I know that the Gardener and the Winnower are metaphors for the Light and Darkness given personalities, but doesn’t it seem strange that we’re being gifted powers of The Darkness like Stasis, Deepsight, and the Relic on Mars to fight The Witness in their implied goal to cause total entropy (Ending everything) in the universe.
In the Unveiling, “The Winnower” likely absolutely despises The Witness.
“Beings who deserve no thought:
those who pedal the tired gotcha that all life hastens entropy. (“You promised them life but deliver only death. Enough. Enough death, enough life.”) They are fatuous little nihilists who pretend to prefer no existence to a flawed one. They bore me.
Those who seek to delay the challenge that all things desiring existence must overcome. (Ending all life at once cancels out this opportunity)
Those who describe false moral equivalence...”
- “The Winnower”, Unveiling: The Cambrian Explosion
With these lines in mind, if the Witness is nearing their goal with no escape for The Traveler, why would they give their greatest adversary powers of The Darkness? Unless it wasn’t The Witness giving us these powers.
“The Winnower” (if it truly is an omnipotent entity like “The Gardener” is) is probably aiding us; giving us Stasis, Deepsight, the Relic on Mars and so on so that the flower game they likes to play with the Gardener never ends; preventing “The Flower Game” of life from ever ending. After all, you can’t have Darkness without Light and even though their fight created the universe, their existences are tied to each other. End the universe, both the Gardener and the Winnower end.
While I believe you are correct, you got the right answer using the wrong solution.
That lore book was give to us from the Witness, and it was the Witness who gave us the darkness powers hoping it would corrupt us and led us to him. Think about the Dark future lore book. All the guardians who learned stasis turned evil and killed the traveler.
I suspect the Witness was originally one of the creatures in the black garden, he Witness the power of these fundamental forces and wished to be like them. So after the Gardener left the black garden, it's likely the Witness learned to use the powers of the darkness/winnower by watching it. Once he mastered this power he set out to become a fundamental force. He could achieve this by using the powers of light and dark to create a pocket universe (like the dreaming city) then use his taking powers to take the life and world's he wants and move them to this pocket universe. By doing this he would become a fundamental force just like the light and dark.
Also the star horse is probably the physical representation of the darkness.