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Having been freed from her Worm at the end of Season of the Lost, Savathun puts her plan into action. Mars has returned to reality and with it, comes a connection to Savathuin's Throne World. More terrifyingly, she also brings the Lucent Brood to bear, Hive guardians powered by the Traveler's Light. The Guardian will need to fight through Savathun's Throne World and unravel the web of secrets and lies created by Savathun to shed light on her plan and prevent a catastrophe.
The Witch Queen contains examples of:
- Awful Truth: There's a reason the expansion's tagline is "Survive the Truth": it's not pretty.
- How did Savathun steal the Light? It turns out she didn't. Savathun died after she was separated from her Worm, and the Traveler sent Immaru to resurrect her as a Guardian. The Guardians don't take The Reveal well.
- Savathun herself gets this when the Guardians use her Worm familiar to reveal that the Witness engineered her and her sisters making the pact with the Worms to prevent the Hive from being uplifted by the Traveler. At first Savathun denies it, but when the Guardian reveals that she was the Witness' Unwitting Pawn, she slides headlong into a brutal Villainous Breakdown.
- Bittersweet Ending: Savathun is slain, her body secured by the Guardians, and the Traveler returned to the Last City, but Immaru escapes, leaving out the possibility of him causing more trouble down the line. Also, the Guardians now know that Savathun was legitimately resurrected by the Traveler, throwing their faith in it into doubt. Furthermore, there are still hundreds of Hive Lightbearers out there. Finally, the Witness is making their approach to Sol, meaning that humanity is on borrowed time before they have to deal with a potential second Collapse.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The game offers a "Legendary" version of the campaign, which imposes a Cap on the Player's effective power level to make everything much more difficult. Clearing it gives you a unique emblem and a set of 1520 gear.
- Foreshadowing: Altar of Reflections was a lore-heavy mission that rotated weekly that explored a little more of Savathuns memories and personality. In one of them she plays "two lies, two truths" and one thing said was that the Last City is not the Last City. The story reveal of the following expansion Lightfall showed that there was another human city hidden on Neptune.
- Gambit Roulette: Befitting that Savathun is the God of Deception, this expansion reveals a very convoluted series of tricks and plans that have been in motion before the collapse. Savathun has been anticipated as an opponent since The Taken King and she's had some impact on Forsaken, "Season of Arrivals," "Season of the Splicer" and "Season of the Lost." She anticipated the Traveler would resurrect her as a lightbearer because she was acting in opposition to The Witness. The powers of a lightbearer combined with Hive magic meant Savathun had a chance to pull the Traveler into her ascendant realm and then collapse the doorway, presumably removing the Traveler from the physical plane entirely and preventing the Black Fleet from gaining access to it.
- Logical Weakness: Eris Morn affirmed in Season of Arrivals that Savathun, the God of Deception, gains strength from ignorance and their best option will always be to investigate and learn as much as they can. Learning on this premise, with her exorcized worm familiar they discover a hidden lie given by the Worm Gods; they were not about to face destruction, which is what motivated their pact with the worm familiars, but the Traveler was about to visit their homeworld. The ultimate weapon against a God of Deception is a lie THEY thought was true.
- Memory Gambit: The entire campaign of Witch Queen was one by Savathun so that she could have her memories restored after her resurrection.
- Not Quite Dead: Savathun is killed at the end of the campaign, but Immaru, her ghost, is still out there. Savathun's body is taken and secured by the Vanguard, but she can absolutely still be brought back as long as Immaru is still at large.
- Thanatos Gambit: Savathun's plan required her to die so she could be resurrected by a Ghost.
- The Bus Came Back: After being Out of Focus since Forsaken, the Scorn return to the spotlight as a strong secondary threat in the Witch Queen campaign, and become even more prominent in the Endgame.
- Took a Level in Badass: This expansion started the trend of reformatting the Light subclasses of the game to match the Fragments and Aspects system established by Stasis. Void was the first to be given this treatment, and it's fairly extensive, with multiple debuffs to throw out and buffs to give to yourself and enemies. Nightstalkers took the biggest levels, where their Shadowshot super ended up doing so much damage it outclassed Golden Gun by miles, not to mention being far easier to land it! The only other super that could have competed with it was a Striker's Thundercrash while wearing Cuirass of the Falling Star.
- Villainous Breakdown: Savathun learning that the Witness engineered the Hive's conversion to the Darkness to prevent them from being uplifted by the Traveler isn't taken well. When she learns that she was the Witness' Unwitting Pawn in the whole affair causes her to attack the Guardian as viciously as Oryx did in King's Fall.Savathun: So you're the expert now?! The expert on me, on the Hive, on trickery! Is that what you really think?! GO ON, THEN! YOU KNOW SO MUCH?! TELL ME WHO I AM!
- Wham Episode: Holy shit... The DLC starts with the revelation that Savathun has stolen the Light and created Hive Guardians, and it just keeps piling on the Reveals from there.
- How did Savathun steal the Light and create Hive Guardians? She didn't! The hive ghosts threw their lot in with Savathun of their own free will!
- How did Savathun survive getting her worm exorcised? She didn't! She died and the Traveler freely resurrected her!
- This particular discovery shakes everyone's previous trust in the Traveler. They believed the Traveler empowered the Guardians to protect humanity against the Minions of the Darkness like the Hive, and realizing they ignored the obvious signs the Traveler was acting for unknown reasons.
- And THEN, it's revealed that the entire campaign was one big Memory Gambit by Savathun to have her memories of her past life restored after she was resurrected.
- As it turns out, the Syzygy, the massive god-wave that was going to Wipe out the Hive on Fundament? Not actually a thing. The Worm gods made it all up to manipulate Savathun into joining them.
- And finally... The Reveal of The Witness, the true overarching Big Bad of the Destiny Saga, and the most direct Servant of the Darkness we have ever encountered so far.
- The Raid "Vow of the Disciple" reveals Rhulk, the first boss enemy entirely a new alien species and unaligned with the core Destiny factionsnote . He is subsequently seemingly fused with the Pyramid tech and a move set different than anything seen before. Players knew something was off when the Scorn were the primary enemy faction to fight against.
- Wham Line: After saving the life of Savathun's worm by turning it into the weapon Parasite, Mara Sov demands it offer information on the relationship between The Witness and Savathun. The worm reveals that Savathun betrayed the Witness, doing something that allowed humanity to survive the Collapse. This was not done altruistically, though, as Savathun did it to deny the Witness access to the Traveler.
- Wham Shot:
- An in-universe one, but after your guardian kills the first Hive-Lightbearer they find, out pops a Ghost, which resurrects the Lightbearer as your Ghost stammers in shock. Your forced to destroy said Ghost to permanently kill the Hive.
- When you look into Savathun's memory to see how she got the light, she's shown exiting her Throne World, limping toward the Traveler and conversing with it before apparently expiring. Then a Ghost flies toward her and starts scanning, revealing that Savathun didn't steal the Light - the Traveler chose her to be a Lightbearer.
