In this talk, we discuss the origins of topological operators in field theory from holography and string theory.  In particular, we demonstrate how the physics of branes can capture the many interesting aspects of topological operators.  Motivated by this top-down perspective, we explore aspects of the collective coordinates of topological operators and their associated effective field theory. We analyze their decoupling or freezing on the world volume of the operators in quantum field theory versus in gravity. In particular, we argue, they cannot be frozen out or decoupled in the presence of gravity in the generic case.