[maniacal laughter]
Well, hello again, Theorists!
We have a pa-arty planned today,
and it's ALL for you!
So, are you ready for round two-o-o?
WELL ARE YA?!
It's TOO LA-A-ATE to turn back now.
[Laughter]
Get ready for a SURPRIII-I-ISE!
In three..
Two...
[Guttural] One.
Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, where, did you know that Funtime Freddy was almost German? Javohl!
Check it out.
Funtime Freddy (with German accent): Hello little children!
Glad to see you're back again!
Come closer, I'll sing a SONG for you!
How wild is that? Forget Freddy Fazbear,
it's Freddy Fazbahr. Calling it right now, FNAF 5 gave us Sister Location. FNAF 6 gives us
international expansion!
So this is it; the end of an era. My last FNAF lore theory until a new game gets released. Makes me.. kind of sad, actually.
So let's make it a good one as we set out to finish the job that we started three whole years together.
Spoiler Alert! Purple Guy is not the Phone Guy. Believe me,
I tried. So of the five Aftons last time, we had killed off two:
mother and daughter who go on to become Baby and Ballora.
Afton's daughter getting clawed results in the immediate closure of Circus Baby's Pizza World, leading the company to retire the creepy, rosy-cheeked
characters deep underground where memories sleep. But now let's talk about one question
I haven't addressed yet, and one that was on everyone's mind during the launch to Sister Location.
Where is Chica in all of this? For the first time in these games, one of the core four animatronics was just gone. That seems
significant, right? And it is. I joked earlier about FNAF lederhosen location,
but it touches on an element of these games that we tend to brush aside: that there's a
business element running through all of them -- corporate doublespeak and liability talk coming from phone guy, parent companies in the form of Fazbear Entertainment
franchising with Sister Location. So what if Chica's missing from Circus Baby's gang, because, she was her own independent mascot at the time?
It's not just wild speculation either.
In the ScottGames source code leading up to Sister Location's release, we got all sorts of hints in the form of
animatronic maintenance schedules, but mixed in there was a reference to something surprising.
Chica's Party World, mentioned BY NAME.
Definitive proof that the character was the mascot of another business existing at the same time as Circus Baby's, which was also a
client of Afton Robotics. Chica isn't in Sister Location, because she isn't a part of the family yet.
She's still a solo act, but we know by FNaF 4,
she's clearly a part of the Fredbear and Friends lineup.
So it would seem that Fazbear Entertainment
grew by merging with or buying out other animal themed
restaurants in the area, with Chica being the last addition to the crew, and why she's a part of the series from here on out.
So, no, Theorists. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't just Scott trying to reduce the amount of creepy poultry-themed fan art.
Let's be real here for a second; bibs aren't sexy. Just, just saying it now. Callin' it like I see.
So Fazbear Entertainment decides to go all in on the animal themed robots, because the whole clown thing was just a stupid idea.
I mean, seriously, William -- do some market research!
Americans are more afraid of clowns than global warming. Know your consumer, man!
Anyway, in FNaF 4, Fredbear's expanded to have himself some
friends, and has become SO popular, that they're in full sellout mode, complete with plushies, toys, a TV show, and the ever-popular item: masks.
Get em' now, because I hear they're selling like a god church. None of this would exist if this were truly the first location
of a local pizza chain, confirming that this location In FNAF 4 is
not where it all started like many have been assuming. What we're seeing here is something else.
Presumably what the TV says.
"Fredbear and Friends": a hybrid restaurant of the old Fredbear characters
and the new spin-off ones where every character has their own springlock suit. Notice that the FNaF 4 nightmare
animatronics all have five fingers. The only other animatronic to have that feature?
Springtrap. Five fingers because the humans have to wear the suits.
Which leads us to one of the biggest debates in this franchise: Is this
1983, or 1987? The bite at the birthday party makes it seem like it's 1987, but the TV says that it's
1983. Never before has so much nerd rage been prompted by discussion over trademark dates. Rage that lives on to this day.
But now I can finally bring home to the storm: this is 1983.
We know this based on a recent Reddit post Scott made on the subject of whether or not he's ever retconned his story, quote;
"The truth is that I've done one actual retcon in the series,
although I'm not gonna say where it was. There have been other times, however, when my original intentions didn't come across clearly. In those instances
I make a point to clarify in the next game" "I used Sister Location to clear up a misconception from FNAF 4" end quote.
Reading this the obvious misconception from FNAF 4 was the year the events of the game took place which true, to his word,
he clarified via Sister Location in the private room camera code of 1-9-8-3
1983. When Michael Afton revisits his father's control room decades after the fact
He sees that all along William had been surveilling their family home using cameras that were
password-protected by one of the most sorrowful dates of his life.
Regardless, neglectful father William participates in the worst 'Bring Your Son To Work Day
Program' ever by taking his traumatized son to a restaurant filled with robots
he's afraid are gonna scoop him. And
solidly in the No-Help column is his older brother who taunts him mercilessly for his fears. The story comes to a climax when the
brother's teasing goes too far, getting his younger brother chomped at his own birthday party
At the end of the game William through his 'Psychic Friend Fredbear Observation Plushies' (patent pending) promises to put his son back together
Except he's too late. We hear a hospital flatline faintly in the background as the cutscene ends meaning that the child dies
That's far from where his story ends. He appears in every other FNAF game because, even though daddy fails to put him back together,
miraculously, the Crying Child finds his way into becoming the ghostly Golden Freddy. For proof as to why, let's speed things up (oh god not again, Matt!)
*sped up* Remember what Scott said in his Reddit post. He tries to clarify things in the next game. In between FNAF 3 and FNAF 4 there's a point he
made sure to clarify. The 'Happiest Day' minigame. Notice the masks across the two games. Not just symbolic imagery,
But a direct reference to the masks worn during the Crying Child's failed birthday: Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie, Chica. The restaurant layout is also the same,
just mirror flipped. With three pretty tables decorated with green, yellow, red, purple and blue balloons
And it's a birthday party as evidenced by the cake. The Puppet is recreating the birthday that was stolen from the Crying Child and the
mask that the Crying Child is seen wearing: a Golden Freddy.
But that's not all. The Crying Child gets taken by Death aka Nightmare: an animatronic who just so happens to have an inverted Golden Freddy color
palette: yellow hat and tie with a black body, as opposed to a yellow body with black accessories. Coincidence? I think not!
It's also worth knowing that Nightmare is one of only two canon animatronics to have a jump-scare
that's a static image with strange noises that crashes the game. The other: Golden Freddy
*normal speed* Which leaves us with two: William and Michael, father and son, Purple Guy and...
other Purple guy. The rest of the timeline is the story of a serial-killer father and the son who's following behind,
retracing William's steps to undo his father's cruel work and free the spirits of the dead children. This next bit
We're all pretty familiar with, since it's based on evidence from Phone Guy: the Bite of '83 causes spring-locks to get discontinued.
William, acting as a technician across all the Fazbear's restaurants, is responsible for handling the recalled suits and starts using the Golden Bonnie outfit
to lure children into the secret safe rooms hidden in the back of each restaurant where he'll be safely off camera
He first strikes on June 26 at the FNAF 1 location. This murder, dubbed 'The Missing Children's Incident',
eventually gets the place shut down, but results in Foxy, Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy getting newly murdered children to power their engines.
Those animatronics, along with the Puppet, get shifted to the FNAF 2 location
along with some new toy robots linked to a criminal database to prevent a mass murder from happening again
Even some old favorites get pulled out of retirement:
specifically, Balloon Boy. And, with that full roster, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza has its grand reopening. now posing as a security guard,
William, with his spring lock crank in hand (not phone), strikes again causing the place to get investigated.
William flees the scene, leaving the day shift security guard position open. Jeremy Fitzgerald moves up to fill the empty slot,
but gets himself bit by the agitated animatronics in an event that comes to be known as the Bite of '87:
an event that forces the company to cease any free-roaming activities of the animatronics
from that day forward. The Toy animatronics get scrapped for just
sucking at spotting a child murder, and the old robots get stored back at the original FNAF 1 location.
At this point, though, William knows that these things are alive and angry at him, so he tries to dismantle them using the safe room as
his cover - and it would've worked out, too
if it weren't for those meddling kids, or at least their meddling spirits, because he didn't calculate that the spirits would live on without the
animatronic shells. He tries to defend himself against these ghosts by ducking into his trusty murder suit,
but his haste coupled with the moisture of the room causes the spring-locks to fail and Afton to get skewered inside of the big yellow
bunny. The company, trying to save face (and let's be honest, their stock value), covers up William's crime spree by sealing off the safe room with
a dying William Afton - now Springtrap - inside. I know, I know, "But Michael might be spring-trap!"
We're getting there. The management instructs all Fazbear's employees to behave as though those safe rooms never
existed, and another Afton falls victim to a horrible fate - only, this time,
he absolutely, totally deserved it!
But now let's look at the final Afton: Michael.
His story begins with the main gameplay of Sister Location where Mike Afton, who we learn looks a lot like his father...
"They didn't, recognize me at first, but then, they thought I was you!"
...is sent by dear old dad to put his sister back together: a promise that William makes to apparently a
lot of his kids. This request of Michael presumably happened some years earlier when Mike was still a child or before Afton ran away to
escape murder charges as implied by him saying,
"I'm going to come find you."
Mike succeeds in saving Baby,
but gives itself scooped in the process, having his innards
replaced with Ennard's, as we see throughout the canon custom night cutscenes. This causes his body to slowly decay,
turning purple until Ennard abandoned ship to look for a fresher body that will draw less suspicion.
Michael miraculously survives his Ennard Enema™ and here's where all sorts of puzzle pieces start to fall together.
First, we know his name is Michael
but that he also goes by Mike as shown by his nametag on Handunit. This immediately connects us to FNAF 1's
Mike Schmidt, the original security guard: a guy
who eventually gets fired for tampering with the animatronics and his odor.
It was the first game in the series, so we all thought it was a funny joke
But now we know better
Scott doesn't do jokes (except Exotic Butters and Mike being Rick Astley). Not only does the name Mike match, but a rotting flesh sack with no innards would
definitely be pretty smelly. And, if true to Sister Location, Mike's mission is to free the spirits of children killed by his dad,
he would absolutely be guilty of tampering with the animatronics. It even provides us for an explanation as to why the
animatronics would be trying to kill him in the first place. We hear it in Sister Location.
He looks just like his father which, man, William, if your face looks like a rotting corpse,
might be time to consider getting some plastic surgery.
But if all that wasn't enough we can even tie it in with
Golden Freddy's behavior in the game. Anytime Golden Freddy appears in FNAF 1,
he's accompanied with the flashing text of "IT'S ME." As we just saw, Golden Freddy contains the spirit of the crying child: Mike's brother.
So the "IT'S ME" is one brother speaking to another brother, making them aware that he's here,
he's present, and in need of spiritual release (or just naturally resentful of his brother due to... past actions). Now, knowing that Mike Afton and Mike Schmidt are one and the same,
rewind to FNAF 2 and the character Fritz Smith: a security guard fired on his first day on the job for what?
Odor and tampering with the animatronics. Coincidence?
Absolutely not! Scott doesn't do coincidences.
Michael Afton is literally going location to location (TO BRING YOU THIS SPECIAL OFFER-)
Undoing the sins of his father's past and stinking up the places as he do. Like Michael says at the end of custom night-
"I'm going to come find you!"
And find him he does at Fazbear Frights. But before I get to the end of the timeline,
Let's address the elephant in the room. The fact that Purple Guy is established to be the killer and Michael is clearly shown to be
purple in the custom night so wouldn't that make him the killer? NO, as much as I hate to say it, if there are actually two purple guys
But only one real purple guy admittedly
I left that purpously vague for dramatic effect, but let me explain, or, better yet
let FNAF World explain. In it, you recruit a familiar-looking purple sprite onto your team
and he says this: "Don't confuse me with the actual purple guy.
I'm just a game sprite."
And there's the difference. One of these characters is physically purple. That character is Michael, and the other is just a placeholder on the screen -
a sprite representing a shadowy figure who, because the background of the minigames happens to be black, had to be colored differently, and that color
was purple, but you don't even have to get that meta.
It's made pretty darn clear in the Sister Location intro that William is the one who built the animatronics intended to capture kids, whereas Michael
Is established as the one who's trying to save them. Even the timeline supports this. The murders date back all the way to Fredbear Family Diner
on the 70s with a guy who is old enough to drive
There's no chance that Michael, the son, would be the right age to be the original purple guy.
And, lastly, if you believe that Michael Afton is also Mike Schmidt and Fritz Smith as evidence suggests, then the phone guy calls giving you an alibi. Phone guy is talking to
you about other security guards being investigated for murder
which implies that you yourself are not guilty! [normal speed] Mike's efforts to atone for his family's past prove to be successful.
Game by game we see him piecing together the family
reunion. Sister Location saw him free both Ballora and Baby, then in FNAF 3's Fazbear Fright,
Afton's younger brother, now in the form of Golden Freddy, receives peace via the happiest day minigame.
Even the spirits inside Freddy, Foxy Bonnie and Chica get exorcised by Mike
Which is why the good ending of FNAF 3 shows four empty unlit animatronic heads.
That's also why, come the main gameplay of FNAF 3, the only animatronic
that's still active in real life is Springtrap. Mike has been
successful at appeasing every other one of the spirits, leaving him alone with dear old dad
"I'm going to come find you!"
He gets a job as security guard of Fazbear's Fright and, shortly after the creators of the attraction stumble across FNAF 1's
secret room with the remains of Mike's father Springtrapping around
Inside, Mike sets the place on fire to finish off his killer dad once and for all. Because, seriously,
did you really think that building just
spontaneously caught on fire? Fires and fictional stories always have a dramatic purpose. And Mike would have gotten away with it, too,
if it weren't for that meddling
father, who, in both FNAF 3 newspaper clippings and Sister Location's special ending, is shown to have survived the fire and is now
undoubtedly more bloodthirsty than ever...
The End
question mark
Hallelujah!
The craziest part of all this is when you actually stop and look at the story there really isn't a need for FNAF 6
Outside of the return of spring-trap cliffhanger and revealing what's inside the box?
Yeah
Remember that? Everything else pretty much has an answer. Sure, there are still
parts of the tale that could be more fleshed out like the origins of the puppet or what happens after Ennard gets ejected from
Mike, but, at this point, all the characters have completed their story arcs, the family is reunited, and the spirits are all at peace.
It's actually pretty poetic, it took nearly 20 theories and literally weeks of my life studying these breadcrumbs to get there,
but we did it! We got to a solution that fit together
practically all of the loose ends, and that's pretty darn special. Thank you for being a part of that journey with me
It's been an incredible ride. I have no doubt that this isn't a hundred percent correct, but you know what? It's an explanation
I'm happy with. One that I feel provides a sense of closure to the series and one that I'm gonna let stand as my final
word on the five games worth of series lore until a new installment
Crap, a new installment that just so happen to get teased immediately after last week's part one? Scott,
Don't go getting predictable on me. Calling it now, just so I can avoid the inevitable prediction theory,
it's an installment that looks like it's gonna be taking yet another step back in the timeline to tell the origin stories of the puppet.
Notice how the sprites are the exact same as the FNAF 2 "give cake"
minigames where the first child gets murdered and the puppet pops out of the screen. Also notice that the rainbow design is a direct callback
to the aesthetic of 70s technology
which is when Fredbear Family Diner and the first murder would take place.
Lastly, the source code on scott games keeps saying, "What is paragraph 4?"
Well, paragraph four could be relating to a lot of things, but the one thing that jumps out at me
is that as soon as my episode went up, this teaser came out. Paragraph 4 of my episode last week happened to be about
William Afton's first
murders, but before I end all this let me give the hardest of
hardcore fans one more deep dive on the whole Willtrap versus Miketrap debate. Let's speed it up.
[sped up] Most hardcore fans believe Mike is the purple guy currently in the spring-trap suit
and it's easy to see why. His voice is modified with an electronic effect in the custom night
ending, Springtrap pops up at the end
of Mike's final words
and the purple guy's sprite who ends up in the suit has been seen releasing kids from their animatronics. However, these are easily explained away.
We've heard spring-trap talk before (or should I say "gurgle before") in FNAF 3
And Mike's voice is very different from Springtrap's. Springtrap popping up on "I'm going to come find
you" could very easily just be a visual storytelling element where Mike is stating his mission to track his father down,
we visually see that did it,
but oh no, cliffhanger, DAD AIN'T DEAD. And we already talked about how William could very well be dismantling the animatronics to try
and stop their attack, so it seems like a pretty balanced debate, or at least it does until you look at the timeline
Based on order of events, William inside Springtrap is undeniable. Whoever's working as night guard at Fazbear's Fright
can't just be some random guy off the street.
It's someone who has seen both the
FNAF 1 and the FNAF 2
animatronics considering his having hallucinations of Mangle, Balloon Boy. and the puppet, as well as the first generation version of Chica. The only person who
worked at those places outside of William Afton himself is Michael Afton.
Also, we hear that Circus Baby's Rentals appeared in the wake of Freddy's Pizza being closed.
But the safe rooms were sealed with Springtrap inside while Freddy's pizza was still open.
That's why there's a whole series of Phone Guy tapes telling employees about the safe rooms, how to use them,
And then "oh wait no we're closing them down pretend like they never existed"
If Mike were really Springtrap, that
would mean he never would have had
the opportunity to get scooped and turned purple since Circus Baby's rentals wouldn't have opened at that point
and he would have been trapped in the walls of the FNAF 1 location in the Springtrap suit.
Lastly, if Mike were Springtrap, then who set fire to Fazbear's Fright? I guarantee that fire was intentional.
It was meant to finish off the last awful pieces of Freddy's legacy
and Mike's only one possessing that sort of motive.
William is the established killer who would be cocky thinking that he got away from the spirits by hiding in his golden Bonnie suit,
which seems very countered to how Mike behaves. Oh, yeah, let's also not forget Scott confirmed our theories on the killer being in Springtrap years ago. If all of that doesn't convince you,
well, I look forward to watching your research. All right 12 pages later, I'm finally ready to close this thing out.
But, hey! That's Just a theory! A Game Theory!
Now don't get mad at me when the new game comes out in a few weeks
and everyone tells me to do another theory about it. Hey and a very special
thanks to Kellen Goff the voice of Funtime Freddy who recorded that incredible intro
Please do me a favor and follow him on Twitter @KellenGoff for all the latest on the projects
he's working on, Freddy included, but also stuff like Hearthstone, which is really awesome
Also, if you want more FNAF action watch me and Rosanna Pansino play FNAF 6 yeah, that's right FNAF 6 together
That's a new video on her channel in the link is right on screen right now
We both get so scared in this game and lastly surprise surprise
I actually do more than Freddy theories. If you want a new series to watch until FNAF 6, check out
Hello Neighbour! It's great and there's tons of Theory fodder in there.
Here's a theory to get your started, just click that box in the right. Now if you'll excuse me, I need a nap.