#fnaf cc

William's Relationship with his Children

Other continuities and Pizza Sim really inform how I see William's relationship with his children as a whole. I don't think it's that much different from how he sees his victims. Especially with his relationship with the MCI victims haunting the original Freddy's animatronics. It stuck out to me in TSE, where he describes the murders as an act of "love" to create a "family" that his victims couldn't escape from— "their happiest day". That, and with the way the Funtimes reflect his family... I don't mean it a literal sense, I'm not saying he was going to kill and stuff them into the funtimes. But with how he makes his children participate in his crimes and in his experiments, it clearly meant to parallel how he treats his victims—turning them into tools for his own end, robbing them of their personhood, keeping them in a state of stasis where they can never move on from him, and so on.

It's not 1:1 with the games, but it does inform me of how he treats Mike. I don't see his disregard for his life in Sister Location, nor his attempts to kill him in Fnaf 3 or Pizza Sim an act of hatred. Sure, he gloats and clearly revolves in it, but he does the same with the rest of his victims. He didn't hate the technicians he sent to die to retrieve the Mimic, nor did he hate the employees he let bleed out in the Springlock suits. But it served a higher purpose— his purpose and he wasn't about to die for it himself. "Bittersweet, but fitting" could just as well be him waxing poetically about the act of killing his firstborn than it has anything to do with Mike as a person.

But what's more striking to me is the utter lack of acknowledgement from him about his other children in the final game. You'd think if killing Mike was all that personal, he'd at least get in a taunt about him killing his own brother or a backhanded compliment about him putting his sister "back together." But all he has to say upon seeing his dead daughter for the first time in decades, is the same thing he says about victims— "Fascinating, what they've become." And it's not even something he says to her. He never even speaks to her. And we know he doesn't beforehand or off-screen, because Baby's monologue hinges on her assuming Daddy's pulling the strings and not shambling in the vents beside her.

The picture of William painted by Pizza Sim is not a bitter, grieving shell of a man mournful he never fufilled his promise to resurrect his dead children. It's a monster thriving in his element. Gleeful about having gotten everything he ever wanted. Cocky and boastful in his assumption he's won for good. It colors how I interpret the promise of putting his children "back together." What it means and how much it meant to him in the first place. Or if it was just another means to an end. An excuse to do what he already wanted to.

Because in these continuities, it's that William's sadism is a means to an end for his children. It's his children who are used as a means to an end for his sadism. He doesn't fight for their futures, he robs them of one for the sake of squeezing usefulness out of them now. And I think it's interesting to view "put back together" through this context. William using the guise of fulfilling the obligations of a father to ultimately do what he wants. If William is the player character in MM, he makes no reference to anything specific about the runaway; it's the act of minor rebellion against his authority that sets him off. A challenge to his ultimate authority as father. We see the other side of this with Circus Baby. She was never "for" Elizabeth. She was built for the same reasons as the rest of the Funtimes. But he says he made it for Elizabeth because it sounds nice. It's a way to win points with her despite knowing she can never be in the same room as it. It's something he can point to as proof of his love for her while, more importantly, letting him do what he wants. I see CC's party in a similar light.

William's Relationship with CC

The party was never for CC. He's terrified of the animatronics at Fredbear's and the kids invited aren't even his friends. The party benefits William more than it does CC. It's the most convenient venue where he doesn't have to take the day off of work and he gets to look good while advertising his restaurant by inviting all the neighbor kids. Unlike with Elizabeth, I don't think he's doing this to look good to CC. At least, not as of now. It's more so for the public, but it's also something he can point to later and say "it's not like I never did anything nice for you. Remember that big party I threw for you at Fredbear's? It's not my fault you were being too dramatic to appreciate it."

I also feel like an under-discussed element of fnaf 4 is how unpopular CC is with his peers. They take notice that he's always crying, and it's something that alienates him from the other children. They're either indifferent, confused, or partake in the bullying themselves. The lack of adult intervention is a crucial part of fnaf 4 to me. Not just from William, but every other adult that's supposed to be in CC's life. CC's constant distress is something the community as come to accept.

One of Mike's friends starts teasing CC, before Mike chimes in. In a way, it's a desire for approval from others by distancing himself from his crybaby brother that inspires him to take it a step further.

It's why I don't see William favoring CC above his other children, including Mike. Mike and Elizabeth reflect different qualities in William. They didn't inherit these qualities in a vacuum, this behavior was modeled, learned, then adopted in order to survive an abusive household. Elizabeth can "play pretend" while hiding how she truly feels. Mike can go off and sulk while waiting for an opportunity to lash out at someone weaker than him. These are very William-like methods of handling problems.

If CC reflects any qualities in William, it's the one he despise in himself and in his children. We see it in the way Elizabeth talks about herself as a little girl in The Fourth Closet— the cruelty that children are born with only their capacity for love and none of their intellect. It's in his parentification of Mike. How he seems to ignore Elizabeth's questions and fails to account for the obvious danger he put her in by bringing her to Circus Baby's. He hates neediness in his children. He hates when his children act like children and need him to be around when it prevents him from doing what he wants. And he can't stomach appearing weak in front of others. Cruelty is how he masks weakness. CC is all weakness. A child who cries and crumples under stress. A child who can't hide his tears his tears nor what he's afraid of. Even when mocked for it. He is inadvertently always calling attention to a problem that William wants everyone else to ignore. That he's not as much of a family man as he presents himself as for the sake of his reputation and his business. 

I think it's interesting that a lot of what's considered Mike's rebellious qualities prior to the bite are isolated to his treatment of his brother— locking him into rooms, scaring him, leaving him at the restaurant. Perhaps they're inconvenient to William at times, but for the most they're only a problem for William if he cares about their impact on CC. Mike has learned that these behaviors don't have consequences so he keeps doing them. 

While I don't think he's doing it out of jealousy, I also don't think William was some great loving father to him and that he's being awful for no reason. He's still rebelling against his father, in the sense that he's not just accepting his parentification with a smile on his face. But it's still a rebellion that serves William, and that's true regardless of who's the favorite. It further strains the relationship between the brothers. And by Mike publicly humiliating his brother on his birthday, it further re-enforces this treatment of CC is acceptable to the rest of the town—It was just a prank. Boys will be boys. CC should stop being a crybaby and just get over it— Which, I think would've been the response if CC hadn't been fatally wounded in the process. 

I point all this out to say William benefits from this. It's not a good look for the restaurant owner's son to be afraid of the animatronics and visibly not want to be there. It's not a good look as a father for your son to always be reduced to a state of tears. It ruins the Fazbear Entertainment adverts and family photos. CC is a living crack in his picturesque family life that he desperately needs everyone else to look the other way. And he doesn't necessarily have to do anything himself, he just needs to stay silent and look the other way while everyone else does the work for him. 

OR he's actively stoking his son's fears with the Fredbear plush. Like, even if he is the Fredbear plush, I don't think that shows he favors CC considering everything else I've mentioned in this post. WillPlush isn't my favorite interpretation of the Fredbear Plush. It's still a strong theory, but I think a solid argument can be made against it. I get that it's assumed to be a retcon, but I think it's odd that would be Fredbear, specifically. That Springbonnie isn't even represented among CC's plushies. The fact that it's not even present and William is shown to be working in the scene above. That Fredbear's lines are only malicious when you assume it's an adult with the power to solve these problems. WillSpeaker has an odd complication if you assume the eyes at the start of Fnaf World belong to the Glitched Fredbear, which seems to have antithetical goals to William in this scenario, by setting up Happiest Day to help CC move on. But that isn't the point of the post.

I think it's especially interesting from a thematic sense when pairing the line "remember what you saw" with "what's seen in shadows can be easily misunderstood in the mind of a child." Taken together, it can be seen as a dismissal that what CC's afraid of is nothing more than the result of typical childhood fears. Or, at least, he's incorrect about what he saw. But the story of fnaf 4 is essentially about a child who's dismissed and written off as being overdramatic have those fears confirmed in front of everyone by the end in the worst way possible. I think that resonates well with themes of abuse, and similar stories around William's victims crop up in other continuities. Such as Jason in The Silver Eyes novel and Charlotte in the second movie. 

CC's Relationship with William

I don't want this to be misconstrued as me saying CC objectively had it the worst out of his siblings in every single respect. I'm more interested at looking how the Afton children suffered in different ways. William is noticeably absent in CC's story. I think that absence, in a weird way, characterizes their dynamic. I think William's disdain would've been expressed passively. Less about the presence of cruelty and more about the total absence of warmth. A lack of acknowledgement from William outside of formalities. I think it's significant that the focus of Fnaf 4 is on the relationship between Mike and CC.

I like interpreting Mike as the person on the couch in MM. While I think Mike runaway might make more sense from a story perspective— showing us a glimpse of Mike's life inbetween the games— I like what CC as the runaway does from a character perspective. It gives us another side to the relationships between CC, William, and Mike than what we're presented with in the rest of Fnaf— Mike being protective of his brother, William more openly antagonistic towards CC, CC allowed to be more of an active participant despite his circumstances. William casually ignoring Mike's "challenge" to his authority. While, despite Mike's defense of his brother, still shown to be a little reluctant to get involved as he stands watch in the living room late at night. I find these short interactions so fascinating.

I think it speaks to the fact that older siblings can act as protectors to their siblings while not exactly being nice to them themselves. How siblings in abusive households can both be a source of support while also contributing to the abuse themselves. I think it also adds a lot to Mike's motivation. They may be family, he may feel a lot of guilt and self-loathing over what happened, but none of that means he had to do what he did. I think Mike serving as a protector to his siblings prior to the bite, paired with his parentification adds an interesting perspective on his story. That his identity was so wrapped up in caring for his siblings. In making so many personal sacrifices for his siblings. Even if he became resentful of it, that losing them felt like a crushing blow he could never recover from. That, in a way, they felt like his more than William's. I think if Fnaf 4 was meant to provide us insight into another character's motivations, I think it would be Mike more than it would be William.

And that's another thing. Fnaf 4 is shown to us through CC's perspective. William's absence is filled by Mike's cruelty. In these situations, the older sibling may work hard to keep the younger one away from the abusive parent, but children forced to raise other children are bound to be flawed caretakers. Younger siblings can grow to resent them more, because their cruelty is in the parent's absence. They might've not had much of a relationship with the parent, but they had a relationship with their sibling. Betrayal hurts more when you love someone. To have someone show they care about you then turn around and treats you like a burden for it is an awful experience. With CC's life already being so isolating. It must hurt even more to feel like the only person who cares and protects you, hates you for it. To feel indebted to someone over sacrifices you never asked them to make, only for them to be what kills you. Likewise, imagine how devastating to be your younger siblings sole protector, your young life spent figuring out how to keep him safe from the monsters, only to become the monster that killed him?

To briefly give my thoughts on BVTOYSHK: While as much as I prefer him to be torturing his father, I feel it's more natural to come to the conclusion Mike is the guard in UCN from how Fnaf 4 is structured. Which, is pretty bleak considering we spend our time following the protagonist attempting to make amends for what they did, only for it to end in eternal torture regardless, while the unrepentant serial child killer gets away scot-free. And I don't believe in "double-dipping" in this case, there's no implication of a second prisoner in UCN and I think an ending like that should commit to its bleakness. Fortunately for me, I don't subscribe to BVTOYSHK so I don't have to unpack all that. Also, personally, vengefulvictim is a nice middle ground where CC gets to be vengeful without that being the end of the story, but regardless-

You may have noticed by now I've been talking around CC and William's relationship after death, which is because I don't believe there is one. There's really not anything to go off of. Not even an implication. I think William is more interested in CC as a concept, than a person. A bit of leverage. A justification. A shared burden to hold what remains of his family together over the years. But nothing more than that. To be honest, he never was much more than that to him, even in life. And to CC, William's less than that. A distant memory. A foggy impression. A hole where a person should be. A source of pain he can't quite pinpoint. Rejection, loneliness, the feeling of being unloved and unwanted.

Something I was thinking about while writing this post is the way Elizabeth and Mike both end up defined by their father; in either support or against him by the time of Pizza Sim. They die in the same fire as him. I think it's interesting how Elizabeth's arc can be read as an obedient child growing increasingly disobedient before pivoting back to obedience after losing everything. I think it reflects how Mike's arc can be read as his initial disobedience leading him down a path of obedience in hopes of making up for what he did, only to turn disobedient once he realizes that listening to William has created a much bigger mess. Both of their arcs, regardless of how you perceive them, revolve around William. He is the deciding factor that determines the trajectory of their stories. He is the overbearing presence that overshadows their own lives and deaths which they must work around. This isn't the case for CC.

Likewise, CC is noticeably absent in William's story. He doesn't have the same presence as Elizabeth or Mike in Pizza Sim. He is a shadow, perhaps represented by Molten Freddy, but nothing more than an impression.Perhaps, it's not because he's been forgotten, but because he's moved on. He doesn't need to be there, because his story was never about William.

I see Mike and Elizabeth being so tangled up in their messy, love-hate relationship with their father which leads them one of two routes after the events of Sister Location: fixated on love or hatred. Desperately chasing the perception of love that was once there only to be forgotten and discarded. Or, left so broken and betrayed to devote your second chance at life to destroying one person. Which might be why happiest day failed, honestly. What rest could Mike have to offer the children, if he never thought himself worthy of rest? If he defined himself by his opposition to his father? Not to say that what Mike was doing wasn't altruistic, but it was undoubtedly self-destructive. You can interpret him choosing to die in Sister Location, and by the end of Pizza Sim it's implied he still chooses death for himself once again.

I guess why I interpret Mike's arc so cynically, is that we never really see him heal or make connections outside his family. We don't get much of a picture of his life outside the ways he suffers. Like, past the Bite of '83, we don't know if he ever stayed in contact with his friends. Henry's speech implies that they haven't really spoken in a while. It's not to say his existence was all just misery after the bite, trauma doesn't define a person. But left untreated, it touches all aspects of your life, even the little things. It's not all misery, but it can feel like it. And for that bittersweet ending to land and not just feel bitter, the story expects you to agree with him. That there's nothing left for him after he puts his family to rest. That "living in shadows" while fixing this mess is the most he can hope for. It's a selfless existence, to only seek to aid other and repair old wounds. But it's not very conductive to healing, is it?

It makes me more optimistic about CC's story, though. Ironically, CC's narrative invisibility affords an identity outside his father. My favorite theories are the ones where he gets to rest or helps the MCI in finding their peace. Perhaps he moved on after fnaf 3, even without the confirmation his father was alive or dead. Perhaps it didn't matter to him at that point, having accepted that William was not his responsibility. Perhaps the sprite we see in the OMC minigame isn't the vengeful spirit. Perhaps it could be CC's, deciding if he should linger either to punish or take pity on his father before ultimately choosing to rest. Perhaps he never was never a spirit to begin with, and simply died removed from the chaos that would spiral out after his death.

 I don't know, they just make me happy. Kid deserves peace. He had a hard life. One that was unfair. That he didn't get to live long enough for the chance for it to get better. Perhaps the same peace awaits his siblings once they pass on as well.