Witness: Just Add Magic is a television series that follows the story of three young girls who discover a magical cookbook. The main idea behind the show is the power of friendship and how it can overcome any obstacle. The girls use the cookbook to solve mysteries and help those around them. The show emphasizes the idea that even though magic can be a powerful tool, it is ultimately the relationships we build and nurture that have the greatest impact on our lives..
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A foretelling of the future
Disclaimer: if there is any grammatical mistakes or blatant lore that counters any point i make here I apologize. I typed this up on phone and while at work so didn’t have much time to recheck the lore.
The final shape, the culmination of the original 10 year plan to the conclusion of the light and dark saga. However it isn’t the end, as stated by bungie, which I would like to throw in a last minute speculation using the most obscure clue that never was given an “answer”: The prophecies of Osiris. The ones featured in what is universally the weakest destiny content throughout the franchise.
I will be going over each one with a short theory for each. Most of the entry’s were confusing at the time but 6 years later we have more knowledge to reassess them. However much of Destiny has changed, from lore/story points, to the original 10 year plan. Destiny 2 was a sort of reboot, giving us an actual narrative, with story hints for its upcoming expansions. Luke smith (D2 director at the time) stated that the campaign’s epilogue would be D2’s road map, which teased Mercury,Mars,Reef, and Saturn’s orbit then the infamous pyramid end scene. So it’s stand to reason that the following expansions would tease the larger arc while telling individual stories eventually leading up to a planned Destiny 3. With the reaction to vanilla, CoO, the independence bungie gained those expansions, locations, story evolved, but the entries I believe served as the narrative core that stuck around.
This saga began with darkness being thought of as an evil force bent on our extinction and use of darkness would lead to corruption. Now we understand that both light and dark are not moral forces, that its use of power is determined by the user. That the traveler light can manipulate the physical while the veil dark interacts with the non-material. Now we are dealing with the consequence of both entities, the witness, through use of the veil saw the one sided truth and is now bent on taming the unbounded light, through the final shape. While it does evil, the witness believes it’s doing the right thing to end what it believes is suffering. It does not present itself as a god, and while it is powerful it’s not on par with the traveler or veil. From the the final shape show case it’s states that the universe will end but I think the witness is approaching it from a thanos perspective. Wipe the slate clean to start over fresh in its own vision of a perfect universe.
From a business perspective this leaves the narrative team a window to push the franchise beyond its planned run. Like halo, destiny as grew way beyond they thought it would, bungie typically works on a single IP at a time then move on to the next. We know what the studio is working on aside from destiny but from their own words we know the franchise will continue. That window will provide them an opportunity to tell another saga, enabling them to wrap up loose ends, explore new possibilities all while having an interconnecting narrative.
Through these prophecies, with a mixture of the unveiling lore I will speculate the next saga and the foe will be taking on. Quick thing though about unveiling is if it’s true in any regard. In an interview with bungie’s narrative team they said that unveiling is a parable, acting as propaganda, myth and a religious text all at once.
While at the same time they advised readers to not full trust it. Especially since reading through it again the narrator seems to switch constantly, telling us a story about the two entities to then speaking as one of them even though the witness was just as mortal as humans were before the traveler. So for the sake of this post I’m going to guess that the witness was told a one sided story that either misinterpreted it, or twisted it to benefit its own agenda.
There’ll be summary at the end, my overall spinfoil theory and a TLDR. Which to illiterate now: it’s just a theory,
A GAME THEO record scratch
No but really it’s just all wild speculation, I just want to provide another aspect to look at the future. Part of my bases is I know bungie likes to tease points/games way earlier before it’s ever revealed for example the destiny tease in H3: odst where about 4 years later D1 was revealed. That being said here we go.
- Two siblings cleaved by time and space, reflections never found alone, / The ending of the eldritch race—a path long seen but never known.
At first we guessed this was the traveler’s story now with the witness origins revealed, we now have more context to this prophecy. The traveler and the veil while opposites are tied to each other. The eldritch race being the progeny of the first garden the traveler cultivated, only to be culled by darkness into the salvation known as the witness.
2. To Tower comes a war in red; an orphan sounds the empire's call. / Mortal angels mourn the dead while lightless light wraps night in pall.
This would be our reference point, where we would understand our place in this timeline. Most Unanimously agree that this is the red war, with the conqueror referring to ghaul.
3. An army meets, and stands, and falls. Three nobles wage their hopeless war. / In shifting madness, evil crawls. One stands above the battle's roar.
While many apply this to the osmium siblings (oryx, sav, xixu) it speaks about the consequences of the taken war into forsaken. The awoken and oryx’s army both devastated by each other leading the kings death and the awoken queen lost. While the Jack, uldren, survives and left to be manipulated by riven to open the gates to the dreaming city. In the shifting madness of the scorn, taken and riven, savathun pulls her schemes ultimately standing above all our efforts to help the awoken.
4. A charnel but effulgent orb—beacon in a loathsome dark— / Fêted, fetid corpses rise—a too-long-absent gibbous spark.
This is what would eventually become shadowkeep, we know nightmares rose from the graves, and an orb we received that allowed the voice in the darkness to communicate with us. Giving us our first encounter with the witness, looking like our guardian and speaking to us. While also enabling us to pick up a signal, a beacon within the black heart. After the GoS raid we begin to receive messages from the witness, giving us a one sided story and basically philosophy lesson to understand its goal.
5. A visitor ignites the sky, and in the truth of light it dreams: / Above the dead and yet-to-die, a legion's blade with fire screams.
This one is tricky, while many say it’s season of arrivals ending I believe it’s lightfall. First I wanna comment on the second verse, which I believe is ment to be calus and xixu attacking the city. But plans change and while xixu is being reserved, calus remains to attack a city, neomuna in this case.
Back to the first verse, the witness arrives in sol and ignites the sky. Sky here meaning traveler, by carving into its shell, laying down a “judgement” per say, and opening the portal to the lights truth. Enabling the witness to achieve its dream of the final shape.
it’s is at this point the following is just speculation, nothing in game points to anything. Much like this whole post, it’s just theories
6. Amid the endless death one flew—unnatural all-consuming need— / And in the space between the two, accursed comprehension freed.
I believe this will be the events of final shape, the conflict between guardians and the witness. The endless death I believe refers to the battle between unnatural all (guardians) and consuming need (the witness). The “accursed comprehension freed” imo means the traveler, it won’t necessarily be destroyed but relieved in some way. As for sol pariah stands to reason that’s our guardian, saving sol from the witness’s final shape.
Side note: I believe TFS will only deal with witness. We may get answers for what the traveler is or where it may come from but imo the focus of the story will solely be dealing with the witness.
7. A spark of knowledge with each fall, the purpose of the endless youth. / No longer shunned, dark's nameless call now brings about tenebrous truth.
This i propose is the reveal of the next saga. What the guardians new role is with the traveler no longer a player in the game and our new foe we are to face. We’ve only been fighting species that encountered or pursued the traveler, and the witness who was the first civilization to be embraced by it.
So it stands to reason that this nameless is beyond that. This foe has been shunned or rejected, by who or what is unknown but it’s ancient and older than the traveler or veil. I speculate it has ties to darkness that relates to the true creation story of destiny.
We have the unveiling book, but with the origin of the witness it may be a one sided story from the veil. Whatever it is, the result of The final shape expansion allows this thing to step forward and reveal something, the harsh truth about the origins mentioned in unveiling.
8. They sowed the First, now reap the Last; forever narrows to a line / Where Light will fade into the past; when all's converted, nothing shines.
This will contend with the vex. From the description it sounds as if the vex were there to sow the first life, which imo implies they were designed to assist in this “garden”. When a life or species reaches its limit they would reap them like a crop, in this sense that life would be recycled or converted:
- half into seeds to expand the garden
- The other into vex to help upkeep the expanding garden
However now they seem to follow the idea of consume, covert, and expand (sound familiar?)
As for this event, my guess is that since they’ve failed to effectively time travel, they are converging all timelines into a singular point. A point where the vex are effectively creating a reset point. It’ll be a race to stop the vex from total convergence before light (essentially life) becomes history where once gone it’s nothing but Vex.
9. A sacred eye that speaks in lies—upending futures in its path. / The way before us to the skies shall see itself in ancient wrath.
This one gave me quite the struggle, it eerily sounds like a mix of the witness first encounter with the veil and our journey in the TFS. I don’t believe this is the case though.
If the veil is left behind after TFS then I believe this nameless entity will be able to control it as it shares its connection through darkness. It foretells a false catastrophe that drives guardians or the light to take action. That action opens a pathway to the “garden” and allows this thing to obtain godhood.
10. See who's robed as if a god, who stands with pride above the rest! / Destroy this ancient nameless fraud! Destroy the one whose death was blessed!
This entry is the key to the nameless foe theory. First it can’t be the witness, as far as we’ve seen it never proclaimed it’s self a god. The quote: whose death was blessed IMO implies the method of how a guardian is made which the witness was never resurrected by the light or at all.
Whatever this entity is, It becomes more powerful than the beings in unveiling, the gardener/winnower. It somehow gains the blessing of light like guardians did and attempts to be this false god of the universe.
Phew finally, we’re getting to the end. Other than the 8th entry I’ve tried to keep it short and little detailed. For infinite paths, bungie mentioned that they were going to dig deeper into the vex, so I took more liberty to create a spinfoil narrative for what may be an expansion. Asides that there’s holes and to be fair destiny has a lot of stories to tell. Those stories could be used to feed into the larger narrative, act as filler but filler we’ve been wanting to see. For example the fight for torobatl, the awoken of the distributary, or especially the nine. Although I believe the nine will be major players in the next saga and maybe will see a new faction (NO not a darkness race, more like the aphelion).
As for my personal spinfoil take I’ll only be using the lore in game as evidence and inspiration from other creation stories. So it’s going to sound like a bad fanfiction but it’s my Hail Mary before the final shape.
The story told by the witness was a misinterpretation of the truth, a message taken wrong in hopes of finding a purpose. These two entities, winnower and gardener, did have their fight about the “game”. In frustration the winnower inadvertently took the tool in its hand and changed its purpose into the first knife to deal the death blow. However it was too late, the gardener had sent out its new joint piece into the universe, the traveler and veil. Now alone with no fellow competitor to balance the game, the ashamed winnower lost its purpose. Any attempt to continue would be hypocritical, so as self punishment it gave up its power to forever wonder this universe as a spectator, a witness to this new game.
(Here is where the witness’s people took the name, mistakenly took the story told by the veil as a reference to their own struggle and that the traveler was the cause of it.)
However before it’s exile it did two things:
- in an attempt to balance this new era it separated the traveler and the veil.
- Then finally hiding its mistake, the first knife, banished into a space where no living thing would be able to see, or so it thought.
The first knife, became frustrated and angry, not because of its banishment but the wasted opportunity the winnower had to control the entire game. Believing it can be better than both entities, waits for an opportunity to act. The end result of the final shape opens a window for this knife to start its rise to godhood. It will move pieces behind the scenes and the endgame will bait guardians to kill it in the original garden. Where it can be resurrected by the unbounded light released in by the gardener corpse. With no winnower to keep the light in check it gains power of both gods, thus begins to start its own garden. Except it’s a bastardized version of it, a hellacious mess where it can enact its own laws, and rule with no equal. The winnower is alive out there watching and the nine I believed will be involved in some way to reach it. It will help us to understand its mistake and redeem itself by assisting to defeating the first knife.
So quick reminder, bad fanfiction spinfoil Hail Mary theory.
While the witness was the consequence of the traveler/veil, the next enemy will be the result of the gardener/winnower story. At some point during the year of TFS or the following expansion year will reveal our next enemy. Something ancient, beyond the witness, a force present during the origins of the universe. Whatever this thing is, it’s attempting to take the role of both gardener/winnower and become even more powerful beyond these two.
A GAME THEO record scratch
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Reviews for "The Powerful Themes of Good vs. Evil in Witness: Just Add Magic"
1. Samantha - 2 stars - I was really excited to watch "Just Add Magic" because I love magic-themed shows, but "Witness just add magic" was a huge disappointment. The writing was weak, the plot was confusing and the acting was subpar. The characters lacked depth and the dialogue felt forced. Overall, I found it to be a very underwhelming and unsatisfying viewing experience.
2. Michael - 1 star - I couldn't even make it through the first episode of "Witness just add magic." The acting was terrible, the special effects were cheesy, and the storyline was incredibly boring. It felt like a poorly executed attempt at copying other successful magic-themed shows, but it fell flat. Save your time and skip this one.
3. Emily - 2 stars - I usually enjoy fantasy shows, but "Witness just add magic" was a letdown. The pacing was slow, the character development was lacking, and the magical elements felt contrived. There were too many cheesy moments and the plot didn't hold my interest. I found myself checking my phone and losing focus while watching. Not recommended.
4. David - 1 star - "Witness just add magic" was a waste of my time. The story was predictable and poorly executed. The acting was wooden, and the dialogue felt forced. I didn't connect with any of the characters and found it difficult to care about what was happening. Overall, a forgettable and uninspiring show that I would not recommend.
5. Rebecca - 2 stars - I had high hopes for "Witness just add magic," but it fell short of my expectations. The writing was weak, the pacing was slow, and the acting was lackluster. The plot felt disjointed and the magic elements were not well-integrated into the story. It had potential, but unfortunately, it didn't deliver.