#obsessive gushing

alright, so for the first one (gonna drop my casual typing style for ease of reading)

In the first scene we see him speak (the first line of dialogue, actually) he’s described with an odd, uneven smile. This read to me like mild amusement mixed with a bit of scrutiny below the surface. Judging by future lines (Charlie not letting him look too hard into her eyes, him trying not to smile while reprimanding the group), William may have instantly recognized Charlie, and was observing how she had changed after all these years. He may have thought “oh, that’s where the third Charlie bot is, she has no idea what she really is”, but TSE was supposed to be a standalone book iirc, so i’ll ignore future parts of the trilogy.

There’s also that scene where Carlton is trapped in a springlock suit, and William takes “malevolent delight” in his pain and fear, and even laughs at his reaction to his scars, even turning around to let Carlton see how bad they are. He’s actively enjoying watching how other people react to his actions, like they’re lab rats and he’s a scientist experimenting on them. Remember that line that describes him fighting like a cornered rat? This ties into that really well, with that blurb in the same chapter that gives a bit of insight into William’s past.

There is another scene where he’s observing Charlie. Probably way more examples throughout the book, but i’d like to note this one in particular.

There’s something during William’s interrogation that stands out quite a bit for this. The line “Oh, you’re something beautiful, aren’t you?” may be interpreted as weird at first (for obvious reasons), but I believe there’s an explanation for it. William sees how broken Charlie is due to what he’s done, how stuck in the past she is (Ironic, huh? Will’s also quite focused on the past with Henry and Freddy’s), and finds it fascinating. He may see the amount of pain in her as the amount of pain in Henry before his suicide. Perhaps it’s a feeling he hadn’t felt in years, seeing somebody he knows and hates suffering.

I would also like to point out that before this line, Charlie asks how they can get out of the building, and William tells her that there’s no way out, only family. I interpret this as him telling Charlie to accept her fate and to join his “family”. This also kinda shows his jealously towards Henry’s family, as he wants Charlie to be killed by either him or the animatronics and to be with his instead. I know I said that future books didn’t count for this, but also interesting that it could also be William hinting at who he actually killed.

This whole idea that William loves to observe his creations/victims is also mentioned in one of his FFPS lines. “Fascinating, what they have become”. This is in reference to the other animatronics in the vents, and the player (if you believe it’s Michael Afton).

There’s a smaller, less significant scene where Charlie climbs the walls and electrocutes Chica. William watches from afar, smiling to himself while watching how she tries to escape the situation and save herself. Also this scene is funny for a reason i’ll write in a different post hehehe

Alright, to get into my second bit…

I think William views himself and everyone around him as actors, almost.

This thought hit me while rereading the scene where he kidnaps Carlton. As you probably know, Carlton is a jokey character, and cracks multiple jokes at William’s expense. William’s reactions to these jokes are quite interesting to me.

For the first joke Carlton makes (never trust a rabbit), William simply tells him not to speak, continuing with the “I was actually a murderer!!!” performance. Carlton makes another joke (What kind of name for a serial killer is Dave?), and William just ignores what he said, continuing to warn him not to speak. This next one is especially funny. William asks Carlton what he thinks he’s inside of, which Carlton responds “your girlfriend?”. William actually smiles at this, but then, with distaste, continues his script. Of course, the distaste could be from the bad joke, but I think it was William slipping up his “calm murderer act” for one second, then getting pissed at Carlton internally for going “off script”. Especially since when he continues, he says that he’s not in a costume, which Carlton didn’t mention at all.

This next line isn’t a joke, but it’s still interesting. William goes on to explain the springlock suits, and mentions Henry making them. Carlton doesn’t know who Henry is, so he’s like “who’s Henry?”. William is then actually caught off guard by the fact that Carlton genuinely has no idea who this Henry guy is by name, and then he needs to explain that it’s Charlie’s Dad. He’s kind of like “oh yeah, I always just saw him as Charlie’s dad.” Which causes William to just mumble “of course”. William still seems calm, but you can kinda tell that it threw him off and got under his skin.

The immediate happiness when Carlton goes back on-script too. He instantly smiles widely when he asks William how he knows what the springlocks do to the human body, and the previously mentioned laughter at his reaction to the scars.

Probably another example somewhere, but this scene is the most prominent case of William’s mental script.

Well, How other people see him?

Well, Charlie describes William during his first appearance as “immediately off-putting” and as having a “negative charisma”. A gut feeling that’s probably either Charlie unknowingly recognizing him, or just that overall vibe of “something’s wrong with that dude”. I’m leaning more towards the latter, as Jessica seems to share similar thoughts towards William, as seen when they’re both in the control room. (It could also just be both a weird vibe and that random feeling of familiarity.)

Later on, he’s described as a regular, unimposing-looking man. This is either his “Dave Miller” persona going perfectly as planned, or just him being a sickly looking guy. Even his attempts at looking threatening don’t seem to work, as shown in the scene where Charlie knocks him out. Overall, nobody takes him seriously as a threat until they realize he could actually kill them. The Carlton kidnapping scene is a good example, the scene where they let him into Freddy’s kind of shows this (and the gut-feeling thing mentioned above), Last main one is when he’s finally awake and not responding during the interrogation scene.

So, I’d say people view him as a seemingly normal, unassuming guy, probably down on his luck and blending into society quite well (maybe a bit of a loser). But, when you actually speak to him, there’s a strange vibe you can’t put your finger on. Like you know something’s really, REALLY wrong but you can’t prove it.

ah, not sure if you read all of that, but whew! i had fun writing this, connecting stuff together midway through and being like “woah wait i might’ve just done something!!” when i maybe didn’t do much… :P

barlam being constantly told by everyone around him that “sex is the most important thing ever, stop being a nerd that’s way too into model cars, get laid”, and when he finally does he ends up immediately regretting it and killing the woman he had sex with. after this, he destroys his room, flees his home with his sister natalia, where they are stopped and natalia is forced to watch her brother get beaten up. he gains consciousness during the middle of the night and is picked up by a stranger, being allowed into his home.

i notice that during the last scenes, barlam wears all black. this could be representing the death of his true self. when he enters the stranger’s home, he looks back for a second before entering the house. he longs for who he was before everyone told him to be normal. the stranger could be society, and the house is the world itself, finally accepting barlam into the normal lives of everyone else. the suit also feels like it’s saying that men should adhere to societal standards of masculinity, as he doesn’t want to have sex despite it being seen by everyone else as a normal thing for guys to want. (thx @all-time-rho!) would also want to point out the lady he slept with was transfem, which also kinda adds to the “adhering to traditional gender roles” reading.

barlam is constantly surrounded by sex, like it consumes the lives of everybody else to the point where it’s all they think about. this exaggeration shows how some people feel about what regular people do in the world, how they feel alienated because they don’t do that.