Bungie weighs in on the current argument raging through the Destiny 2 lore community: Has the Witness been retconned?

pcgamer.com:

There's been an argument raging in Destiny 2 lore communities for years, ever since Bungie revealed the Witness—the big bad that's been working behind the scenes throughout the game's Light and Darkness saga—at the end of The Witch Queen campaign. The question, fiercely debated, is this: Is the Witness the same entity as the Winnower, the cosmic force described back in the Shadowkeep expansion lore book Unveiling?

OK, yes, let me back up. Unveiling was arguably the first major attempt by Bungie to lay out the stakes of the Destiny 2 universe's broader cosmology—the start of a path that leads directly to the conflict of the game's next expansion, The Final Shape. It describes two entities from before time, a Gardener and a Winnower, who played a game that caused an argument that led to the creation of the universe. The Gardener it describes is clearly the Traveler, the big orb that is the source of Guardians' power. Arguably it follows, then, that The Witness is the Winnower.

Except: the cutscene that appeared two weeks ago finally gives us the origin story of the Witness. It's actually the amalgamation of the first species that the Traveler uplifted. So… case closed, right? The Witness isn't the Winnower. So why are the loreheads still getting angry at each other?

For one thing, Unveiling was seemingly written by the Witness, delivered to us via the Black Fleet it controls. For another, the argument has moved in a different direction and led to a new question: If the Witness isn't the Winnower, does the Winnower even exist? Some argue that there is another entity behind the Witness that is the true Winnower. Some will tell you that, no, having a super-secret extra final boss would be lame—obviously the Witness isn't the