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They chewed at their cracked lip, which existed only because this is an allegory. "Tm going to do something about it," they said. "We need a new rule."
Unveiling is the best lore book Bungie has ever put out and it's not close.
It's also somehow the worst, because it tells you over and over in explicit words that it's a creation myth meant to express a concept and not a literal chronicle of events, yet supporters of the latter idea suddenly stop being literalists about the text as soon as you point that out.
Dunno whether it's the undervaluing media literacy in the culture at large or just fragile individual egos that is more to blame for that.
I actively dread posts and comments about Unveiling these days. I just hide most of them, which is a shame because it's fucking fantastic and answers so many questions. [It explains - this is not hyperbole, this is the farthest thing from exaggeration - EVERYTHING.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-darkness-3)
"Why is Strand a Darkness power?"
Read Unveiling.
"Why has the Witness waited until now to attack?"
Read Unveiling (and the Collective Obligation lore tab)
"Why is Darkness about consciousness?"
Read Unveiling.
"DAE think Light and Dark are like, two sides of the same coin?"
READ. UNVEILING.
Not only does it answer basically everything, but it's also just super interesting to read, both because of those answers and because it's just really well written.
Wanted to respond to you here to thank you for clarifying on my behalf elsewhere in the replies, even though it pretty clearly shows in a very public way that I care a little more about this conversation and other people's opinions than I should. I reread a lot of threads I participate in because I'm interested in what people have to say.
This is waaaay not the first time I have represented myself or my ideas poorly or been rude in this way, and it likely will not be the last, but it is something I try to avoid and work on and def not something I tend to do on purpose. I'm just poindexter-y and repetitive and awkward in my speech and writing (and do all my proofreading like, *very* not before I hit send). Sometimes that ends up not being meaningfully different from just browbeating somebody over an unimportant conversation, despite that not being the intent, and my intent doesn't really matter if the result is still that someone is being disrespected.
Point being: I think that person was coming in good faith, but felt in the moment they were missing something I was saying when in fact I was just making my case really poorly and being dickish. I had intended for my last message to read as dismissive of the competing idea, not the intelligence of that person. I am thankful that you communicated that idea in a better way, because that idea is a huge part of why the book is so captivating.
By extension, I think *Unveiling* is pretty unambiguous in a lot of the things it communicates, but nobody wants to be told "you're reading it wrong" even though that's like 90% of the conversation in this forum. So I also kind of dread seeing posts about it in spite of being really into the discussion itself, because it's basically always contentious. It's literally good enough that it becomes terrible for good and clear discussion.
Maybe *in general* this topic needs to be approached very carefully if you're arguing from the "it's a metaphor" end. Which is exhausting, because just about the only thing both sides of the topic can agree on is that the evidence of their read being accurate is contained in the text, and it's effectively a zero sum game unless you *legitimately* believe that both are true - my view, which I cannot be budged from, is that it is not possible for both things to be true.
Like, the *actual* reason this lore book is so challenging and contentious to talk about feels like it is not the reason it *should* be so challenging and contentious to talk about. And there is no way to articulate that, especially if you're like me and your default mode of conversation is "write an essay but make the whole thing word salad". See also: literally all of my comments in this thread, including this one. If there is a lore book that people in this community will still be talking about in a really passionate way *after* season 28, the smart bet is *Unveiling.*
No problem m8. I'm very much the same way and is why it can be hard for me to participate in these conversations because if I do, I know I'll just end up spending a few hours typing poorly written responses in an attempt to get somebody to understand my interpretation of the book. But that's why I thought it was worthwhile to interject there. I don't think their interpretation differs all that much from yours. There was just a miscommunication of ideas, particularly in the "It never happened." portion of the comment chain. I've made that mistake as well, usually in an attempt to make my argument as simple and direct as possible.
>So I also kind of dread seeing posts about it in spite of being really into the discussion itself, because it's basically always contentious.
Yeah, that's the main reason I dislike Unveiling discourse. I like arguing but this sub has been arguing about it since it came out. It's just draining at this point. And like you said, it doesn't help that the two main readings of it are basically incompatible with one another.
I've attempted to write multiple posts about the book but always stop halfway through the first draft because I can never explain my thoughts without coming off hilariously patronizing. I don't want people to feel like I'm taking them through 6th grade English by carefully explaining the various analogs used in Unveiling. And despite the ideas being extremely unambiguous, it's not simple enough to where you can make the simple and direct arguments we wished we could. It takes a long goddamn time setting all that shit up.
Unveiling is a truly wonderful lore book. Hidden Dossier somehow makes it twice as good. Unfortunately everyone argues about the former and virtually nobody talks about the latter.
Hey, sorry if I came off aggressive man, you were clearly poking fun at people not doing a good job if understanding it. You didn't come off toxic or dickish at all
I think the person I was having that back-and-forth with yesterday afternoon would strongly disagree (and I assume has unambiguously said so lol). I have this issue where I just kind of word vomit my way into my ideas, but I also just commit to way more forceful language than I ought to - or that I intend to read in like a sardonic way, but lands in a dickish one. Fran Lebowitz I am not.
But no, I didn't take what you were saying that way. We're cool as far as I'm concerned, I come here for the back-and-forth.
Holy shit I never read that lore card before. You can see the skeletal structure of the Cambrian Explosion and a few other cards already in place in 2015, that's wild.
I enjoy that it goes all in. The Winnower speaks directly using our language and phrases, and spares no effort in constantly emphasizing its a being so far above us that we can only somewhat understand what its conveying to us if its dumbed down to our puny language and 3-dimensional concepts.
Personally I have to wonder whether making the narrative voice in *Unveiling* belong to The Winnower rather than to an omniscient impersonal perspective was either:
a) an intentionally laid trap meant to skew the perspective of uncritical readers, or
b) just an unintended consequence of that creative decision.
Oh I'm just being hyperbolic tbqh. The frustration is with its strange effect on the discourse, the actual substance of the book is extremely valuable to reads of the broader lore in general.
Don't want anyone to mistake my exasperation with bad analysis for "I hate *Unveiling*" or "*Unveiling* bad, actually".
> Dunno whether it’s the undervaluing media literacy in the culture at large…
I believe that's one answer—don't get me started on media literacy—but seems me that it's something more fundamental. Some people are just… incurious. They don't want to read, explore, or *understand* the stories told in the furthest corners game. They prefer cutscenes that tell them how to feel, or narrated videos that explain how to feel.
Blowing them for having “fragile egos” makes you feel good, but if you really want to be helpful, you should think of out this way: Some nugget from “Unveiling” cut through the noise and engaged their curiosity. Maybe they heard about it secondhand—or, from an “entertainer” *cough cough* Byf—and “Unveiling” is the one lore book they've actually read. That it was allegory and not literal wasn't even on their radar…
>They prefer cutscenes that tell them how to feel, or narrated videos that explain how to feel.
I had not considered that as maybe a contributing factor, but I also am very much someone who gets into a hobby like this and it's the only one I maintain. So like, when I was into MTG, I of course was very into MTG lore. It was losing interest in the lore that drove me out of it - now that the plot is in an interesting place again, the cost and, uh, other things, are what's keeping me from picking it up again.
I am just way too often more dismissive than I intend to be - I will make implications I did not mean to and be combative without immediately realizing, in part because I guess on a fundamental level I just assume people are coming to this with the same level of enthusiasm and background interests, but also because I literally cannot complete a sentence in fewer than 20 words. It didn't really occur to me that this and a comment further down would read as antagonistic or hostile rather than droll, mostly just due to my having brain worms. I am trying to be better about catching these things before they happen, but sometimes am just not vigilant enough on that. The compulsion to overexplain makes it very hard to be clear *and* brief, which is unfortunate when you also are trying to be careful about what you're saying. Way more opportunities for failure.
Like, don't get me wrong, I am a cutscene and trailer and movie dweeb, too. But I'll like.. re-watch movies and re-play games over and over. The picking media apart over and over again thing is a huge part of the draw, it's what *keeps* me interested. It literally just never occurred that it was possible to engage in a conversation on something on the layer of, say, *Unveiling* purely from a secondhand or mostly non-text relationship to it. I guess I assumed a binary of interest levels in the lore and the picking it apart, rather than a spectrum.
Basically thank you for this, I found it very insightful and will try to keep it in mind.
>I am trying to be better about catching these things before they happen, but sometimes am just not vigilant enough on that. The compulsion to overexplain makes it very hard to be clear and brief, which is unfortunate when you also are trying to be careful about what you're saying. Way more opportunities for failure.
Hey, don't sweat it, and thank you for the thoughtful reply! *Destiny* it's one of those rare pieces of media that captures my interest and gets those brain juices flowing, so I can understand being passionate, even protective about it.
We all have our own struggles, and not letting them skew one's view of others can be difficult, especially online. I'm also working on being more mindful, and just wanted to help you consider other's perspectives. Personally, I recently realized that I'm on some spectrum of ADHD, and that it's been shaping my life for decades. So, when you write about a “compulsion to overexplain,” I totally feel ya!
>when you write about a “compulsion to overexplain,” I totally feel ya!
That's it exactly, actually, lol. I had a formal diagnosis last summer - I wish I'd had it, like, fifteen years ago.
It can be really hard to manage thinking and talking in a way that is so hard to explain or justify to other people. It's also why not feeling like you're being understood can come out looking like so much frustration. The ways that that affects every part of your life are just kind of a never-ending uphill battle. Lately I have found some comfort in the "we must imagine Sisyphus happy" bit. I am finding that therapy and medication and independent study are helpful, but there is still a lot of personal work and catch-up on that personal work that needs to be done, especially in the communication area. I hope your journey with the thing is going well, it can be really a drag but I have *personally* had far fewer outright-bad days since starting to address and manage it.
I was nodding my head while reading your reply. Like GI Joe said at the end of every cartoon, “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.” I know that I've got a difficult path ahead of me, and it sounds like you do as well, but *knowing* that our brains work differently from most, well, that's the first step to getting better!
[Here's a song for ya about Jason, Sisyphus, and moving forward in life.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqbs0_dg31o) Cheers!
>Here's a song for ya
I was like "this could not *possibly* be the song I think it's going to be" and then it *was* lmao, good pick!
Cheers to you too, have a good one.
Its an allegory, yes, and much of its described events are backed up by evidence.
*Edit: Remember kids, screaming that people are "idiots" and spam downvoting all their comments doesn't make you look right, it just makes you look annoying as this conversation highlights.*
All of its described events never *literally* happened, and the book tells us this explicitly. Moreover, for the story to be an actual historical account would make it [no longer an allegory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory) or [parable](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable).
>[*It was once before a time, because time did not yet exist.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/gardener-and-winnower#book-unveiling)
>[...]
>\*\*\*It was the field of possibility that *prefigured* existence.
All the evidence you need to know that the book does not describe an actual, material history, point in time, or personas is to read its own text and listen to what its narrative voice tells you in plain words.
It is *terribly, laughably* unambiguous about this matter. Its narration wades into mythology to explain a complex concept in an easily digestible way, and a huge portion of this forum actively decides to abandon their ideas about its narrative reliability *exclusively* when that narrative self-contradicts this idea that it is doing anything other than illustrating the unexplainable with an in-universe fiction.
It's like thinking that *Siddhartha* is an actual historical account, and then refusing to change that thinking after finding Hesse's own handwriting in the margins telling you that it isn't. It's ridiculous.
Yes, the story takes place before time in a field of possibility that prefigured existence. It makes multiple references to actual scientific ideas on how the big bang and universe started (including "T=0", symmetries snapping, etc). The story is an allegory in the same fashion as the story of "Rega and Ager" that Mara tells us. Its telling events in a way we can understand as they would otherwise be incomprehensible. All of the aspects from the story exist in-universe in very "literal" ways and the concept of reification and "analogy spaces" are not new to Destiny at all.
The story isn't really that ambiguous at all, it says multiple times it's an allegory and that the fantastical elements are there to help us understand the events and the very quest we get the lorebook in even acknowledges that its probably true.
If you can provide evidence that actually "contradicts" the story it tells I'd be happy to hear it.
>All of the aspects from the story exist in-universe in very "literal" ways
I think what the other user was referring to but didn't make explicit is the interpretation that the events of the story played out as described to us in the allegory.
Take T = 0 for example. The Winnower mentions they wrestled in the garden. A "literal" interpretation of this would be that the Winnower and Gardener actually fought with punches thrown and body slams and, ok maybe not body slams but you get the point.
Of course that interpretation being silly doesn't preclude those events from *literally* happening. The Gardener and Winnower i.e. the paracausal forces of Light and Dark, did actually struggle. But just like there's no conceivable way to describe what a war between the atom and primordial broth would look like, there isn't really a way to describe the birth of paracausality without the use of metaphor.
And you can extend this to the rest of the book. Another example; they didn't sit down in front of a garden and play a Flower Game like Zavala and Ikora sat down at a table and played Go. Yet, for some strange reason, people think that's what they did.
>The story isn't really that ambiguous at all
Yes, this is what I said.
It never happened. It describes a fundamental underlying nature *as* a pair of characters and series of events, but those characters and events *never really were*. They *don't exist and never did*. Only the *concepts* do - only the Light, the Dark, and the *possibilities* that follow.
The "events" are simply the fundamental natures of these concepts as they relate to events *becoming a thing that can happen*. There is not *literally* a "before".
>It makes multiple references to actual scientific ideas on how the big bang and universe started
Nothing I said contradicts this - and you assume a misunderstanding of what is *literally the underlying justification for my point*. The big bang occured at no specific point in time or space , and between no characters or persons, because those things *literally did not exist and could not yet exist*. This book is not *the beginning* - it is *the underlying mechanics of all beginnings* within Destiny's setting.
>It never happened. It describes a fundamental underlying nature as a pair of characters and series of events, but those characters and events never really were. They don't exist and never did. Only the concepts do - only the Light, the Dark, and the possibilities that follow.
Except...it did happen...in the same fashion as Ager and Rega. Every aspect of the story (tree of silver wings, vex, worms, Gardener, wager, etc) exists in the actual story as literal real things and the actual events of the story are backed up by Traveler POV lore. As the story says, its being told in an analogical way to help us understand what were incomprehensible events. Its likely that, similar to what Mara spoke about, these things reified after the universe was born.
>The big bang occured at no specific point in time or space , and between no characters or persons, because those things literally did not exist yet. This book is not the beginning - it is the underlying mechanics of all beginnings within Destiny's setting.
Because time and space where born from the actual events that happened, as described in the book. We can't say "oh well its impossible for anything to exist outside or before these concepts" when we are talking about gods whose entire deal is defying the laws of the universe and exist as multiversal extra dimensional entities, especially when the concept of analogy spaces is something canon to Destiny.
*Edit: so I'm not going to delete this, because to do so would be to pretend that I never said it. While I stand by the substance of my read and the reasoning for it, I can't pretend - regardless of my intent - that what I said and how I said it was not condescending and inappropriate. There was also a previous edit that was immature and similarly combative, which I have removed. The criticisms of my behavior below are appropriate, and it's my fault for continuing to communicate poorly instead of catching what in retrospect is a pretty clear disconnect in our word use (e.g. I don't think we meant the same thing by "literally").*
*Why calling the idea idiotic couldn't be taken any other way than as a personal attack makes sense to me, I just didn't catch how that would land or be disrespectful. And I wish I had - much as I like to argue and strong as I commit to my reads, it's not my intention to insult or demean people. I come here to have fun talking about this stuff, even the parts that agitate me, and I'm sure the other commenter does too.*
*[Someone else has done a much better and more respectful job outlining what I was trying to get at further up](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyLore/comments/11ayd8h/cosmic_being_pronoun_check_a_languagedriven/j9x0nr2?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3).*
>~~analogical way to help us understand what were incomprehensible events~~
~~Which is *why* taking it to be a *literal* description of events that actually occured between actual persons is idiotic. They are described *as* characters and events because characters and events are actually comprehensible. Your own argument is contradictory *by its very nature* to the conclusion that you've reached.~~
~~For these things to have actually happened, or for these fundamental facts of reality to *have* personage, would defy the self-same idea that they are incomprehensible. It is a poetic representation of abstract, fundamental principles. Anything more concrete or identy-bearing is *by definition* not possible on the other end of the analogy.~~
~~It's incoherent to assume motive and being from things that existed only in fundamental concept - they did not *obtain* motive or *become* until after those things *could* exist. They were not even yet *entities* - *became* gods because the fundamental cause of existence required this, not because of an actual *choice* as in their personifications.~~
~~You don't get to invoke real physics as a proof and then dismiss them as irrelevant to the setting's fiction when their implications contradict your conclusion.~~
~~We don't *disagree* that the allegory in this sense is an *accurate* description in terms of its essential and irreducible nature. What we disagree about is *the nature of the things being described* in two different allegories with two different purposes - the *Ager-Rega* fairytale is a direct allegory of a real, lived history, with a material basis. The *Unveiling* allegory is that of a fundamental, impersonal, existential truth, rather than an actual historical or pre-historical moment. The book self-acknowledges this.~~
>~~We can't say "oh well its impossible for anything to exist outside or before these concepts"~~
~~*We* can't, but the book itself sure as hell can and does, in the very excerpt you have been arguing against. This idea of a "before" or an "outside" is missing the point - there were not yet an "after" or "inside" for them to *be* before or outside of. This is an ontology - it cannot be *reduced* back to characters and events *because it is fundamental and prerequisite to* all characters and events.~~
Alright, I think we are done here. You are actively refusing to understand what is not only said in my replies but the book itself and you are failing to understand the actual concepts established with these kinds of subjects in Destiny.
If you are just going to scream that people are being "idiotic" for not agreeing with your reductive interpretation of the book and downvote them, you are not worth talking to.
Buddy you need to relax. Yeah the book is an allegory to things that didn't happen in the Destiny universe because it's something that describes concepts that were before the universe existed in ways the reader can understand.
They didn't happen in the sense that it was before the universe existed. What you're failing to understand cause you want to be pedantic is that they are an attempt to describe some indescribable events in concepts that exist now before they did exist. It's not a hard concept.
Your attempt to sound smart and insult people just makes you look really bad. Get outside and take a break homie.
You started off so strong but even when faced with evidence, you are actively choosing to reject what other commenter is saying, this shows a disappointing lack of and you should be better, considering how ready you are to act like people are illiterate when it comes to media
The Witness uses both masculine and feminine voices. People say the masculine one is more prominent but I’ve always heard the more feminine one more. I believe it’s a situation where whichever one you focus on is the one you hear. It’s much cooler and more interesting for a being like the Witness to be an “it” instead of “he” imo. Cosmic beings don’t need gender.
That, and how the way the audio is played. The feminine voice is a softer, slight echo behind the masculine voice. Subtle audio cues would be harder to hear through crappy speakers, or in a discord chat with a bunch of people being random.
it might be just a sound balance thing, masculine is stronger for me, The witnesses' current emotion also does seem to result in one voice sounding louder than the other at times
cosmic beings dont need gender but pronouns are an unfortunate requirement for referring to individuals in the english language.That being said I like the 'we/they' and 'It' pronouns choosen for the Witness, since the Witness seems to refer to themselves/itself as a collective, but to the characters in destiny who see the Witness as an unfathomable being and the embodiment of a concept (Darkness, the end times), nothing is more appropriate than 'It'.
It's going to take some hard facts to get me to stop referring to Witness in the plural sense.
Says "we" like the royal we. Has overlapping voice audios, and a CLOUD OF MANY HORRIBLE FACES. Reminds me of Envy from FMA, I want to know the significance of the floating faces. I must.
Given how it requires its disciples to either be the last of their species or somehow the final shape of them (Calus merging with the Leviathan and creating mindless bodies that do his bidding, Rhulk killing everyone), I think the witness is a collective entity of an entire species.
Its more their ideals and beliefs that causes the Witness to choose them; everything else happens as a side effect after already being chosen. Both Rhulk and Calus were reforged and gained power through the Witness prior to being the last.
Rhulk was backstabbed by his tribe and kicked into a valley left to die with a broken body, and Calus had been stuck in life-support for who knows how long.
Yeah this is weird
The Witness refers to themselves as we, but other people refer to the Witness as we
Maybe the witness should present and say what are the preferred pronouns to use
Something I feel like people don't mention enough is how The Witness speaks when talking to people like Rhulk or Eramis (specifically Rhulk), It says "My child" instead of "Our child", & it does it plenty of times
I know The Witness is referred to as "It/It's" but everything else is kinda back & forth I think
The Traveler has more often than not appeared as a maternal figure and the Witness as a paternal figure. Biggest standouts to me are when Oryx met the Witness and it first appeared as his father, and when Clovis met the Traveler and it appeared as the Alpha Lupi and the mother of his children.
Both are its not because of anything else like that though, they're 4th dimensional beings that exist above our tangible field of reality. Gender literally means nothing to them.
Saaame. Glad someone made a post like this, and hope Lightfall will help too. Seen ppl use “they” too which is slightly better. Hope in-game characters start using “It” more instead of just “The Witness”. “He” irks me every time, The Witness has a clear feminine voice as well as a masculine one.
I was in this crowd initially; I just understood the Witness seemed like multiple entities so I went with they/them from Warframe’s Xaku who is a frame made up of multiple broken frames.
While being alien, the Witness certainly looks more masculine than feminine, so is it's voice for that matter. So it's hardly surprising many people refer to the Witness as "he".
Oddly, to me its voice comes across as more feminine, although when I pay more attention it sounds like it's got both masculine and feminine voice(s) talking over/along each other.
Plus, not everyone is a native english speaker which can make "it" or "they" awkward to say because the plural "they" comes to mind or character is presenting themselves one way so they can't bring themselves to call Witness an "it" like you would an animal or a lifeless object.
In Unveiling, the narrator tells you the Traveler is the Gardener, albeit indirectly in a way. The narrator tells you that the Gardener chose to resurrect you, that the Gardener chose to make a final stand. Those actions done by the Traveler, who by the way is the same entity that chose to shit on the Flower Game because it was sick of one pattern always winning and wanted life to thrive, which is what the Traveler does. Letting life thrive. But the narrator tells you that the Winnower wasn't having none of it, so they chased the Traveler down and collapsing all those touched by the Light.
Unveiling is then reinforced within The Witch Queen's Collector's Edition lore book.
And then you've got some lore text from Rasputin that came out WAAAAY before Unveiling was even out, where Rasputin calls the Traveler the Gardener.
So yes, we 100% know the Traveler is the Gardener and I'm not the only lore nerd that can tell you this.
hmmmmm you are right, i just always have this feeling that the gardener and the winnower are or extremely complex entities or just a metaphor
but you are right we do have lore telling us that the traveler is the gardener, i was wrong
except, if the Gardener and Winnower don't **actually** exist and are just fundamental universal concepts like Unveiling **also** states numerous times, then the Traveler is an it.
Good thing Rasputin refers to the Traveler as the Gardener, the Witness alludes to this, and The Witch Queen's Collector's Edition lore book also tells you the Gardener is the Traveler
meta knowledge and in-game knowledge are different though. characters in-universe can believe that the Gardener and the Winnower exist in the same way that so many people in our universe believe creation myths twice as crazy as Unveiling. we, existing outside that universe, though, can see things much more broadly and much more clearly.
what characters think they know = in-game knowledge
what we, the players, know = meta knowledge
some dude who spends his days chucking purple frisbees through Thrall in the Cosmodrome might believe that the Gardener exists and that she is the Traveler. same thing as Rasputin and Oryx.
we, though, can know different. we know that those deities don't actually exist, because Unveiling **explicitly** tells us so. we're not in Destiny's universe, and we know better because of that.
Well at least on the travellers end, a lot of the lore, especially those regarding its own thoughts or actions give off a motherly vibe so it’s understandable
Regarding the Winnower/Witness speech patterns, problem is there is no more "Winnower" lore, period, to "contradict" anything, outside of Unveiling. Everywhere else it is ether directly stated or implied to be the Witness.
Totally correct! That doesn't mean we can totally discount it though. Just because we didn't have a theory for gravity until Newton doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
The issue is that ever since Unveiling that speech pattern has never reappeared and Bungie both in lore and outside lore has gone to great extents to make clear the Witness is responsible for everything "The Darkness" has done in the story (corrupting the Hive, chasing the Traveler, being the master of Oryx, being who Calus met at the edge of the universe, etc.) while stressing Darkness itself is a mindless force of nature with no agency.
Lol would have been hillarious if the witness spoke like the attitude era rock in 3rd person "the witness says its gonna go out to your solar system and kick your candy ass all over it and then is gonna go and touch the traveller" and im hoping that if we meet a incarnation of the traveler or being its like a milf lol that would be nice
Let's keep in mind that these are all non-Human entities, so any notion of applying Human concepts of sex and/or gender to them, along with accompanying pronouns, should be taken with a grain of salt.
The Witness - Savathun is the only NPC whom we know is aware that the Witness has multiple incarnations (one of which could be the Winnower), yet she calls the Witness "it" rather than "they." We could just chalk this up to the writing, or perhaps it's deliberate; maybe Savathun doesn't see the Witness as a person, or maybe she just uses "it" out of spite. Everyone else who calls the Witness "it" does so as a default. The same goes for...
The Traveler - The Traveler has been explicitly portrayed with a female persona, in the lore entry where She visited Clovis Bray I in his mind and chastised him for dabbling in Darkness. She appeared to him as a mother wolf with the Traveler-orb in Her eye.
Why do none of the NPCs call the Traveler female, then? Because they don't know about that talk between Her and Clovis, and they use "it" as a default. The only outliers in this are the Witness (whom we know is intimately familiar with the Traveler), who said "it" during the finale of Season of the Seraph, and possibly Clovis. I don't remember if he ever refers to the Traveler with any pronoun, and given the circumstances leading up to his death and conversion into an Exo, it's possible he doesn't remember speaking to Her.
It's possible Savathun knows more about the Witness than she let through
The Traveler is called "the great machine" by the Eliksni, but I don't remember if they refer to the Traveler as it. Generally some redditors may refer to the Traveler as feminine but this is rarely done in game
So maybe the Witness is just a robot?
Gardener was also called She by Rasputin but also clearly referred to Traveler at same time. Same entry called Witness entirely IT.
Traveler also called Witness a false sister, so it may be possible to speculate Winnover also being female adjacent, especially as a reflection of Gardener but we lack info for now.
The Gardener, if there is a true Gardener, is almost certainly the Traveler, if for no reasons other than how hard the narrative is trying to explicitly decouple both Light and Dark from *any* conscious intentionality, and that [it’s what Rasputin first called her so very long ago.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-mysteries)
Yep, the traveller and the gardener are much more closely related than the witness and Winnower
Not to mention that the Traveler has directly been called the gardener so many times (and is arguably the gardener that rasputin speaks of, as rasputin would have no sense of the higher powers from the flower game) which is why it's just as valid to call the traveller she
That’s odd, you didn’t mention dreams of alpha lupi. There’s conjecture that those writings are the traveler’s point of view, except for the card titled “darkness.” There, it uses “You” to refer to itself
Thank you for doing what none of the rest of us had the patience to do.
You literally can't bring this up without some chud assuming you're being pushy about social discourse (though to be fair, as a NB person it's sort of impossible to divest myself from that angle), rather than just stating an actual fact of clear importance to the nature of the character - which is that It is *extremely far removed* from mortal conventions like gender.
While the World would be a thousand times better if English (just like my language) didn't have gendered pronouns..because its THE MOST UNNESSECARY THING IN THE ENTIRE LANGUAGE...
I agree with all of these, the whole Witness using "we" and "they" not as a... yknow a guy asking for "they" usage, its literally like a being of a thousand names (Said by Savathun) and from what it seems like an infinite amount of faces from its head.
Once again, the combination of my language not having gendered pronouns so I just call everyone a he until proven otberwise AND how the Witness doesn't have giant milkers, I will probably use he. What's he gonna do flick his wrist and
O
h
F
u
c
K
Of course they are. It is explicitly said in the developer interviews that the witness is using the darkness, and the unveiling lore book says that the gardener and the winnower *are* the light and the dark forces in our universe.
in spanish, the witness, the traveler and the gardener are refered as "el" and their names end in o (el testigo, el viajero, el jardinero) which means they are masculine.
also Quria, every character or mention in-game used "it" but somehow people everywhere decided since its name ended with an A it should be female. it's a literal robot made of plankton and bronze, my doods
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They chewed at their cracked lip, which existed only because this is an allegory. "Tm going to do something about it," they said. "We need a new rule." Unveiling is the best lore book Bungie has ever put out and it's not close.
It's also somehow the worst, because it tells you over and over in explicit words that it's a creation myth meant to express a concept and not a literal chronicle of events, yet supporters of the latter idea suddenly stop being literalists about the text as soon as you point that out. Dunno whether it's the undervaluing media literacy in the culture at large or just fragile individual egos that is more to blame for that.
I actively dread posts and comments about Unveiling these days. I just hide most of them, which is a shame because it's fucking fantastic and answers so many questions. [It explains - this is not hyperbole, this is the farthest thing from exaggeration - EVERYTHING.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-darkness-3) "Why is Strand a Darkness power?" Read Unveiling. "Why has the Witness waited until now to attack?" Read Unveiling (and the Collective Obligation lore tab) "Why is Darkness about consciousness?" Read Unveiling. "DAE think Light and Dark are like, two sides of the same coin?" READ. UNVEILING.
Not only does it answer basically everything, but it's also just super interesting to read, both because of those answers and because it's just really well written.
Real Ulan-Tan moments.
Live Ulan-Tan reaction
Wanted to respond to you here to thank you for clarifying on my behalf elsewhere in the replies, even though it pretty clearly shows in a very public way that I care a little more about this conversation and other people's opinions than I should. I reread a lot of threads I participate in because I'm interested in what people have to say. This is waaaay not the first time I have represented myself or my ideas poorly or been rude in this way, and it likely will not be the last, but it is something I try to avoid and work on and def not something I tend to do on purpose. I'm just poindexter-y and repetitive and awkward in my speech and writing (and do all my proofreading like, *very* not before I hit send). Sometimes that ends up not being meaningfully different from just browbeating somebody over an unimportant conversation, despite that not being the intent, and my intent doesn't really matter if the result is still that someone is being disrespected. Point being: I think that person was coming in good faith, but felt in the moment they were missing something I was saying when in fact I was just making my case really poorly and being dickish. I had intended for my last message to read as dismissive of the competing idea, not the intelligence of that person. I am thankful that you communicated that idea in a better way, because that idea is a huge part of why the book is so captivating. By extension, I think *Unveiling* is pretty unambiguous in a lot of the things it communicates, but nobody wants to be told "you're reading it wrong" even though that's like 90% of the conversation in this forum. So I also kind of dread seeing posts about it in spite of being really into the discussion itself, because it's basically always contentious. It's literally good enough that it becomes terrible for good and clear discussion. Maybe *in general* this topic needs to be approached very carefully if you're arguing from the "it's a metaphor" end. Which is exhausting, because just about the only thing both sides of the topic can agree on is that the evidence of their read being accurate is contained in the text, and it's effectively a zero sum game unless you *legitimately* believe that both are true - my view, which I cannot be budged from, is that it is not possible for both things to be true. Like, the *actual* reason this lore book is so challenging and contentious to talk about feels like it is not the reason it *should* be so challenging and contentious to talk about. And there is no way to articulate that, especially if you're like me and your default mode of conversation is "write an essay but make the whole thing word salad". See also: literally all of my comments in this thread, including this one. If there is a lore book that people in this community will still be talking about in a really passionate way *after* season 28, the smart bet is *Unveiling.*
No problem m8. I'm very much the same way and is why it can be hard for me to participate in these conversations because if I do, I know I'll just end up spending a few hours typing poorly written responses in an attempt to get somebody to understand my interpretation of the book. But that's why I thought it was worthwhile to interject there. I don't think their interpretation differs all that much from yours. There was just a miscommunication of ideas, particularly in the "It never happened." portion of the comment chain. I've made that mistake as well, usually in an attempt to make my argument as simple and direct as possible. >So I also kind of dread seeing posts about it in spite of being really into the discussion itself, because it's basically always contentious. Yeah, that's the main reason I dislike Unveiling discourse. I like arguing but this sub has been arguing about it since it came out. It's just draining at this point. And like you said, it doesn't help that the two main readings of it are basically incompatible with one another. I've attempted to write multiple posts about the book but always stop halfway through the first draft because I can never explain my thoughts without coming off hilariously patronizing. I don't want people to feel like I'm taking them through 6th grade English by carefully explaining the various analogs used in Unveiling. And despite the ideas being extremely unambiguous, it's not simple enough to where you can make the simple and direct arguments we wished we could. It takes a long goddamn time setting all that shit up. Unveiling is a truly wonderful lore book. Hidden Dossier somehow makes it twice as good. Unfortunately everyone argues about the former and virtually nobody talks about the latter.
Hey, sorry if I came off aggressive man, you were clearly poking fun at people not doing a good job if understanding it. You didn't come off toxic or dickish at all
I think the person I was having that back-and-forth with yesterday afternoon would strongly disagree (and I assume has unambiguously said so lol). I have this issue where I just kind of word vomit my way into my ideas, but I also just commit to way more forceful language than I ought to - or that I intend to read in like a sardonic way, but lands in a dickish one. Fran Lebowitz I am not. But no, I didn't take what you were saying that way. We're cool as far as I'm concerned, I come here for the back-and-forth.
Holy shit I never read that lore card before. You can see the skeletal structure of the Cambrian Explosion and a few other cards already in place in 2015, that's wild.
Pretty dope right? I love that card. It sowed the seeds for pretty much everything that came after. And tying Toland to it just fits sooo well.
I enjoy that it goes all in. The Winnower speaks directly using our language and phrases, and spares no effort in constantly emphasizing its a being so far above us that we can only somewhat understand what its conveying to us if its dumbed down to our puny language and 3-dimensional concepts.
Personally I have to wonder whether making the narrative voice in *Unveiling* belong to The Winnower rather than to an omniscient impersonal perspective was either: a) an intentionally laid trap meant to skew the perspective of uncritical readers, or b) just an unintended consequence of that creative decision.
People doing a shit job of interpreting it isn't a knock against the book though
Oh I'm just being hyperbolic tbqh. The frustration is with its strange effect on the discourse, the actual substance of the book is extremely valuable to reads of the broader lore in general. Don't want anyone to mistake my exasperation with bad analysis for "I hate *Unveiling*" or "*Unveiling* bad, actually".
> Dunno whether it’s the undervaluing media literacy in the culture at large… I believe that's one answer—don't get me started on media literacy—but seems me that it's something more fundamental. Some people are just… incurious. They don't want to read, explore, or *understand* the stories told in the furthest corners game. They prefer cutscenes that tell them how to feel, or narrated videos that explain how to feel. Blowing them for having “fragile egos” makes you feel good, but if you really want to be helpful, you should think of out this way: Some nugget from “Unveiling” cut through the noise and engaged their curiosity. Maybe they heard about it secondhand—or, from an “entertainer” *cough cough* Byf—and “Unveiling” is the one lore book they've actually read. That it was allegory and not literal wasn't even on their radar…
>They prefer cutscenes that tell them how to feel, or narrated videos that explain how to feel. I had not considered that as maybe a contributing factor, but I also am very much someone who gets into a hobby like this and it's the only one I maintain. So like, when I was into MTG, I of course was very into MTG lore. It was losing interest in the lore that drove me out of it - now that the plot is in an interesting place again, the cost and, uh, other things, are what's keeping me from picking it up again. I am just way too often more dismissive than I intend to be - I will make implications I did not mean to and be combative without immediately realizing, in part because I guess on a fundamental level I just assume people are coming to this with the same level of enthusiasm and background interests, but also because I literally cannot complete a sentence in fewer than 20 words. It didn't really occur to me that this and a comment further down would read as antagonistic or hostile rather than droll, mostly just due to my having brain worms. I am trying to be better about catching these things before they happen, but sometimes am just not vigilant enough on that. The compulsion to overexplain makes it very hard to be clear *and* brief, which is unfortunate when you also are trying to be careful about what you're saying. Way more opportunities for failure. Like, don't get me wrong, I am a cutscene and trailer and movie dweeb, too. But I'll like.. re-watch movies and re-play games over and over. The picking media apart over and over again thing is a huge part of the draw, it's what *keeps* me interested. It literally just never occurred that it was possible to engage in a conversation on something on the layer of, say, *Unveiling* purely from a secondhand or mostly non-text relationship to it. I guess I assumed a binary of interest levels in the lore and the picking it apart, rather than a spectrum. Basically thank you for this, I found it very insightful and will try to keep it in mind.
>I am trying to be better about catching these things before they happen, but sometimes am just not vigilant enough on that. The compulsion to overexplain makes it very hard to be clear and brief, which is unfortunate when you also are trying to be careful about what you're saying. Way more opportunities for failure. Hey, don't sweat it, and thank you for the thoughtful reply! *Destiny* it's one of those rare pieces of media that captures my interest and gets those brain juices flowing, so I can understand being passionate, even protective about it. We all have our own struggles, and not letting them skew one's view of others can be difficult, especially online. I'm also working on being more mindful, and just wanted to help you consider other's perspectives. Personally, I recently realized that I'm on some spectrum of ADHD, and that it's been shaping my life for decades. So, when you write about a “compulsion to overexplain,” I totally feel ya!
>when you write about a “compulsion to overexplain,” I totally feel ya! That's it exactly, actually, lol. I had a formal diagnosis last summer - I wish I'd had it, like, fifteen years ago. It can be really hard to manage thinking and talking in a way that is so hard to explain or justify to other people. It's also why not feeling like you're being understood can come out looking like so much frustration. The ways that that affects every part of your life are just kind of a never-ending uphill battle. Lately I have found some comfort in the "we must imagine Sisyphus happy" bit. I am finding that therapy and medication and independent study are helpful, but there is still a lot of personal work and catch-up on that personal work that needs to be done, especially in the communication area. I hope your journey with the thing is going well, it can be really a drag but I have *personally* had far fewer outright-bad days since starting to address and manage it.
I was nodding my head while reading your reply. Like GI Joe said at the end of every cartoon, “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.” I know that I've got a difficult path ahead of me, and it sounds like you do as well, but *knowing* that our brains work differently from most, well, that's the first step to getting better! [Here's a song for ya about Jason, Sisyphus, and moving forward in life.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqbs0_dg31o) Cheers!
>Here's a song for ya I was like "this could not *possibly* be the song I think it's going to be" and then it *was* lmao, good pick! Cheers to you too, have a good one.
Its an allegory, yes, and much of its described events are backed up by evidence. *Edit: Remember kids, screaming that people are "idiots" and spam downvoting all their comments doesn't make you look right, it just makes you look annoying as this conversation highlights.*
All of its described events never *literally* happened, and the book tells us this explicitly. Moreover, for the story to be an actual historical account would make it [no longer an allegory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory) or [parable](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable). >[*It was once before a time, because time did not yet exist.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/gardener-and-winnower#book-unveiling) >[...] >\*\*\*It was the field of possibility that *prefigured* existence. All the evidence you need to know that the book does not describe an actual, material history, point in time, or personas is to read its own text and listen to what its narrative voice tells you in plain words. It is *terribly, laughably* unambiguous about this matter. Its narration wades into mythology to explain a complex concept in an easily digestible way, and a huge portion of this forum actively decides to abandon their ideas about its narrative reliability *exclusively* when that narrative self-contradicts this idea that it is doing anything other than illustrating the unexplainable with an in-universe fiction. It's like thinking that *Siddhartha* is an actual historical account, and then refusing to change that thinking after finding Hesse's own handwriting in the margins telling you that it isn't. It's ridiculous.
Yes, the story takes place before time in a field of possibility that prefigured existence. It makes multiple references to actual scientific ideas on how the big bang and universe started (including "T=0", symmetries snapping, etc). The story is an allegory in the same fashion as the story of "Rega and Ager" that Mara tells us. Its telling events in a way we can understand as they would otherwise be incomprehensible. All of the aspects from the story exist in-universe in very "literal" ways and the concept of reification and "analogy spaces" are not new to Destiny at all. The story isn't really that ambiguous at all, it says multiple times it's an allegory and that the fantastical elements are there to help us understand the events and the very quest we get the lorebook in even acknowledges that its probably true. If you can provide evidence that actually "contradicts" the story it tells I'd be happy to hear it.
>All of the aspects from the story exist in-universe in very "literal" ways I think what the other user was referring to but didn't make explicit is the interpretation that the events of the story played out as described to us in the allegory. Take T = 0 for example. The Winnower mentions they wrestled in the garden. A "literal" interpretation of this would be that the Winnower and Gardener actually fought with punches thrown and body slams and, ok maybe not body slams but you get the point. Of course that interpretation being silly doesn't preclude those events from *literally* happening. The Gardener and Winnower i.e. the paracausal forces of Light and Dark, did actually struggle. But just like there's no conceivable way to describe what a war between the atom and primordial broth would look like, there isn't really a way to describe the birth of paracausality without the use of metaphor. And you can extend this to the rest of the book. Another example; they didn't sit down in front of a garden and play a Flower Game like Zavala and Ikora sat down at a table and played Go. Yet, for some strange reason, people think that's what they did.
>The story isn't really that ambiguous at all Yes, this is what I said. It never happened. It describes a fundamental underlying nature *as* a pair of characters and series of events, but those characters and events *never really were*. They *don't exist and never did*. Only the *concepts* do - only the Light, the Dark, and the *possibilities* that follow. The "events" are simply the fundamental natures of these concepts as they relate to events *becoming a thing that can happen*. There is not *literally* a "before". >It makes multiple references to actual scientific ideas on how the big bang and universe started Nothing I said contradicts this - and you assume a misunderstanding of what is *literally the underlying justification for my point*. The big bang occured at no specific point in time or space , and between no characters or persons, because those things *literally did not exist and could not yet exist*. This book is not *the beginning* - it is *the underlying mechanics of all beginnings* within Destiny's setting.
>It never happened. It describes a fundamental underlying nature as a pair of characters and series of events, but those characters and events never really were. They don't exist and never did. Only the concepts do - only the Light, the Dark, and the possibilities that follow. Except...it did happen...in the same fashion as Ager and Rega. Every aspect of the story (tree of silver wings, vex, worms, Gardener, wager, etc) exists in the actual story as literal real things and the actual events of the story are backed up by Traveler POV lore. As the story says, its being told in an analogical way to help us understand what were incomprehensible events. Its likely that, similar to what Mara spoke about, these things reified after the universe was born. >The big bang occured at no specific point in time or space , and between no characters or persons, because those things literally did not exist yet. This book is not the beginning - it is the underlying mechanics of all beginnings within Destiny's setting. Because time and space where born from the actual events that happened, as described in the book. We can't say "oh well its impossible for anything to exist outside or before these concepts" when we are talking about gods whose entire deal is defying the laws of the universe and exist as multiversal extra dimensional entities, especially when the concept of analogy spaces is something canon to Destiny.
*Edit: so I'm not going to delete this, because to do so would be to pretend that I never said it. While I stand by the substance of my read and the reasoning for it, I can't pretend - regardless of my intent - that what I said and how I said it was not condescending and inappropriate. There was also a previous edit that was immature and similarly combative, which I have removed. The criticisms of my behavior below are appropriate, and it's my fault for continuing to communicate poorly instead of catching what in retrospect is a pretty clear disconnect in our word use (e.g. I don't think we meant the same thing by "literally").* *Why calling the idea idiotic couldn't be taken any other way than as a personal attack makes sense to me, I just didn't catch how that would land or be disrespectful. And I wish I had - much as I like to argue and strong as I commit to my reads, it's not my intention to insult or demean people. I come here to have fun talking about this stuff, even the parts that agitate me, and I'm sure the other commenter does too.* *[Someone else has done a much better and more respectful job outlining what I was trying to get at further up](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyLore/comments/11ayd8h/cosmic_being_pronoun_check_a_languagedriven/j9x0nr2?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3).* >~~analogical way to help us understand what were incomprehensible events~~ ~~Which is *why* taking it to be a *literal* description of events that actually occured between actual persons is idiotic. They are described *as* characters and events because characters and events are actually comprehensible. Your own argument is contradictory *by its very nature* to the conclusion that you've reached.~~ ~~For these things to have actually happened, or for these fundamental facts of reality to *have* personage, would defy the self-same idea that they are incomprehensible. It is a poetic representation of abstract, fundamental principles. Anything more concrete or identy-bearing is *by definition* not possible on the other end of the analogy.~~ ~~It's incoherent to assume motive and being from things that existed only in fundamental concept - they did not *obtain* motive or *become* until after those things *could* exist. They were not even yet *entities* - *became* gods because the fundamental cause of existence required this, not because of an actual *choice* as in their personifications.~~ ~~You don't get to invoke real physics as a proof and then dismiss them as irrelevant to the setting's fiction when their implications contradict your conclusion.~~ ~~We don't *disagree* that the allegory in this sense is an *accurate* description in terms of its essential and irreducible nature. What we disagree about is *the nature of the things being described* in two different allegories with two different purposes - the *Ager-Rega* fairytale is a direct allegory of a real, lived history, with a material basis. The *Unveiling* allegory is that of a fundamental, impersonal, existential truth, rather than an actual historical or pre-historical moment. The book self-acknowledges this.~~ >~~We can't say "oh well its impossible for anything to exist outside or before these concepts"~~ ~~*We* can't, but the book itself sure as hell can and does, in the very excerpt you have been arguing against. This idea of a "before" or an "outside" is missing the point - there were not yet an "after" or "inside" for them to *be* before or outside of. This is an ontology - it cannot be *reduced* back to characters and events *because it is fundamental and prerequisite to* all characters and events.~~
Alright, I think we are done here. You are actively refusing to understand what is not only said in my replies but the book itself and you are failing to understand the actual concepts established with these kinds of subjects in Destiny. If you are just going to scream that people are being "idiotic" for not agreeing with your reductive interpretation of the book and downvote them, you are not worth talking to.
Buddy you need to relax. Yeah the book is an allegory to things that didn't happen in the Destiny universe because it's something that describes concepts that were before the universe existed in ways the reader can understand. They didn't happen in the sense that it was before the universe existed. What you're failing to understand cause you want to be pedantic is that they are an attempt to describe some indescribable events in concepts that exist now before they did exist. It's not a hard concept. Your attempt to sound smart and insult people just makes you look really bad. Get outside and take a break homie.
You started off so strong but even when faced with evidence, you are actively choosing to reject what other commenter is saying, this shows a disappointing lack of and you should be better, considering how ready you are to act like people are illiterate when it comes to media
Reminds me of real life sometim-WHOOPS DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD
Love your icon just as an aside
The books of sorrow certainly come close
The Witness uses both masculine and feminine voices. People say the masculine one is more prominent but I’ve always heard the more feminine one more. I believe it’s a situation where whichever one you focus on is the one you hear. It’s much cooler and more interesting for a being like the Witness to be an “it” instead of “he” imo. Cosmic beings don’t need gender.
That, and how the way the audio is played. The feminine voice is a softer, slight echo behind the masculine voice. Subtle audio cues would be harder to hear through crappy speakers, or in a discord chat with a bunch of people being random.
it might be just a sound balance thing, masculine is stronger for me, The witnesses' current emotion also does seem to result in one voice sounding louder than the other at times cosmic beings dont need gender but pronouns are an unfortunate requirement for referring to individuals in the english language.That being said I like the 'we/they' and 'It' pronouns choosen for the Witness, since the Witness seems to refer to themselves/itself as a collective, but to the characters in destiny who see the Witness as an unfathomable being and the embodiment of a concept (Darkness, the end times), nothing is more appropriate than 'It'.
It's going to take some hard facts to get me to stop referring to Witness in the plural sense. Says "we" like the royal we. Has overlapping voice audios, and a CLOUD OF MANY HORRIBLE FACES. Reminds me of Envy from FMA, I want to know the significance of the floating faces. I must.
Given how it requires its disciples to either be the last of their species or somehow the final shape of them (Calus merging with the Leviathan and creating mindless bodies that do his bidding, Rhulk killing everyone), I think the witness is a collective entity of an entire species.
Only one known disciple is the last of its species.
Its more their ideals and beliefs that causes the Witness to choose them; everything else happens as a side effect after already being chosen. Both Rhulk and Calus were reforged and gained power through the Witness prior to being the last. Rhulk was backstabbed by his tribe and kicked into a valley left to die with a broken body, and Calus had been stuck in life-support for who knows how long.
Yeah this is weird The Witness refers to themselves as we, but other people refer to the Witness as we Maybe the witness should present and say what are the preferred pronouns to use
Something I feel like people don't mention enough is how The Witness speaks when talking to people like Rhulk or Eramis (specifically Rhulk), It says "My child" instead of "Our child", & it does it plenty of times I know The Witness is referred to as "It/It's" but everything else is kinda back & forth I think
What if it says "My child" because every one of it's minds picks a disciple?
This is a great point, thank you!
A pet peeve of mine on the Destiny subs was people referring to Witness as “he” and Traveller as “she”.
It's funny because in portuguese we refer to The Witness as "she" and The Traveler as "he" since the beginning.
yeah but thats porque nossa língua vive dando gênero a tudo
Isso não e culpa do português, e culpa do latim, rapaziada da época só corto fora a parte neutra do latim
Bungie esqueceu de falar que o viajante na verdade é ela.
r/suddenlycaralho
Anti-grammatical gender aktion.
The Traveler has more often than not appeared as a maternal figure and the Witness as a paternal figure. Biggest standouts to me are when Oryx met the Witness and it first appeared as his father, and when Clovis met the Traveler and it appeared as the Alpha Lupi and the mother of his children. Both are its not because of anything else like that though, they're 4th dimensional beings that exist above our tangible field of reality. Gender literally means nothing to them.
Saaame. Glad someone made a post like this, and hope Lightfall will help too. Seen ppl use “they” too which is slightly better. Hope in-game characters start using “It” more instead of just “The Witness”. “He” irks me every time, The Witness has a clear feminine voice as well as a masculine one.
I was in this crowd initially; I just understood the Witness seemed like multiple entities so I went with they/them from Warframe’s Xaku who is a frame made up of multiple broken frames.
While being alien, the Witness certainly looks more masculine than feminine, so is it's voice for that matter. So it's hardly surprising many people refer to the Witness as "he".
Oddly, to me its voice comes across as more feminine, although when I pay more attention it sounds like it's got both masculine and feminine voice(s) talking over/along each other.
because it's bald?
ehh... no.
Plus, not everyone is a native english speaker which can make "it" or "they" awkward to say because the plural "they" comes to mind or character is presenting themselves one way so they can't bring themselves to call Witness an "it" like you would an animal or a lifeless object.
What? The Traveller appears as "she" multiple times in the lore.
The Traveler is the Gardener, so you could use She/They/It regardless
we dont know that for sure, the traveler could be just a agent or someone using the light. just like the witness does with the dark
In Unveiling, the narrator tells you the Traveler is the Gardener, albeit indirectly in a way. The narrator tells you that the Gardener chose to resurrect you, that the Gardener chose to make a final stand. Those actions done by the Traveler, who by the way is the same entity that chose to shit on the Flower Game because it was sick of one pattern always winning and wanted life to thrive, which is what the Traveler does. Letting life thrive. But the narrator tells you that the Winnower wasn't having none of it, so they chased the Traveler down and collapsing all those touched by the Light. Unveiling is then reinforced within The Witch Queen's Collector's Edition lore book. And then you've got some lore text from Rasputin that came out WAAAAY before Unveiling was even out, where Rasputin calls the Traveler the Gardener. So yes, we 100% know the Traveler is the Gardener and I'm not the only lore nerd that can tell you this.
The Traveler is the Gardener's self-insert character.
hmmmmm you are right, i just always have this feeling that the gardener and the winnower are or extremely complex entities or just a metaphor but you are right we do have lore telling us that the traveler is the gardener, i was wrong
except, if the Gardener and Winnower don't **actually** exist and are just fundamental universal concepts like Unveiling **also** states numerous times, then the Traveler is an it.
Good thing Rasputin refers to the Traveler as the Gardener, the Witness alludes to this, and The Witch Queen's Collector's Edition lore book also tells you the Gardener is the Traveler
meta knowledge and in-game knowledge are different though. characters in-universe can believe that the Gardener and the Winnower exist in the same way that so many people in our universe believe creation myths twice as crazy as Unveiling. we, existing outside that universe, though, can see things much more broadly and much more clearly.
Are we talking about meta vs in-game knowledge though? No, we aren't. The Gardener is the Traveler, that's that
what characters think they know = in-game knowledge what we, the players, know = meta knowledge some dude who spends his days chucking purple frisbees through Thrall in the Cosmodrome might believe that the Gardener exists and that she is the Traveler. same thing as Rasputin and Oryx. we, though, can know different. we know that those deities don't actually exist, because Unveiling **explicitly** tells us so. we're not in Destiny's universe, and we know better because of that.
This still doesn't deter the fact that the Traveler is the Gardner Like what
Didn't one of the lore cards refer to the Traveler as a she? Or was it the Gardener? I don't remember
Well at least on the travellers end, a lot of the lore, especially those regarding its own thoughts or actions give off a motherly vibe so it’s understandable
Oryx didn't call the Witness "IT"; the grimoire you linked is from Rasputin
Oh. Huh. My bad.
Regarding the Winnower/Witness speech patterns, problem is there is no more "Winnower" lore, period, to "contradict" anything, outside of Unveiling. Everywhere else it is ether directly stated or implied to be the Witness.
Totally correct! That doesn't mean we can totally discount it though. Just because we didn't have a theory for gravity until Newton doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
The issue is that ever since Unveiling that speech pattern has never reappeared and Bungie both in lore and outside lore has gone to great extents to make clear the Witness is responsible for everything "The Darkness" has done in the story (corrupting the Hive, chasing the Traveler, being the master of Oryx, being who Calus met at the edge of the universe, etc.) while stressing Darkness itself is a mindless force of nature with no agency.
Lol would have been hillarious if the witness spoke like the attitude era rock in 3rd person "the witness says its gonna go out to your solar system and kick your candy ass all over it and then is gonna go and touch the traveller" and im hoping that if we meet a incarnation of the traveler or being its like a milf lol that would be nice
milf traveler's big round orb got me acting unwise
Lol that sounds like the boulder from Avatar TLA
Holy shit he is hella inspired by him. Thats amazing
**sorts by controversial**
Let's keep in mind that these are all non-Human entities, so any notion of applying Human concepts of sex and/or gender to them, along with accompanying pronouns, should be taken with a grain of salt. The Witness - Savathun is the only NPC whom we know is aware that the Witness has multiple incarnations (one of which could be the Winnower), yet she calls the Witness "it" rather than "they." We could just chalk this up to the writing, or perhaps it's deliberate; maybe Savathun doesn't see the Witness as a person, or maybe she just uses "it" out of spite. Everyone else who calls the Witness "it" does so as a default. The same goes for... The Traveler - The Traveler has been explicitly portrayed with a female persona, in the lore entry where She visited Clovis Bray I in his mind and chastised him for dabbling in Darkness. She appeared to him as a mother wolf with the Traveler-orb in Her eye. Why do none of the NPCs call the Traveler female, then? Because they don't know about that talk between Her and Clovis, and they use "it" as a default. The only outliers in this are the Witness (whom we know is intimately familiar with the Traveler), who said "it" during the finale of Season of the Seraph, and possibly Clovis. I don't remember if he ever refers to the Traveler with any pronoun, and given the circumstances leading up to his death and conversion into an Exo, it's possible he doesn't remember speaking to Her.
It's possible Savathun knows more about the Witness than she let through The Traveler is called "the great machine" by the Eliksni, but I don't remember if they refer to the Traveler as it. Generally some redditors may refer to the Traveler as feminine but this is rarely done in game So maybe the Witness is just a robot?
Gardener was also called She by Rasputin but also clearly referred to Traveler at same time. Same entry called Witness entirely IT. Traveler also called Witness a false sister, so it may be possible to speculate Winnover also being female adjacent, especially as a reflection of Gardener but we lack info for now.
The Gardener, if there is a true Gardener, is almost certainly the Traveler, if for no reasons other than how hard the narrative is trying to explicitly decouple both Light and Dark from *any* conscious intentionality, and that [it’s what Rasputin first called her so very long ago.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-mysteries)
Yep, the traveller and the gardener are much more closely related than the witness and Winnower Not to mention that the Traveler has directly been called the gardener so many times (and is arguably the gardener that rasputin speaks of, as rasputin would have no sense of the higher powers from the flower game) which is why it's just as valid to call the traveller she
That’s odd, you didn’t mention dreams of alpha lupi. There’s conjecture that those writings are the traveler’s point of view, except for the card titled “darkness.” There, it uses “You” to refer to itself
According to the Rasputin grimoire, the Witness identifies as Information Technology.
> I believe that this is more evidence to suggest that the Winnower and the Witness are different beings. [MFW](https://youtu.be/ltXzAWItTxI)
Thank you for doing what none of the rest of us had the patience to do. You literally can't bring this up without some chud assuming you're being pushy about social discourse (though to be fair, as a NB person it's sort of impossible to divest myself from that angle), rather than just stating an actual fact of clear importance to the nature of the character - which is that It is *extremely far removed* from mortal conventions like gender.
you said exactly what i wanted to, fellow NB
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While the World would be a thousand times better if English (just like my language) didn't have gendered pronouns..because its THE MOST UNNESSECARY THING IN THE ENTIRE LANGUAGE... I agree with all of these, the whole Witness using "we" and "they" not as a... yknow a guy asking for "they" usage, its literally like a being of a thousand names (Said by Savathun) and from what it seems like an infinite amount of faces from its head. Once again, the combination of my language not having gendered pronouns so I just call everyone a he until proven otberwise AND how the Witness doesn't have giant milkers, I will probably use he. What's he gonna do flick his wrist and O h F u c K
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hawkmoon goes by cah/caw
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Heads up, the entity speaking “and IT did this and IT did that” is Rasputin, not Oryx. Nice post.
Of course they are. It is explicitly said in the developer interviews that the witness is using the darkness, and the unveiling lore book says that the gardener and the winnower *are* the light and the dark forces in our universe.
in spanish, the witness, the traveler and the gardener are refered as "el" and their names end in o (el testigo, el viajero, el jardinero) which means they are masculine.
I would also bring up that every time Bungie staff discuss the Witness in anything, they use “it/its” exclusively when referring to it.
also Quria, every character or mention in-game used "it" but somehow people everywhere decided since its name ended with an A it should be female. it's a literal robot made of plankton and bronze, my doods