The Witch Queen, the latest expansion for Destiny 2, has given players a lot to think about. In the final cutscene of the narrative campaign, we get a glimpse at the “voice in the Darkness” that various characters have spoken of for years now — the “Witness” who is orchestrating the invasion of the pyramid ships into the solar system. Aside from looking like Megamind, we don’t know a whole lot about it (they? him?), but we do know that the Witness seems to hold the same ideology as the Winnower that spoke to Guardians way back in Shadowkeep. Whether the Witness is in fact the Winnower or not is still unknown, but what’s important is that it seems to want to reach the “Final Shape,” a state in which there is no life or death — in which the universe is, in a sense, complete.
Bungie has been trying for a while now to position Darkness and Light in the Destiny world as not supernatural forces of good and evil, but more as cosmic principles. Light embodies creation and giving, while Darkness embodies destruction and taking. Both are necessary for the universe to continue to exist, as a lot of lore points out. For instance, the CODA armor found in the Prophecy dungeon — in which Guardians attempt to ask the mysterious Nine the nature of the Darkness — has some interesting details attached to it. The Warlock Channelling Robes, in particular, offer a pretty clear picture of the relationship between Light and Dark, at least according to the Nine:
You see a world in the space B E T W E E N.
You see only what the Light left you: every day there will ever be, unmarred. Forever.
For you and all those like you.
But the Dark has returned.
And when Light and Dark meet, universes collapse.
Not something to mourn. Natural order.
The Nine see the cycles of Light and Dark as perfectly natural. The Light creates, the Dark destroys. If there was no Dark, nothing could ever die, and there would be no negative spaces — temporal, physical, or otherwise — to define reality. If there was no Light, then everything would be destroyed. Either way, it’s all over. The CODA armor sets make this point, with the Hunter set describing a world of endless Light, and the Titan set illustrating a world of Darkness. The Warlock set, however, points out the possibility of breaking the endless cycles of universal collapse and rebirth.
How that’s going to happen isn’t entirely clear just yet, but I want to hone back in on the relationship between the Darkness and the Light for a second. The Light is represented by the Traveler, an entity that, well, travels around the universe creating wondrous things for civilizations and empowering them to participate in experiences they could never have imagined otherwise. The Witness, representing the Darkness, follows it around, gobbling up everything it can and sometimes getting into direct conflict with the Traveler over its creations. Does that remind you of anything? How about the relationship between a video game developer and the people who play their games?
Think about it. The Traveler creates something, the Witness follows and destroys, or “beats” it. The Traveler creates something else, and the process goes on. Many players of games like Destiny 2, myself included, can develop an unhealthy fixation on “finishing” everything, on clearing out our quest logs, getting every piece of equipment possible, seeing everything there is to see. At those times, we effectively want to reset the world of the game to a zero state — no more life, no more death, in the Witness’s words. The Witness seemingly being made up of countless voices and figures, as well as its name, also fit with this theory. The Witness is all of us, watching and following Bungie from world to world, never fully satisfied.
Do I literally think that Destiny is going to go full meta and have the Witness literally turn out to be us, the players? It seems unlikely, but it wouldn’t be the first time Bungie did something like that. Some lore suggests that certain entities like the Ahamkara are aware that they are in a fictional world, with the Skull of Dire Ahamkara Exotic going so far as to address you personally as a player, distinct from your Guardian.
And what about the rest of the Channeling Robes lore? It implies that the Nine believe we — either as players or Guardians — are somehow capable of breaking the cycle of death and rebirth:
But we believe you exist to buck natural order. You always did. Even before the Dark.
Before the Light.
When it was just you. And those like you.
We would learn more.
The heavens above you are clear of stars and shadows.
Your feet find purchase on a three-dimensional plane.
Your bond’s glow is dim; there is no Light here. Or Dark.
What does that mean for the future of Destiny? You’d probably have to ask someone better versed in the game’s lore than me. For now, though, I can’t wait to see where Bungie takes all of this in the near future.
