Hey! I've just finished watching the video. I originally got half way through and had to stop, but I knew I needed to come back at some point. For the exact reasons you mentioned at the end of the video, I'm not sure what I think about the Gardener and the Winnower as they stand now in the story. But I think I can confidently agree with you that this is what the direction seemed to be for the longest time, even if there's a chance now that it's different from what it is now. Regardless of what happens in Final Shape, this dissection of the lore is a triumph. Seriously. I had never heard of you before this video popped up on my feed and had only a handful of views in March. Your video is so foundational to my own clarity on the topic at hand that I'm going to mention and link it in when I cover this topic myself. I can't not do that now considering the nature of the stuff you've shown. Amazing stuff. Let's hope that the Final Shape does have a reveal of the Gardener and Winnower.
I have hope Byf! As of the writing of this comment, Bungie just posted a new trailer within the last few hours. Featured prominently in said trailer is yet another veiled woman statue. Venextron has another vid on his channel concluding that this is all intentional. I hope, and strongly suspect, that we're in for a great many "WTF" moments during this final expansion (in a good way). Imagine if the Witness' title in the raid was "Envoy of the winnower" or something to that effect. We will see.
Honestly don't even see how they can keep the story if there is no winnower and gardener, like, having the the traveler being just, a orb is boring. Too lazy to describe it right now but it just makes sense for there to be 2 forces. Something like in Star Wars clone wars, the light and dark force siblings maybe
Im hoping for the Gardener and Winnower to be hyper-conceptual beings who play the universe like a chess board and the Traveler and Witness but their King pieces. Best way to fix the lore in my opinion.
that's what it felt like the story was building to for years. a cosmic battle for custody with humans representing the choice to go with mom or with dad.
Yeah that's how I always seen the 2 like how in the lore it says the witness tricked the hive into the "deep" preventing the traveler from gaining more pieces on the board and giving himself more. And the "deep" representing not only actually going deep into the planet but also representing that side of the board deep= Winnower=death and the gardener=life. I also think the witness doesn't even realize he's being manipulated by the Winnower if he is bc he thinks he's in control and he's going to "end the game" but I think by the end of the final shape he's going to realize he's but a speck of sand in a desert compared to the Winnower and its equal.
The Traveler is the video game controller of the Gardener, and the Veil is the video game controller of the Winnower. The digital game character the Gardener plays as is us, the Guardians. The digital game character the Winnower plays as is the Witness.
@@InnovativeSaintNo it’s not. The Witness and Winnower (If a real entity if some kind) are not allies, are not aligned. We have already seen the Witness’s general goal since it’s introduction in Witch Queen, I put together a lore project collecting as much of the story as I can for long but easy digestion so you don’t need to go looking too much for yourself. It took awhile to put together the Witch Queen lore in audio form but as I did and went through it I noticed how the Witness’s actions do not align with the Winnower or Sword Logic. The Witness lies and manipulates others to its side. Lightfall confirmed my suspicion of the Witness and the Lightfall seasons validated it, the Winnower or Sword Logic want simply for life to struggle so the strong survive. The Witness lied to the Hive through its machinations, the Traveler looks to claim the Krill but the Witness lied about the Traveler causing the upcoming God Wave, lied so the Krill would become the Hive. If the Witness was following the Sword Logic then it would throw what it has at us to test us. Instead in Lightfall it basically just opens a portal into the Traveler’s heart, now with Light and Dark under its partial influence whatever it will do will basically force the Witness’s desire into reshaping reality to whatever it wants, My guess is it somehow took the power of the Winnower or gained some of it’s power, maybe tricking the Winnower into thinking the Witness would enact it’s goals.
This… this right here is the lore videos we want, not 10 minute intervals that take 4 minutes to get to the point we already knew about. When u hit me with the garden of salvation raid final boss fight arena is the tree of silver wings stump, I was in awe at that
The fact that the Winnower basically outright says they only want things to go naturally should be enough to show why the Witness can't be the Winnower, it wants to break the cycle, both destroying life and death, the Witness wishes to remove the basic building blocks of everything, for their to be life their must be death and if their is death then life came before that The Witness wishes to create a place that simply cannot exist, the Winnower simply must exist for it is a function of reality.
I have gone back and forth on this one-but I think I know what’s going on: I agree the Gardener and Winnower are still characters, and exist in the universe as deity’s within the Traveler and Veil respectively. But in order to really set them apart as diety figures, Bungie probably wanted to make them “less reachable” and make the final battle centered on a character that would be an opposite of us as guardians- Queue The Witness; who would be like the Darkness version of us. (Because Guardians are the result of sowed life, and the Witness the result of reaped life, ie gardening and winnowing) So I think the likelihood is the when we conclude the light and dark saga by fighting the Witness; we will meet/understand the Gardener/Winnower as like a final cutscene, in the same respect as the Traveler breaking out of its cage in the Red War
To add in agreement, while using "enemy" as an antonym of "guardian," the game is even juxtoposing our forces being a whole bunch of guardians with one sphere behind us and the Witness is "one" enemy with a bunch of pyramids behind them. Really puts a visual aid that guardians and the witness are opposite rivals; but we will win in this timeline because we use darkness in balance, which puts a leg up on the Witness that hates the light too much to use it in balance too meet us (anymore than they have too, at least).
Something that stuck out to me as a clue that Witness isn't the only one behind everything was the Veil containment logs. One of them mentions that the Veil talked to Maya with her own voice and told her about salvation. Most people I've seen online didn't think much of it and said its obviously the Witness, but I didn't. If the Witness didn't know where the veil was until the start of lightfall then how would it be able to talk through it to Maya. If it had been able to have that kind of connection with the veil then it surely would have been able to know where neomuna was hundreds of years ago. The writer also said in an interview around the same time the witness origin cutscene came out that similarities between the witness, maya, presage, and the exos aren't a coincidence. Combining that with the possibility that Ahsa might not be all knowing of everything that happened in the Witnesses origin, I think its likely that the witness's people where influenced by something else (likely the winnower) to seek salvation and do the things it does.
Yeah I think the Winnower is manipulating the witness and it doesn't even realize it is bc he keeps saying "no more life no more death the game is over" meaning he doesn't believe in the game the Winnower and Gardener play but I think he has no clue they're just a piece on the board as well they might be the king on the chess board but they are still just a piece and speck of sand compared to a desert in the face of the Winnower and Gardener
@@Dietghostscp2107 I think what makes the most sense is this, the witness is the first knife, which was stolen by the winnower from the gardener through the veil. The witness is being manipulated by the winnower to finalize it's vision by doing whatever is happening in the final shape, the witness believes that the final shape is a perfect universe, but since the idea of the final shape was communicated to the witness by the winnower, the final shape is just the universe seizing to exist, as the winnower believes a perfect universe, is a universe where only the winnower exists. Effectively, the witness believes in the final shape, and the final shape, is nothing.
The races in the game are all the flowers in the flower game. Rule One. A living flower with less than two living neighbors is cut off. It dies. Rule Two. A living flower with two or three living neighbors is connected. It lives. Rule Three. A living flower with more than three living neighbors is starved and overcrowded. It dies. Rule Four. A dead flower with exactly three living neighbors is reborn. It springs back to life. Humans (guardians that spring back to life) Eliksni Cabal Hive.
Jesus, imagining Rasputin fighting for his life, then seeing a vision of the garden up in flames, THEN deciding to give up. God Damnit why’d he have to die.
I *would* say he was too powerful so they had to write him out, but the writers already decided the Darkness can just flip his off switch anyway, so he was already nerfed. to be fair, this was consistent with Rasputin's encounter with the Darkness in the early grimoire. He figured out the reason the Traveler always loses is that she always delays to try saving people, she never "makes herself alone." When Rasputin figures out that switching his moral code is the winning move, the Darkness doesn't switch him off because it converted him to its way of thinking. Now that he's defending humanity again, he loses that privilege. What isn't consistent is the idea that the Witness would do this. It isn't worried about getting everyone to join it, it swats us away like flies and carves a portal into the Traveler. It's motivations are different than the Darkness, whatever it originally was.
@@xXx_Regulus_xXx since nezarec led the assault in the collapse and the witness was MIA (for some reason) I figured nezarec himself didn’t understand advanced technology enough to shut down Rasputin easily, hence Rasputin was able to fight as hard as he could. If you think about it the witness is an entire species in one body, a species which created the pyramid fleet, tech so advanced it’s almost on the level of the traveller. So when the witness came in arrivals and encountered Rasputin, and having the technical knowledge of its entire species, it was able to hack Rasputin with ease. Honestly after this video the entirety of the witness does not seem so scary, it’s only so powerful because it’s ancient and advanced, it’s not some god like the winnower or traveller. And Rasputin was attempting to shoot down its ships, and we’ve only seen the witness retaliate when it’s attacked. At least that’s how I look at it from a power prospective, not so much moral. I like the idea that Rasputin was given a vision of the winnower and THAT made him give up. Edit: nope the witness does everything in destiny’s darkness lore swear to god ;-;
Rasputin should have never died. The warminds were very interesting and mysterious in D1. Learning about other warminds like Charlemagne added so much value to the warmind lore.
I would refer more into the Book of Enoch and the Book of giant's rather than the bible, but obviously the bible talks about this in 2 Peter 1:4 and jude 1:6. I wonder if the devs took that mythology and made a game around it, that certainly hints on certain things, watchers being the traveller etc. But i would get it if most just take it as it is, a game. But the Lore that I'm just learning certainly does coexist with certain mythology and Greek mythology especially.
It's unbelievably cathartic to see an hour long video that not only independently comes to the same conclusion i came to years ago, but by going through and showing each and every piece of evidence from both games that come together and can only point to the one conclusion; the Witness is not the Winnower, and the Winnower and Gardener to at least some extent do exist. You did a good job on this, and you should be proud.
The answer tbh is not very. The reason this whole lore book is contentious is because different writers keep coming with different visions for the story. They want to tell their version rather than telling the story already laid out for them to tell.
50:25 Remember the lore about Titan and the archeology? The whole moon was stretched then released, causing a colossal tidal wave. I’ve always figured it was the pyramids that did this.
From what little we can tell much of the Collapse’s most devastating events revolved around the Black Fleet’s environmental weaponry. I know it’s unlikely, but I’d love to see some gravity powers in the Final Shape that we have to fight against. That kind of environmental threat would be really cool!
Some tiny things I’ve picked up on over the years in Destiny and real life: The Traveler is made of Silver. TaOx is a Silver Oxide based structure used in the development of nano technology and computing. What’s the name of Savathûn’s “Mother”??? Clearly a species we have yet to meet is inside the “dimension” in the Traveler. Fenchurch is collecting lots of Silver aint he? For years I’ve been positive that TaOx is The Gardener. The Hive being led astray by The Witness and the Deep is all the motivation Savathûn would need to protect her “Mother” who I believe has been hiding inside the Traveler this whole time as the Books of Sorrow are full of self serving biblical lies.
I’ve been waiting for someone to make a video on this. This is an excellent execution of most of the ideas I’ve been thinking. People need to learn of these marathon parallels, it’s important.
I hope Bungie is holding back on a bigger reveal. The Witness as the core antagonist doesn't flow well with the previous lore & a being as mythical as the Traveler. Furthermore, the whole concept of disciples feels completely out of place when they all seemingly serve the Witness, a being so powerful it doesn't need disciples to accomplish its goals.
1:22:45 the irony is not lost on me that the themes of the flower game apply to uploading this video. I salute you for taking the "moral" decision. I'll be sharing this with my friends. Good work and godspeed man! Btw, the Black Garden tree reveal had me gasping aloud! *NEVER* made that connection!
I think its pretty much sure that the winnower & gardener have their origin from the original Destiny story. They most likely scrapped it during the years and the narrative team changed. They even never released the cutscene with the gardener / women from D1. But somehow I believe they want to finish the game with the og story. Alone the fact that they released this art of the winnower in february. The game never was meant to exist this long. But Bungie wants to keep going with the franchise and what could be better than introducibg the winnower/gardener story for a new saga. They could just use all those things that already exist in the lore about them. I also always believed in this theory and you pretty much confirmed it for me. Thank you for those points: I always was sure that the flower game took place in the black garden but never realised that the "mountain" are remains of the tree of silver wings. All those swords always linked to the winnower. And I never realised those orbs around the unveiling statue. This and the concept art of D1 which is similar to it make sense now. The unveiling statue has to be the Gardener. Man the story could be so good. So either Bungie is making a great finale and start a new saga with the gardener and winnower or the mess up with the final shape. Lets see in June. You said you have more thoughts on this matter. Maybe you could write them as a comment and pin it. Thank you for this great video :)
Whelp that collectors edition made it even more obvious that the 'winnower' is something all together different based on the war the precursor species was fighting. Makes sense why Oryx didn't pull up in a pyramid ship. He had a different boss. That was always the outlier. It won't surprise me if we find out that of the precursors factions the two that were decimated worshiper a version of the veiled statue without the veil.
I've been playing for years, and knowing the connections between all of these lore pieces is amazing! I'm showing this vid to all of my friends, because this stuff is so obtuse there's no way they know this either. Great video!
THANK YOU Ever since shadowkeep launched, I couldn’t get this weird feeling out of my mind, like the witness was never something planned, that it was a sudden change of plans during the writing of the story, where they realized they needed a BBEG but couldn’t/didn’t want to use the og Gardener/Winnower concept
Have you read the lore book that came with the Collector's Edition of Final Shape? Eido says "The Winnower [doesn't] speak of malice, or hatred, or despair. It does not care whether you embrace it or curse it.... But for the Witness, victory alone is not enough. It must ruin all the Great Machine has touched." There mere fact that they're bringing this up makes me believe it will come into play.
This is the kind of destiny lore content I've been wanting for a while, Really in depth analysis and theorizing. Destiny has so much potential in its story. I just wish it had a more consistant vision from the start.
Funny thing is, Dickinson and the main narrative have conflicted since TTK. The Books of Sorrow makes a huge deal about Oryx being a “true believer” in the Sword Logic, yet comes to the system to avenge his son in strict defiance of it. Considering it took years for there to be any acknowledgement of this (Season of the Witch) it feels like a discrepancy. I’d believe it was intentional a lot more if there were any kind of acknowledgement in TTK’s grimoire (IE Toland!) on it, but alas nothing.
I just want to say that this kind of video is exactly what I'm looking for when it comes to Destiny. I want to take what we know and speculate about what could be. I want to peer through the fog at the road ahead. If you continue to make videos like this, I will definitely keep watching. Another thing is that I love Seth Dickinson's work on Destiny a lot. I didn't know he wasn't on the narrative team, but that makes a lot more sense to me now. As far as the content of this video, I think you're absolutely right. One thing I'd note, however, is how the Vex really fit into all of this. Obviously, we have the Black Garden, as well as the heart of the Black Garden, which we know was made to be like a copy of the Veil. The Sol Divisive have also been a prominent part of the Season of the Wish activities, namely the Coil, and the Star-Crossed mission. They even attempted to capture ahamkara eggs for some reason. This also brings up Fikrul and the Scorn, who also were trying to do stuff with the eggs, as well as with the bones in the Warlord's Ruin dungeon. Some have been shown to possess taken energy/corruption. That's important. Another note on the scorn is Rhulk potentially giving them hive worms. That's also important. Finally, we have the Ishtar Collective and their involvement with the Garden as well as with the Veil on Neomuna, and the reveal that Lakshmi-2 of the FWC was a "copy" of Maya. Not to mention how the Scions, the Awoken, and the Nine, all might fit in there as well. There's a lot of herrings out there, but not all of them are red.
Maybe but that presents a really big power scaling issue. The Witness is already being presented as the strongest foe we've faced so another just trampling him like The Witness did to those guardians is going to present the problem the Guardian just not being strong enough to defeat it.
@@cookiemuffin3208 Interestingly, guardians aren’t these omega powerful, godlike beings that kill everything by just looking at them. They can die by simply being knifed to death by dregs. Our real power comes from our teamwork, preparation, and exploiting enemy weaknesses. Look at everything we do in raids, the mechanics. We aren’t overpowering beings like Oryx, we defeat him through the use of his Light-Eater ogres and use their consumed Light as a bomb to be able to harm Oryx. There’s a reason even strikes are for three guardians, even those are typically too dangerous to handle alone. Lol sorry for go on and on, I just think there is plenty more Bungie can do than just upping the power scaling of the things we fight.
Ah yes, what a cool story. 10 year saga of us fearing a nameless evil, then be told the evil is a character called "The Witness" for some years and in the great finale of the saga, the villain is defeated by the old nameless villain and we are told "tune in for our second saga to see the story you thought you were going to get in this saga you followed the last 10 years"
Dude, just binged the whole thing. Whatever happens in the game next, you should definitely see this video as a triumph. You just got one hell of a loyal follower specifically from this video. Thanks for the effort you put in to it. I came to this video looking for something that would challenge my views on the game and the lore. You did that but I was honestly surprised to see you using lore to support ideas that I have voiced to my D2 clan (but going way beyond anything I have ever thought or said.) This is exactly the kind of lore video I want to consume (regardless of how short or how long its runtime.) May your channel have an endless flow of new followers.
I am actually so happy someone laid all the evidence out. People denying that either the witness isn't the winnower, or that nothing was retconned flabbergasted me. AND LIKE NOBODY TALKED ABOUT IT THIS CRITICALLY. Destinys lore is one of my biggest inspirations as a writer, and its story is my favorite ever period. They need to see this through because the most loyal players are here for the world, not some minmaxxing meta streamer, and to toss all this build up in the garbage would actually be so insane. The magnitude of negligence would be so plentiful that, to me, it's far more likely that bungie are doing a gotcha. Please let this be the case. (Subbed, I hope you blow up in the lore community)
They have been conditioning us to lose our light for a year now. I figured it was a given that we may initially lose the battle, only to rediscover a different connection to the light. Keep in mind that the Acumene had their own light, so that implies that the Traveler is one of a set, not the sole producer of light.
Out of all the lore channels out there, this really intrigued me a lot! Love how this was put all together! This mystery aspect of the game is one of the few reasons I love Destiny. Amazing video!
I've only gotten past the Intro, but I'm gonna put in my two cents: I have always held out hope that the Gardener and the WInnower were two literal Godlike beings out there, with the Gardener creating and/or BECOMING the Traveler, as she said in Unveiling that she put herself into the Game, and the Winnower creating the Darkness (or maybe even the Witness and its Black Fleet) as its knife. The unknown female voice at the end of the most recent Final Shape reveal trailer all but confirms to me that that voice is the Gardener herself. By extension, that must mean the Winnower also actually exists. So I really REALLY hope that Bungie goes in this direction and actually gives us the literal Gardener and Winnower beings.
This was an amazing video that made so many good points and rekindled a bit of my love for the lore. My friends and I have had theories about the lore since Beyond Light and the reveal of Clarity Control. Our theory was very much in line with everything stated here. Especially with the details of the Witness and the Winnower being separate entities, which earned us much ire throughout the internet. XD But I myself hope and pray that we will see the Gardener or the Winnower. It would only make sense.
Interesting post of Seth Dickinson's website in response to being asked if he's written anything for the Final Shape; "I have not written anything for Final Shape except of course the title. Nor have I been approached (nor told they were doing Witch Queen and Final Shape based on my writing in the first place)."
i'm so happy with this video. this is the kind of content i want, this is the kind of content youtube has been lacking. please, if you can, never give in to the temptation of being a "content farming monster." there is something so special about this kind of video, i'm so happy you didn't cut this into different parts, this was so much easier to follow as a result. anyway, i've been of the opinion that the winnower is real for as long as i've known about him, and your points have given a name to my intuition of such. okay that's all, this was way too rambly but i'm just so mothertrucking happy i can't describe it in any meaningful way, so thank you
I’m very curious as to your thoughts on some lines the Witness says during the Salvation’s Edge raid. Specifically: “Each child we save from the game, you again force to play.” “You call us “Winnower.” We are not, but the first knife clutched in its hand.” “Gods forged us both. But they cannot tell the knife what shape to carve.” Here we have the Witness seeming to acknowledge the existence of a Winnower, while also specifically distinguishing it from itself. We also have the reference to “Gods” that forged both us and it. “Gods,” plural - more than just the Traveler. What this seems to say, to me, is that there is indeed a Winnower, that perhaps the Witness began as it’s champion, as we/the traveler are to the Gardener, but that the Witness arrived at a conception of the final shape that is fundamentally contradictory to the very Darwinian perspective and motivations of the Winnower as laid out in Unveiling. Anyways, I’m interested to know what you think about all this. Overall, even following the turn towards the Witness as our ultimate enemy, I remain convinced the Winnower is still a distinct entity, and indeed that it wrote unveiling. In my opinion, it sort of seems like they came up with the Winnower as a really interesting, unique concept as the big bad for this franchise, but then a bit down the line when it came time to sit down and think about what fighting that would look like, Bungie decided that crafting a narrative, for this game specifically, where we confront and defeat… I’m not sure what exactly to call it - a quasi-sentient ontological concept? - was simply not doable, at least not on their timeline, and so they settled on a more distinct, personified enemy that it would feel narratively satisfying to kill with a gun. I’m disappointed by that, but I am frankly very sympathetic to that plight. I have absolutely no idea what “defeating” what is essentially a conscious law of nature could look like, certainly not in a format that would fit in something like a raid.
If we claim that Winnower was The Witness all along it would kill the lore. I would cease caring forever. Winnower is the most exciting thing about Light and Darkness saga, and i will not accept anything less. Thank you for the video m8, this shit needs to be settled once and for all.
Final shape is supposed to be the "end of the light and dark saga". And they are introducing the two main players in the last chapter?....Yeah that checks out actually.
Quite literally seconds before you realized that you were speaking the ideology of ulan tan, I was searching through my vault for the exotic because I was like “isn’t this already stated in a gun?”
The tree of silver wings branches are shaped into a sphere shape? The tree in the garden was massive? What if was where the Gardener made the traveler as a part of her plan to change the game? Worm gods may have been a tool to that was a part of the fight? Idk lol
"Why do you believe it?" Because the game is called Destiny and it would be pretty cool to find out like "oh she made guardians so that one day we'll come along and fulfil our destiny by savi- she's Venat/Hydaelyn holy shit
i also noticed the two games have striking similarities when talking philosophically, interesting considering both games started within the span of a year apart from one another, i wonder where both got primary inspiration
@KAMI__KITSUNEE You can make pretty broad strokes comparison for sure! Etheirys and the Garden. An unsundered world of creation and seeming paradise. The winnower bringing collapse, and Hermes allowing Meteion. A cycle of ruin sweeping the galaxy. The final days and the destruction of the tree The witness and the Unsundered Ascians The disciples and the Dundered Ascians The rejoinings and the civilizations wiped out A weakening god trying to protect in Hydaelyn and the Gardener. Her special chosen champion in the Warrior of Light and The Guardian (the fact they still call us just "the guardian" kinda pisses me off ngl.) Though FFXIV is doing a way better job with telling its story and presenting its themes. I don't think Destiny will get me to break down crying like it has... (also helps they don't spoil their own story beats in the trailer like Bungie does, but that's a whole separate rant)
there’s a few things i want to say about this video, first, in regards to the marasenna book, we do see another instance of the darkness manipulating gravity in a book called last days on kraken mare. secondly, i think that the whole “the winnower is connected to swords” thing is way too loose to be considered evidence. the main point is from concept art, the door shapes in the pyramids seem like a bit of a stretch, dares of eternity is considered non-canon, and finally we have the “first knife” line from unveiling. If the winnower was connected to swords specifically id think that they wouldn’t have chosen to call it the first knife. also, this was an incredible video and you absolutely deserve the subs and likes and all that. if you’re open to criticism i think that displaying the lore tab you’re quoting from on screen while doing so would add a lot to your videos
Personally, I love long-form videos that dig deep into a topic, and I'm happy to wait for them. This was well worth the time spent, both for the information and for your style, which I really enjoy!
Genuinely asking for clarification here because this was the only part of the video I couldn't follow: what's actually up with the fact that darkness artifacts existed in Sol before the collapse, such as the K1 artifact and clarity control?
It's a reference to Go, which is a board game played on a grid with white and black pieces. Conway's Game of Life, or "the flower game", is also commonly represented in a similar way. But yes, the connotation is the same, implying some strategic move on the part of the player.
@@EYErisGames thats a great take! at this point I just hope Bungie didn‘t scrap the Winower.. but I have a feeling like they will keep „exploring the insides of the veil“ for another expansion and will make it so, that the Winower was always behind the Witness and needs to be defeated in its realm (inside of the veil) in the next expansion. Bungie says: „In the Final Shape the War between! Light and Dark will end“ in my eyes, there could still be a war of! Light and Dark left but this time the world ending Witness’s are defeated and since the entity of light was killed in Final Shape, the universe is in inbalance and we need to kill the Winower. Atleast this story could justify another expansion and more money for Bungie, which is an absolutely legit point to me.
re: the winnower and the Cambian explosion. Unveiling is explicit that the book's author did *not* cause the Cambrian explosion in a direct sense: "Did I reach out and place my special mark upon you? No. Nothing so crude." Rather, they say that the first microscopic predators forced a higher degree of competition and therefore evolution to more complex life. "This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes." By claiming to have caused the Cambrian explosion but without "reaching out and place my special mark on you", the author means they identify themselves with the principle of predation and survival of the fittest, i.e. sword logic, and that without this principle, the Cambrian explosion would not have happened. They do not mean they literally directly caused early earth organisms to evolve. Asking "would the witness even bother doing that?" and discussing unveiling as if it means the author literally directly caused the Cambrian explosion is based on missing the point of the text. Unveiling in no way tries to say that its author (whether winnower, witness, or someone else) created humanity. Sorry to nitpick, just want to help get some clarity on sources (even if it sounds pedantic)
i don't know much about destiny lore but i have always thought of the witness race as not a different race but as humans itself and we had a split before collapse where to recover from the collapse some turned to darkness
I think bungie originally absolutely intended for The Winnower and The Gardener to be actual legitimate characters because of the way they narrated it but as you get more and more into the story cycle of D2, they paint it as more of a concept, an allegory, like primordial laws and I think they have essentially abandoned the story line. Its been made pretty clear to me through the lack of context that bungie also want the community to view it that way. I don't really know if there is a satisfying way to fix this plot hole. I guess that's the issue that arises when you wing a story for 10 years.
I guess we will find out in a few months. Either way, I think it will be entirely unsatisfying. They have called the Final Shape the ending of the Light and Darkness Saga. I cant imagine they will continue with the saga and I doubt they can fit 10 years of obscure story build up into a single campaign whilst also dealing with the witness. I like that you continue to hold onto hope and I think you give bungie more credit than they deserve.
The best thing the Destiny Narative team can do is leave a shit ton of open ended questions as it allows them to explore more options if the game were to continue. Even if they never intend to explore the questions, the option is there. I think this is a perfect example of that.
or rather, that's what happens when you _don't_ have one person writing one story for the entire decade. people come and go and rather than having the humility to continue the work you were hired on to do, the newbies have "big ideas" about the story they'd rather tell instead.
@@xXx_Regulus_xXx Yeah that probably plays a big part. I also think they realised as they went on that creating such an intricate story is not a good idea when you want to generalise the story for a mass audience. Its easier to sell a black and white, good and bad, marvel level story to the majority of the population. What percentage of players do you think actually read the lorebooks? I might be entirely wrong but I don't think its a very large percent.
I always got a strange feeling when people said Unveiling was a propaganda piece by the Witness, thought it didn't seem consistent, but I never remembered enough info to say exactly why! I wonder if there are things that disprove this thought, like a stray lore piece, or something.
Just beginning to watch; excited to get into it, but I just wanted to say I noticed you listened to feedback regarding your subtitles, (font choice/coloring being hard to read) and I have to say these new ones are way easier on the eyes. Much appreciated!
Honestly i chop this up to something happening to the writing team and the new team not being as talented as the old team. Like unveiling was a major plot point in the lore and all future lore regarding the darkness and witness should have been shaped around it, rather then disregard it. In fact evwr since season of the plunder it feels like the story is written by completely different people
This is why I don't talk much about the Traveler in this video, or in other deeper theories. Since I believe that the Traveler is a tool used by the Gardener, then there is only one big question left to answer. "Who made the big ball?" The Traveler is a machine, and considering the Veil is a living organism, I doubt that the Gardener made it. There are theories that in the OG D1 story the Vex made it, and until Deep I thought that potentially the Pyramid Race made it. That being said, unless the Vex did make it, then I don't know where the Traveler came from. Another massive detail that I didn't go over much, is that the Black Garden was originally inside the Traveler. This has 100% been retconned, so I only mention it as a fun fact. So apart from me saying that the machine is actually just a tool, and that we need to know where it came from, there aren't a lot of ways that the Traveler fits into these theories, as instead I focus on the Gardener.
@@kalev_knightyeah you know those big vans that people drive around for lawn care or plumbing or stuff like that? the Traveler is that but for building up entire civilizations 😂
I don't play Destiny, but I'm finally poking at this world I've been so curious about, and you have taken me on one hell of a wonderful ride. Thank you.
What an incredible comprehensive breakdown of the threads the lore has been planting for years. I even learned some new, which is great! It's sad to see that there is so much confusion and conflicting story ideas between the game and lore, so many missed opportunities. A solid and engaging video, thank you for your time and effort.
What a concept! This is the exact reason I chose to continue playing Destiny since beta, thanks to all the philosophies and questions that aligned with my curiosity of the universe. I think I may be able to elaborate a little more on the Witness "acting out of character" by dropping fake stories: Was it not the Witness who deceived the Osmium throne with news of impending doom from a God-wave? Wasn't this scheme the play to control and siphon power from the Hive through the Worm Gods, as worms were one of the things that "escaped the Black Garden" and "grew large"? And where did the Worm Gods lurk or slumber, but in the Deep! The Witness, an entity composed of a collection of minds/souls, driven by the very nature of pushing boundaries as did Eris Morn when she described her young self during the Golden Age where everything was 'too safe', welcoming danger or risk, inevitably succumbing to a sort of madness or "corruption", as we've heard about Dredgen Vale? I believe any character that has hit the max with Light had their ambition break through a barrier and lived long enough to become the villain, sort of speak. The Winnower is not a person or being, per se, but an embodiment of Death, which is the NATURE of Darkness, whereas the Light is the NURTURE. The Witness lied to the Osmium Kingdom because by nature, the Darkness will do whatever it must to survive, win, triumph, etc. It has a purpose, a direction, a POINT as sharp as a knife, and will pierce the glass ceiling. Every entity that has dove into the Deep collected so much power by killing, the physical expression of the Angel of Death's true objective, aka the Winnower's objective, but, as you've stated, not necessarily "evil". (I put the word evil in quotes because of the connotation of morality associated with it.) So if the embodiment of the Light, aka the Gardener, is a woman, then where there are women, there is certainly a man. We would not know hot if we didn't know cold. Life contradicts itself through a necessary means of balance. Good stuff, Venextron. I hope we all get a rich fulfillment of lore come Final Shape!
Amazing video and channel you git there. Listened to this while cleaning my room. I really enjoy these long videos as it gives me time to do stuff while still listening and or watching more lore and discussions about it I actually came to the same conclusion before. What gave it away for me was Maya also hearing a whisper to fuse like the Witness. The Witness back then did it, but why would it want Maya to do the same? So I began to look a bit around and most of what I heard and read was leading me here
Man, I hate seeing that this only has 14k views. I mean, I was already subscribed to the idea of personifications of these two gods, but it’s not a very talked about topic on RU-vid. The evidence given, from phrases, symbols, and speech patterns between lore books pre-dating shadowkeep and even up to season of the witch! It’s peak. Weeks of reading and research condensed into one hour and thirty minutes of great connections back to back. Man, I can only hope Bungie has your vision because this video alone raised my expectations of a larger concluding narrative for the light and dark saga. Great work!
idk why but I have a slight feeling that they may end up making the Gardener and the Winnower the center of the next saga. It's honestly the next logical step since Final Shape is likely going to answer and introduce new questions.
Seth did an Interview way back in the D1 Days & He was Soooooooo Engaing that I downloaded His Novels & was blown away by His writing, it's Nostalgia & Haunting & Beautiful & Brutally Tragic!! Didn't know He's been Credited so recently on the Lore, APPRECIATE APPRECIATE that Gem 💯💯🎮🎮🤟🏽🤟🏽
I was absolutely hooked the entire 1 hour 31 minutes and 58 seconds. Hands down my favorite Destiny video probably ever. I had the same doubts as others where I thought cramming the gardener and winnower into the final shape at the last minute was going to be too much for Bungie given their track record. It really hurts knowing that there is a sizeable chance that the potential you have spelled out for everyone was wasted(maybe they have something better cooked up who knows). Over the past month of watching your videos I have been more excited than ever about the game and can not look at it the same as I always did for 9 years. You did such a good job of connecting events and concepts that if Bungie were to not have a gardener or winnower at this point I would be very saddened. The way Bungie has continued to confuse their player base and stall on the most random of things like season of defiance, haunted, plunder and recently wish has been very annoying. If things were retconned this hard, Destiny would be a new type of study to have so much lore in the actual game itself for years not actually exist when they were needed most. But I still have hope that Bungie recognized this after how the players reacted mid last year when they were still in development of the final shape after finishing season of the wish. I didn't even know the gardener or winnower were this important/existed after watching many videos from mynameisbyf but he covers more current events rather than the big picture. You did a phenomenal job on the entire video and I can't argue right now.
Just gotta say, this video is incredibly elucidating. I truly hope that things go in this direction, I thought that the Witness was too "on the nose" for the final villain of Destiny's L&D saga... this would be many times more interesting, and honestly, borders on existential horror. Love this.
Speaking as someone who has just like, a basic understanding of Biblical scholarship, the idea is that we know who wrote even SOME books in the Bible is a wild assertion.
Well done, and very much did enjoy this video. This perfectly sums up how I feel and wanted to see Destiny continue to go, but if it doesn't continue the way we'd hoped, well atleast we have a quiet conclusion on all the outstanding lore we wanted to see. Hope you enjoy TFS and have fun.
Call me overly optimistic, but bringing in the gardener/winnower in the final shape is 100% doable while still keeping it a coherent story. They just need to introduce them early on or in the beginning even. Have a cool origin cutscene of them in the garden, essentially visualizing the lore bits you pointed out. The purpose is to introduce them this early so veterans and even new players understand what's at stake and what their intentions are rather than having idk zavala just do a recap exposition dump at the beginning. Then Bungie ties them off at the end of the campaign where our guardian meets them so it comes full circle. They wanted to end the light and darkness saga so including the gardener/winnower is the proper way to do it since they are literally the heart of it. EVEN THOUGH the writers have changed, they should still respect their OG vision otherwise we'll be left with a whole load of mess. The pieces are literally set no matter how subtle they are. The black garden, the silver tree stump, mara mentioning the gardener, literally all the evidence you pointed out are IN THE GAME WORLD. It all would be wasted if Bungie changed narrative course. I swear if they subvert expectations or leave a lame audio log of the gardener and all that at the end of the campaign, I will tear nimbus into a billion pieces take his core and blow up the eververse store killing tess in the process. 11/10 video btw, shared it with my friends
I think it makes sense for the Winnower to exist, but the narrative team seems to be all over the place and management pushing forward with no clear path. I would like the winnower to exist but I feel like they merged the witness and the winnower because why not, even if it doesn’t make sense. If they do spring the Winnower on us at the end of Final shape wouldn’t that mean the light and darkness saga isn’t over?
What ive learned is that what i REALLY want is to read a whole book series or smth by seth Dickinson cause his work has been hands down my favorite parts of destiny
I feel they can't have forgotten the gardener and the winnower since if they were really retconned they wouldn't still be continuously alluded to, again in the expansion where the witness was introduced for the first time, when they speak to us in shadowkeep, which we know because of the speech patterns of the voice that speaks through our ghost and in the final cutscene. Was the same expansion where unveiling was introduced, and the winnower has been alluded to as recent as season of the witch. Things like the tree of silver wings, the veiled statues, and the black garden have been consistently part of even seasons as recent as the current one. In the veil dialogue logs from lightfall, the idea that the veil and the traveler were once the same. Unveiling also mentions, worms and dragons, (The ahamkara and the worm gods) and these things are real. The second voice in the darkness is still consistently mentioned, and of course the main thing. The witnesses people found the traveler, which already existed, and they "heard the truth from the darkness" through the veil. If this lore was truly retconned, it would make no sense to keep alluding to it.
You're spot on and I'm totally with you. Have been trying to find ways of wording it since Lightfall but it's just such a tangled web, thanks for laying it all out. Something I've especially been interested in lately is the connection between poison/corruption, the Weapons of Sorrow (check out the lore and perk symbols on them specifically Thorn and Necrotic Grip), Oryx's meeting with the Deep+the shrine in the Cathedral of Dusk, the term "Devourer", and the Veil. It feels like there's something there You mention the story being a mess, and while I agree to some degree, I also think this confusion or lack of clarity (pun intended) is the intent. So often the presence of Darkness or the Deep is a kind of unseen presence, and if it's tied to the Veil then that would make sense as it would be interacting with our reality mentally rather than physically. (Osiris even mentioned this season that it's harder to tell where the Veil is currently strongest vs where it *has* been in the past). This would also then reframe the Witness within Unveiling not as the Winnower, but as the First Knife, crafted and wielded invisibly by the Winnower, which would go on to create other knives such as Rhulk and the Hive. This is the exact same power structure as the Hive, what we often jokingly call a "pyramid scheme", but on a much grander scale and ultimately much harder to trace back to the initial source. So I think yes, the Gardener/Winnower/Witness relationship is muddy, but I also think that obfuscation is partly the point. The Deep does not act overtly or directly. It creeps in and corrupts slowly, uses your deepest weaknesses, desires and flaws against you, holds up a dark mirror and sees if you'll drown in it. I suspect this is what happened when the Witness first researched the Veil, in the same way it corrupted Maya and in the same way the Witness would later corrupt others. "Annihilation of your kind was never the goal. But filling you with the right kind of ideological purpose, the kind that serves the finality of shape- *well, that's the point of corrupting a beating heart, is it not?* " "Project day 45. We kept thinking about H-349 as a destroyer. But it's more sophisticated than that. I mean, with a normal gun, it's just… boom. Done. H-349 on the other hand is deadly, not destructive. Much like a viper, its bite does not bring about instant death. Instead, its venom cajoles. *It co-opts your beating heart into a death clock, ticking down your last moments. Your own pulse kills you.* *Death may be slow and agonizing for its victim. But for the viper, time is an amenable trade for efficiency.* " "Victory is not in the unmaking of an enemy, *but in the re-making of an enemy into your blade.* " -9th Understanding, 7th Revision of Sorrow "The Weapons of Sorrow are not the endgame, but a road map. Each evolution, every advance in the delivery of pain and the mastery of destruction feeds the Hive's hateful weapons research. They will map every scream, harness every aggression, until they understand every method by which to ravage the hearts, minds, and flesh of man. And in doing so, they will turn us against ourselves-feeding our lust, our greed, our fear, until we become a threat unto ourselves like none we could imagine. So, wield these, angry reaper. *Strive to know the darkness in your own heart.* Walk in the shadows of fallen heroes. And know that you are an enemy of hope. -a warning"
I think the thing that happened when we got stasis was that the witness gained more control/access to our ghost. But that's just what came to mind when hearing the question posed. Then following that when we accessed strand that connection was made even stronger.
Just wanted to say -- as someone who is (has?) been out of the discussion surrounding Unveiling and whatnot (as I have been largely contented to let Bungie show me themselves in TFS) I just wanted to say your editing, from the background glyphs and audio effects, music, and the wide ranging and well researched lore references from around the canon? Terrific. Even just your narration of what happened to the Exodus Green had my spine tingling...and I thought I knew everything there was about this already. I know you've already said this is probably -the- most important Destiny vid you're ever gonna make, but your style of flipping through the lore reminds me EXACTLY of the nebulous mysteries that made up the feeling that Destiny used to give me so much more of... I want more of this. Shows me that Destiny still has the sauce, and it just takes the right spark to light up our imagination around it. Something that even Byf & co. have been unable to live up to recently. Absolutely liking and subbing, will wait for more stuff like this. PS the goofy voices here and there are very funny and ad a comfortable level of levity to the discussion haha
Absolutely fantastic video. One thing I am extremely confused about is Shadowkeep. Obviously we have the introduction of the Witness, but we also have Unveiling, the beginning of the trend of Gardener statues, and the cementing of the Black Garden & the Tree of Silver Wings as important concepts. If the plan was (as it seems to be) to change the direction of D2's story in order to have a more visible big bad, why continue to develop the lore concerning the Winnower & Gardener? I still feel almost certain that a retcon is inevitable, due to the fact that people will call Bungie liars and story-padders for not making the "END OF THE LIGHT AND DARKNESS SAGA" the true end, but this video really makes me hope they keep the original story alive. Once again, awesome video man. You made the right choice waiting.
I touched on it in a video, but long story short my friend, there is an extremely high chance (I obviously can't say 100%) that SK, Arrivals and BL were made using the guts of cancelled D3. The Pyramids more likely than not had an original story, and this was retconned after SK. As for the Winnower v Witness in SK, I genuinely do believe it comes down to creative differences within Bungie, but I could be wrong.
At the very least, if they are metaphorical, I hope they can tie in the meanings and purposes of these stories with the history of the Traveler and the Witness as we learn their accounts of the story and true goals. That or reveal the true end all enemy of Destiny, Zargwe. Never forget Zargwe.
This was my first viewing of one of your videos and earned from me an instant sub. I hope this video proves to be successful for you and that you feel free to make more long form videos in the future should you feel the need. Thank you for the work you’ve put into this and for having me. Glad to be here.
I think that the Winnower/Darkness/Deep stating "I created you" in regards to humanity wasn't saying "I intentionally made you" or "You are my chosen people", but rather "I am the one reaponsible for the principles in which you and all other life have formed, I am evolution incarnate". It is not something that has a plan, because it does not need to. There was no plan to create humanity, humanity evolved through the principles of evolution. It is easy to get caught up in teleology (or "why things are the way they are") - humans did not develop big brains so they could become smart, our ancestors developed intelligence and tool use because it was one of the few survival paths we had. The Veil, overall, seems to have been relatively passive. The one act it seems to have done on its own volition (if it did so at all) is to allow us to discover Strand. The big bad of the light and darkness saga is not the Winnower, if it does indeed exist, but the Witness, because the Witness is corruption. It is a thing that should not exist. It is a bastardized apotheosis of a species who when faced with the question of faith embraced nihilism. The Dark and the Light are opposite, but they are also want the same thing in the end: the development of life. The Witness wants things to end. The Winnower does not.
I'm so happy to see someone go so in-depth regarding Unveiling, something that always comes up as a point of contention in the community. Normally, conversations and debates about this topic are exclusive to forums and Discord servers, but I'm hoping this opens the conversation into a larger audience who might not even be aware that there were even retcons for Destiny of this scale.
If the Eldritch Race theory videos were milestone in your channel's journey as the prologue, I might risk by saying this video is another one, ending and beginning new arc of sorts. Thank you for your patience, research, time given, preparations, right attitude, editing, music choice and points proven. I feel again like this one lost Bungie forum user in 2020 who sees some "crazy man" trying to prove there's a Darkness race somewhere there... only to get dragged into the biggest rabbit hole of my life, lasting to this day, thanks to which I discovered more amazing people and appreciated some aspects the game more, even if my hopes were absolutely lost after Lightfall release to the point of no return. But I'm still here to witness its end, no matter the final quality. At worse case scenario I'll have a good time laughing at it and that's always something. Cheers!
I haven't played destiny seriously in almost two years now but i like to keep tabs and pay attention to whats going on every now and again. I was never a big lore guy but sometimes I get curious and this time i'm very glad i did. I am sitting at 1:28:22 and im in awe as to what you have created here. Videos like these allow for people like me who don't necessarily like to read or go looking for all of the information on one character to understand a universe that we love so much more. It's sad to see where the narrative of destiny is going as I honestly have very little hope at this point but at the end of the day it's creators who are passionate like you who keep the community alive and people like me invested in the franchise. Thank you
So here's the thing: I've always had the mindset that the "darkness" as what was shown throughout the two games was not actually THE darkness itself. The same way that us as guardians aren't THE light itself. We wield it like a weapon, the same way the witness wears it like a cloak(as the line from Mami Savi goes). There have been so many contradictions when it comes to how certain races, specifically the hive came to be. While yes, the witness had a very active hand in Savathun's deception, the worm gods themselves, literal creatures of The Deep were forced into submission for the sake of indoctrinating The Krill. Later on, when Oryx kills the worm god Akka to gain the power to take, that was not an ability gifted to the worm by the witness, because Akka had this knowledge LONG before their subjugation. The way I see it, the hive were being controlled on two fronts. The Witness giving them clear and concise orders to eradicate servants of the light and find the traveller. The voice in the deep(the winnower) trying to guide them back into a more natural state of existence. If you think about it, the taken are in the perfect, ideal state of being that The Winnower describes, and are the only TRUE darkness we have yet to encounter. United through a state of constant conflict. All taken enemies seem unstable, constantly shifting to different points of reality, caught in an eternal struggle with the material plane itself. Through this struggle, they perfectly encapsulate the grand design of The Winnower. Yes, they are able to be controlled by whomever is strong enough to do so, witness included, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they are darkness in its purest form. Not even the witness can claim to be. My guess is that at the end of final shape, with the defeat of The Witness, The Winnower is going to reveal himself to essentially put the universe back into its natural state of being, righting whatever changes The Witness managed to make during its existence. That's just my take on it all, I've more than likely just spewed some nonsense into this comment.
Honestly, I thought the vision in the black garden we saw at the end of Shadowkeep was much too flamboyant, tempting and talkative in comparison to the Witness. This could just be how the witness attempted to indoctrinate us, but it seems strange how different their behaviour was after directly hearing from them. The Witness has very much always wanted to force the final shape upon the universe, the Winnower however, wants not for simplicity, but for an end to come naturally to all things so that a "balance" can be maintained, hence why in unveiling, it showed frustration and upset when "The Gardener" broke the balance and "cheated" at the flower game, making too much life and immortal beings that death cannot claim.
Witch Queen’s Collector Edition has Seth, speaking through Ikora, lamenting the fact that you can’t have moral questions in a universe (game) where most Guardians (players) are spending their time just grinding for loot. Destiny had the promise of a meaningful story shackled by its game model. Bungie could have made it’s MMO model meaningful. When Beyond Light was announced, some players were hoping for a Light vs. Dark Guardian split. People debated if they would side with the Traveler or Pyramids. Lightfall would culminate in the final battle not just between Light and Dark, but the playerbase itself. I think it’s fair to say that Bungie, as it was, is gone. It’s been gone for years. The skinsuit wearing its name will never recapture the original team’s passion because it doesn’t have any. The community might not be able to save Destiny. But the talented creators, theorists, and writers can make something better themselves.
There was no "Witness" in shadowkeep, that was the winnower before they made up the witness in witch queen. All the way leading up to Beyond Light the communications from the pyramids lines up perfectly with the winnower and unveiling especially in The Singular Exegete lore book(Which we were getting directly from the pyramid). Any differences in pronouns was meaningless since even in witchqueen the witness uses the "My" pronouns when addressing Rhulk and they probably had it at the end of shadowkeep talk to us like that because it sounded cool and it had all the voices of all the different VAs for the guardian combined. The retcon of the Witness which was made in Witchqueen had no build up in shadowkeep and was the greatest disaster for the lore.
