Keep in mind that if we do get a reveal that the Winnower was made up this whole time I get to take a massive victory lap after telling everyone under the sun that they shouldn’t trust the information coming straight from a pyramid artifact.

My take is the Winnower does exist, but is far less involved in current affairs that people think. With the Flower Game, the Winnower always won, and determined that the Final Shape (the last living thing in a universe being the strongest, and have removed all other competition) was a fundamental law of any universe. The Gardener got so frustrated that it took matters into its' own hands and entered a universe to try to affect the outcome. I think the Winnower is still convinced that the Final Shape is inevitable, and is not getting involved (other than maybe giving us a tiny amount of lore to push us and any other races it sees as promising a nudge towards becoming the Final Shape). I think the Witness is trying to emulate the Winnower, but is not the original entity to have that title. The Winnower does not care about time; it is eternal, so why would it be trying to hasten the Final Shape. The Witness however seems to care a great deal about the speed of events; I think the Witness is intending to [i]be[/i] the Final Shape, by being the last survivor in the universe (something Calus was also attempting, and I think for the same reason; a communicatioon from the Winnower). The Winnower also wouldn't care what the final being was, as long as that being had fought its' way to the end; the Winnower exists outside of time and space, and is neither bound by any one universe nor part of its' own theory. The Witness meanwhile is determined to keep all its' underlings far mfrom being able to challenge it. tl;dr Witness acts far too concerned about the outcome for a primodial being sure it is right.

No, just retconned The whole flower game is retconned, now Bungie says The Traveler is responsible for both light and dark, and the witness is a collection of beings that it left to die In the end it's not going to make any sense, but hey, please pre-order marathon

Story spoilers from a leaked cutscene. SERIOUSLY DO NOT CLKCK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED!!!! [spoiler]The Witness is the winnower. https://youtu.be/G5gIqK94E9g[/spoiler]

[quote]We have known about the primordial beings of the universe for a while. However, did these primordial beings ever exist or were they a fabrication of the Witness? I know that the D1 era darkness as an entity became muddled once we were introduced to the Witness, but lore from Shadowkeep talks about the Winnower and the Witness was likely already conceived by then.[/quote] Not a lie, more like a fabrication

No, it’s a thing. The main question is just how separated is the Gardner and Winnower. I’ve described it as a two faced god, separate minded but whose existence is twined together. A good example is in Unveiling, when the Gardner makes her function a law of the cosmos. The Winnowers function is automatically made a law also.