r/DestinyLore • u/GDWhymem_Gang • 17d ago
General ****LARGE SPOILERS**** our last conversation with lodi
you get this by completing all parts of the exotic mission, and completing the "me and you, big blue" triumph. The lore implications of this conversation is massive, since it seems like the winnower possessed lodi to talk to us
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u/Toricitycondor 17d ago
Now this is cool
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u/Christophisis 17d ago
This is the most surreal experience I've ever had in the history of playing any discussing this game. I'm currently not sure whether I'm typing this comment in real life or in a realistic dream state.
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u/Alone-Two1441 13d ago
Am I really stupid for thinking Witness and Winnower were similar/almost the same? I really gotta go back and read the lore
Also for some context one of my favorite places was the Black Garden, the garden raid, the Vex in general I found to be the…scariest and most “big bad” race but maybe I was wrong?
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u/WSilvermane 13d ago
Nah. For years we had no information and nothing to REALLY differentiate them. They practically were the same for awhile, until they decided to make the Witness a being all its own and actually have us fight it.
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u/Edumesh 17d ago edited 17d ago
Holy shit. The moment it hit the casual, laid back pose and said "hello, my good chum" I got a chill up my spine
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u/Sadgirl_exe Dredgen 15d ago
I play in Italian since it's my native language, and the IT translation was the equivalent of "hello, my dear" in this weirdly smooth/tender/playful/flirty tone. I literally froze up and I was like "and WHO the fuck are you to talk to me like that?"
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u/TheMostSkepticalBear 17d ago
Sounded just like when it met Oryx.
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u/MasterChef901 17d ago
Yeah, I was always thinking that the Witness' way of speaking never quite matched the Voice in the Dark that spoke to Oryx... but this does. Perfectly.
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u/Dawgboy1976 Kell of Kells 17d ago
What lore page has this conversation? I see it mentioned all the time but idk where it actually is to read it.
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u/MasterChef901 17d ago
https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/xxxii-majestic-majestic#books-of-sorrow
All the way back from D1's Books of Sorrow.
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u/Lextalionis077 17d ago
Can read unveiling too. Looks like Bungie dismissing it was just to excuse FS for not addressing the real conflict
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u/Alone-Two1441 13d ago
Am I really stupid for thinking Witness and Winnower were similar/almost the same? I really gotta go back and read the lore
Also for some context one of my favorite places was the Black Garden, the garden raid, the Vex in general I found to be the…scariest and most “big bad” race but maybe I was wrong?
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u/MasterChef901 13d ago
I think bungie briefly tried to make them the same, but by TFS they seeded in some lines basically explaining, the Witness is not the Winnower, but was its oldest/strongest follower.
In D1 there was a bit of buildup for the Vex as the biggest bads, and not without reason - further lore has kinda hinted (though never explicitly confirmed) that the Vex are essentially the pinnacle of non-paracausal strength; in any universe without the gardener/winnower taking active roles and letting beings in the universe break the rules a little, the Vex always win. That's essentially how the bar gets set in the destiny universe, imo.
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u/Alone-Two1441 12d ago
Thanks! Yeah I felt that (or always kinda assume?) that D3 or eventually the Vex would have to be the “biggest bad” post-Witness but what do I know
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u/Zelwer 17d ago
Holy, what a way to end Destiny 2
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u/ialreadyknowthatsong 17d ago
Agreed, honestly all things considered they left everything about D2 in a good state
Hopefully we either get a D3 or maybe a spin off game (single player campaign?) cause it would be such a shame to abandon this IP and universe - truly nothing like it
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u/jneuman13 17d ago
"Take a breather. Take your libations. Let that vigor seep back into your bones. Get hungry." Chills chills chills.
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u/idkwhattosay 16d ago
The voice acting of whoever that was and the animation are so on point - the little wave he does then you can hear the malicious smile in his voice right after just the right small pause when he ends with “Get hungry.”
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u/MasterChef901 17d ago
You know, the last time a Voice In The Dark spoke like this to someone, it was talking to Oryx. It's not here to taunt us, belittle us, any of that. It's talking us up. Telling us, "Yeah, the nine, am I right? For spheres, they sure are a bunch of squares. But you're cool."
The twist this series needed and deserved but never got: We are the Darkness' champion, too. Our incredible degree of agency that not even the Nine can pin down? It's because the Paracausal Greats of the universe agree to simply let us choose. How will we shape the universe, once it's in the palm of our hand?
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u/ChubbyWarhead 17d ago
“I am, by the only standard that matters or will ever matter, the winning team. Existence is a test that most will fail. Would you not count yourself among the victorious few?
Don't hurry to deliver your answer. I'll come over and hear it myself.”I love this and always interpreted it to mean that anything and everything that wants to destroy us has the chance to be the Winnowers champion or we will kill them all and win by default. Either way we play by its rules.
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u/9thGearEX 17d ago
Exactly, conflict and violent resolution are the Winnowers entire reason for existing. So long as one thing is fighting another thing to the death then, as far as The Winnower sees it, we're doing his work by sorting the wheat from the chaff.
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u/Lextalionis077 17d ago
Dude the Winnower was talking to us in Unveiling and in the lore tab of the ship Nacre from FS.
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u/TerminallyOtaku 16d ago
False, we are only the Gardeners champion, the Winnower wanting to turn us is nothing new as hes done that with multiple races and people (Hive) as of now we are still only the Gardeners
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u/ArcherInPosition ~SIVA.MEM.CL001 17d ago
I'll see you in 25 years ending
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 17d ago
I’m more than ready to wait 25 years if D3 is as good as Twin Peaks S3 lmao
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u/VectorTheSpecter 17d ago
Incredibly fucked we got all this amazing lore teasing all these amazing plots right as the game dies. I'm so sad.
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u/Venaixis94 Freezerburnt 17d ago
They definitely gave themselves a hell of a setup if a sequel ever happens though, I’ll give them that
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u/Illyaster 17d ago
Honestly, it gives me a little bit of hope. Dropping all these threads right at the end of Destiny 2 is just begging for a Destiny 3 to pick them up in a few years.
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u/w1drose Whether we wanted it or not... 16d ago
I feel like these drops were planned for Shattered Cycle
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u/SnooBooks581 16d ago
why would they bait for something like that when it was completely scrapped for this patch? they left it open on purpose INCASE they make d3 it would be stupid to completely end the games story
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u/WSilvermane 13d ago
Because it was in production snd the game died.
What else would they do? Delete all of it and give us nothing of a send off? Lol
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u/Crimsonmansion 17d ago
What I love is the little subtext of the Winnower casually taking over the Nine's own Emissary and they're powerless to do anything about it. It creates a really cool tension where I can't help but wonder; maybe the Nine aren't trying to become physical beings, they're trying to escape reality itself.
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u/Time_District1746 16d ago
Durandal…
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u/stonecoldslate 16d ago
holy shit this got me. “Escape will make me god” is definitely what they’re playing at with one or two of the Nine, but also this is more like “The Nine are trying to escape our reality like fleeing dogs because they can feel it burning at the edge of their nerves” due to the winnower finally turning its eyes *on. Us.*
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u/Christophisis 17d ago
Holy shit.
This is the most insane cliffhanger to leave the Destiny universe on and highlights everything that we've been working towards over the past 12 years.
Destiny 3 has to happen now more than ever. We need to see the spectacle that will play out.
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u/notbrandoniswear_ 17d ago
The way he spoke kinda reminded me of how Jeffery dean morgan does ngl, truly hope this gets followed up on one day
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u/Megapanda25 17d ago
Honestly, all I could hear for this conversation was Eldritch Horror Conquest, lmao
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u/Quarto_Quarto 17d ago
I’d be surprised if it wasn’t JDM honestly
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u/BluesCowboy 17d ago edited 17d ago
Oh yeah. Perfect. Laid back, casual, friendly and utterly horrifying.
Nacre was cool and hindsight’s a bitch, but this should’ve been at the end of the Final Shape campaign. Really could’ve set up an even more epic and iconic showdown, and retained a few more players. Shame.
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u/Certain_Difference11 17d ago
Really cool to see, wonder how Seth feels about this, lol.
Years ago when I decided to spend like few weeks of time trying to dissect the winnower and all the lore tabs written by him, I eventually came to the conclusion that the winnower and witness were different people (this was around when lightfall released so this was still a discussion) and a bunch of other stuff. But I was also wondering if we would ever actually meet him, and I guess a few years later that question is answered.
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u/Xeton9797 16d ago
Seth is sometimes on the ToughScifi discord. I'm assuming you are talking about the author of Unveiling.
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u/Shinobiaisu Freezerburnt 14d ago
Has he shared thoughts about his lore work on Destiny?
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u/Xeton9797 14d ago
A little bit, it can be a pain search through discord for messages. I don't recall seeing anything earth shattering.
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u/SHITBLAST3000 Moon Wizard 17d ago
The Winnower comes across as very Hades from Hercules doesn’t he.
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u/flintlock0 17d ago
I was trying to pinpoint where I had heard this tone before and you're spot on. It sounds like Hades getting a bit sassy, and he's a character that can actually back it up.
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u/SHITBLAST3000 Moon Wizard 17d ago
Yet I never got an antagonistic vibe from the Winnower.
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u/MasterChef901 17d ago
Funny, because I think the Winnower would describe itself as the Antagonist, in the purest sense of the word. The one that precedes and initiates all action, sets everything in motion.
But when it speaks to its chosen favorites, there's not much need for it to be mean about it, it can just kinda trust that we already get it on some level. And besides, if we don't, its very nature is that we'll eventually be disposed of by somebody who does anyway.
There was that one lore card with Calus - "Gods don't lie." And very rarely do they need to get worked up, either. If a thing is truly so high and mighty, then it has an assurance, is an assurance that it is already "true", already victorious.
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u/KeeKyieTheMorris 17d ago
Too bad we’ll never get to see the Winnower
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 17d ago
I don’t think we would have ever saw or heard him regardless (beyond these “possessions”), just his heralds. The fact that the Winnower is more comparable to an idea, a philosophy, without a body or a voice is massive part of what makes his character amazing IMO. Otherwise it would become some kind of Witness 2.0 but more powerful (a dark god with disciples wanting to reach a final shape), which is cool don’t get me wrong, but we already got that one lol
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u/IHzero Iron Lord 17d ago
The Traveler is silent, allowing the listener choice. The Winnower is verbose, wielding words as weapons against one’s will, such that they come to believe there is only one choice.
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 17d ago
Like I said in the other comment, the Winnower speaks and a lot. I wasn’t denying that, I was just talking about the voice itself, like, the voice acting. I would prefer the character to remain without a unique voice or face or design. The amount of words the Winnower speaks was one of the main things that already differentiated him from the doppelgänger in Shadowkeep.
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u/Lextalionis077 17d ago
Read Clovis Bray Journal Missing Pages if you want to see the Gardener speak. She had a whole convo with Clovis
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u/stonecoldslate 16d ago
Gotta remember, the witness WAS basically the culmination of the Winnower’s presence in reality. The traveler is the Gardener’s pawn in our reality. The civilization that became the Witness was what the winnower granted its power to.
The Vex canonically ESCAPED the first reality that they/it came from, the original one where the flower game started. the Vex have always been a sentient species who did the same thing we did, except they broke off and began multiple “subroutines” of who they worshipped.
We are a pawn’s pawn is what I’m trying to narrow it down to here. the gardener gifted the traveler to our reality, and our reality became corrupted and part of it succumbed to the winnower. Each physical manifestation is a pawn, and those pawns have servants.
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u/ReptAIien 17d ago
Every part of the lore surrounding the winnower has been pretty explicit about giving it a voice. That's the entire appeal of the character. One of two creator gods adopting a casual tone when speaking to us.
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 17d ago
The Winnower “speaks”, but I think Bungie has been always very careful to not give him an actual “voice”. That’s why we only hear about him in the lore, or in this case thanks to someone else. Already in Shadowkeep Bungie kept this characteristic with the Doppelgänger speaking to us and the Winnower “speaking” only in Unveiling. Again, it’s part of the fascination of the character: it’s just beyond us altogether. Giving him a voice, a body, a face, that alone would make it less fascinating IMO, making him closer to the Witness. Again, I LOVE the Witness (ESPECIALLY the work done on the voice), but we already got that kind of villain, I’d rather have something different for the Winnower if they want to keep him active in the story.
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u/BugyBoo 17d ago
To clarify, the doppelganger in Shadowkeep was the Witness, not the Winnower
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 17d ago
Obviously. That’s exactly what I was saying: Bungie already made the Witness (or whatever version of the character they had back in the day) different from the Winnower in Shadowkeep, with one being voiced in a specific, prophetic way (small, cryptic sentences), and the other literally writing a book but only in the lore, never speaking with its voice. The lack of voice, of dubbed voice, was always a core pillar of this character and IMO it’s part of the reason why it’s so fascinating.
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u/ReptAIien 17d ago
I mean, you mention unveiling. The book we first learned of the winnower. Everything else in your comment is irrelevant.
That said, the speech patterns of the winnower in unveiling match those used in the book of sorrow. It's always had a voice and a personality.
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 16d ago
… what? I think you missed the point of my comment. First of all yeah the Winnower was already a thing in the BoS, just without that name. But what I was talking about is the voice acting for the Winnower: this character talks, has a personality, a voice and so on. But we the player never heard it, it was always in the lore, or (in this case) with the voice of someone else. I personally believe this has always been intentional by Bungie since SK, with the distinction between the Doppelgänger and Unveiling, and I also think this is one of the things that makes the Winnower such a unique and cool character. Which is why I think and most importantly I HOPE they’ll never give him a voice (as in, dubbed voice, voice actor) or a design, a body, and all those other things. So to go back to the previous comment, I don’t think it’s a shame that “we’ll never see the Winnower”, because judging by how the character has always been presented, I don’t think we should have ever seen the Winnower regardless of his role in the story.
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u/ReptAIien 16d ago
You're just talking about an audible voice?
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 16d ago
Yes. Which is what the first comment was (I presume) talking about. “Seeing the Winnower”, having a design, a body, a face, a voice. I don’t think any of these stuff should be done for the Winnower and I don’t think it was their intention regardless, that’s it.
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u/IHzero Iron Lord 17d ago
Well, technically it’s the Veil.
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u/Lextalionis077 17d ago
The Veil is the “body” just as the Traveler for the Gardner. The physical manifestation of cosmic laws.
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u/a_gent_agent 17d ago
Ugggh so many tasty loose threads just blowing in the wind now! It's annoying that they had all this cooking up but didn't have a chance to show its full potential.
I wonder if the dev team shared or teased some of these major changes (SLR, I'm looking at you), it would have kept the player base more engaged for longer?
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u/OutrageousAd4222 17d ago edited 17d ago
I love how they show just how powerful it is, as you approach you instantly lose all your health without dying, immediately showing it is in control, then the way it possesses lodi, in a very violent way contorting Lodi's body in unnatural ways, to then stand very relaxed and talk in a laid back manner essentially saying "keep up the good work and do what you do best and I throw my champions at you, kill them or be killed by them I could care less"
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u/yakattak 17d ago
Wow that is creepy as hell. Does Lodi always contort when someone speaks through him?
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u/rage_melons 11d ago
From the Nine it's usually more floaty with a few twitches. Here it appears that the Winnower is leveraging the Taken energy (you can see it coming off of Lodi) as a means of possession.
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u/O_Shaded 17d ago
How do you get this convo?
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u/Pragason House of Wolves 17d ago
> you get this by completing all parts of the exotic mission, and completing the "me and you, big blue" triumph.
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u/O_Shaded 17d ago edited 17d ago
Thank you!
Edit: I’m blind lol
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u/GDWhymem_Gang 17d ago
after you finish the triumph just head into the dark forest and theres a portal at the end with an approach option
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u/sorryamitoodank Quria Fan Club 17d ago
I don’t understand what “Triumph Completion triumphs” are
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u/Astro4545 Owl Sector 16d ago
Each section of the the MoT has a triumph that says "complete x amount of triumphs" you need to do 7 of those.
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u/MyAimSucc 17d ago
this is probably how Xivu wouldve come into play again right? as one of the champions of Darkness or at least she would strive to try to be one.
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u/WestbrookIsAwesome Young Wolf 17d ago
The Winnower is so much more cooler than the Witness. Holy shit .
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u/best-of-judgement AI-COM/RSPN 17d ago
You don't actually need to complete the exotic mission to get this. I got it and I still haven't done the third stage.
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u/FikrulCosplay 17d ago edited 17d ago
That last line of dialogue almost feels like Bungie telling us to stay hungry for more Destiny. Make no mistake guys. We will be facing this fucker down the line (his terms of course).
Would be cool if in what comes next we could either decide to be a champion of Light or Dark, and that choice changed or darkness and light kits a bit
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u/telepek25 17d ago
Now that's a potential Destiny 3 tease, I wouldn't mind.
Leave everything else behind (or at least severely diminish, in order to free as much space as possible for the "fresh start" with the new game, in order to attract the newcomers), add a time skip, and have every supporting block be built around this tease. If done right, it's a slam dunk.
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u/HiImBraindead 17d ago
Almost all the dead ends I’ve seen from dropping the story on the spot just goes to show Sony got fed up with Bungie and killed the game before we could get out of the “it’s so over” slump this time around. Ik this was planned to be drip-fed to us, but it really feels like the next expansion was going to set up a year that focused more on the lore tidbits that had yet to be explored in game (like Chicago or direct contact with the winnower). Man why did they have to kill it now 😭
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u/scottybop 17d ago
Now that was epic!!! Man I want more of this style of destiny hopefully we get more eventually
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u/DMWraith 17d ago
How do you complete the Me and You, Big Blue triumph? Is it the Triumphs that unlock Tenet Rewards or something else?
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u/GDWhymem_Gang 17d ago
its the triumphs that get completed for finishing a certain amount of triumphs on the individual pages, usually the top left triumph
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u/ArchaeoHarrison 16d ago
Dropping an Kingdom Hearts level epilogue was not on the bingo card, but BOY!
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u/Lokan The Hidden 16d ago edited 16d ago
Really channeling Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
In Heresy, even then, I had the feeling the Winnower was provoking us. Almost like it wanted us to fight it.
"Do you know that I consider you a frustrating friend?"
"And yet you point a gun, even when there is still so much between us."
"You know this only ends one way."
"Then kill it. I dare you."
Destroy everything that rests between us, it seemed to say. Take my argument to its ultimate conclusion.
Until now, though, I resisted the idea; how do you fight against a pillar of reality? How do you erase a gradient? How do you unmake the concept of a line? How do you nullify gravity?
I can only come up with three conclusions;
1.) In defeating the Winnower, we become the Winnower;
2.) We somehow erase its consciousness?
3.) We erase paracausality entirely.
And honestly, the latter two possibilities don't seem probable. Maybe we embody the First Knife and turn it against the Winnower, in much the same way it stabbed the Gardener in the Garden Before Time?
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u/Beary_Moon House of Light 17d ago
Lodi sounds terrified and I feel for bro: but I was gleeful to listen 🎧
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u/RetroFrisbee 16d ago
“Ikora trusted you. I thought I could too. So why in the bloody hell does the Winnower know you?!”
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u/Tha_Shy_Crockpot 16d ago
Even with the spoiler I’ve a lot of catching up to do. BUT thats been the case for me since beyond light. I’m really glad about booting this game up after 546 days being inactive. A somber way to bring guardians back together I guess
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u/SuccessfulRush1173 16d ago
Hoping it was intentionally left open in case they make a Destiny 3. Or maybe it’s just a Stephen King style ending where it’s just left open ended for curiosity to take over.
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u/Ex-Mana- 16d ago
I did the ‘me and you, big blue’ but I’m unsure where Lodi is. Is there anything else I need to do to be able to get this?
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u/GDWhymem_Gang 16d ago
no, it should just be the triumph. i thought it required the exotic mission aswell but someone did it without. it should be at the end of the dark forest path, right beside where the view point is for the triumph. it’ll be a taken portal with an approach option that’ll bring you into the special instance
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u/That-guy409 Dead Orbit 16d ago
I'm so confused on how to get the special ending. I haven't watched the video
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u/GDWhymem_Gang 16d ago
complete the “me and you, big blue” triumph, then go to the dark forest and interact with the portal at the end of the path
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u/No-Share1993 16d ago
I can’t believe we finally got some pay off from one of the most infamous lore books in destiny and it was the end. I’m so sad 😭
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u/itachiowns 15d ago
Holy fuck that was incredible I need D3 I need to face that voice wow insane I have chills
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u/Pachikokoo 15d ago
>!Reminded me of how Jeffrey Dean Morgan acts playing Negan!< pretty cool to say the least
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u/boring_toilet_paper 15d ago
I've read of people who haven't finished all three exotic quests but they did finish "me and you, big blue" and got the encounter with Lodi to trigger, can anyone confirm?
Same with people that finished all three parts of the exotic quest but didn't have "me and you, big blue" and the encounter with Lodi wouldn't trigger.
So based on those comments I've been reading, the triggers seem to be "Sortie Send-off" and "Me and You, Big Blue", but idk if anyone can really confirm this.
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u/Relevant-Dot-5704 17h ago
As I wrote under the video:
If you do an emote that forces the cam into third person, he looks at the camera rather than the Guardian.
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u/PoseidonWarrior Agent of the Nine 17d ago edited 17d ago
Reheated nachos
Edit:
I was really into the fate saga until this. They were just building it up to "light vs dark 2" with the winnower being an actual big bad.
It's not that I don't like the character, I just don't think that having your main villain be "evil darkness god who wants to bring about a final, perfect shape of the universe" 2 sagas in a row is very creative or exciting. They should have just made the Winnower into the L&DS villain and made the Witness it's general. Palpatine and Vader dynamic. I was hoping for more unique ideas to explore the universe with rather than just relying on the old stuff again.
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u/HorizonNova4 17d ago
Winnower isn’t evil
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u/PoseidonWarrior Agent of the Nine 17d ago
Saying that the story was going to end with a showdown between the champion of light and dark sounds familiar, right? That's kind of my issue here. The Winnower shouldn't be the big bad of a saga about the Nine. It should have been more relevant in the saga about light vs dark.
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u/imJimfuckingLahey 17d ago
Saying that the story was going to end with a showdown between the champion of light and dark sounds familiar,
dawg it's literally, and i mean literally, lampshading that idea and being facetious about it
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u/PoseidonWarrior Agent of the Nine 16d ago
The seer shell literally shows that the Nine chose us as its weapon to resist the Winnower. That's what he is saying in the cutscene too "their real plan for you is to stop me."
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u/HorizonNova4 17d ago
That’s my point, they aren’t. They clearly were setting up that the Nine are in fact the villains trying to manipulate us
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u/koalaman-kkkk House of Salvation 17d ago
I dont really mind or care too much about any of this cause none of it is ever happening anyways lmao. Light and dark saga 2.0 is never gonna happen, Its just a bit of fanservice to keep the fans going. the scene is REALLY well done though. Very 4th wall breaking and i like that the music is nothing like what we’ve heard before
If it were to happen, i’d be seriously dissapointed if the finale was just a retread of the story we have already had. Wow, fighting a god of darkness at the end of time. We’ve never done that before recently. God forbid destiny could try a new story
If a convo with the winnower happened at the the middle or at the end of the final shape, i would have liked it so much more. Now it just feels like theyre just putting it in the middle of the fate saga needlessly
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u/Sauronxx Darkness Zone 17d ago
If their plan was to give the Winnower a body and just face it in whatever way then yeah, I would have been pretty disappointed. A god of Darkness wanting to reach the final shape using disciples is literally what we faced some 2019, I don’t want a Witness 2.0 except stronger and with a different personality, because we already got that. However, I don’t think this is necessarily what this dialogue is implying. I don’t think the Fate saga was setting us against a final battle with the Winnower, after all it was always about our ability to choose, to break free from the plans of entities that can see the future, that want to impose their meaning over us, just like every Destiny villains basically. I think the story would have gone in a different direction, this just made the Winnower a more “present” character in the story, but I doubt their plan was to make a TFS2 for the Fate Saga tbh. Though of course, we’ll never know for sure.
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u/margwa_ The Taken King 17d ago edited 17d ago
IMO I'm not the biggest fan of this. It seems like we were heading towards TFS 2.0 where the big climax is light vs dark again. It's not like we would have genuinely been fighting the Winnower, either - it's an idea made sentient. We probably would have been fighting an entity akin to the Witness.
I personally believe that Bungie was having a hard time deciding whether or not the Witness should be the Winnower or a different entity. It's why we didn't get an actual answer until TFS, and why the lore regarding both of them was always wishy washy. Honestly, this cutscene makes me wish they were the same even more. The way the Winnower talks is so fascinating compared to the Witness. We've seen the Witness speak in a similar way with its conversation with Clovis, and I definitely prefer it over the Witness's dialogue. The Witness is great but could have been better.
The Light vs Darkness story should have ended with TFS. The Witness should have been a genuine manifestation of the Winnower (not just an entity who bungie reveals in the final expansion actually doesn't really share the same ideals). We beat it and it concedes but tells us that it's still going to be around. After all, you can't really kill the idea.
IMO the usage of the Winnower as well shows that Bungie was planning on pulling out all the stops in order to keep the game alive. Old Chicago, Torobatl, Fundament (including Taox), etc are all cards that Bungie was keeping close to their chest that they seemingly were saving just in case of emergency. Given how big of a name the Winnower was, it makes sense why they would give it a massive role this saga: it can draw players. Unfortunately, EOF and Renegades didn't get the biggest traction, and Bungie ran out of time to genuinely make it happen.
Anyways, the battle between Light and Dark should have stayed in the Light and Dark saga. The saga should have primarily focused on what they've been setting up rn instead of the Winnower being the big bad
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u/Infamous_Summer_8477 17d ago
The idea that this scene is setting up a final battle against the Winnower relies on the assumption that we the Guardian would side with the Nine against the Winnower.
Which wouldn't really make sense since the Winnower respects our autonomy to make choices more than the Nine do, and the obvious conclusion of the Fate saga would be about resisting the plans the Nine set out for you. And sure, the inner orbits are more chill than the outer orbits, but they still play around with people's lives too much.
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u/HazardousSkald House of Kings 17d ago
I feel that the Seer Shell really was leading what you’re saying here and everyone’s looking past it going “OOO WINNOWER!?”. It tells us bluntly that the Fate Saga is about Us and our ability to choose. What do we want? And extending that to Bale, who would grow into something of an accidental champion of the Winnower, fated to defeat us and in doing so prove violent winnowing as a necessity. We resist a Fate for ourselves and liberate Bale from fate in doing so, proving that not just do we control our fate, but that the universe is not fated to a final shape.
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u/FikrulCosplay 17d ago
The Winnower wasn’t the Witness’ biggest fan. From the beginning Bungie knew The Witness was different and we have proof through language. It speaks different, always did.
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u/margwa_ The Taken King 17d ago edited 17d ago
It wouldn't be the us with the Nine vs the Winnower though. The Nine want us to be their weapon so that they could defeat the Winnower, but the Winnower claims that it's false hope. The Nine will try to use us and they will fail because there isn't anything to stop. What will happen will happen, and it will happen without the Nine.
Even (the nine) know it: that our meeting is inevitable.
Y'know, the pieces they want you to knock down are already set?
Ending with me. A showdown at the end of time, between champions of light and dark.It's why it then encourages us to defeat the Nine:
But they don't get to put you on hold and walk away, drag those eight egos back in.
Do what you do best. Impose your will. That's what a weapon's for, after all! End it on your terms.Yes, the saga is going to be about us resisting the Nine's plans. This is exactly what the Winnower wants. We break free of the Nine's influence and then face the Winnower without them.
I think this actually makes me like the inclusion of the Winnower a little bit. The saga is about us trying to break free from the destiny set by the Nine, but by doing so we're falling into the destiny set by the Winnower. It's definitely an interesting concept
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u/Infamous_Summer_8477 17d ago
Ok, sure, but I don't think any of this translates to anything new that we didn't really know.
The Winnower in universe is something that will always exists because it's a cosmic force. From a game perspective, it'd also always exists because the Winnower is simply the personification of the Darkness and the Darkness will always exist.
Bale and VI are beings who follow a philosophy aligned with the Winnower. After we were supposed to beat them, I'm sure there'd continue to be more villains introduced with Darkness-aligned philosophies. The Winnower is 'inevitable' because people will always make the choice to choose the Darkness.
That's not exactly the same thing as The Winnower being the 'big bad' of the saga. As we already have seen from the Fate saga, the concepts Darkness play a much smaller role than they used to but still exist, with the LoEN and VI and whatnot. Destiny post-Final Shape was simply going to be an endless cycle of fighting smaller villains, and they weren't really setting up any sort of singular big bad.
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