The Winnower in Destiny 2: Lore, Identity & Appearances

The Winnower is an enigmatic entity associated with the Darkness, described as one of two primordial beings that predated the universe alongside its counterpart, the Gardener. It has apparently communicated with various entities across time and space, notably Oryx and the Guardian. Its true nature remains contentious, and its relationship to the Darkness has yet to be fully elucidated.

What the Winnower claims about itself

During their exploration of the Lunar Pyramid, the Guardian received a spherical artifact from the Witness which relayed a series of messages addressed to the Guardian by a mysterious entity calling itself the "winnower," which seemed to present itself as either synonymous with or the source of Darkness itself.

In those messages, the Winnower claimed to be one of two primordial entities which predated the universe, alongside the Gardener. It described itself as embodying the reduction of complexity, whereas the Gardener embodied the growth and preservation of complexity.

In the allegorical story it recounted, the Gardener and Winnower fought in the "garden" which preceded the multiverse, and upon inadvertently creating the multiverse as a by-product of their struggle, each became a paracausal force that would further their respective goals within its many universes. The Winnower claimed it subsequently influenced the evolution of life throughout the cosmos, stating it was responsible for the Cambrian Explosion that gave rise to complex animal life on Earth, and thus the evolution of humanity. It ended the messages with an appeal to the Guardian, attempting to sway them to its point of view and convince them to take its side in its cosmic struggle against the Gardener.

The Gardener and the Winnower

The Winnower's own account frames the pair as principles rather than people. In the lore entry Gardener and Winnower, the Winnower defines its nature: "We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes". Gardener and Winnower states they had no antecedent and no constituents, and no instrument of causality by which they could be portioned into components.

The lore book Inspiral entry "Winnowing" describes how a garden requires both a gardener to care for its plants and a winnower to prune away excess growth and rot; if there is no winnower to do the pruning, the plants will be forced to do it themselves lest the garden deteriorate. That description appears allegorical, and seems to suggest both the Darkness and Light are necessary to maintain the stability of life and civilization in the universe — as the narrator states, "there can be no gardens without knives".

Is the Winnower the Witness?

Ikora Rey interpreted the creation story found in apocryphal texts on the Moon, translated by Eris Morn, as having been narrated by the Witness, which she believed had deceitfully presented itself as a monolithic cosmic force. In a later conversation with Mara Sov, she wondered whether the texts were in fact a shadow of the truth, in which the Witness was merely a tool, much as the Witness had secretly allowed its power to be wielded by Oryx to create his Taken.

The Witness confirmed those suspicions shortly before its destruction at the hands of the Coalition, stating to a Guardian Raid fireteam that it was not the Winnower, but merely "the first knife clutched in its hand". The Witness also described the Winnower as a god, and claimed the Winnower had forged it into what it was, much as the Guardian had been shaped by a higher power. Given that the Witness was formed from the Precursors through their use of the Veil and its Darkness, that statement is rather dubious.

Other Darkness-wielding entities have also referred to a "Winnower." Ahsa described the Veil as a "Winnower" when recounting the origin of the Witness to the Guardian. The Witness' memories of Oryx preserved within the Echo of Navigation also referred to the "Winnower" as a higher power which Oryx revered, superordinate to him and his Taken; notably, the Echo explicitly denounced the Witness as a charlatan that had led Oryx's sisters into heresy, indicating it had not been referring to the Witness.

Where the Winnower appears

• Shadowkeep: The Winnower is first mentioned here, in the Unveiling lore entries.
• Lightfall: The Winnower is mentioned only, including in the Inspiral lore entry "Winnowing".
• Season of the Deep: The Winnower is mentioned only.
• Episode: Heresy: The Winnower is mentioned only, including in the description for one of the Tablets of Ruin acquired on the Dreadnaught.
• The Hidden Dossier: The Winnower is mentioned only.

In the Tablet of Ruin description, a line from Oryx's conversation with the Deep in the Books of Sorrow is attributed to the Winnower, seemingly indicating that the two are one and the same. The Tablet's lore tab also contains what appears to be one half of a conversation between the Guardian and an unknown interlocutor, written in a similar style and tone as the Winnower in Unveiling.

Aside from these descriptions and references, the Nine's Seer Shell narration independently describes the flower game as reality and an idea of final victory that they intend the Guardian to oppose, providing additional corroboration of the cosmology without definitively establishing the Winnower's identity or origins.

Following the discovery that Stasis and Strand could be safely wielded by Guardians, and that the Darkness once believed by the people of the Last City to have caused the Collapse was in fact the Witness and its Black Fleet, the Vanguard has for the most part adopted the view that the Darkness is a neutral force, without any form of guiding intent or goal, and without any inherent ability to morally corrupt its wielders. Similarly, various statements once ascribed to the Darkness itself have since been recontextualized as having originated from the Witness, which Mara Sov referred to as a "Voice in the Darkness".