Great video, very much agree with your interpretation of Unveiling. For me even though there was some confusion between the Witness & the Winnower, I thought they were the same, as how we even get the Unveiling Lore book comes from the artifact in SK which the Witness gave us, & when in came to characters thoughts on Unveiling like Eris (from the Singular Exegate lore book), Ikora & an ancient guardian (which was talked about in the WQ CE) they tied the narrator in Unveiling as the same one who spoke from the Pyramids/Darkness, which we know is the Witness. Plus something Ahsa said in the Witness's origins cutscene which kinda solidified it for me currently, putting some words together it goes like this "And though they lived in paradise, they came to crave a greater purpose. They desired meaning. Structure. A "Winnower"... to shape the garden. Having witnessed the truth in the Darkness, they used its binding power to merge themselves... into the salvation they craved" The people craved a Winnower, so by becoming the Witness, they became what they craved. Unveiling being metaphorical isnt surprising to me, & even the cover of the book shows the Gardener/Traveler & a Pyramid which we know represents the Witness, people separating the Witness & Winnower kind of puzzles me, as it has the Witness all over it, the "Winnower" ends off Unveiling by saying "I'll come over to hear your answer" then in Arrivals, the Pyramids show up
I listened to this whole thing and you make some fair points, however here's my problem...this franchise is 9 years old. About to be 10. Writing duties have changed hands drastically from both before D1Y1 even released up till now. Destiny 2 was even said to being close to shutdown before Forsaken (an expansion written by an outside studio, by the way) apparently saved it. Since then, writers have come and gone, lore experts have come and gone, Bungie has been on a hiring frenzy, and as the franchise inches its way toward its 10 year climax...you know, the one that was proposed nearly 9 years ago when Destiny 1 first launched to horrific response and the devs assured us "don't worry, it's a 10 year plan, everything will pay off"...we're getting this "final season of LOST because it's getting cancelled" vibe where the narrative is being forcefully expedited, and we're getting lore dump after lore dump after lore dump to fill in the holes. The reason I bring all this up is because while I totally agree with you that unreliable narrators and retcons DO, in fact, lend themselves to human inconsistency and imperfection in past details and make stories and lore more mysterious...that's not what's happening here. Bungie is heavily retconning due to the need to reach a final climax on TIME, as well as the changing of the writing guard wanting to deal in different themes and such. So they keep lore "ambiguous" and ensure that lore is unreliable "like Bible parables" because then nothing needs to be truly stuck to like glue. You claim it's propaganda on the part of the Witness. I say it's propaganda on the part of Bungie. The problem with that has been stated by several others in the lore community, and I fully agree...if barely anything is reliable or set in real fact...why should I bother reading any of the lore, going forward? If it's all just going to be lies and not true anyway, I'm not being empowered, as a player, to form any type of archived history independent of the lore experts. It's just a waste of time trying to listen and remember, only to have to parse out the lies from the facts of events I wasn't there to see for myself.
Amazing video. I always interpreted the "Unveiling" lore book as a metaphor from the beginning. Originally I thought it was a metaphor for the golden ages created by the traveler (Gardener blooming flowers) and the darkness coming and wiping it out civilizations. (Winnower cropping the flowers) From my understanding the "flower game" would never end unless the finally shape as been achieved and that the "flower game" was changed when the traveler stood it's ground with guardians instead of running to the next civilization.
Wow. Funny how "big" lore creators have misssed that Inspiral entry that totally crumble their "retcon maybe" arguments. That said, the problem many of us have is the difference of tone between the almost jovial and chill devil that seems to be the Voice in the Darkness to the dour Witness that sees us as ants. Unless of course that difference is all part of an ongoing con?
I was confused on why people didn’t think the Unveiling was an allegory for what literally happened. It’s something I kinda liked about Destiny’s lore, it explained itself using allegories. Now, I do appreciate finding out what literally happened, but the allegory is there to help navigate through more hard and soft scientific terms. It appeals to both sides of the sci-fi spectrum. I do criticize the literal events for being… uninteresting, but I also acknowledge this method is hard to pull off, even more so in a game
So I actually have the same view on media and the incessant need to overexplain plot these days you talk about here, but ironically that's why I agree with those who don't like the Witness' origins. Unveiling was vague, mired in metaphor and open to interpretation. The Witness' origins however end up over explaining a great deal of the lore and as you said here, "taking the mystic and wonderful away", and least for me, and many others who liked Unveiling. Also, seeing Unveiling as propaganda never sat right with me because personally, I never agreed with the narrator of Unveiling. It attacks the Gardener for no reason, uses the Gardener's kindness to hurt it. And the way the Flower Game operated that the Gardener wished to change seems like Sword Logic, and we all seen what the Hive have done in the name of that philosophy. Which is another problem. We get told in Unveiling that the Winnower was first there when life began, because the Winnower is death and it encouraged the first single cell organisms to consume those around it to grow and change, which makes it seem like the Sword Logic is something to core to the Witness' ideology, since it plays such a constantly important role in the narrative the Witness is telling about itself, but now in the current season the narrative is distancing the Witness' Final Shape from the Sword Logic. It just seems like the ambiguity is gone now and what they explained that ambiguity away with is something very childishly simple, especially for something that, even in the lore you read in this video, is said to be something so complex it has to be explained as a metaphor. What about the Witness' origins requires metaphor? Lore like Destiny's thrives on its ambiguity. Just look at Elden Ring, or any other FROMsoft game. Their games' stories are all about the ambiguity, the mystery, and the life that injects into worldbuilding.
I'm a lapsed player returning before Final Shape and catching up, so I wonder if this has changed. For a long time, the writing for Destiny is all over the place, with dozens if not hundreds of writers touching core in game story, dialouge, expanded materials, and especially the lore books. We know they contract outside writers to flesh out an expansion or season or whatever, like the Books of Sorrow. It always felt disjointed, and I'd be surprised it most storylines ended the way they were first envisioned. Hell, even back on Halo the team disagreed on if Forerunners were literally human or not. Anyways, hearing this lore now I don't see how people took the book as "gospel," very clearly intended to be open to interpretation. Most of the lore books that are intended as documentation of past events have a lot more specifics.
the story is much worse with Unveiling being a lie. The narrator in it says it is metaphor, but it also explains what is a metaphor for; mathematical concepts from before the existence of the universe. If that was just a lie bye the Witness, well, the game's story becomes much much stupid and uninteresting
How does it make the story more stupid or uninteresting? Because if it is a lie, then why this lie and not just the truth? Why is the witness trying so hard to get us on his side? It brings up more intrigue in the motivation and history of the witness.
@@jagthejagert is stupid exactly because it doesn't make any sense for the Witness to have lied to us, since absolutely no one gave reason to the Witness after reading Unveiling. If Unveiling was just a bunch of lies to get us on the Witness's side, then it was completely useless cause it I can think of a single person that I know that justified any of the Witness's actions based on the" lies" given from Unveiling and that after the reveal had to revaluate their ideas after learning the truth. You know why? Because Unveiling obviously wasn't written to be that, and I mean Shadowkeep writers didn't wrote Unveiling meaning it to be false propaganda, cause they obviously could've done a much better job at that if that was their real intention
@@jockeellyyeah I was on the Gardener's side for the whole of unveiling. Also we're told again and again that the metaphor is for something too complex to understand. What about the Witness' origins are too complex to understand?
Great video, very much agree with your interpretation of Unveiling.
For me even though there was some confusion between the Witness & the Winnower, I thought they were the same, as how we even get the Unveiling Lore book comes from the artifact in SK which the Witness gave us, & when in came to characters thoughts on Unveiling like Eris (from the Singular Exegate lore book), Ikora & an ancient guardian (which was talked about in the WQ CE) they tied the narrator in Unveiling as the same one who spoke from the Pyramids/Darkness, which we know is the Witness. Plus something Ahsa said in the Witness's origins cutscene which kinda solidified it for me currently, putting some words together it goes like this "And though they lived in paradise, they came to crave a greater purpose. They desired meaning. Structure. A "Winnower"... to shape the garden. Having witnessed the truth in the Darkness, they used its binding power to merge themselves... into the salvation they craved"
The people craved a Winnower, so by becoming the Witness, they became what they craved. Unveiling being metaphorical isnt surprising to me, & even the cover of the book shows the Gardener/Traveler & a Pyramid which we know represents the Witness, people separating the Witness & Winnower kind of puzzles me, as it has the Witness all over it, the "Winnower" ends off Unveiling by saying "I'll come over to hear your answer" then in Arrivals, the Pyramids show up
I listened to this whole thing and you make some fair points, however here's my problem...this franchise is 9 years old. About to be 10. Writing duties have changed hands drastically from both before D1Y1 even released up till now. Destiny 2 was even said to being close to shutdown before Forsaken (an expansion written by an outside studio, by the way) apparently saved it. Since then, writers have come and gone, lore experts have come and gone, Bungie has been on a hiring frenzy, and as the franchise inches its way toward its 10 year climax...you know, the one that was proposed nearly 9 years ago when Destiny 1 first launched to horrific response and the devs assured us "don't worry, it's a 10 year plan, everything will pay off"...we're getting this "final season of LOST because it's getting cancelled" vibe where the narrative is being forcefully expedited, and we're getting lore dump after lore dump after lore dump to fill in the holes.
The reason I bring all this up is because while I totally agree with you that unreliable narrators and retcons DO, in fact, lend themselves to human inconsistency and imperfection in past details and make stories and lore more mysterious...that's not what's happening here. Bungie is heavily retconning due to the need to reach a final climax on TIME, as well as the changing of the writing guard wanting to deal in different themes and such. So they keep lore "ambiguous" and ensure that lore is unreliable "like Bible parables" because then nothing needs to be truly stuck to like glue.
You claim it's propaganda on the part of the Witness. I say it's propaganda on the part of Bungie.
The problem with that has been stated by several others in the lore community, and I fully agree...if barely anything is reliable or set in real fact...why should I bother reading any of the lore, going forward? If it's all just going to be lies and not true anyway, I'm not being empowered, as a player, to form any type of archived history independent of the lore experts.
It's just a waste of time trying to listen and remember, only to have to parse out the lies from the facts of events I wasn't there to see for myself.
Amazing video.
I always interpreted the "Unveiling" lore book as a metaphor from the beginning. Originally I thought it was a metaphor for the golden ages created by the traveler (Gardener blooming flowers) and the darkness coming and wiping it out civilizations. (Winnower cropping the flowers) From my understanding the "flower game" would never end unless the finally shape as been achieved and that the "flower game" was changed when the traveler stood it's ground with guardians instead of running to the next civilization.
Wow. Funny how "big" lore creators have misssed that Inspiral entry that totally crumble their "retcon maybe" arguments.
That said, the problem many of us have is the difference of tone between the almost jovial and chill devil that seems to be the Voice in the Darkness to the dour Witness that sees us as ants. Unless of course that difference is all part of an ongoing con?
I was confused on why people didn’t think the Unveiling was an allegory for what literally happened.
It’s something I kinda liked about Destiny’s lore, it explained itself using allegories. Now, I do appreciate finding out what literally happened, but the allegory is there to help navigate through more hard and soft scientific terms. It appeals to both sides of the sci-fi spectrum.
I do criticize the literal events for being… uninteresting, but I also acknowledge this method is hard to pull off, even more so in a game
Thank you for the video. Great job breaking down this need to call everything a retcon.
So I actually have the same view on media and the incessant need to overexplain plot these days you talk about here, but ironically that's why I agree with those who don't like the Witness' origins. Unveiling was vague, mired in metaphor and open to interpretation. The Witness' origins however end up over explaining a great deal of the lore and as you said here, "taking the mystic and wonderful away", and least for me, and many others who liked Unveiling. Also, seeing Unveiling as propaganda never sat right with me because personally, I never agreed with the narrator of Unveiling. It attacks the Gardener for no reason, uses the Gardener's kindness to hurt it. And the way the Flower Game operated that the Gardener wished to change seems like Sword Logic, and we all seen what the Hive have done in the name of that philosophy. Which is another problem. We get told in Unveiling that the Winnower was first there when life began, because the Winnower is death and it encouraged the first single cell organisms to consume those around it to grow and change, which makes it seem like the Sword Logic is something to core to the Witness' ideology, since it plays such a constantly important role in the narrative the Witness is telling about itself, but now in the current season the narrative is distancing the Witness' Final Shape from the Sword Logic. It just seems like the ambiguity is gone now and what they explained that ambiguity away with is something very childishly simple, especially for something that, even in the lore you read in this video, is said to be something so complex it has to be explained as a metaphor. What about the Witness' origins requires metaphor? Lore like Destiny's thrives on its ambiguity. Just look at Elden Ring, or any other FROMsoft game. Their games' stories are all about the ambiguity, the mystery, and the life that injects into worldbuilding.
I'm a lapsed player returning before Final Shape and catching up, so I wonder if this has changed. For a long time, the writing for Destiny is all over the place, with dozens if not hundreds of writers touching core in game story, dialouge, expanded materials, and especially the lore books. We know they contract outside writers to flesh out an expansion or season or whatever, like the Books of Sorrow. It always felt disjointed, and I'd be surprised it most storylines ended the way they were first envisioned. Hell, even back on Halo the team disagreed on if Forerunners were literally human or not. Anyways, hearing this lore now I don't see how people took the book as "gospel," very clearly intended to be open to interpretation. Most of the lore books that are intended as documentation of past events have a lot more specifics.
This is one of the best lore videos I’ve seen. I’m going to devour your channel.
the story is much worse with Unveiling being a lie. The narrator in it says it is metaphor, but it also explains what is a metaphor for; mathematical concepts from before the existence of the universe. If that was just a lie bye the Witness, well, the game's story becomes much much stupid and uninteresting
How does it make the story more stupid or uninteresting? Because if it is a lie, then why this lie and not just the truth? Why is the witness trying so hard to get us on his side? It brings up more intrigue in the motivation and history of the witness.
@@jagthejagert is stupid exactly because it doesn't make any sense for the Witness to have lied to us, since absolutely no one gave reason to the Witness after reading Unveiling.
If Unveiling was just a bunch of lies to get us on the Witness's side, then it was completely useless cause it I can think of a single person that I know that justified any of the Witness's actions based on the" lies" given from Unveiling and that after the reveal had to revaluate their ideas after learning the truth.
You know why? Because Unveiling obviously wasn't written to be that, and I mean Shadowkeep writers didn't wrote Unveiling meaning it to be false propaganda, cause they obviously could've done a much better job at that if that was their real intention
@@jockeellyyeah I was on the Gardener's side for the whole of unveiling. Also we're told again and again that the metaphor is for something too complex to understand. What about the Witness' origins are too complex to understand?
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