intuition behind finding fixed lines

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OK, so if we have a a linear transformation $\phi_C$ described with the matrix $C$ in the extended Euclidean plane $E_2^*$ I understand why for finding fixed points we find Eigen-values and we form

$$ (C-\lambda E) \begin{pmatrix} x\\ y\\ t \end{pmatrix}=\begin{pmatrix} 0\\ 0\\ 0 \end{pmatrix} $$

But the process for finding coordinates of a fixed line is using the inverse matrix with the coordinates of the line being put before the matrix:

$$ [u_1, u_2, u_3](C^{-1}-\lambda E)=\begin{pmatrix} 0\\ 0\\ 0 \end{pmatrix} $$

What's the intuition behind this and why is the multiplication of the coordinates of the line before the matrix and why are we finding the inverse matrix?

Thanks in advance!

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The vectors that represent lines are covariant—they don’t transform the same way that points do.

A point $\mathbf p$ is on the line $\mathbf l$ iff $\mathbf l^T\mathbf p=0$. If we have the invertible point transformation $\mathbf p'=C\mathbf p$ then $$\mathbf l^T\mathbf p = \mathbf l^TC^{-1}C\mathbf p = (C^{-T}\mathbf l)^T(C\mathbf p) = (C^{-T}\mathbf l)^T\mathbf p'$$ therefore the line transforms as $\mathbf l'=C^{-T}\mathbf l$. Because of all those transposes, it’s convenient to represent lines as row vectors, in which case the line transformation is $\mathbf l' = \mathbf lC^{-1}$.