The Witness and Why It (and its demise) Means Everything to Me (A POC Perspective)
Hey everyone!! The Final Shape has ruined me and has brought me to levels of not only grief, but hope, that I did not think possible, so I decided to give my thoughts on the different aspects of it that moved me to a place where I can be at peace with many things in my life and look forward to paving a better future!!! I think I’ll be making many posts pertaining to the Final Shape as a way to help me express my thoughts on how important this DLC was to me, but we will see!
Please note that these are just my loose, not fully structured thoughts and I’m yapping. My opinions are subject to change and I’d love to hear the input of others! We will be talking about subjects such as slavery, religion, black experiences, and personal experiences of mine!!! It’s very long too, so I’m sorry about that and any writing errors!!
Though I do not believe what I speak of was fully Bungie’s intentions when making the character, the implications and views you can take on the Witness do relate to what I will discuss.
I wanted to start off my return to tumblr with one of the many, many reasons why I have such a deep attachment to the Witness (Precursors and Dissenters will get a different post bc they mean the world to me too!!) , because truly, this entity owns my whole life. I think of it all the time, it lingers in my thoughts, my art, my writing, all of it. It has been so deeply intertwined with my enjoyment of Destiny since it appeared and has offered so much to my perception of the world. I do not think I will truly get over it and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t draw it every chance I get. It appears in every single thought of mine, it’s bad you guys.
I love the Witness so deeply because I have never harbored such a personal level of DISGUST for a character before. As much as I joke about it being silly and the love of my life, the very existence of the Witness revolts me to the core and the tragedies it has directly or indirectly caused squeeze my heart empty. This festering rot of an egregore SICKENS me as it is the beliefs that has robbed me and many others of family, culture, and livelihoods given form. My love for the Witness comes from how it instills in me such HATRED, and truly, we were far too kind to it in game.
For context, I am Caribbean American and have a tumultuous relationship with my heritage for many reasons, but it wasn’t until the Witness and its many victims that I felt like the religious imperialism that has affected my heritage was represented in a way that crept into my spirit.
My Caribbean mother always said to me that we are of this world, not in it. That the hearts of men are wicked and sin (cruelty) was embedded in existence itself. It is only when we give ourselves to a higher purpose that we will be free in the end from all suffering. To her, this life and everything in it did not truly matter for it was a temporary challenge to overcome in order to earn an eternity of salvation. A perfect paradise was awaiting us all if we just gave into the way and left everything else behind.
These were all convictions she held to her very core as she tried to shed away all other aspects of herself to give into this “truth”, especially her Caribbean culture.
She did not always believe this way, but to her, the island she came from did not truly matter at all. Those “wayward people” she grew up with were not worth anything and would die as nobodies on that nowhere island for their lives were not saved, even if they knew of the “truth”. In her adopted views, those people believed in false gods and practices (such as Vodou and beliefs that belonged to those taken from Africa and indigenous populations), they invited in frivolous wants of the flesh such as lust (with „improper“ attire and certain dances), and committed crimes that proved to her that they could never be anything more than what they already were (though she would be blinded to the fact that these behaviors are a result of hostile environments created by the systems established for slavery and racial subjugation). If she wanted to be fit for “walking the right path”, those people had to be left behind for they were lost causes who could not be saved unless they were delivered by the “respectable” ways of life. She had to discard her black mannerisms, hair, speech, and more to have a place amongst the truly chosen.
Religious imperialism has a long history of being heavily tied to discussions of race and colonialism as those who participated in subjugation believed themselves to be more enlightened than the people they brought devastation to, giving them an entitlement that drove them to force their way of viewing religion onto populations. After all, in their minds, they were doing the greatest good for they were setting the people they subjugated on a path for eternal paradise. There was no cost too high in this finite life for infinite salvation to colonizers and all efforts to convert populations who did not see this truth would be “necessary”. People would die or be forced into servitude in mass to support the ambitions of the “enlightened” ones, whole cultures and populations being scrubbed from the face of this Earth in an attempt to “heal what is sick”, to “break broken bones again to heal them right”. I think of all the generations lost to war, slavery, colonialism, and every other act done to deliver “purpose” onto others, all the people whose names will never be known because others used the breath needed to utter it on preaching of their own virtue, and I am left in ruin.
I think of how my mother speaks of those lost to destitute lives because of the social pillaging of the island as an unfortunate side effect of guiding them to the truth and I look at how her world view has been ruined.
My mother thought she was saving me by keeping me from my culture, my people, my family. I did not get to know the language, the customs, the land, but I did get to know how much my mother thought those were distractions. She spent my whole life trying to cement the truths given to her by the same people who left her island in such as state that she felt like she had to run from it, to ensure I would not grow into a person, but a vessel of the righteous message. After all, to be a person is to be complex, nuanced, and flawed and there was no room for that in the visions given to her. The complexities and human flaws that came with our culture would only distract us from giving our whole lives to freeing ourselves from the curse of existence.
The cruelty the Witness delivers with such gentleness as it razes civilizations, its unwavering belief that it is the objective truth and other perspectives are blind to this truth, the means it will use to get that “justified” end, its gut wrenching to me and all that has been lost throughout human history to ideologies that bear the same qualities. Its zealous, static nature that relies on circular reasoning keeps me up at night and makes me mourn what could have been if the unfamiliar and hard to understand parts of human expression were allowed to flourish instead of being eradicated for diverging from someone’s vision of what makes a life worth living. I see this big eyed vessel, incapable of growth and convinced of its own righteousness and my chest feels like it is going to cave in. I see its disciples and pawns in the faces of too many people I know and recall their stories in moments that remind me how poisonous what the Witness represents is.
The Witness is an evil that has hollowed out lives, homes, land, and futures, especially for those who come from heritages that have persevered against attempts to “rectify” them. I still grieve the empty life my mother lives and the people left to suffer the consequences of daring to create their own meaning. I look at the face of the Witness and think of the “burdens lifted off my mother’s shoulders” by those who thought themselves as witnesses of a truth that could not be contested with interpretations that could not be questioned. She prides herself on being a weapon wielded to correct the sinful hearts of men, but I just wish she prided herself on being a person because those who “delivered” her robbed people of color of personhood entirely.
The Witness is not a person, but the embodiment of these deeply rooted ideologies and concepts that affect so many. It’s horror, both in game and the parallels it has in reality, is far too grand and unfathomable for me to bear its weight on my soul and not agonize. Its very existence is monstrous, despite the understandable intentions that went into its making, and my stomach churns at the mere thought of it.
How many species in the Destiny universe will we never know about because their whole galaxy was used to get closer to the Final Shape? How many star systems were left barren because of the Witness’ ambitions? How many children, spouses, artists, philosophers, siblings, neighbors, and more, people who were something, became nothing because of eons of the Witness‘ justifications? Bile boils just thinking of it.
What the Witness represents has hung over my head my whole life and its perverse touch lingers on the whole Destiny universe, tracing many of the depraved atrocities in the game back to itself. It’s death in the Final Shape, at the hands of those it had turned into victims and left to deal with the repercussions of its influence united together, moved me in ways I do not think I could ever properly articulate. To see beloved characters I had given a decade of my life to come together from different backgrounds with different reasons to defeat such a heinous entity, I felt like I could do my part to bring others together, despite our struggles and differences, to rebuild what had been taken from us.
As a person of color from a group of people many still think are undeserving of life, seeing so many characters I have related to over the years say “I matter because I decided to and you can’t take that away from me” to an entity who thought itself so refined that it got to determine everyone’s worth strengthened my entire being. Existing as a person of color is bold in and of itself, but the defeat of the Witness at the hands of people who wanted to exist so bad they risked everything for it ignited in me a flame to be audacious. My existence and culture as a poc is unsightly and heretical, but TFS encouraged me to take on the prejudices of others by saying “Here, despite generations being molded into a “perfect” image and so many lives lost in the struggle to live personal truths, ergo sum. Ergo sum and there is nothing wrong with that”.
To me, the Witness’ death showed me that the stains left behind by social structures such as religious imperialism and colonialism can be overcome by people banding together to make the future different from the past. When we embrace the subjectivity of existence, we can create spaces for different views on life to flourish and reconnect with the nuances of this world. We can better the lives of our people, no matter who they are, not by abandoning all cultural practices and ways of life that were deemed meaningless, but by rebuilding our societies to allow for fulfilling lives and self efficacy for all.
My people no longer have to let imperial powers decide our fate for us or decide that we can be nothing other than the „nature of our race“ that they believe is inferior. Instead of looking up at others who asserted themselves as more enlightened for salvation, we can look at each other and realize there is no one truth to life, especially one worth all the devastation and cruelty placed against those who lived differently. The intricacies of life often lead people to belief systems that allow for comfort and understanding, alleviating the anxiety of possibly living an improper life that will forfeit a desirable afterlife. It is up to individuals to decide what makes their life fulfilling and what beliefs will guide their actions, for no one can make your fate but you.
My mother still likes to wear the patterns of the island and keeps paintings of island scenery in her room. She talks on the phone in patois when she doesn’t feel the pressure to be “proper”. She misses her mother because she used to make dishes from home. To relate it to Destiny, she still has the coordinates to her Lubrae in her pyramid despite convincing herself abandoning it all was for the best and there was nothing there worth keeping. I once thought reconnecting with our heritage alongside her would be a frivolous endeavor, but I hope that with time and understanding, the Witness may not have power over her anymore and she won’t look back on her disassociation with relief. Time and understanding will make our island grow and flourish, free to decide what it wants to be, not held back by preconceived notions of the worth of its existence.
Despite all the Witnesses in the world, I will persist on and try to acquaint myself with my culture without shame. The Witness is everything to me because I hope one day it desecrates nothing ever again. I hope the Witness becomes nothing at all and the cultures it has corrupted make themselves something audacious.
Thank you guys so much for reading!! I hope you guys don’t mind the vague language, I chose to spare some details for my own sake and to make the message more applicable!! I’d love to hear the takes of other people about this bc I love hearing people’s perspectives!! And always remember, no one makes your fate but you!!! Go be audacious!!!!
