I looooooove the lack of apologism IN CANON with William's character. I love that someone who's genuinely horrible and hurt people constantly isn't portrayed as sympathetic, isn't romanticized, and his actions aren't justified. No shortcuts to make him a more "digestible" character to the audience.
William was a leech, sucking on MCM and the life and death of innocent children. He was a grown man who knew what he was doing. Michael on the other hand was just a kid who DIDN'T know what he was doing and didn't mean to cause his brother's death.
I like that instead of making William redeemable, we are instead given a different character related to him, who's also committed a grave sin, to be the one to be redeemed. A character who's metaphorically and literally a reflection of his father.
Also love love the fact that William and his desperate quest for immortality is portrayed as pathetic, not cool and admirable. Even when he's Springtrap, you have to remember that he's a stinking old corpse inside of a rotten goofy mascot character suit. This deader than dead man is clinging to life by his fingernails and it is NOT PRETTY (insert Scraptrap image here).
Oh, and there's even that audio of him in UCN, the one that plays in OMC's lake, where he's screaming for Mike and Henry. Pathetic.
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Pulling out my super awesome theory on why Henry used the suicide-bot in the novels because itās getting brought up again (š§µ):
Itās never stated WHY Henry used the suicide-bot specifically as a way of taking his life, but I believe he used it to imitate Afton (through the use of illusion discs) murdering him to help make the process of offing himself easier/āless self-inflicted.ā >
The deal with the big ass knife:
- Starting off with the comically huge knife attached to the botās arm, I need to talk about it.
- Williamās main weapon of choice has ALWAYS been a large kind of knife, as seen in both movies (when attacking Vanessa and when chasing down Charlotte), the novels (specifically when killing Officer Dunn) and even more exaggerated in the DBD collab where Springtrap/the Yellow Rabbit uses a huge pizza knife as his weapon.
- Even how the bot kills Henry by stabbing him is such a specific detail, embracing him before using the knife, his death painfully slow and dragged out as he bleeds out. Henry specifically made it to replicate something similar to a murder rather than giving himself a quick and painless death.
Henry is hesitant about killing himself:
- This is evident in both the books and the games (and maybe the movie if you squint), but Henry is generally wary of the idea of killing himself.
- In the novels, the suicide-bot was built in Henryās workshop slowly overtime, meaning he gave himself a lot of time to think about it; he was still using the Charlie-bots while he was making it (why Charlie remembers it so clearly) and he kept it in clear view. The idea had been in his mind for a long while.
- In the Insanity Ending of Pizza Sim, after Henry voices his griefs about the MCI and William, he says that he could simply just āmake himselfā¦sleep.ā Heās still an active suicide risk, he still thinks about doing it, but he just canāt.
- The whole idea of making an animatronic to kill him instead of just using any other way was BECAUSE he was so uneasy about it being by his own hand, he couldnāt bring himself to do it. Heās a cowardly person in general damnit !!
- He canāt even say it out loud, he has to refer to it as āsleepingā and even that he sounds hesitant about.
His known use of the illusion discs to replicate people:
- He made 4 robot replicas of Charlie in the trilogy, spanning from her being a kid all the way to adulthood to deal with the grief that came with her death.
- To help convince himself, he used the illusion discs to make the Charlie-bots appear as if they were real, living people, smoothing out their robotic faults.
- Whatās stopping him from using the illusion discs again to help him through offing himself, projecting an illusion of William upon the endoskeleton so that he can go the same way his daughter did; by the hand of his old partner instead of his own.
- And while not portrayed in the graphic novels, the bot wears a weeping mask, which would contribute to creating an even more believable illusion.
The SILVER EYES:
- The botās most notable feature is itās silver eyes (its literally the name of the book), itās focused on so much and such a specific detail that itād be weird if it wasnāt an intentional choice in some way.
- William (as Dave Miller in the novels) is described as having GREY and lifeless eyes and heās also shown to have it in the graphic novels. This same grey is also seen in the Fruity Maze mini game within the Spring Bonnie head.
- YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE HAS GREY. LIFELESS. EYES.
Henry is known to take things too far:
- I think itās safe to say that creating a whole animatronic programmed to walk towards and stab you is a little extra, but for Henry it can seem almost plausible.
- Henrys described as being dramatic, always having a way of overdoing whatever he did (this foreshadowed the Charlie-bots, how Henry went all the way just to get his daughter back).
- This could also apply back to the suicide-bot and using it to replicate a murder just so he could get around his own cowardice when taking his life.
Williamās relevance in Henryās life:
- I could go on for ages about how obsessive and codependent these two are about each other. Itās no secret that they were weird about each other ok.
- Williamās whole deal in the novels is that he canāt replicate Henryās love for his work so he has to go torment Charlie and friends to see what made her so special, he does NOT stop talking about Henry in the novels. Henry too, he made mentions of Afton in his suicide note (TFC), his private tapes (Insanity Ending) and in his final speech (Burn Ending), where he partially talks about William.
- Of course William would be the one Henry would choose for his suicide-bot. The only person who ever stuck around for him, praised and admired his work, helped to make his dreams become reality be the same person to take it all away in one swift motion.
ā¦And thatās all Iāve got to support my silly ramblings, thank you for reading lol
I think itās also worth mentioning that this idea isnt new or anything, I simply just wanted to expand upon it since I think itās such a cool concept.
Also also this is like. Babyās first theoryā¦ and excuse to talk about Henryā¦ againā¦ be nice please š
This particular scene from Into the Pit (2024) intrigues me so much because itās such a raw representation of Williamās feelings towards his relationship with Henry.
These two never miss a chance to blatantly express their feelings towards each other so we obviously have a sorta clear picture of what one thinks of the other, more specifically we can draw the following conclusions:
-Henryās feelings are mostly spite, hatred and regret, with some subtle melancholy depending on how you read it.
A) In the insanity ending of pizza sim he talks about how it got to the point where those feelings took over his life, to the point where there was nothing left to him. Finally confronting the man whom his life had been revolving around for the past half century or so in the āgoodā ending of pizza sim he sounds as if heās trying to communicate the fact that heās finally gotten over his grief, and quite literally tells William to go to hell.
B) Similarly in the Silver Eyes, despite Henry not mentioning William, his life of guilt is actually what motivates the narrative of the trilogy š. (TSE spoilers ahead) In the books, when Henry learns about the MCI he immediately knows that William is behind it, so we are left to assume that he already knew about the fact that he was the the one to kill Charlotte back in 1983 but let him get away with it because of his denial towards the incident. When he realises that he genuinely let a goddamn child murderer get away without any confrontation and now actual families (who donāt have the luxury of recreating their children into robots to cope with their deaths) are suffering because of his decision heād rather take his own life than face the consequences and turn his best friend and business partner in.
C) The movie furthermore highlights how Henryās character arc and overall role in the story mostly revolves around William. Sure, it could be seen as a writing issue but Henryās one scene being about his regrets regarding his relationship with William and once again, how grief has taken over his life, further highlights his established feelings.
-Williamās case is more complex. While Henryās feelings could be dramatically butchered down to guilt through his statements and actions, Williamās feelings towards him are scattered around through context clues, actions that contradict each other and scenes like this where his true colours show. Ultimately, he presents both feelings of jealousy and resentment as well as respect and admiration.
A) Even if we donāt have any evidence of William addressing his business partner in the mainline games, it doesnāt mean that we donāt get some crumbs throughout certain spinoffs. Most importantly, the scene in question! Funny how a post dedicated to only this scene turned into such a huge rant,,, anyway! This sceneās depth and implications hold such a great importance to the dynamic between Henry & William (the duo that basically the entire story of fnaf is based on) that itās such a shame how often it is overlooked in the fandom. First of all for context, we see Pit Bonnie, the embodiment of all agony related to William, pick up a photo of the two before everything went down. Note that both their faces are scratched off in the picture, with Henryās figure being aggressively wiped off entirely. This alone raises so many questions: obviously William did this out of spite towards Henry, was it in a fit of unjustified rage or did Henry actually provoke him to? As for the actual scene, isnāt it crazy that Williamās feelings towards Henry were so great that they manifested themselves into the monster made out of his agony? And not only that, but this is basically the only scene in the game where we get to see Pit Bonnie express any type of emotion/opinion without containing itself. Omfgg just the way it twitches at the realisation of what this photo represents is so beautiful to me, seeing it tweak out like that could mean a million different things and is such a good way of storytelling !!
Honorable mention: William most likely mocking Henry with his ādarkest pit of hellā line in DBD just shows how full of hatred and jealousy he is for that man. Or maybe heās just that pathetic because he hates to have his ego get hurt like that.
B) In the books (the silver eyes trilogy ācause Iāve yet to read tales & frights) William brings up Henry so often yet we still donāt get a clear picture of what he feels about him. His own statements alter between books, as he talks about how he admired his love for his work in the Silver Eyes, then start blatantly slandering him in the Twisted Ones and finally making very unclear comments about him in the Fourth Closet. To start off, it always felt to me as if he was constantly comparing himself to Henry, looking for reassurance from teens that barely even knew the man just to feel superior. While his mixed feelings for Henry actually are part of his character, seeing the reference to the stacks of journals he had dedicated to him contradicting themselves, he never admits anything that feels genuine. Thatās why this scene feels so important, because we get to see Williamās unfiltered emotions break out without any egoism getting in the way.
C) As for the movie, Iāve seen a lot of people say that this is the only version of both William and Henry that actually got to move on. While that could be the case seeing that heās never even mentioned Henry or any of his past for that matter, we have to consider that heās only had a total of 3 scenes none of whichās content could include Henry. There is this crazy ass theory that he had been copying Henry ever since he disappeared since heās wearing his glasses as Steve Raglan and also quite literally names himself after the last thing Charlotte was wearing when he killed her (white Raglan tee). While I donāt think it was done on purpose, itās still funny seeing him portrayed so desperate,,,
Endless rants aside, an elaboration on their relationship dynamics in the third movie would be essential, weāve got the rough picture, just give us the canon portrayals of them! There is more Iād like to talk about but this post already got too long, make sure to give me your ideas abt it !! :P
He is constantly surrounded by motifs that he is not in full control of his own destiny. He looks like his father and is cursed to follow in his bloody footsteps. He served as a useful tool to William, going down to the sister location bunker only to get his organs scooped out to be used as a skin suit by a robot. He doesnāt ever catch a break. Even in his āafterlifeā he is bound and determined to do something to help the situation he think he caused.
Michael Afton, like we see in his own reflection, is a shadow. A shadow in the narrative of the series. He isnāt even given a chance to speak 90% of the time. What we do hear of him is bleak. Heās worn down. Heās tired. And yet he keeps going.
I used to not like the decision for Michael to stay behind in the burning building of pizza simulator. But after reflection it really does feel like Michaelās biggest choice of autonomy in the whole series.
He didnāt mean to kill his brother.
He likely didnāt want to do his fatherās bidding but felt compelled to.
He likely also felt bound (and responsible) to āundoā the damage done. (Why would someone keep coming BACK to a place where he knew he could be KILLED?? For a bad paycheck? I donāt think so.)
Michael chose to stay because it was the first real CHOICE heās made in a very long time.
He couldāve dragged his decaying corpse behind out of that building. We know this.
Do I necessarily agree with his decision as the best course of action? No. But to me it feels like an emotional responseāsomething that people DO.
My thirteenth reason is the fact robot Charlie in the trilogy always asked herself, āDoes it hurt?ā because her fatherās agony integrated it into her mind. Chances are he repeated that as a mantra to himself given that Henry desperately wanted to know if Charlie was at rest, if it didnāt hurt; being dead.
Because the story doesnāt use, did, but rather uses, does, I somewhat take this as how suicidal people mainly donāt usually focus on the pain of dying, but on the peacefulness of death. Though, I imagine both questions did rack his mind quite a bit, as he definitely made suicide bot, taking it into count that he wanted to share the same pain as his daughter.
And after Henry died, Charlie connected the phrase to Henry and suicide bot, carrying the burden of her dadās own guilt. But, as Charlie also pushed this onto her brother as well and clung to the idea of him being alive like a lifeline, she would imitate her dadās obsession of her life as well. Her life was really just stages of the grief her father went through, and it breaks my heart...
The reason robot Charlie dies to suicide bot at the end, is because that was Henryās moment of acceptance of his daughterās death, which is right after Charlie learned of her brother still being alive. After that, the woman at the end of the book is probably the stage of grief, Henry never madeāthe life after acceptance, the days when she would stop chasing after the memory of her brother and father.
And baby Charlie doodle cause I hate her!! /lh someone needa tell me that i donāt sound crazy saying all this, cause i certainly FEEL crazy
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this is my favorite vanessa image. the vanessa image that kills you.
because it was such a good acting choice for elizabeth lail to fidget with her sleeves in this scene like it adds such a layered realism to vanessa that she has idle nervous habits, especially ones common with people who have anxiety. like the fact that you can see her pull the sleeve tight over her knuckles and twist it and play with the fabric automatically invokes empathy because it feels more real, because everybody does it. but itās not necessarily something that a lot of live action characters do since the actors are primarily focused on acting like the character first and the person theyāre portraying second if that makes sense?? but here itās a choice that makes her feel more human.
sheās so scared. she likes mike. sheās terrified of her father. sheās been lying to someone she has unintentionally grown to like and she knows that both mike and her could get hurt and sheās distracting herself and making herself look smaller to lessen the impact because she doesnāt want him to be mad at her.
Thinking about @roselees post about Michael playing dnd admist the satanic panic in the US. Somehow I watched a video essay that touched on this time period and I had no idea it was bad to the extent it became almost a modern witch hunt. Also the whole troubled teen industry being really prominent in Utah specifically at that time is interesting to think about (which is a horrible industry that needs to be dismantled completely). The problem of being a humanities major is wanting to examine structural flaws in the US in the 80s and apply it to my fics lol. The time that Michael grew up in explains a lot of how and why William could have gotten away with what he did.
This post is now me rambling a bit incoherently but my sibling and I had a fic idea that would examine law enforcement in 1980s Utah up to the time of pizza sim. Basically an older detective examines the MCI which has become a cold case after Henry is released from prison (and starts to peice together everything that happened including the bite of 83 and Charlie's death). Mostly it's an outsiders perspective and a realization that the system is broken. William should have been caught, but the system failed at every turn. Michael, his siblings and all of the other children should have been protected but they weren't. Freddy's should have been completely shut down after what happened to cc but it wasn't (and if not that then especially after Charlie and when kids started disappearing).
A small town like Hurricane in Utah was not equipped to deal with what happened, especially in the 80s. Everything failed on a systemic level so spectacularly that William not only got away with what he did, but he could just fade into obscurity with a fake name and persona that probably didn't actually fool anyone. So the detective character has to realize that this case isn't really cold. It's pretty obvious what happened, but no one seems to care or has the resources to handle this case properly.
That's why fnaf is extremely tragic to me as well. Someone like Michael or even Henry shouldn't have to stop William and bring him to justice, but often times traditional justice fails you. I'm sure for Henry especially that he eventually became disillusioned as the years dragged on, and realized he'd have to do everything himself if he wanted answers.
That was so much yapping but I need to write a fic actually exploring these ideas because this is what an interest in history and forensic science/investigation does to you lol.
Henry is so similar to William in viewing his children's lives as expendable that he literally rebuilt his kid 4 times only to choose his work over her again. If we wanna talk about the depiction of misogyny in fnaf, Edwin's character is great, but also William and Henry are little character studies. They view their role of Father as a status symbol rather than an actual responsibility. They clearly don't care as much about their wives due to their lack of story involvement in ANY universe, nor do they value their family more than their work. Even the act of rebuilding Charlie; Henry doesn't care if it's not the actual Charlotte as long as she behaves like a daughter. He has no way of knowing what kind of person she would have become outside of what he wanted her to be. He literally recorded memories for her instead of having her make her own. And I get she wasn't technically conscious at the time but the way he treated 4th Charlie,,,,, "you are wrong"??? Brother YOU made her?? I genuinely feel like if TFC was written in the mimic era he would've completely beaten that endo like Edwin did the mimic.
And there's something so disrespectful about bringing your daughter-not-daughter back from the dead, not telling your wife and other kid, AND making your sister go along with it(*reread TFC, he did not make her, but she more so felt obligated to stick by her brother)???? YOU LITERALLY JUST WANT A DAUGHTER TO PLAY HOUSE WITH!!! Not only did he abandon his living family for a robot that he alone controls, but he's also denying the rest of them access to her (not that they'd be okay with it, but he's not even gonna attempt to share her??). It feels as though Henry feels that only he understood Charlie and should be allowed to have her again. There's a possessiveness over his only daughter that he clearly doesn't have for his son. In turn, all Charlie has is him to rely on and no ability to call him out. He's created this strange dependency where he needs her to need him. Aunt Jen probably wanted her to be so independent because she knew Henry was raising her to be only reliant on him. And denying her the knowledge that she's a robot her entire life Henry Emily just say you hate women's autonomy /j
None of this is to say Henry is a bad character or anything I really like him, rather I think viewing him through this lense adds richness to his character and complexity to the novel trilogy as a whole.
Also proving that Henry and William have so much in common and are meant for each other. Cant wait for the wedding
Also also aunt Jen deserves so many flowers I mean ya she should've told Charlie she was a robot but she did the best with everything that happened she's so important to me
