Destiny 2 - IT ACTUALLY EXISTS.. The Winnower Above The Witness 

Today we discuss updates on the First Knife and Winnower! Multiple characters seem to point at the fact that the Winnower (like Gardener) does exist. Maybe not in the form of a "Big Bad Villain" (Like the Witness), but as a force of darkness.

The winnower seems mainly to want to let life flow naturally into some final shape, while the witness wants to force the shape it desires onto the universe. This to me shows that they are different to some degree.

The Winnower better have insane drip 🗿

Looks like the Winnower brought a knife to a gun fight

Honestly, I'm starting to think The Witness... it's the witness of The Winnower.

I don't think we'll ever meet The Winnower nor do I think it's an individual, it's just one of many names for The Darkness as a whole, just as The Light has many names. They transformed themselves into 'rules' of our universe.

I was waiting to see a lore channel cover this. When I heard it I was shocked

I don't think the "Unveiling" book was written by the Witness. The language used on that book is completely different from the one the Witness uses. Also, the book was translated by Eris from the same device that gave us the vision of our clone in the end of Shadowkeep. In the vision it was the Witness speaking to us, always using "we" and not "I", as in the book. Why would it speak to us in the vision with his usual tone and pronouns, then give us a book from the same device where he speaks and puts himself completely out of character? From the 1st page of "Unveiling": -"But imagine the abomination of a world where nothing can end and no choice can be preferred to any other.". Isn't what the narrator classifies here as an abomination the exact idea the Witness have for the final shape? This alone should rule out the Witness as the author of Unveiling. The narrator in "Unveliing" uses an expression in the book that we saw usage before the Witness and even D2 were a thing: "Majestic, Majestic". This same expression is said to Oryx when he is in the deep in the Books of Sorrow Verse 4:2. There is an entity speaking to Oryx on this verse and the way it speaks again does not matches the Witness tone at all. The entity literally tells Oryx to "relax". Can you image the Witness asking anyone to relax? Me neither. I think in both this verse of Books of Sorrows and Unveiling, that's the Winnower speaking, not the Witness.

I was listening to this while pruning plants in my garden. It felt very strange.

It might just be me, but I do hope Bungie doesnt go the route of killing the winnower. Its a cosmic force, same as the gardener. Something like that feels, to me, like something you simply cannot kill. Its too powerful. In the same way as you cant kill the gardener but can kill the traveller if you try hard enough. It would feel weird if we were to kill the winnower bc its a cosmic force without malice or pride or anything as it is above it

I always thought that the garden was just the primordial goop before the start of the universe with like virtual particles coming into existence and then just destroying themselves. So that the gardener and the winnower are just personifications of order and entropy, so like they aren’t super real… but like still exert force. So like the traveler isn’t the gardener but was made by it. Also the rule change is the Big Bang

Witness went from "We" to "I" quicker than Eddie Brock ditching the Venon symbiote LOL

It is important to remember that since the Witness is a compound being, there may be at least one voice in its chorus that does speak like the author of Unveiling.

To me I get the vibe that the traveler and the veil are the light and darkness. The traveler is the gardener and the veil is the opposite. The winnower, as its name suggests, is the creator of these two and overseer of the garden of the universe. It believes balance and for the universe to take whatever shape fate and survival of the fittest guides it. The Witness is an avatar of the veil much like how the guardian is an avatar of the traveler. Now that the witness is dead after attempting to force a final shape, a new avatar must take its place in the vacuum of darkness power as per the winnower’s balanced design. The Veil will likely gain a new avatar soon.

If you think about it, the gardener is the one who forged the knife. The traveler blessed its people first with knowledge, with power, with no purpose. The darkness, the winnower, reached out and gave the knife purpose.

Gardener and winnower Both not evil nor good. Just doing there purpose. Every new garden is different… well except the weird gardens where the vex win. I like to imagine just 2 god entity’s just staring at another vex garden bed (vex consumed universe) winnower just grabs his/her shears. “Snip snip snip snip”

Evaze I doubt you'll see this but I wanted to bring up a theory about the 9 with you and the community. When Mara brought the 900 passengers from Yang Liwei including herself into a new form of existence we now know as the awoken. There were 9 unaccounted passengers among the newborn awoken. Later the chosen leader Alice Li is accused of deicide. For she could have given them all divinity but denied them this higher form of existence. My theory is that prior to Maras choice for the future of the crew. Somehow 9 unknown passengers made their choice first and actually acsended. Once they were divine they could exsist outside the laws of time and soace which could explain any appearance theyve made both before and after the creation of the Awoken. Sorry for the rant just want this to be posted somewhere for some dialgoe to discuss this theory and have posted this to you and Byf lol.

The theory I like is that the winnower and gardener are HEAVILY personified in unveiling. They're written as if they are conscious, thinking beings, but I believe they're just the dark and light. Fundamental forces of the universe, like gravity. I think the witness sees these forces at work and assigns them purpose in an attempt to force understanding from them. It sees the "battle" between light and dark and then picks a side. Then, to give itself purpose, it believes to ve acting out the darkness' will. However, it has no will. Like gravity, it just is.

Winnower = The Idea. Witness = the force. Gardener /traveler are the same just opposite. We choose light or dark. The witness sought to "carve" out the light. The travel watered the the seeds of life. But who or what planted the seeds? Who or what removes the rot? Just my thoughts.

It will be fascinating to meet the winnower the true controller of the darkness.

What if the Witness just read the Unveiling like us and took it upon its self to be the first knife, believing the constructs of Gardener and Winnower to be manifestations of life and creation, and memory and dream.

Witness=Sauron? Winnower = Morgoth? The Witness is basically a tool of the Winnower in the same way Sauron was to Morgoth in Tolkien lore. I don't think the Traveler = Gardener even though it is referred to as such by characters. I think the Traveler and the Witness are/were tools of the Gardener and Winnower who can give powers to whoever they choose but may not be able to directly influence the "game:.

Evaze ! ( or anyone trying to find the raid collectibles , there’s is one on the second encounter - above the huge green statues , climb ontop and keep climbing towards the statues. ( let me know if you need more direction ) there an “ Apple 🍏 “ there between the statues. Drops a new lore book.

Maybe the traveler is the gardener and the veil is the winnower because didn't the witness originally get its power from the veil after the traveler first fled

It's always a good day when Evaze uploads.

I was very surprised and disappointed to see that the raid armor sets only have lore for the class items :(

The garden is the universe I like to imagine the gardener sometimes speaks to its best chosen Much like how the winnower spoke to oryx. Oryx is doing his own thing while following some principles of the winnower. Oryx is just way more enjoyable to talk to compared to the witness

Tbf the traveler had been restarting the timeline because in every other timeline everything ended, the witness was an anomaly iirc

Remember in Lightfall when Maya hears a voice talk to her in her own voice? That couldn’t have been the Witness because the Witness would have at least known the Veil was in Sol. It would have sent it’s Disciples to all of the planets in Sol until it found the Veil.

I always felt that the witness served someone and now I feel that it is the case especially after how easilly we defeated the witness

Calling it! Winnower gonna have the “Squared Fleet”!

Although The Winnower is most likely real I don't think it has a physical body like all of us do. These beings are on a higher plain of existence. If we somehow ever encounter the winnower or gardener it would be some type of lucid dream. Something apon those lines.

I love the detail that the voice of the witness has less and less voices speaking in unison as we destroy its dissenters

so perhaps we have just threatened the winnower, especially with the traveler now spewing light and dark.

Does Light come from the Traveler, or does the Traveler just grant to people, but the Light itself is entirely seperate? Would there be other ways to gain the Light, or is the Traveler the only way in the universe to get it?

“WE. WILL. NOT. YIELD!!!” Goes so fucking hard

So your- your telling me we need to kill something above a god?!?!!

The witness had drip during salvations edge🔥

Since the Witness thinks of itself an extension of the Winnower, but maybe that's because Unveiling was made, so that the Winnower can clarify that it does not seek and end through such means, for the final shape is something natural to the Winnower And perhaps that is why the Winnower tried again with Maya, to make her into a second knife. Maybe the Winnower consideres the Witness to be a failure

So...could it be that we're finally getting back around to the entity once referred to as "the shapeless one?" The voice that persuaded both The Precursors and Maya's team on Neptune?

Winnower and Gardner Veil and Traveler Witness and Our Guardian

The veil creates the first knife. You see it almost happen on Neptune with the cloud ark. Also by introducing darkness into the traveler reverts the game back to normal as the traveler can now remember and think instead of acting on instinct. We literally gave an eldrich being a higher consciousness.

Sounds like Agent Smith to Neo. Why do you persist? "Because i choose to"

I said awhile ago it seemed like the precursor race didn’t just learn some revelation when they found the veil, like something revealed it to them when they found it. I’ve wondered if the Winnower is actually real Also if they started viewing themselves as “first knife” if there is others? Kinda like how it had disciples, was Witness a disciple itself to something bigger

And the traveler is herald of the gardener.

I think it’s more along the lines of the Winnower being another name for the Darkness, like others have said. The Darkness is a cosmic force, an influence, like the light aka the Gardener. When the Traveler - equivalent to the Witness in being a tool to fulfill an agenda - abandoned the Veiled, the Darkness - “Winnower” - came to them. The Veiled witnessed the power of the darkness, they were the first to fall to it. Converging into one entity, the Witness twisted the Darkness’ agenda into one fueled by revenge and seeking dominance and sole reign over the universe. The Darkness, much like a hand, can shuffle the pieces. But the Witness, the knife, is the physical manifestation that carries out the agenda.

The game is a real thing that exsists in our world. It is a game of mathematics called The Flower Game. Look it up, it covers everything destiny is about.

Thank you for making this video. I have been playing Destiny since the Destiny 1 beta. I’ve just logged in and found a cutscene showing how guardians apparently beat the Witness and everyone was celebrating. I guess I did a good job of avoiding spoilers. I figured the Witness would be a raid boss later in the season, not during the launch week. Logging in and thinking all of those years went down the drain for a passing cutscene because I hadn’t the time, or ability to get the DLC on launch week was… Well, it’s the most nihilistic I’ve felt toward a video game, that’s for sure. The people who swore to me that they’d be there with me when the story culminated don’t talk to me, or don’t log on anymore. I’m still waiting for the story to be more meaningful than a gaudy F.O.M.O. Thank you for making it seem like there’s something worthwhile to come back to at this point.

now do we think the traveler is just the gardeners witness?

I also need to ask the question, what about the 9? i forgot about them, do they have anything to offer in this part of our story?

I think the Witness likes to think it is the knife of the Winnower, when really the Winnower has ideas along the lines of the Hive’s conception of the Final Shape, since an entity which was probably the Winnower communicated with Oryx. Ironically, in the campaign, the Witness calls the Hive failures for being too obsessed with the first knife to see the final carving.

I think the real first knife is the traveler who's light changes things and directly led to the winesses' creation.

the strongest and most adapted survive… yeah, take that, witness.

the witness is such a cool villain

finally, I always knew the winnower and the witness weren’t the the same thing just like the gardener isn’t the traveler. It just gave off that vibe that they were separate entities. Essentially, the witness is a tool of the winnower, therefore the traveler is a tool of the gardener to carry out their game

Are we sure the Unveiling text was written by the Witness? It seems to me that it's coming from the perspective of the Winnower, especially after these revelations that the Witness is not the Winnower but the First Knife. The text describes a being who was at odds with the Gardener before time existed, and discovered the First Knife.

to me, bungie themselves is the winnower, they create all these challenges and enemies for us to fight and conquer. The witness was created by the bungie devs as the first knife. bungie as the winnower can continue making adversaries for us as long as they see fit.

that line about gods forged us both is so fucking cool

😂 10 years later I'm even more confused with this storyline

Wasn’t the original story about the Traveler stealing the power from the Winnower and it was the darkness chasing the Traveler, but the 2 guys who left during D1 who wrote the story could sue Bungie for fully using it. That’s why the story was broken up and changed so much.

Winnower about to be a new gun

Essentially the witness was just basically the first guardian of the darkness lol

Hey Evaze, remember in forsaken when we woikd visit queen in her throne world. There was one time she had us leave because she had a visitor and her visitor didn't like guardians. Did we ever find out who that was. I'm thinking Savathun or Xivu but don't remember if we even ever was told.

The knife should be a Scythe that would be a proper representation of what the winnower is

Alright personal theory, the winnower, witness and traveler are simply just organisms birthed by the cosmic tides of light and dark however began to interpret and attune to one or the other to become unbelievably powerful and realize their own vision in what they find in the fundamental elements of light and dark

There’s prob two mysteries I hope we figure out throughout the season or next expansion. The vex over the years have been sorta, meh, kinda forgotten but one thing Calus said (I believe i forgot who but it was said) that the vex we been fighting the whole time has been basically peasants n farmers so fighting an actual army version of the vex would be fun. One comic horror the awoken know is a space like creature that will appear n leave no survivors left n its left to rumors of its existence, that one prob could be a season pass n not an actual expansion

I think the fact that we still no absolutely nothing about where the traveler came from is evidence enough the gardener exists, which also just means the winnower would also have to exist

Heres an idea We know the gauedener is The Travaler, the source of the Light, its not good or evil, its jsut a power source and those blessed bynit do as they wish. But the Witness isnt the source of Darkness, the beings it grants power to have to bow to it, play a part in The Final Shape. But we know Darkness its self isnt good or evil, just like the light, depending on who uses it it can be used for good or evil. But the Witness had such influence over darkness it over shadowed its source. Just like The Traveler The Winnower is the source of Darkness, neither good nor evil, just the ying to the Travelers yang. The Winnower is probrably something like the traveler, a gaint machine like thing that blesses people with power, but what they do with that power is up to them

The witness didn’t understand why he lost because we are fighting to replace him.

I see all those people speaking about meeting what we call "the Winnower", thinking about what it would be like to defeat it or else, when it reality, it wouldn't make any sense for us to even meet the thing (and if Bungie does make us fight it, then they've truly lost their artistic touch). It is stated multiple times in Unveiling that both Gardener and Winnower aren't actually real, they're metaphors, personalised version of Light and Dark. "We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes. [...] They existed, because they had to exist. They had no antecedent and no constituents, and there is no instrument of causality by which they could be portioned into components and assigned to some schematic of their origin. If you followed the umbilical of history in search of some ultimate atavistic embryo that became them, you would end your journey marooned here in this garden." They are nothing, they have no bodies, they are just neutral mathematical forces fighting an endless battle and they both believe that they're right (like Life tries to triumph over Death in real life - entropy at its finest, that is the war they fight). The Winnower and the Gardener aren't Gods (which would imply that they have a body, an agenda, and great powers), they're more like what we call Mother Nature. She isn't actually real, she's the metaphor-ish embodiment of life and all living things around us, neutral and unbothered by us, and she doesn't actually exist. Knowing that, why would it even bother to meet with us or worse - to fight us? Besides, according to its philosophy of endless struggle and merciless fighting to prove your right to existence, we Guardians are the closest thing it's got to "Champtions". If Bungo decides to choose the Winnower as the next big baddie, they've lost it

After reading that it’s exactly what I thought the traveler is not a being of good nor is the gardener… for the gardener/traveler bestowed power unto the witness not the darkness… and the darkness while remaining autonomous watched and planned for the witness to be failed hence introducing the guardians to the power of darkness… not as a corruption but as a disruption… because it knew the concept of a being like the witness was would be more than an idle threat but a static one that would endanger everything…

when you vs some of the bosses in the paleheart they have names like the fang of the witness and the claw of the witness. i think thier maybe many other tools in the tool shed.

Destiny: Where the forces behind the mechanisms of your very reality can be taken down with pewpews

We are but grapes in a cosmic champaign. The more we struggle in adversity the more complex and amazing we become. The gods are just thirsty.

Never bring a knife to a gunfight...especially against a pissed off Banner of War Titan.

We know the traveler is the gardener so wouldn’t that make the veil the winnower? The veil is supposedly the dark traveler.

What if the Winnower won’t be an enemy but will be something like the Traveler but actually talks. As you said, the Winnower prefers that the strong has the right to survive. Maybe it will be like you’re worthy but I’ll still be here though

The traveller is the Gardener and the Veil is the Winnower..... there is only these 2 things in the destiny universe that can be that. Nothing says how, who or what these are except they light and dark. They were created long before the witnesses race as they went out and found the veil(looking for opposite of traveller).. lightfall said the Veil is the only other paracausal thing out there.....the travellers light brought gifts but when that race was sick of the lights gifts without direction. They turned toward the dark and joined into the witness. The cutscene in the new campaign after Zavala goes into the black goo, shows the Veil when they say they started to worship the darkness and wanted the final shape....

You do enough. You are enough You are loved sir

Light vs dark is over, I doubt we will ever see the winnower

Once we learned the origins of the witness, I think it became pretty apparent that while it was incredibly powerful it wasn't the cosmic force we might of made it out to be. The witness and the people he came from were incredibly powerful with the dark. The story in the garden might very well be true but the witness and its people were so focused with purpose that they might of drawn conclusions about their own part to play in the game and just took it upon itself to be "the first knife". I think all of this implies that the traveler itself isn't the gardener. From the story the gardener says that it will write itself into a law within the game. I think the two of them are still in that garden but what we're seeing is just that act by the gardener being manifested via the traveler. The entire story itself has been one about balance. There is no real good or evil, I highly doubt the winnower will ever be a raid boss for example. Because it would be like trying to fight the concept of entropy. It NEEDS to exist as does the light. I think whats going to end up happening is we are going to be spending awhile dealing with the ripple effect of the power vacuum left by the witness and its being gone is just going to let other powers who like to fancy themselves as the embodiment of the winnower pop up and we will smack em back down. The only way the game itself ends is when the universe ends, at which point both the gardener and the winnower will simply start up another round of the game as they have apparently done countless times already, just this time around its more interesting because the light is allowing more things to happen than it normally would have without it. Neither the gardener or the winnower are wrong, quite the opposite they're both right but thats the point. Both need to happen and eventually they cancel each other out before the whole thing just repeats itself. I will be very interested to see what the new BBEG is going to be from bungie, because its starting to look like they are wanting to continually up the anti, im not sure where they can go to make it a bigger threat than the witness was, at this point we've killed a bunch of demi-gods, not actual gods though they might say we've killed gods, no. We've slapped down some very powerful individuals who fancied themselves are gods but were not.

We are gonna meet more beings like The Witness before we meet the Winnower, just the Witness is personal for us because he was responsible for the collapse, so we are gonna see more beings who uses the darkness to their advantages, uses and such, so yeah

I always speculated the existence of the Winnower since its name was revealed years ago in lore. This Winnower is the true being of darkness. The same can be said about the Gardener and the light. I see the darkness as a hierarchy. With the Winnower at the pinnacle. Directly below it, I believe are its hands. The Witness was one of them, and from lore, and the loose end, the other I believe is Taox, traitor to the Osmium Throne.

I think the 9 are part of it. I think some of them are the light (circle), the grander, the creators, made traveler etc. Some of them are darkness (triangle), the winnower, the destroyers, helped make witness, etc I beleive there is a 3 part… the(square) They helped created the bet between the 2 and they are tied in both areas or a separate one all together. Just my thought as the cosmic beings that they are…

We know the gardener and winnower absolutely must be existential or supernatural beings/entities. I want these existential forces to be expounded upon in game

The Winnower is watching us and sounding like Shaxx about it.

Its not surprise that as Traveler spread ghost with light, it had a counterpart that spread darkness. Celestial entity like Traveler wont be just one, or it wouldn't need to create guardian (to prepare for some kind of war)(just my speculation)

I think this is not very true. A post from dimensionalApe as follows: "What I get from the cutscene is that neither the Gardener nor the Winnower are actually anything, so to speak, but a metaphor. They aren't entities, they are abstract concepts developed by the race of the Witness to represent the influence of the Traveler over reality and their perceived need for another force that made sense and gave shape and purpose to the Traveler's "work". I mean, they identify the Gardener aspect with the Traveler because they have a specific entity right there manifesting that part of their metaphor, but the Winnower wouldn't be as much an entity as a process. A force exerted through specific actions. The whole thing they were trying to achieve when connecting the Veil with the Traveler until the Traveler noped out of there."

The witness looked like Shiva.

There is the possibility that the Winnower is the entity behind the Veil. We know so little about it and considering the fact that the Traveller is, by all means a sentient being that favors the material and creation, the Veil or whatever other name it could have to other civilization, should favors the immaterial and entropy. That's just an idea tho

Taken king < Witness < windower < the goth queen < your credit card < xur < the nine

I want to believe that the winnower is closely related to the Vex more than anything the precise emotionless and meticulously calculated pruning life similar to how the Vex prunes multiple timelines over and over again until they find the perfect outcome. Maybe the Vex are somehow part of the winnower that came about because of the gardener changing the game. The Vex are highly underrated and have some of my favorite lore and are a massive threat outside of light and dark ready to be brought to the next level like a paracausle collective consciousness that exists outside of time seeing every timeline knowing what branches to prune and when. They could build up the Vex as a threat that is unburdened by light and dark it seeks order through entropy and balancing out the chaos of the gardener spreading life carelessly. Time is ultimately entropy and the darkness it marches forward to the inevitable heat death of the universe and the dark endless void at the end of it

Perhaps the precursor people discovered in studying the darkness the existence of “the game” and in response sought to shut it down with the final shape

Winnower believes fully in strength of the fittest. We just proved we're fitter than the witness. What that entails for the future is unsure, but we beat the Winnower's tool on behest of the traveler/gardener. That means something.

I am a tripping or has everyone missed the conversation in the final shape where they specifically called the traveller The Gardener. I believe mithrax said it a few times and also mentioned in the traveller balls you find. Maybe i heard wrong.

Maybe the traveler is what the Gardener created to change the game like it suggested. Only it didn’t remain isolated from the rest of the variables like it wanted.

What If the vex can't simulate paracausality because they exist within the original flower game, and the new rules to gardener proposed and enacted by putting itself in the new game thrt runs parallel to the flower game is paracausality

If light and dark is done, surely this isn't for future things to come

If the traveler is the gardener, wouldn’t that make the veil the winnower

Well, the traveler was in existence loooooong before it came across the witness and his planet. Long before the traveler chose them, the gardener and windowed is told from the perspective of the witness. He is a witness to a truth, not a witness to the entire relationship between the gardener and winnower. I assumed this was known throughout the community. He's literally named the witness. We also know that from D1 the traveler has always ran away from one civilization to another, choosing based on who can protect it from its main enemy, the "darkness" just as we have been told the light is from the traveler, darkness is from the winnower. The winnower I believe isn't wholly evil, but intent on keeping balance. The entities that it aspires are misguided, a game to overpower the other has been going on long since before everything, they both have or can take a form that we perceives them in relation to understanding and the end will be in balance. The final shape was a misguided balancing act by the witness