Destiny's Lore, and Why It Didn't Need The Witness
So, I know most of you follow me for Worm or DC stuff, so here's an admission of my tragic past: I used to be a big Destiny fan!
I know, I know, i'm losing followers by the letter, but in my defense, I dropped out years ago, around Shadowkeep. I briefly checked the game out again during the Witch Queen but never actually finished the campaign since I didn't have any friends to play it with at the time and so I couldn't force myself back into it's goddawful grind.
To be clear, I've never played Destiny for the gameplay. I'm one of those weirdos who actually really, really liked the setting's lore and world building. It was one of the most unique things I'd ever seen, this really engaging mix of high fantasy and sci-fi all at once. And you know what? Some of Destiny's lore books are honestly incredible! The writing is emotional, the prose evocative, so many alien perspectives expertly captured. The Books of Sorrow, Thorn, Truth to Power, Book of Unveiling, The Ahamkara gear...goddamn, they're so good.
But I got caught up on Destiny lore a little bit ago, and...wow. Bungie did it. They killed the last thing I still loved about Destiny. And they killed it with the Witness.
Let's talk about the Witness for a bit. The Witness has taken the slot of the new Big Bad for the Destiny universe, previously held by The Darkness. Their backstory is that they used to be individuals of a race that was the first to be blessed by The Traveler, Destiny's slated Big Good. This race proceeded to have a golden age that lasted for eons, with them eventually running out of things to do, and thus asked the Traveler to tell them what their purpose is. Obviously, the Traveler didn't answer, and their entire civilization had a collective existential crisis so hard that they decided that if the universe didn't come pre-built with a purpose, they'd just kill everyone and reboot the universe so that it did. To accomplish this, they tracked down the Traveler's never-before mentioned Dark counterpart and all fused into a single being, seen here.
And on the topic of the Witness's appearance, I'm sorry, but the visual design here is just...bad. It's just bad. It's almost painfully generic. They have a geometrically rippling long black coat with no defining features, a pale human-ish face, and their brain appears to be leaking other faces in a smokecloud constantly, which i think looked far cooler on paper then it did in a render. Compare this to Savathûn or even Oryx's visual designs and they don't hold a candle.
Speaking of comparisons to the Hive Gods, this is where my rant truly begins, so buckle up.
The fact that the Witness has all but replaced the Darkness- newly released lore suggesting every time we thought a character was interacting with the Darkness itself, it was really them talking to this character- that the Darkness is now stated to be completely apathetic and unintelligent, nothing more then a power source to draw upon- not only runs directly counter to some of my favorite lore in the franchise but cheapens every other Darkness-affiliated plot line and character.
Not only does the Witness not speak at all like The Darkness has in the past, making the claim of them being one and the same dubious to me, but it also results in all of the Witness' Disciples (their right-hand men) being shoehorned into storylines in ways that feel almost painfully lazy.
Case in point: The Lore of the Hive. As mentioned above, The Books of Sorrow is some of my favorite sci-fantasy with fantastic horror elements and incredibly evocative bits of prose. It's a gripping narrative how in the face of utter annihilation, a group of siblings make a desperate bargain with unknowable creatures once kept buried beneath the earth...and how their once noble efforts to save their people from death turns into a bloody conquest across the stars. It's an excellent tale, showing us how the truest test of character is who you are when times are hard- will you let those hard times twist you into a foul shape, or will you endure in spite of them? It establishes the cosmology of Destiny, with the Hive and Worm Gods being established as some of the most powerful and important beings in the story, powerful disciples of The Deep.
With the new retcons, Rhulk (a Disciple of the Wintess) shows up, basically tells the Worms to shut up and listen cause he's the real Disciple of the Darkness, not them, and they're going to fall in line now. Because now, instead of the syzygy being a real threat that did devastate the planet the Krill lived on, Bungie's saying that the entire thing was a lie created by the Witness and the Worm Gods.
Which takes the aspect of "sometimes bad things just happen but it's up to us to choose how we will let those things change us" that's key to the narrative and completely removes it- which is so backwards from how this all works! Evil lives in all of us, waiting for when we're weak to tempt us into doing what's wrong in the name of survival or pleasure or whatever virtue it disguises itself as- it doesn't stroll up out of nowhere and create a twelve-step-point-plan to ensure that we become evil too!
Putting aside that, as I admit it's a subjective criticism based on my own perspective on the nature of morality, I think it greatly cheapens multiple other stories. Now that the Darkness is completely amoral as a force and it's just the Witness who is corruptive, I guess Dredgen Yor, Jana-14 and all of the other guardians we've seen fall were all getting brain blasted by this one dude, instead of their falls being a result of being seduced by power they should have known better then to touch blindly.
Now, I can already hear people saying "But what about Stasis!" And yeah, I have Thoughts on Stasis too. I don't entirely dislike it, but I do dislike how it's been executed.
Sword Logic works- or worked- by basically asserting yourself above physical reality. "I am the strongest thing alive, and I prove it thus." You defeat a powerful enemy and take their strength for your own. That's something you can work as being doable without inherently corrupting you. After all, it's not considered evil to fight for your own survival or for the protection of others. It just so happens that constantly introducing your brain to the idea that killing other things will make you objectively better then them is bad for you even if those powers weren't sourced from a primordial consciousness that has and will try to influence you for it's own ends.
To use a metaphor, Sword Logic is akin to something like nuclear power- sure, it's got one hell of a kick, but if you let your guard down around it, not only will it fuck you up but it'll contaminate everything around you with the fallout.
But now to say that "nope, the darkness is totally fine and not even alive and aware it's just the same thing as the light but different colors and this whole time it's just been this one guy who's been ruining it for everyone else" is so...god, it's so much less interesting. And I think ultimately, that's my problem with the Witness. As a whole, they are just so much less interesting then what we had before!
I loved the Books of Sorrow and Unveiling so much because it was such a fascinating display of completely alien thought and genuine nuance. The Darkness doesn't do what it does because of any tired trope of "evil nihilist" or just might makes right, it's a living embodiment of a cosmic philosophy in a war with another, both of them arguing for how all of creation should work. Whether or not the only things in life that matter are the things that live, and that to live is to suffer so ergo only that which cannot break should live, so you must break everything until only the absolute strongest shapes remain- or if it is possible for creativity and diversity and soft things to exist and create a life that is worth living in spite of the inevitable pain we all go through.
That is so much more interesting then a bunch of dudes who are ultimately just mad about the fact that there's no easy to find and read manual for our purpose in life! It's such a basic, not to mention human motivation in comparison to what The Darkness had when it was a character in it's own right.
And so...yeah.
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I was thinking about my first bf (derogatory) and I know that relationship was me going I can't see I'm blind when it comes to the red flags, but I remembered a situation that happened more recently, like we dated in 2011 and this happened in 2022? I think? And this man has so much audacity in his body that he had the nerve to stop me in the street after I haven't even seen him in like, 5 years easy, to tell me I looked ugly with the black hair and that the pink tips made me look like a basic white girl (spoilers alert I am a basic white girl), he straight up looked me in the eye and said if we were still together he wouldn't have LET me dye my hair black (he was weirdly obsessed with my hair when we were together and when I tell you I went crazy with my hair after we broke up I'm not joking) and he couldn't believe my ex (we were still together at this point) had allowed me to do something like that. That man was a whole 20 yo man dating 15 yo me, he cheated on me and then FLED THE STATE, and he actually stopped me in the street to tell me he wouldn't have let me do something and that I looked ugly. Why do men?????
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I don't know what to do about my partner.
I'm literally being abused at home. I am working my ass off to get out and am about to take on even more hours so I can afford to get out. I can barely handle part time. I was always taught never to rely too much on others because you can only trust yourself to save you. Others always have their own agendas. Yea this has messed up a lot of relationships (and I've been through a lot of therapy)
My partner has promised me that he will always be there for me. But when I need him the most he just. Says no. And it's making me feel selfish. He works less hours than I at an underpaying job. He says he wants to have free time to work on his art and relax for a bit after graduation. It's frustrating because I WOULD LOVE to be able to do that. I also recently graduated. But I can't. Because I'm trying to survive. And I never wanted to be a burden on others. But is it bad to say I'm extremely hurt by this? Y'all know how abusive my mom is. He also knows this and has witnessed it (not to it's full extent though). Many times I've called him in the midst of panic attacks. But he refuses to step up and help me. He wouldn't even LOOK into any of the job positions I found for him that pay as much or more than mine currently does. He says he can't work full time right now because it would interfere with his art. It feels like he doesn't care that I'm suffering. And I feel so selfish and I've tried to bring it up to him but then he gets all self deprecating and I have to comfort him.
He's letting his fear of leaving his mom's house overpower his worry for me. And it hurts. I've been trying not to burden him but he doesn't get that this is becoming an emergency. I've already had one recent accident where I was left on the floor immobilized and in pain. It's affecting my job too (late because my mom yells at me as I'm leaving for work).
What about my dreams? I'm putting my masters on hold to get myself out of here. I have no free time. I work and I sleep. If he at least tried to step up but failed I'd feel better.
He was supposed to come over and we were going to discuss it but he overslept again and won't be here for a couple hours.
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