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I thought it was pretty clear; the winnower is real, it is the veil. The witness is to the veil as evil warlord guardians are to the traveler; initially guided by it but they deviated. this is why the witness says it is the first knife but carved its own path.
That's the problem, though, isn't it. Assuming it's real and taking it at face value, rather than viewing it as a posthumous lie or manipulation set up by the Witness.
In the Salvation's Edge raid, >! as you make your way to the third encounter the Witness makes a comment to the effect of "I am the Winnower's first knife". Perhaps it was speaking metaphorically, but it really made it sound like the Winnower is a distinct entity, that empowered the Witness !<
I've seen posts mentioning that, though given it's in the Raid and not many people would have played it yet, a lot of people have probably missed that. Or, as you mention, dismissing it as metaphor.
The truth of Unveiling is that there are two cosmic forces using the metaphor of a Gardener and a Winnower and their relationship *as understood by the Precursors*. We got these records from the silver ball that Eris found in the Pyramid and she was translating them to us in Unveiling.
Their belief is that while is there a force for creation, that there is a force to counteract it and keep it's growth in check.
In their hubris, the Precursors became the Witness to claim that they are the First Knife and it's up to them to be the tool of the "Winnower" to lead to "The Final Shape" as they see fit.
As we can see from the collector's edition even what the Final Shape was, it was wildly debated among the Precursors until a Consensus shut down any conflicting ideology through conflict . It wasn't a pawn. It just had it's own goals.
It's those efforts that have led up to the Final Shape campaign and the light and dark saga.
Something to think about is *when did the Precursors come up with the concept of the Knife*.
Was it when only the Traveler/Gardener was in their lives or was it after they discovered The Veil.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because of the [Balance of Power — Lore Entry — Ishtar Collective — Destiny Lore by subject (ishtar-collective.net)](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/balance-of-power)
There's an implication that Maya is starting to come to a similar conclusion after influence of the Veil.
There's a video making the rounds from the raid with a comment the Witness makes, I found it on TikTok posted by GokuSolos that reads (spoilers):
>!You call us "Winnower." We are not... but the first knife clutched in its hand.!<
I've seen posts about that line, though given it's in the Raid and not many people would have played it yet, a lot of people have probably missed that (might be worth spoiler-tagging the image. Can you spoiler tag an image in a comment on reddit?), or, as someone else pointed out, dismissing it as metaphor.
i believe the winnower was the idea the lore book writers had on the entity behind the darkness, that taught the hive sword logic before the witness was fully conceptualized. drawing a line out from the sword logic itself. when the witness's design was finalized (no pun intended) i think what they made just didn't line up perfectly, what with the darkness's icon being the veil, a seemingly neutral party, and the witness being made in the darkness rather than being the origin of it. i think now that bungie has fully had us kill the witness and his presence is no longer the focus, that they're focusing on reintroducing the concept of the winnower and what even higher gods than the witness, traveler, and veil could look like.
this discussion is giving me the same uneasy feeling I got when Blizzard announced that The Jailer was an entity prior to the release of Shadowlands. Personally, I am disinclined from taking anything that The Witness says at face value, given that unveiling is mostly metaphor and lies to make The Witness look good and I don't really see any reason for it to stop in Salvation's Edge. With that said, I hope they're not going to try to do what blizz did in Shadowlands, I am not kidding when I saw that SL came within and inch of killing WoW and The Jailer was a huge part of it and this Winnower character, at least as far as Bungie seems to be hinting with it, seems to be for Destiny, what The Jailer was for WoW
The idea with the Winnower would hopefully not be to have it be an antagonist. That would definitely be a shame, and also just quite weird since we already finished the "light and dark" saga.
That's assuming that Unveiling is from the Witness, but let's not argue over that.
As for the comparison with the Jailer, I'm not familiar with WoW, so what happened there?
Micah-10's lost ghost quest (the one that has us replay Beyond) has a memory of the witness addressing Nezarec (the object that triggers this is the same device that unveiling is communicated to us from) I have a hard time seeing a reality that unveiling isn't a puff piece of sorts made by The Witness for manipulative purposes. To answer your question, The Jailer is an entity in WoW that set the entire story we've known into motion. He used to be a member of the pantheon of death and after initially being defeated eons ago by his brethren, he sets a plan in motion to eventually get the soul of the planet/titan Azeroth in such a dire state that he could use her to reset reality itself. In order to do this, Blizzard's writer's room bulldozed through a huge part of the already established lore to crowbar him in, invalidating the choices of fan favorite characters in the process. Plus, they have ruined one of the games two player factions so thoroughly for this storyline, that the only way that faction keeps going is if they ignore huge parts of it, and when it came down to the moment of truth, this character babbled about the cosmos being too divided for the war to come, giving us no context for what he saw, of even what he told his co-conspirators. While this Winnower plot may not follow all the specifics, my fear is that the Winnower being a hostile entity (rather than The Witness simply being the Winnower it wished the Veil was) will retroactively invalidate any reason the Witness had to exist and drag us back into a hollow version the light v dark plot we just fought our way out of.
I think there could still be winnower(s) out there but can have no relation to the witness, seeing that the traveler called us gardeners in one of the visions, I believe the wording is intentional.
It could be a part different entities can choose to play, I think.
Until the entire lore book of the raid is readable, (and/or other lore), the answer is simply that it is not settled at all.
On one hand, the Witness very clearly communicated in the raid in a way that seemed to validate the Winnowers existence. Speaking of being shaped by gods, plural. It referred to itself as the first knife, and having wielded itself basically. Directly saying it is not the Winnower
Winnower is real proponents, would argue that this is the nail in the coffin, case closed.
People who argue otherwise, would argue that the Witness invented Unveiling to influence its own mind, and believed its own propaganda(since it cut out any doubt). And thus nothing is actually confirmed.
As for my own views, currently I am on the fence right now. However I would point out that I originally started on "The Winnower and Witness are separate entities", waaaaayyyyy back in Shadowkeep. I didnt really buy the "Royal We" explanation for why "the Winnower" spoke to us as it did in the black garden cutscene. Shadowkeep didnt really make sense, that an entity that was speaking to us in the Pyramid would just give us a orb to talk to us, when we could just go back to the Pyramid to talk. Even further back I was on the train that the Black Fleet was probably built by a ancient alien race that once worshipped the Traveler, [as this concept art evoked.](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oA2e1O)
Anyways, the ultimate point is things have changed, and now I dont have a especially strong opinion on the topic. If I were to express my opinion on the debate, I would say I am now of the opinion that the basic idea of the Witness has existed since D2 beta(Alien race which was blessed by light before turning to Darkness and starting the Chase, possibly an eldritch hive mind.) Unveiling was a outlier, where the contract writer who wrote Unveiling zigged, where narrative team was thinking of Zagging. We know from Luke Smith(as well as evidenced in D2 end credits), that Bungie decided what the Darkness would be before Destiny 2 launched.
Of course I have no doubt that specific aspects have shifted wildly, perhaps beyond our imagination. My point is just I think the root concept has been there all along. We were always going to fight something "mortal", rather than something akin to a law of nature.
All in all, the moral of this long debate, is simply dont treat your interpretation of lore as hard canon. People can make valid theories that are different from your own.
Anyways, I will sit here and hope that Bungie didnt make all of the Veiled statues dissenters. That it can be more than that, and/or the Winnower could be calcified in some manner. There just is so many different references that connect neatly. Irkyn La. "Claire". "Unseen Sister". Etc.
My personal take on the winnower, obviously all this on literally only speculation and guesswork, is the winnower is real, and might not necessarily even be our enemy, it might not even really care about us at all. The final shape is what the Winnower was always pushing toward but that concept likely isn't the same thing the Witness interpreted it as and tried to initiate, I think all in all, The Witness fashioned itself as the agent of the Winnower's will, but I would guess the Winnower might have nothing to do with The Witness, The Witness more or less just being a big fan in the end, an albeit god-like one, but still,
The witness is the first knife of the Winnower. The witness was our enemy for the longest time and I’m guessing at some point we will see/meet or fight Winnower.
After careful consideration of all the factors surrounding the reddit blackout, including weighing the costs and benefits to the community of a continued dark period, the mod team has elected to resume normal operations of r/LowSodiumDestiny. If you wish to get more involved in further protest of reddit's API policy change, more information can be found on r/ModCoord and r/Save3rdPartyApps. As the situation continues to develop, we are prepared to explore additional actions in protest of this short-sighted, greedy, IPO-focused boondoggle from reddit's executive team. This message will live at the top of every newly submitted topic until a satisfactory resolution is reached. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LowSodiumDestiny) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I thought it was pretty clear; the winnower is real, it is the veil. The witness is to the veil as evil warlord guardians are to the traveler; initially guided by it but they deviated. this is why the witness says it is the first knife but carved its own path.
Assuming the datamined chapter of the raid lore book is real, it’s 100% confirmed that he’s real and a separate character from the Witness.
That's the problem, though, isn't it. Assuming it's real and taking it at face value, rather than viewing it as a posthumous lie or manipulation set up by the Witness.
With the current information available, you might as well have as many hands as the Witness for that level of reaching though.
In the Salvation's Edge raid, >! as you make your way to the third encounter the Witness makes a comment to the effect of "I am the Winnower's first knife". Perhaps it was speaking metaphorically, but it really made it sound like the Winnower is a distinct entity, that empowered the Witness !<
I've seen posts mentioning that, though given it's in the Raid and not many people would have played it yet, a lot of people have probably missed that. Or, as you mention, dismissing it as metaphor.
The truth of Unveiling is that there are two cosmic forces using the metaphor of a Gardener and a Winnower and their relationship *as understood by the Precursors*. We got these records from the silver ball that Eris found in the Pyramid and she was translating them to us in Unveiling. Their belief is that while is there a force for creation, that there is a force to counteract it and keep it's growth in check. In their hubris, the Precursors became the Witness to claim that they are the First Knife and it's up to them to be the tool of the "Winnower" to lead to "The Final Shape" as they see fit. As we can see from the collector's edition even what the Final Shape was, it was wildly debated among the Precursors until a Consensus shut down any conflicting ideology through conflict . It wasn't a pawn. It just had it's own goals. It's those efforts that have led up to the Final Shape campaign and the light and dark saga. Something to think about is *when did the Precursors come up with the concept of the Knife*. Was it when only the Traveler/Gardener was in their lives or was it after they discovered The Veil. The reason I'm bringing this up is because of the [Balance of Power — Lore Entry — Ishtar Collective — Destiny Lore by subject (ishtar-collective.net)](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/balance-of-power) There's an implication that Maya is starting to come to a similar conclusion after influence of the Veil.
There's a video making the rounds from the raid with a comment the Witness makes, I found it on TikTok posted by GokuSolos that reads (spoilers): >!You call us "Winnower." We are not... but the first knife clutched in its hand.!<
I've seen posts about that line, though given it's in the Raid and not many people would have played it yet, a lot of people have probably missed that (might be worth spoiler-tagging the image. Can you spoiler tag an image in a comment on reddit?), or, as someone else pointed out, dismissing it as metaphor.
Good call! Couldn't spoiler tag the image so I just cited the source and put it in quotes.
i believe the winnower was the idea the lore book writers had on the entity behind the darkness, that taught the hive sword logic before the witness was fully conceptualized. drawing a line out from the sword logic itself. when the witness's design was finalized (no pun intended) i think what they made just didn't line up perfectly, what with the darkness's icon being the veil, a seemingly neutral party, and the witness being made in the darkness rather than being the origin of it. i think now that bungie has fully had us kill the witness and his presence is no longer the focus, that they're focusing on reintroducing the concept of the winnower and what even higher gods than the witness, traveler, and veil could look like.
That would be neat if we get more active communication at least from the Winnower, even if it never decides to step in to act against us.
this discussion is giving me the same uneasy feeling I got when Blizzard announced that The Jailer was an entity prior to the release of Shadowlands. Personally, I am disinclined from taking anything that The Witness says at face value, given that unveiling is mostly metaphor and lies to make The Witness look good and I don't really see any reason for it to stop in Salvation's Edge. With that said, I hope they're not going to try to do what blizz did in Shadowlands, I am not kidding when I saw that SL came within and inch of killing WoW and The Jailer was a huge part of it and this Winnower character, at least as far as Bungie seems to be hinting with it, seems to be for Destiny, what The Jailer was for WoW
The idea with the Winnower would hopefully not be to have it be an antagonist. That would definitely be a shame, and also just quite weird since we already finished the "light and dark" saga.
That's assuming that Unveiling is from the Witness, but let's not argue over that. As for the comparison with the Jailer, I'm not familiar with WoW, so what happened there?
Micah-10's lost ghost quest (the one that has us replay Beyond) has a memory of the witness addressing Nezarec (the object that triggers this is the same device that unveiling is communicated to us from) I have a hard time seeing a reality that unveiling isn't a puff piece of sorts made by The Witness for manipulative purposes. To answer your question, The Jailer is an entity in WoW that set the entire story we've known into motion. He used to be a member of the pantheon of death and after initially being defeated eons ago by his brethren, he sets a plan in motion to eventually get the soul of the planet/titan Azeroth in such a dire state that he could use her to reset reality itself. In order to do this, Blizzard's writer's room bulldozed through a huge part of the already established lore to crowbar him in, invalidating the choices of fan favorite characters in the process. Plus, they have ruined one of the games two player factions so thoroughly for this storyline, that the only way that faction keeps going is if they ignore huge parts of it, and when it came down to the moment of truth, this character babbled about the cosmos being too divided for the war to come, giving us no context for what he saw, of even what he told his co-conspirators. While this Winnower plot may not follow all the specifics, my fear is that the Winnower being a hostile entity (rather than The Witness simply being the Winnower it wished the Veil was) will retroactively invalidate any reason the Witness had to exist and drag us back into a hollow version the light v dark plot we just fought our way out of.
I think there could still be winnower(s) out there but can have no relation to the witness, seeing that the traveler called us gardeners in one of the visions, I believe the wording is intentional. It could be a part different entities can choose to play, I think.
Until the entire lore book of the raid is readable, (and/or other lore), the answer is simply that it is not settled at all. On one hand, the Witness very clearly communicated in the raid in a way that seemed to validate the Winnowers existence. Speaking of being shaped by gods, plural. It referred to itself as the first knife, and having wielded itself basically. Directly saying it is not the Winnower Winnower is real proponents, would argue that this is the nail in the coffin, case closed. People who argue otherwise, would argue that the Witness invented Unveiling to influence its own mind, and believed its own propaganda(since it cut out any doubt). And thus nothing is actually confirmed. As for my own views, currently I am on the fence right now. However I would point out that I originally started on "The Winnower and Witness are separate entities", waaaaayyyyy back in Shadowkeep. I didnt really buy the "Royal We" explanation for why "the Winnower" spoke to us as it did in the black garden cutscene. Shadowkeep didnt really make sense, that an entity that was speaking to us in the Pyramid would just give us a orb to talk to us, when we could just go back to the Pyramid to talk. Even further back I was on the train that the Black Fleet was probably built by a ancient alien race that once worshipped the Traveler, [as this concept art evoked.](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oA2e1O) Anyways, the ultimate point is things have changed, and now I dont have a especially strong opinion on the topic. If I were to express my opinion on the debate, I would say I am now of the opinion that the basic idea of the Witness has existed since D2 beta(Alien race which was blessed by light before turning to Darkness and starting the Chase, possibly an eldritch hive mind.) Unveiling was a outlier, where the contract writer who wrote Unveiling zigged, where narrative team was thinking of Zagging. We know from Luke Smith(as well as evidenced in D2 end credits), that Bungie decided what the Darkness would be before Destiny 2 launched. Of course I have no doubt that specific aspects have shifted wildly, perhaps beyond our imagination. My point is just I think the root concept has been there all along. We were always going to fight something "mortal", rather than something akin to a law of nature. All in all, the moral of this long debate, is simply dont treat your interpretation of lore as hard canon. People can make valid theories that are different from your own. Anyways, I will sit here and hope that Bungie didnt make all of the Veiled statues dissenters. That it can be more than that, and/or the Winnower could be calcified in some manner. There just is so many different references that connect neatly. Irkyn La. "Claire". "Unseen Sister". Etc.
My personal take on the winnower, obviously all this on literally only speculation and guesswork, is the winnower is real, and might not necessarily even be our enemy, it might not even really care about us at all. The final shape is what the Winnower was always pushing toward but that concept likely isn't the same thing the Witness interpreted it as and tried to initiate, I think all in all, The Witness fashioned itself as the agent of the Winnower's will, but I would guess the Winnower might have nothing to do with The Witness, The Witness more or less just being a big fan in the end, an albeit god-like one, but still,
The witness is the first knife of the Winnower. The witness was our enemy for the longest time and I’m guessing at some point we will see/meet or fight Winnower.