u/heyevrrycorn

I really loved thematic studies regarding the characters of Five Nights at Freddy’s, and I wish there were plenty more, especially in regards to one of the panoptic themes of the series, which also happens to be one of its greatest hauntings. And that happens to be the leitmotif of fatherhood.

❗️SPOILERS FOR THE BOOKS❗️

There seems to be an almost common pattern in all walks of the series..

Let’s first look at the one who started this trajectory and the one who caused this chaos, William Afton.

Even if we personally do not follow him bit by bit, his role alone in the story is practically the most important because it is what tremendously affected the lives of several characters, in fact, he could even be just the sole basis for this topic.

And one of the reasons for that is because of how he tarnished the meaning of it and how he embodies parental neglect. He is a father to three children of various ages, two boys and one girl. And establishes one of the most successful entertainment establishments in their world, all of which focuses on every single member of the family, especially children. However as you all know, he is not what you expected a man of his station will be.

Judging by the personalities and attitudes of his three children, you can say anything but William is being a responsible father. His firstborn was and not educated and loved properly, judging by how he treats his siblings, acting out, and his behaviour in adulthood. Considering Michael is the eldest, we can assume that he is given some responsibility of his brother and sister’s well-being, unfortunately the main figure in his life isn’t the most ideal, or the most loving, abusing him and not being sentimentally available. Despite not exactly shown in-game, we are sure that Michael suffers from depression, and severe survivor’s guilt, goodness knows what his household was like when it ultimately ended up with just him and his father, if they ever lived in the same roof at all after the Bite. A popular theory also infers that the boy has been subjected to nightmare experiments or manipulated into doing his evil bidding.

And though there is a possibility of Mike being an accomplice or unwittingly fueling his father’s misdeeds, it does not change that in his older years he becomes bent on finding his father and settling loose ends, even as far as to wait plenty years just to find him while being a corpse, facing the ire of the animatronics who mistake him for his father, and at last burning for one final time, joining the others in their fiery grave. A corpse literally and figuratively, Mike’s dynamic with his father is so interesting and full of potential, especially that they are two sides of the same coin, and both disturbed from what life had to give to them.

Willy’s little daughter seems well-adjusted at first glance, but if you skim beneath the surface or, just the surface really; there is the desperation for her father’s approval (especially in the novels), and how Baby seems to accentuate cruelty, placating it through play pretend, due to the lack of love additionally to already being a killer robot designed to kidnap children and especially Lizzie’s death far from her father’s eye while he’s simultaneously the cause of it. And finally the little crying child, who weeps constantly and lives in fear of the characters his own father created, (granted, he is scared of the animatronics and not the characters), but experienced silent hill type of night terrors, and was possibly the scapegoat of the family, making his brother turn against him, and was emotionally abused prior to his painful demise unfit for anyone at his age.

Though the Afton family and their relationships might be in constant contention and that’s understandable, all of us do agree that William is a root of all their suffering and early deaths, he could have maybe loved them, but love them in a way an abusive father would…as extensions of his being. He probably loved them in a way a tailor would love a mannequin. We are also not ignoring the fact that he murdered multiple children despite having many himself, never pondering on their innocence. His motives may be debated, whether to achieve immortality, intellectual curiosity for the supernatural, to escape judgement, for science, to fix his family, to enact vengeance, pride and greed, psychopathy, sociopathy, perhaps all of them. Even decades after his death, his sins continue to plague the narrative, the existence of Freddy’s and those that come within its vicinity.

Now let’s move on to his old friend, and business partner, Henry Emily. Another character responsible for conceptualizing the characters that we grew to love, and another one that haunts the narrative despite a major absence in good chunk of the timeline.

Henry himself was the reason the FNAF 6 fire happened, gathering the lost animatronics, and finally getting William to face death in its final form, laying all (but one) souls to rest. But he is not exactly the sweet and loving father he is chalked up to be. In truth, the narrative also did not shy away from showing his faults and flaws, though he is far from a deplorably evil person like William, he isn’t a darling saint either.

Let’s get to the earliest portion of the timeline: SECRET OF THE MIMIC… And his relationship to his fellow theatrical engineer, Edwin. Though we don’t exactly know the exact details of their closeness, we can infer that they had a pretty amiable connection at the beginning. They were after all, collaborators and business allies on a vision, a vision that they all want to make a reality. They could even be close friends in their youth considering Edwin calls Henry, Hen, and since Edwin had the money and family net worth, he was probably the one entrusted on the operations. But the thing is, Henry is a businessman. And like most pragmatic businessmen, there are debit cards thrown under the bus so they earn the advantage. We can tough it up to William maybe influencing him, saying that Edwin is a liability, but what’s done is done, and he was possibly greedy as one can be. The two gave Edwin shorter deadlines, changed the concepts dozens of times without proper communication, leaked important secrets, possibly argued ultimately falling out with him. And Edwin paid dearly, losing his wife and child, driving him to his death that was much as Henry and Will’s doing as much as his. But we will go back to Edwin in a minute.

His relationship with his little girl: Charlie. The Marionette. In the novels we can see that despite his genuine love for his daughter, he is still a neglectful parent. And parents do not necessarily have to harbor negative feelings towards their children just so they can be neglectful. He presents Charlie a mechanical frog and abolishes its insides despite the girl telling him to stop. And when she dies, Henry deteriorates into his grief, using a doll as a replacement for her, abandoning his wife and other son who was still alive by the way. Who needed him the most at that moment. And though it is difficult to judge him, because the pain of losing a child is a pain that nobody could ever describe, there is no denying that he neglected his family. Especially since he is very dedicated to his work. He recreates Charlie in the form of four robots that would follow her in different stages of her life, all up to adulthood. He does have a flash of awareness though when his sister pleads with him. But he knows that he’s gone too far to stop. Eventually, the fourth robot is unfinished due to the realization that Charlie is forever gone and will never return to him. His disposition worsens as he becomes a suspect of the murder of five victims at the new Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizza, he was not convicted however. His wife and son leaves him afterwards. Charlie is lied to that his brother was kidnapped, when in truth it was her. Unable to end his life with his own hands after all the tragedies, he creates a robot to do the job for him.

In the main games, we get glimpses of what he was, considering that he created a robotic puppet to watch his daughter instead of a living babysitter, you can tell that there seems to be a system in play here. He also represses himself which allowed William to commit more murders. Regardless he constructs Lefty to house his daughter for her final journey to sleep forever, but the methods on which Lefty utilizes…is more than questionable… such as the electric shocks. Though that can be up to interpretation. Michael would also be lobotomized if he finds his employer’s schemes if the Lobotomy ending is to be believed. Its funny how ambiguous his relationship was to the Afton children though. Was he the Couch Person? Did he fight for them but was unable to do anything? Was he kept in the dark by Will? Was he unaware because the children were separated from him due to the pandemonium of their work and thus he did not know of their well-being? Was he purposefully ignorant?

Keep in mind Fazbear Entertainment is far from the sustainable and ethnical company. Hen might have some parallels to Curly from Mouthwashing, who was also a bystander on his friend whose true value for human life was only of his own, but that’s a whole nother dissection.

Now, Edwin: the man, the myth, he made the mimic! Like the characters discussed prior, Edwin was passionate albeit doubtful and more timid compared to the two according to what we see in SOTM. He does have a tender heart, especially if you see his love for his wife Fiona, who was an inspiration and fellow creative spark. But fittingly like Will and Henry, Ed too was too devoted in his work that he would not spend ample time with his son during his formative years. A literal baby, who was three years old during the loss of his mother. And Edwin was lacking for most of it.

His wife’s death was the first of his many grievances, and certainly among the most severe. He promptly concieves the mimic, a robot that would mimic behavior and retrofit into any costume, to watch over his child and be its playmate. M1 sincerely replicates Fiona to the point where it becomes David’s actual caretaker rather than his father. Before the time he turns five, a tragic accident occurs, and David dies. Its possible that a car hit him like in the books, alluded to in the game such as the playground being unsafe and the truck garage. Or he died in some other area, its also possible that M1 killed him, per evidence by the Moon game.

M1’s consciousness is transferred to the F10-N4 computer, and M2 is born. By simply performing its function to copy, Edwin violently beats it, telling it that it would never be David. The agony fuels M2, and it eventually attacks its creator, breaking his legs and possibly killing him in a fire.

Vanessa

Vanessa is much a victim as plenty. According to the therapist tapes, she had a dysfunctional family life and was undeniably maltreated, affecting her self-esteem, cognitive thought and attachment styles. She becomes vulnerable to Glitchtrap (I prefer Malhare cause its cool hehe), and is brainwashed, also executing crimes at his behest, which unsurprisingly, includes murder. She develops: Vanny, an alt persona, whom she may or may not be aware of, a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or simply just a masquerade under the mind control of Glitchtrap. Her father’s name was Bill, and Ness’s mom commits suicide after her father accuses her of false claims in court, ruling in his favor, and making her mom lose custody of her.

Gregory & Cassie

As Gregory and Cassie are children, their impact on the narrative are shaped by the environment and the adult figures around them. Gregory is mysterious, and confirmed? to be GGY, responsible for plenty of disappearances within the Pizzaplex, and is also highly theorized to be Patient 46; the other person in the tapes, who murdered their therapists. We have yet to see more of his character, but there seems to be the lack of parental attitudes in his life, especially when he was sneaking in the Pizzaplex, without a record, possibly even living in there for a time. And if he was Patient 46, then the therapist concludes that he lied about his backstory, and that he ran away from a decent home life. As for Cassie, we cannot exactly rule in that her father was a bad one, as her father was a technician who was doing his best to provide for her, and even took her to the Pizzaplex and maybe accompanied him in her work since she knows a deal about his tasks. But the status of her dad is MIA. And he might be the staffbot that hands her the VANNI mask, implanting the chip on her brain and leading her to her doom. (Until the sequel folks)

THE NOVELS AND FRIGHT BOOKS

The books all have a continuity that would send the community into a frenzy, so the debates of its canonicity will be for some other creator. But the themes of the franchise nonetheless bleeds into its pages. Into the pit follows young Oswald, whose dad who even if not perfect, was a truly caring father. The boy is left in the pizzeria for his father to go to work and Oswald yearns what children yearn: some energy into a mundane life and some fun. He gets into the ballpit and his father is replaced by the eldritch-like Springbonnie, who everyone but Oswald and his cat thinks as his dad, and Oswald is forced to play along until he musters up the courage to rescue his real father. In Lonely Freddy, Alec is a rebellious teenager (who could be a parallel to Michael) who is misunderstood, by the way this story reminds me of the themes in the movie Coraline, whose parents seem to be disinterested in her and stumbles upon something which happens to be otherworldly and dangerous. He is quite cruel to his sister and plans to expose her on her special day. Despite his nature and his capacity for trouble, he does feel shame for what does and remembers people’s apprehension of him. He believes good and bad is based on people’s comparisons and judgement.

Alec’s parents were strict on him during Hazel’s birth due to finally having someone to compare him to. With Hazel being showered with attention unlike him. His parents were adamant on helping him improve and would read books in what to do to guide their child. Alec overheards a conversation and is frustrated that they would rather read a book than communicate with him. He encounters a Lonely Freddy, and unknowingly, body swaps with the bear, screaming as it is disposed in a dumpster alongside many other of his kind.

In the 1:35 AM book, all three protagonists are facing inner demons in some way shape or form. Delilah, a woman, orphaned at 11, in and out of foster homes and suffering from an obsessive personality and recently divorced, she finds a doll named Ella, who wakes her up at precisely 1:35 am, and even after she throws it away, she ceaselessly awoken at the same time. Over the course of her story she becomes inundated with paranoia and panic attacks, sleeping on the sofa and even on the bathtub. Terrified that Ella is following her, she ends up and gets stuck on a vent on an abandoned construction site, certain that Ella won’t get to her.

Stanley was fresh from a failed relationship and refuses to listen to a doctor, and Devon has a strained relationship with his parents, all three die lonely deaths.

In Step Closer, Blackbird and The Cliffs, many of the protagonists also deal with the complexities and responsibilities of a family and the fear of one’s failure. In The Cliffs Robert and his wife live near the Jumper cliffs, notorious for well, (you know what), and when Robert’s wife dies after giving birth to their son Tyler, Robert struggles to care for him. He buys him a Tag-Along Freddy toy that would give updates on a wrist watch. Suddenly Tyler goes missing, and the Freddy toy would suggest going to the cliffs. Robert considers but does not obey the bear, later dousing it in flame and running it over with his car, blaming it for what happened, he takes it out and carries it with him to the cliff, finding Tyler wedged in the underside and going home with him. But that part is left for interpretation and probably did not happen, only working as Robert’s hallucination and grief for the loss of his son.

SECURITY BREACH

Fatherhood is also an underlying subject in SB. Truthfully in my humble opinion, this is one of the few instances where the father figure depicted in the series happens to be a positive one. And it also happens to be the biggest irony of all as one of the greatest fathers in the franchise happens to be none other than its horror mascot. Glamrock Freddy does not exactly grasp the concept of fatherhood as a real human does in hindsight. His structure is fabricated from AI processing, as he is a robot designed to entertain children. (Though there are theories of some possession going on) And he is an animatronic that have limits to his programming. But he possesses sentience, and does seem to grasp the basics of what is right and wrong. Despite his sympathy for children being a written code, his moments in the game has this natural sincerity and he happens to be just as real if not more than most human guardians. He defies the rules of Pizzaplex just so he can help a little boy escape, and gives praise when Gregory does something of importance, and yes, as mentioned, it could purely be the programming, or the cartoony enhancement for visitors, but he does so in a way that does not feel fake and well, loving. And though Gregory, Cassie and Vanessa’s trauma may be for life, and how I can see them not exactly gaining a happy ending, Freddy’s inclusion sure did at least alleviate things to become worse than they already are. And we still yet to see more to their story and characters.

In short, the fact that the animatronics, Glamrock Freddy, Roxanne, and Nightmare Freddy even were better parents, then there must be something in the water with these people in Utah.

I really loved thematic studies regarding the characters of Five Nights at Freddy’s, and I wish there were plenty more, especially in regards to one of the panoptic themes of the series, which also happens to be one of its greatest hauntings. And that happens to be the leitmotif of fatherhood.

❗️SPOILERS FOR THE BOOKS❗️

There seems to be an almost common pattern in all walks of the series..

Let’s first look at the one who started this trajectory and the one who caused this chaos, William Afton.

Even if we personally do not follow him bit by bit, his role alone in the story is practically the most important because it is what tremendously affected the lives of several characters, in fact, he could even be just the sole basis for this topic.

And one of the reasons for that is because of how he tarnished the meaning of it and how he embodies parental neglect. He is a father to three children of various ages, two boys and one girl. And establishes one of the most successful entertainment establishments in their world, all of which focuses on every single member of the family, especially children. However as you all know, he is not what you expected a man of his station will be.

Judging by the personalities and attitudes of his three children, you can say anything but William is being a responsible father. His firstborn was and not educated and loved properly, judging by how he treats his siblings, acting out, and his behaviour in adulthood. Considering Michael is the eldest, we can assume that he is given some responsibility of his brother and sister’s well-being, unfortunately the main figure in his life isn’t the most ideal, or the most loving, abusing him and not being sentimentally available. Despite not exactly shown in-game, we are sure that Michael suffers from depression, and severe survivor’s guilt, goodness knows what his household was like when it ultimately ended up with just him and his father, if they ever lived in the same roof at all after the Bite. A popular theory also infers that the boy has been subjected to nightmare experiments or manipulated into doing his evil bidding.

And though there is a possibility of Mike being an accomplice or unwittingly fueling his father’s misdeeds, it does not change that in his older years he becomes bent on finding his father and settling loose ends, even as far as to wait plenty years just to find him while being a corpse, facing the ire of the animatronics who mistake him for his father, and at last burning for one final time, joining the others in their fiery grave. A corpse literally and figuratively, Mike’s dynamic with his father is so interesting and full of potential, especially that they are two sides of the same coin, and both disturbed from what life had to give to them.

Willy’s little daughter seems well-adjusted at first glance, but if you skim beneath the surface or, just the surface really; there is the desperation for her father’s approval (especially in the novels), and how Baby seems to accentuate cruelty, placating it through play pretend, due to the lack of love additionally to already being a killer robot designed to kidnap children and especially Lizzie’s death far from her father’s eye while he’s simultaneously the cause of it. And finally the little crying child, who weeps constantly and lives in fear of the characters his own father created, (granted, he is scared of the animatronics and not the characters), but experienced silent hill type of night terrors, and was possibly the scapegoat of the family, making his brother turn against him, and was emotionally abused prior to his painful demise unfit for anyone at his age.

Though the Afton family and their relationships might be in constant contention and that’s understandable, all of us do agree that William is a root of all their suffering and early deaths, he could have maybe loved them, but love them in a way an abusive father would…as extensions of his being. He probably loved them in a way a tailor would love a mannequin. We are also not ignoring the fact that he murdered multiple children despite having many himself, never pondering on their innocence. His motives may be debated, whether to achieve immortality, intellectual curiosity for the supernatural, to escape judgement, for science, to fix his family, to enact vengeance, pride and greed, psychopathy, sociopathy, perhaps all of them. Even decades after his death, his sins continue to plague the narrative, the existence of Freddy’s and those that come within its vicinity.

Now let’s move on to his old friend, and business partner, Henry Emily. Another character responsible for conceptualizing the characters that we grew to love, and another one that haunts the narrative despite a major absence in good chunk of the timeline.

Henry himself was the reason the FNAF 6 fire happened, gathering the lost animatronics, and finally getting William to face death in its final form, laying all (but one) souls to rest. But he is not exactly the sweet and loving father he is chalked up to be. In truth, the narrative also did not shy away from showing his faults and flaws, though he is far from a deplorably evil person like William, he isn’t a darling saint either.

Let’s get to the earliest portion of the timeline: SECRET OF THE MIMIC… And his relationship to his fellow theatrical engineer, Edwin. Though we don’t exactly know the exact details of their closeness, we can infer that they had a pretty amiable connection at the beginning. They were after all, collaborators and business allies on a vision, a vision that they all want to make a reality. They could even be close friends in their youth considering Edwin calls Henry, Hen, and since Edwin had the money and family net worth, he was probably the one entrusted on the operations. But the thing is, Henry is a businessman. And like most pragmatic businessmen, there are debit cards thrown under the bus so they earn the advantage. We can tough it up to William maybe influencing him, saying that Edwin is a liability, but what’s done is done, and he was possibly greedy as one can be. The two gave Edwin shorter deadlines, changed the concepts dozens of times without proper communication, leaked important secrets, possibly argued ultimately falling out with him. And Edwin paid dearly, losing his wife and child, driving him to his death that was much as Henry and Will’s doing as much as his. But we will go back to Edwin in a minute.

His relationship with his little girl: Charlie. The Marionette. In the novels we can see that despite his genuine love for his daughter, he is still a neglectful parent. And parents do not necessarily have to harbor negative feelings towards their children just so they can be neglectful. He presents Charlie a mechanical frog and abolishes its insides despite the girl telling him to stop. And when she dies, Henry deteriorates into his grief, using a doll as a replacement for her, abandoning his wife and other son who was still alive by the way. Who needed him the most at that moment. And though it is difficult to judge him, because the pain of losing a child is a pain that nobody could ever describe, there is no denying that he neglected his family. Especially since he is very dedicated to his work. He recreates Charlie in the form of four robots that would follow her in different stages of her life, all up to adulthood. He does have a flash of awareness though when his sister pleads with him. But he knows that he’s gone too far to stop. Eventually, the fourth robot is unfinished due to the realization that Charlie is forever gone and will never return to him. His disposition worsens as he becomes a suspect of the murder of five victims at the new Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizza, he was not convicted however. His wife and son leaves him afterwards. Charlie is lied to that his brother was kidnapped, when in truth it was her. Unable to end his life with his own hands after all the tragedies, he creates a robot to do the job for him.

In the main games, we get glimpses of what he was, considering that he created a robotic puppet to watch his daughter instead of a living babysitter, you can tell that there seems to be a system in play here. He also represses himself which allowed William to commit more murders. Regardless he constructs Lefty to house his daughter for her final journey to sleep forever, but the methods on which Lefty utilizes…is more than questionable… such as the electric shocks. Though that can be up to interpretation. Michael would also be lobotomized if he finds his employer’s schemes if the Lobotomy ending is to be believed. Its funny how ambiguous his relationship was to the Afton children though. Was he the Couch Person? Did he fight for them but was unable to do anything? Was he kept in the dark by Will? Was he unaware because the children were separated from him due to the pandemonium of their work and thus he did not know of their well-being? Was he purposefully ignorant?

Keep in mind Fazbear Entertainment is far from the sustainable and ethnical company. Hen might have some parallels to Curly from Mouthwashing, who was also a bystander on his friend whose true value for human life was only of his own, but that’s a whole nother dissection.

Now, Edwin: the man, the myth, he made the mimic! Like the characters discussed prior, Edwin was passionate albeit doubtful and more timid compared to the two according to what we see in SOTM. He does have a tender heart, especially if you see his love for his wife Fiona, who was an inspiration and fellow creative spark. But fittingly like Will and Henry, Ed too was too devoted in his work that he would not spend ample time with his son during his formative years. A literal baby, who was three years old during the loss of his mother. And Edwin was lacking for most of it.

His wife’s death was the first of his many grievances, and certainly among the most severe. He promptly concieves the mimic, a robot that would mimic behavior and retrofit into any costume, to watch over his child and be its playmate. M1 sincerely replicates Fiona to the point where it becomes David’s actual caretaker rather than his father. Before the time he turns five, a tragic accident occurs, and David dies. Its possible that a car hit him like in the books, alluded to in the game such as the playground being unsafe and the truck garage. Or he died in some other area, its also possible that M1 killed him, per evidence by the Moon game.

M1’s consciousness is transferred to the F10-N4 computer, and M2 is born. By simply performing its function to copy, Edwin violently beats it, telling it that it would never be David. The agony fuels M2, and it eventually attacks its creator, breaking his legs and possibly killing him in a fire.

Vanessa

Vanessa is much a victim as plenty. According to the therapist tapes, she had a dysfunctional family life and was undeniably maltreated, affecting her self-esteem, cognitive thought and attachment styles. She becomes vulnerable to Glitchtrap (I prefer Malhare cause its cool hehe), and is brainwashed, also executing crimes at his behest, which unsurprisingly, includes murder. She develops: Vanny, an alt persona, whom she may or may not be aware of, a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or simply just a masquerade under the mind control of Glitchtrap. Her father’s name was Bill, and Ness’s mom commits suicide after her father accuses her of false claims in court, ruling in his favor, and making her mom lose custody of her.

Gregory & Cassie

As Gregory and Cassie are children, their impact on the narrative are shaped by the environment and the adult figures around them. Gregory is mysterious, and confirmed? to be GGY, responsible for plenty of disappearances within the Pizzaplex, and is also highly theorized to be Patient 46; the other person in the tapes, who murdered their therapists. We have yet to see more of his character, but there seems to be the lack of parental attitudes in his life, especially when he was sneaking in the Pizzaplex, without a record, possibly even living in there for a time. And if he was Patient 46, then the therapist concludes that he lied about his backstory, and that he ran away from a decent home life. As for Cassie, we cannot exactly rule in that her father was a bad one, as her father was a technician who was doing his best to provide for her, and even took her to the Pizzaplex and maybe accompanied him in her work since she knows a deal about his tasks. But the status of her dad is MIA. And he might be the staffbot that hands her the VANNI mask, implanting the chip on her brain and leading her to her doom. (Until the sequel folks)

THE NOVELS AND FRIGHT BOOKS

The books all have a continuity that would send the community into a frenzy, so the debates of its canonicity will be for some other creator. But the themes of the franchise nonetheless bleeds into its pages. Into the pit follows young Oswald, whose dad who even if not perfect, was a truly caring father. The boy is left in the pizzeria for his father to go to work and Oswald yearns what children yearn: some energy into a mundane life and some fun. He gets into the ballpit and his father is replaced by the eldritch-like Springbonnie, who everyone but Oswald and his cat thinks as his dad, and Oswald is forced to play along until he musters up the courage to rescue his real father. In Lonely Freddy, Alec is a rebellious teenager (who could be a parallel to Michael) who is misunderstood, by the way this story reminds me of the themes in the movie Coraline, whose parents seem to be disinterested in her and stumbles upon something which happens to be otherworldly and dangerous. He is quite cruel to his sister and plans to expose her on her special day. Despite his nature and his capacity for trouble, he does feel shame for what does and remembers people’s apprehension of him. He believes good and bad is based on people’s comparisons and judgement.

Alec’s parents were strict on him during Hazel’s birth due to finally having someone to compare him to. With Hazel being showered with attention unlike him. His parents were adamant on helping him improve and would read books in what to do to guide their child. Alec overheards a conversation and is frustrated that they would rather read a book than communicate with him. He encounters a Lonely Freddy, and unknowingly, body swaps with the bear, screaming as it is disposed in a dumpster alongside many other of his kind.

In the 1:35 AM book, all three protagonists are facing inner demons in some way shape or form. Delilah, a woman, orphaned at 11, in and out of foster homes and suffering from an obsessive personality and recently divorced, she finds a doll named Ella, who wakes her up at precisely 1:35 am, and even after she throws it away, she ceaselessly awoken at the same time. Over the course of her story she becomes inundated with paranoia and panic attacks, sleeping on the sofa and even on the bathtub. Terrified that Ella is following her, she ends up and gets stuck on a vent on an abandoned construction site, certain that Ella won’t get to her.

Stanley was fresh from a failed relationship and refuses to listen to a doctor, and Devon has a strained relationship with his parents, all three die lonely deaths.

In Step Closer, Blackbird and The Cliffs, many of the protagonists also deal with the complexities and responsibilities of a family and the fear of one’s failure. In The Cliffs Robert and his wife live near the Jumper cliffs, notorious for well, (you know what), and when Robert’s wife dies after giving birth to their son Tyler, Robert struggles to care for him. He buys him a Tag-Along Freddy toy that would give updates on a wrist watch. Suddenly Tyler goes missing, and the Freddy toy would suggest going to the cliffs. Robert considers but does not obey the bear, later dousing it in flame and running it over with his car, blaming it for what happened, he takes it out and carries it with him to the cliff, finding Tyler wedged in the underside and going home with him. But that part is left for interpretation and probably did not happen, only working as Robert’s hallucination and grief for the loss of his son.

SECURITY BREACH

Fatherhood is also an underlying subject in SB. Truthfully in my humble opinion, this is one of the few instances where the father figure depicted in the series happens to be a positive one. And it also happens to be the biggest irony of all as one of the greatest fathers in the franchise happens to be none other than its horror mascot. Glamrock Freddy does not exactly grasp the concept of fatherhood as a real human does in hindsight. His structure is fabricated from AI processing, as he is a robot designed to entertain children. (Though there are theories of some possession going on) And he is an animatronic that have limits to his programming. But he possesses sentience, and does seem to grasp the basics of what is right and wrong. Despite his sympathy for children being a written code, his moments in the game has this natural sincerity and he happens to be just as real if not more than most human guardians. He defies the rules of Pizzaplex just so he can help a little boy escape, and gives praise when Gregory does something of importance, and yes, as mentioned, it could purely be the programming, or the cartoony enhancement for visitors, but he does so in a way that does not feel fake and well, loving. And though Gregory, Cassie and Vanessa’s trauma may be for life, and how I can see them not exactly gaining a happy ending, Freddy’s inclusion sure did at least alleviate things to become worse than they already are.

In short, the fact that the animatronics, Glamrock Freddy, Roxanne, and Nightmare Freddy even were better parents, then there must be something in the water with these people in Utah.