Ok, so I will start with stating the massive elephant in the room. If you know and understand the entire story of Five Hights at Freddy’s through the games and every iteration of books, then good job. You have reached a higher being status. The massive, absurd timeline of Five nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) is difficult to understand at the best of times and can be an absolute mess. Only recently has MatPat (a theorist, whose career was essentially made from FNAF) started piecing together the timeline properly. The actual story of FNAF is one which should be delved into, especially with the movie coming out soon!
The story of Five Nights at Freddy’s takes place through nine games, three main books, and too many short stories, which have been compacted into a book series, like Goosebumps. These shorter series have two categories: Fazbear frights and Tales from the Pizzaplex. It is also told through books like the Ultimate Guide or the Survival Logbook. To really understand every small detail of the FNAF storyline you will have to read everything in depth multiple times and consume knowledge and videos, many times over. But from looking at the games it tells a clear story, which will be cleaned up further in the upcoming film by Blumhouse.
In short, FNAF tells us a story of one father’s grief and subsequent emotions overcoming him to do drastic things. These actions that he takes soon fill him with bloodlust, all to rebuild his daughter. A jealous father and businessman take a plot of revenge too far, till it costs lives and his business partner’s livelihood.
The characters involved in this twisted story consist of two business partners, William Afton and Henry Emily; the Afton Family; and finally, the fan favourites, the animatronics, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and, of course, Freddy Fazbear. The story also follows the victims of William Afton.
In Freddy Fazbear’s pizzeria William Afton, in his iconic golden bunny animatronic suit, lures five children into the backroom, killing them and stuffing them inside each of the hollow animatronics. Now each suit has been filled with a soul. Trapped inside, they haunt the pizzeria, making children happy on their stages, giving them their happiest day. Something that they didn’t have. William (or, as he is known in the games, ‘purple guy’, since he first appears as a purple sprite) over time finds one of the original kids who he killed, Cassidy, is extremely stubborn. Even giving the chance of freedom up, just to torture Afton. Cassidy lives on in the broken golden Freddy suit.
William’s only goal ever since his first animatronic ‘stuff and kill’ was finding a way to bring back his daughter, Elizabeth. Whether that be through remnant (a soul infused with and possessing inanimate objects) or building animatronics that scare his other children, hoping that they don’t make the same mistake his daughter did.
Elizabeth died because she got too close to Baby. Baby is a clown animatronic who can dispense ice cream from her stomach. Afton always told her to stay away from Baby, but one day she just didn’t. Getting close to this temptation leads to her being grabbed by the claw used to hand out delicious treats to children. William then made it his mission to make the rest of his children stay far away from his creations.
Evan was next. Despite William’s best efforts of keeping him away, he always found himself near the animatronics, but not by his own will though. Michael (the older brother of the Afton family) tormented him his entire life, even up to Evan’s final moments. Michael and his friends picked Evan up and threw him into Freddy’s mouth. The constant flow of tears made the springlocks shake and move, allowing for them to slip, killing Evan instantly, crushing his body inside the mouth of another one of Afton’s creations.
Michael is then shunned by his father after what happened to his brother. Michael later discovers under the family home a large service elevator. There he finds lifelike animatronic faces and other animatronics. He stumbles across a room filled with cameras watching the family home, specifically his little brother’s room. He also finds the animatronic that took his sister’s life hidden away. Lured by his sister’s voice, he helps her, only to find himself getting scooped. Weeks go past, Michael gets worse until his body rejects the metal organism, but somehow miraculously he is still alive, but is now just a rotting corpse. After this incident, Michael makes it his motivation to stop anything his father does. Even if it means making aliases just to fit in.
(Michael top left, William top right, Elizabeth bottom left, Evan -Crying Child- bottom right)
FNAF is a fantastic story and, because to its large-scale success, became a phenomenon. Due to the natural resemblances to Chucky Cheese Pizza, people started to link the two. Chucky Cheese got more attention due to it having a real-life versions of the animatronics we see in the games. Thanks to the large-scale success, a new wave seemed to form that allowed for the art of the “Uncanny Valley” to gain traction. The Uncanny Valley is when a robotic figure looks too human, which evokes a feeling of uneasiness. This greatly affected the immersion of the FNAF games because the fans had something that they could compare the animatronics to, as well as something they could visit.
I think that most of the success of the FNAF series comes down to how vague and cryptic it is. The crypticness of everything allows for theories to be made. These theories allow for the fanbase to feel involved, as they are debating and thinking about what could happen, or what has happened for these events to happen. By having your narrative be like this allows for the story to be changed by the creator, Scott Cawthon, when he comes across a theory he really likes. Cawthon saw how popular these were and didn’t want the success to end, changing and making the story more convoluted just to try and stay relevant.
Well, it all worked. After all the games and the many books that have been released, it was finally announced that the FNAF movie, after eight years of rumours, is releasing October 27th, 2023, just six months after they wrapped filming. Blumhouse productions took up the rights to the film and have announced that Matthew Lillard (known for roles as Shaggy from Scooby Doo and Stu Macher in Scream, to name a few) and Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games star) would be playing William Afton and Mike Schmidt (Michael Afton) respectively.
I’m looking forward to what route the film takes and whether it changes the timeline even more it probably will!).
Check back next week where I will be looking at Forgotten In Frome!
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