r/Genshin_Lore • u/axolotlanw • 1d ago
Columbina How did Columbina "hide" the trilune authority?
I get that she turned her body into kuuvahki and spread it over Nod Krai which was how her body can leave the prison.
I get that Luuonator was created as an anchor to the present. I'm assuming Luuonator was created before she acquired the Trilunar Authority otherwise I don't see how her soul can leave the prison. Correct me if I'm wrong on this part.
I don't understand how she hid the Trilunar Authority on the frost moon. How can she bring the Trilunar Authority out of the prison to begin with?
If the Trilunar Authority never left her to begin with and it hiding means literally "hiding" it inside herself since she is the frost moon, then why does she need to moon to be brought down? If the reason is she needs to moon to be brought down to gain more power, why does she say right after the moon is brought down "Now that my body, soul, and authority are reunited"? This implies the authority was on the literal moon. However, I don't see how she can just teleport the authority out of prison.
Another thing is before the cut scene of Nefer realizing Columbina's plan, Columbina specifically states, "And now, it's time for me to bid farewell to my body, too...". It then goes into the cut scene of her body being turned to kuuvahki. However, it never once showed or mention her hiding the authority somewhere. Adding to this, how would Nefer even know to bring down the moon? There wouldn't be any clear purpose to bringing down to moon. Yes it can be to power her up, but Nefer just comes to the conclusion to bring down the moon from the memories.
Another theory is that the prison/moon's reflection was on the frost moon. Hence why bringing down the moon reunites the body, soul, authority. I don't see how this is possible because the prison was created before the shattering of the 2 moons. It makes no sense for Nibelung to just create the prison specifically on the frost moon. To my understanding, the moon's reflection/prison is an entirely separate universe, hence a reflection.
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u/HaxD3 1d ago edited 1d ago
The body could escape the Moon's Reflection and the authority with it. When she turned her body into moonlight, the split was preprogrammed to go in 2 places, poured over Nod-Krai (and I believe parts of her escaped soul turned into Kuuhenki) and authority into Frost Moon, that still hung within the false sky. She said the prison can't detect small connections like hers with her soul Luonnotar, so dispersing into moonlight was a way to escape the prison. That's at least how I read the events.
E: Also bringing the moon down wasnt Nefers Idea. It was what the world formula calculated being the path to bringing Columbina back. That was the exact purpose of that device.
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u/VigilanteXII 1d ago
As for Luonnotar, she did create her as she was journeying back in time through the mirror, so yeah, that did happen before she got the authority. And, somewhat paradoxically, her having created Luonnotar is also what allowed her to create Luonnotar, since it gave her small windows into the real world up until the time before Luonnotar was created.
As for how she was able to hide the authority on the moon from within her prison, don't think that's stated by the game. But she did do it ("Lastly... I will hide the Trilune authority within the Frost Moon"), so evidently it was possible. My guess would be that while a soul cannot leave with the authority, individually, they can. Which I guess would explain why she had to separate herself from the authority to begin with, since her soul otherwise wouldn't have been able to leave.
As for how Nefer knew to bring down the moon, I think it was actually Sandrone who figured that out. While Nefer was looking in on Columbina, Sandrone did her calculation/scanning thing where she noticed that there's some extra "moons" around that shouldn't exist. And during a flashback it's her that says that they've gotta bring down the moon, so suppose it was her that figured out that Columbina had hidden her authority up there.
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u/axolotlanw 1d ago edited 1d ago
The thing is if a soul can't leave with the authority but the authority itself can leave without a soul, that is a major plot hole. Columbina would simply send the authority to the moon, then leave the prison and pick it back up. Do you see the problem here? It makes the whole prison pointless. The prison also clearly doesn't trap only souls since the 3 sisters were able to leave after giving away their authority. This mean by this logic, Columbina would be able to leave after putting the authority on the moon. However, Columbina can't leave which implies the authority is in the prison still. It's a contradiction.
The 3 sisters would have also been able to do this before their moons shattered, again making the whole prison pointless. Yes they disappear shortly after giving their authority, but it's because they were already fated to disappear in the future due to their moons shattering and Canon for other reasons. I have a really hard time believing Nibelung would overlook something trivial like that.
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u/VigilanteXII 1d ago
I would assume you need the authority to send souls out of the prison. That's why Tholindis and Rerir can't just leave on their own, and why the sisters ask Columbina to send them out now that she's got the authority.
But Columbina can't send herself out while she has the authority, just like the other Goddesses couldn't. And the moment she sends out her authority she of course no longer has it to send out her own soul, hence why she needs someone to pull her out from the outside.
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u/axolotlanw 1d ago edited 1d ago
I assume the 3 sisters, Tholindis, and Rerir couldn't send themselves out because they just don't have any power left. Tholindis also didn't have a body either from my understanding as it got shredded so there isn't anywhere to send her. It was said Rerir was essentially stripped of his power when Columbina meets him in there.
If you need someone else to send you out, the 3 sisters would send each other out. If you need it to be the trilunar authority instead of each individual, they could give all to 1 sister, and that 1 sister sends the other 2 out, then sends the trilunar authority out which is picked out by a sister outside, then the last sister is picked up from the prison. Why can the last sister be picked up? Because, Dottore was able to send Rerir out of the prison before gaining any of the marrows. A sister with a trilunar would easily be able to pick up the last sister in this case.
It's just way too big of a plot hole for Nibelung to overlook. It makes no sense he would allow the authorities to be sent out like that. He doesn't care about the souls of the sisters, they don't have power without the authorities. He only cares about imprisoning the authorities.
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u/VigilanteXII 1d ago
Right, I guess that could have worked. Think there's one more complication though, and that is that they were locked in time at the very moment they were imprisoned. Meaning even if they would have managed to pull off their escape, they'd still have to content with both Nibelung and the HP, making the whole thing kinda pointless.
Columbina was the only one capable of reemerging in the future due to Luonnotar.
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u/axolotlanw 1d ago
The thing is, this doesn't prevent the sisters sending Columbina out, then sending the authority out for her to pickup. I don't see any reason Columbina wouldn't be able to wield said trilunar authority that is sent out. It's not like she needs consent as seen with Dottore. So long as you know how to use the power, if you have the authority, then you can. It's why Columbina "hides" the authority to begin with which is to prevent others from using it until she can reclaim it. There wouldn't be any reason for Columbina to imprison herself at all to begin with if the authority can leave like that.
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u/Healthy_Call_3073 1d ago
We don't know if rerir was let out by dottore. All we know from the game is that rerirs remains scattered in nk after he went in the moons reflection. His fragments were later collected by dottore and he helped rebuild him. Ntm the moon's reflection was created to trap the moon sisters. And yet when columbina let them out, the moon's reflection did not dissolve. And somehow, despite being let out 6000 years ago, sonnet was present as an abyssal entity in khaenriah
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u/axolotlanw 1d ago edited 1d ago
If Dottore didn’t let Rerir out, then it implies Rerir let himself out otherwise I don’t see who has the authority to let him out. This would mean in the scenario I described, said sister could just let herself out after sending the authority out.
The moons reflection wasn’t made to trap the sisters. It was to trap the authorities. The sisters were trapped because well they have the authorities. Canon, I quote says “Perhaps this place was designed to imprison divinity and authority, but not the physical body…” when talking to Columbina.
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u/Healthy_Call_3073 1d ago
I agree with the second part, tho I don't understand tholindis, if the moon sisters were let out, why was tholindis' soul not freed? Rerir absorbed kuuvaki, but what about her? Also, the abyss was persisting there smh. And also for the first part, we are not clear yet. There was news stating that rerir would somewhat merge with dottore for his second boss, but it was apparently untrue. I doubt dottore had anything to do with rerir until after columbina left. Also, the lack of rerir mentions from dottore himself. His fragments have been around for 500 years, so I doubt it was dottore given the timeline we recieved in the recent quest. So there is a possibility that rerir did so himself, but we dk for now since he said that he couldn't remember his first time there.
Atm, the whole moon reflection thing is a bit confusing to me lol, like an object of convenience. Cuz of you wrack your brain to think too deeply, it ends up giving a lot of plot holes instead. Also, the whole thing with the old wild hunt legends mentioning a ghostly woman ( assuming it's tholindis) , meaning that she was let out at some point too, but ig for now, time will tell.
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u/The_Wkwied 1d ago
I think that it's specifically the order of events that allowed Columbina to escape. Time travel shenanigans.
Bina enters the prison, meets Rerir and Tholindis, then leaves a part of her soul as Luonnotar outside. She's able to leave the prison, but not fully, because she doesn't fully have the trilune authority.
She then meets her sisters, who give her their authorities. She then uses her authority to send her now mortal sisters back, so they die (mostly)
Now, just like her sisters. she uses her authority to send her body (Kuuvahki) to Nod Krai to wait for her soul (Luonnotar). The prison only keeps her authority. The other party of her soul, Columbina, dies in the prison.
If authority = (soul+divinity), then divinity is the gnosis/moon marrow. Columbina does not have a moon marrow, as her moon is alive. The notion of 'hiding the authority on the moon' implies it is a physical thing that can be moved. I think it's just the moon, literally, if not the moon marrow with the absence of the moon.
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u/Guilherme370 Aranara 1d ago
Data can also be moved, it could be data or code that interfaces with teyvat, like an encryption key
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u/Yuukiko_ 1d ago
As for Nefer having the idea to bring the moon down, didn't Columbina say at one point that Teyvat was rejecting her because the frost moon was outside or something?
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u/axolotlanw 1d ago
Rewatching it and I guess Nefer might not be accredited to pitching the idea of bringing the moon down. Sandrone might have discovered this in her analysis. So yes, I guess bringing the moon down was to essentially power her up.
However, it just seems odd Columbina explicitly say she hid the authority on the moon. By the rules of the prison, she cannot do this.
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u/Violet_Kashiko 1d ago
In order to use the trilune authority, you need a moon. Even though the authority was split across the 3 moons, it might be possible to use the full power even with a single moon. (Maybe each moon is a supercomputer that is needed to calculate the trilune authority idk)
Hiding the authority on the frost moon might mean transferring the authority held by the other 2 moons to the frost moon.
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u/Guilherme370 Aranara 1d ago
I think the trilune authority is something that exists within the foundation of teyvat's code that is very embedded within it (also why phanes and nibelung wouldnt attempt to disable, erase or greatly modify it when the whole war happened)
I interpret it as like... ssh keys, a linux user often has a single ssh key, but nothing stops them from generating or using other keys and specifiying them via a command argument instead of using their own key.
Columbina, in that sorta analogy, when in posession of the trilune authority, would be like a system admin with three terminal panels open at once and issuing commands to all of them.
But in that case, it is likely that columbina can't fully utilize allll of the possibility of each authority, after all, her moon is only familiar with the details of one of the authorities,
but she is still a moon goddess, with moon goddess operating system, thus she can still do waaaaay more with the authorities than fraudottore could
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u/Seraf-Wang 20h ago
Well according to the story, they transferred the 3 lunar authorities to Columbina. The Trilune authority doesn't need a "moon" to exist just like how the Hydro Archon's power doesn't need the original dragons to exist. The issue here is that, in the past(ie when Columbina met with the moon sisters), she needed their authority transferred to her which they agreed and did.
However, in the present, only the Frost Moon has any semblance of actually existing. The other moons were destroyed/corrupted and out of commission by then, so the original power doesn't have anywhere to reside besides the Frost Moon which also happens to be Columbina's original moon of authority.
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u/RaguraX 1d ago
The prison only served to prevent the physical moon sisters’ escape. Your same question about how to hide the authority on the frost moon counts for spreading Kuuvahki outside the prison as well. These things aren’t physical and can escape the prison. If Columbina could have physically backtracked along the Reflection back into the present then she wouldn’t have needed to do any of that, but alas. It’s the same reason Tholindis and Rerir will never be able to escape either (although I still hold hope for that, because their fate is truly horrible).
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u/axolotlanw 1d ago
The prison didn't prevent the physical moon sister's escape though. Canon specifically states, "So perhaps this space is specifically designed to imprison divinity and authority, but not the physical body...". This was shown to be true as the sisters were able to leave after they handed over their authority, hence their final request to be sent to the moon for their final moments.
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u/vkbest1982 1d ago edited 1d ago
Moon reflection is probably located in the frost moon. The authority in this games looks like in the computers, you have assigned a role, but you need the password when you need execute some privilege . The sisters transferred their role to Columbina, so they don’t have the role what is holding their souls in the moon reflection. It’s the same thing we saw on Fontaine, both had to be destroyed, Focalors like the god with the role and the throne where the authority is placed.
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u/dieuhuu 8h ago
Columbina is the fourth Moon Godness . She have her own Authority over the frost moon too. The prison already loose on her from the beginning .She also can leave a long letter on the wall too. the prison also eject all three Moon Godness when they give away their Authority to Columbina not Columbina send them out mean you cannot use the Authority open the gate from inside . she use the Trilune Authority outside to open the gate . When the Frost moon come closer Luonnotar and in touch with Kuuvahki , all 3 part become a mini Columbina in a very short time but enough to pull her soul out from the Prison . that all my guess
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u/mowkibowki 1d ago
It makes more sense to interpret the authority as something inherited by Columbina through the Frost Moon, rather than something she simply teleported out of the prison. In that sense, the Frost Moon is not just a place where she hid the authority, but the frost moon that became part of her divided existence after the split.