiers or anything like that.
They are not evil and turned to be not really antagonists. Would be funny if traveler will be granted a harbinger status in snezhnaya after main quest.
either way rerir is goated the way he is now