Winnower has always been a part Destiny universe. This is the idea of the devil, the idea of something that is not exactly the essence of destruction, but rather an entity that wants the universe to evolve in a certain way. However, the opposition wants something more from its works.
We had story entries pointing to Winnower Destiny AND Destiny 2 previously, but the Salvation’s Edge raid confirms that it exists and adds context to what exactly it is. You’d be forgiven for not knowing what it is, since it’s something you’ve only really heard about by reading text entries in games, and I’m certainly guilty of ignoring it for the most part. That’s why I explained what Winnower is Destiny 2 here as clearly as I can.
What is Winnower in Destiny 2?
It’s easiest to describe Winnower in Destiny 2 he’s like the devil. But that misses the nuances of what exactly it is. In the game universe, at the beginning of all time and space, there were two beings. These beings are known as the Winnower and the Gardener.
Winnower and Ogrodnik, beings existing beyond time and space. The legend about them says that they were once in a vast garden, where one took care of the plants, and the other collected or removed those that he considered necessary. Winnower’s desire for life is close to what Hive believes to be true. He wants all life forms to evolve and fight each other until only the strongest emerge as worthy of existence.
The gardener, on the other hand, playing the same game, wants to give life the opportunity to survive, even if it is not the strongest possible. Let the plants grow undisturbed in the garden while you prune or harvest them to see what they do. For example, he wants to see what the human race can achieve by being protected from total destruction by invading forces.
The Gardener created the Traveler and entered the game to achieve his goal. As we know, the Traveler gives great power to the races he encounters. Guardians spring directly from this, effectively preserving life long after it has expired at the hands of stronger races.
While the Gardener was creating the Traveler and interrupting this wonderful game, Winnower became livid and it seems that he then unknowingly created something called the First Knife. This knife is the Witness, a creature in this game that is our universe and believes it is seeing a vision of its creator. However, what the Witness and Winnower want are still quite separate.
The Witness wants to stop all time and life in its current state. He wants to keep the universe in stone, calcified, so that it can never move or change again. This is what he sees as the Final Shape. However, Winnower’s version of the Final Shape is a universe where only the powerful survive.
It has not yet been clarified whether Winnower controls the Witness. Given their different goals, I’d say no. It’s very challenging to tell because of the context in which the Witness is a knife. Someone has to wield that knife, but Winnower could have given him the will and desires to move freely in the game.
You can see how Winnower sort of embodies this idea of the devil and Gardener our version of God. The point is that both beings are creators. They just have different visions. What’s really compelling is how their creations, the Traveler and the Witness, meet in the final battle after the centuries, but it is their creations, the power of the Witness, which is the blade of the Winnower’s Knife, and the Watchtower, the power of the Traveler, created by the Gardener, that finally put an end to the debate on the evolution of life in the universe.
We know for a fact that the Witness is not a Winnower because he says the same thing in Salvation’s Edge. After killing him, Echoes of The Witness spread throughout the system and created the episodes we play in Destiny 2 Now. I don’t know how Winnower will fit in here, his knife is smashed. Maybe a piece of this knife could achieve its goals. We’ll have to wait and see.
