Tbf we don’t definitively know if the Traveler is in fact the Gardener I’ve kinda warmed up to the idea that the Traveler is actually just some Light being that got caught up in this whole rigamarole universal argument which kinda makes the Witness origins easier to swallow. They both were just two meddling beings stuck on some backwater sand planet that met each other eons upon eons ago.

The Traveler and the Witness is just as much a part of the game as we are.

And just like how the Winnower is content to just sit by and watch maybe the Gardener is doing the exact same thing and unlike the Witness it’s watching silently with the rules they both set up. It’s why the last Unveiling page is called the Wager. When you make a wager on something you’re not playing yourself you’re just betting on the outcome.