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Edited by WillyT:
12/5/2022 1:37:17 PM
3
[quote]This is also corroborated by the fact that all official in-game talk about the Witness uses the pronouns "they/them/" which, while it can mean gender neutral, it can also insinuate a plurality of identities in one[/quote]
You're actually dead on with that point -- they/them isn't being used in a gender neutral sense at all here. The Witness is always referred to in the plural by those who know them, including The Witness themselves. For example, the first line spoken by The Witness in the cutscene at the end of Witch Queen's campaign (which also marks the first words we've ever heard directly from them in this sense) is "[b]We[/b] have seen enough." Additionally, the ending cutscene for Shadowkeep can now accurately be seen as our first interaction with The Witness, and it repeatedly refers to itself as "we/us" in those lines.
These talks about The Witness, and its goals with The Final Shape, are always very difficult because and extremely small amount is actually known about them. Despite the character being the franchise's true "big bad", its whole identity is shrouded in mystery. I saw you mention the Winnower though, and while The Flower Game holds important details, its important to acknowledge the lack of understanding that comes with that specific lore. Basically, nobody truly knows how accurate the Flower Game is (outside of writers at Bungie). Its not even known if the Winnower or Gardener are actual beings at all. Anyone who says otherwise is doing so baselessly, because there's nothing in game that shows their existence outside of Unveiling's entries. Many people view that whole entry as a metaphor, where the Winnower and Gardener are representative of larger ideas, but aren't actually real forces at play. On the flip side of all this, we also can't say for certain that they don't exist. Again, there's no actual confirmation in game, so we have 0 definite answers leaning one way or another. Its some awesome lore but also brutal to wrap your mind around because of all the uncertainty xD
English
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I’m glad you agree with me on the “they/them/we/us” aspect! And you’ve said interesting stuff about the Gardener and Winnower that I partially agree with. I don’t think it’s “baseless” to believe that they are real people/entities, since in Season of Arrivals I think they made it clear that the Darkness itself was attempting to speak to us, and Savathun was helping the Witness in masking it’s true communication. If that is true, I sense the Darkness and Witness have different goals, and disagree from time to time. It’s possible that the Darkness isn’t willingly giving the Witness power at all, but that the Witness has caged the Darkness and is abusing it. Maybe that is why it chose to give us Stasis, to free it from its abuser the Witness.
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Sorry, let me clarify - when I said baseless, I was specifically referring to the existence of characters named the Winnower and the Gardener. I think one can definitely make the claim that there is someone above the Witness (although this still may not be true) and have evidence to back it, but the whole Flower Game presented in Unveiling reads a s a huge metaphor. People have long compared "The Veil" to the Winnower, and the metaphor may represent them, but that doesn't mean the metaphor is to be taken literally at this moment ya know? Also, I think we have to look at the themes of Beyond Light and Witch Queen when it comes to the Light and the Darkness. There's a huge underlying idea that these are just natural forces - paracausal, yes, so they don't abide by the laws of the universe, but they aren't sentient forces with a bias one way or another in terms of good or evil. Vow of the Disciple makes a huge point of this in the final encounter. I'm not sure if you've done it (if not its a great raid that I highly recommend playing through), but the DPS arena is set up as a square with for pillars, each having a marking. The symbols are laid outas follows: [b]PYRAMID[/b] [b]DARKNESS[/b] [b]TRAVELLER[/b] [b]LIGHT[/b] Most people take this as a representation for the way forces are aligned in our struggle against The Witness. The Pyramids and the Traveler are on the same side, as they can be seen as equal-yet-opposing forces within the war. However, note the the Light and the Darkness are not the same as the Pyramid and the Traveler. Yes, each one lines up with one of the sides in the war, but they are distinct and different because the Light and Dark are just the tools being used by either side. This is also why the Light and Dark line up with each other, competing the square - they too are equal yet opposite forces of nature. I think that when we look at Unveiling being communication from "The Darkness", its really from The Witness (or a higher power like the Veil), because Darkness itself is a separate compenent in this whole ordeal. Again, its super confusing going into all this stuff so I hope I'm making sense. This is basically where the theme's have been pointing though. A lot of it is semantics too - people still widely refer to our struggle against the Darkness, but there is a distinction to be made between the paracausal force of Darkness, and those who align with it.
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I think it's definitely been inferred that the darkness is its own entity separate from the witness its own force of nature. It's been said that the darkness is taken where as the light has to be given. So I think that theory is likely that the witness took the darkness and basically has it held hostage
