#thefourthfixed's analyses

When looking at William’s behavior with his kids across the franchise, Michael is the only one I cannot find anything that even vaguely resembles affection. I could make an argument for all of William's other kids that he cares about them, but I can’t for Michael, not just because of the lack of moments of "affection" but also the difference in behavior between Michael and the others. For example, Scraptrap’s line of “bittersweet but fitting” tells us that he felt happiness killing Michael, and maybe a small moment of remorse that didn’t last very long. Then you look at Vanessa who he also attempted to kill, but only after trying very hard to manipulate her back onto his side, and his face didn’t exactly look thrilled. Or the fact that William at the very least didn’t want Elizabeth to go near Circus Baby, but had no problem sending Michael on a suicide mission. And as we all know, William is still unforgivably abusive with the ones he could arguably care about, so I wonder what the disparity of abuse between the ones he might care about and the one he hates is.

My theory for why Michael is so different in William's eyes is that it's due to the similarity in appearance. Since William is such an egotistical person, Michael having his appearance is insulting, and it makes it to where Michael can never do anything right because he could never match the perfection William views himself to be. He looks at Michael and sees an imperfect version of himself, so he is resentful. This means no amount of obedience or jobs well done could earn Michael anything because it will never be good enough. And to be fair, the fact that in the movies we now know Vanessa is the favorite despite having betrayed and defied William while Michael remains loyal says a whole lot.

So back to my original point, I think there are a lot of people who think the worst thing William ever did to him was say mean things or be disappointed in him or not pay attention to him. And while I think that's true, I also think think barely scratches the surface. All of that on its own is bad enough, but I feel like a lot of people view it as not severe enough for him to be acting the way he was in the FNAF 4 mini games. There are also a lot of people who believe William’s dislike of Michael began after the bite, which I really don’t think is the case.

I don't think Michael was justified for what he did that week, but I also think people really don't even try to understand. Some people even write it off as him just being immature or it being an inherent thing because he's just like William. This ignores some outside things like Step Closer that suggests this was someone who was better than how he was acting, but reaching a breaking point from life circumstances.

Overall I think it's crazy to argue a character is evil or a horrible person due to mistakes he made while he was a kid, during one week of his life while he was enduring horrific abuse and paternalization, all of which he felt horrible for and spent the majority of his life doing good.

It makes me think of this

But then I realized something: the first two hearts are under the question that asks the reader who they want to see at the end of the day, but the third heart isn't with those other two, it's under the next question that asks the reader who they would recommend for this dangerous, exhausting, and low paying job where death is always a threat. This is so good. I should've noticed it sooner.

Because here's the thing - and it's a conclusion I've only recently arrived at - I think the player character was meant to be the older brother from the very beginning. Everyone just misinterpreted it as being CC, even thought there are a lot of things that don't make sense when you view CC as the protagonist. I even noticed some of these things that didn't make sense when I was like 10 years old, but I shrugged it off because most people thought CC was the protagonist. But think about it. You see an IV bag and flowers and pill bottles by the bed. Nightmare Fredbear and Nightmare have blood on their teeth. (How would CC know about any of these things if he were dying or in a coma?) And you know how in the minigame version of the Afton house we never actually see the older brother's room? We see Elizabeth's room and we see CC's room, which is a completely different room by the way. I mean, it only has one door! So the older brother's room is the room you play in.

I think FNAF 4 was originally intended to be the older brother having nightmares due to how overwhelmed he was with guilt. I mean, Nightmare Fredbear and Nightmare are almost guilt personified. So like when Mike drew Nightmare Fredbear in the logbook, what Scott was trying to say with that is "Michael is and has always been the protagonist of FNAF 4." But people took it as "Michael is the crying child?!" I'm sure he was bashing his head on his desk. So the fear experiments were a recontextualization of the events of FNAF 4 to make it more tangible after it got so misconstrued and he said that was a big part of why Sister Location was made, because he did start setting up that idea with the private room and monitors and stuff.

I would assume that the initial experiments on Michael take place not long after the bite, and I think FNAF 4's gameplay and the initial experiments may be separate. Because it kind of seems like he's having nightmares about the experiments and it's overlapping with other traumatic things like FNAF 1. And due to the timing of the logbook, one could assume this is when he's having those nightmares. And that brings it all back to his brother either way. Golden Freddy is talking in this book. In FNAF 1 he's seeing "IT'S ME." It's bringing it all back. So yes, no matter the original intent of FNAF 4 or what FNAF 4 currently is, it's always been about Michael and his brother. Nightmare Fredbear is proof of that.

And both games are enough to tell me how he feels about them. The guilt about what happened to CC still haunting him for years and years. The way he goes down to the bunker having been told Elizabeth is there, and the way he let himself be killed for her sake. Not to mention all the other things outside of the games like Step Closer where we see that despite the fighting and the bullying that was going on at that time, during what was probably increasing tension from a divorce, the two brothers did love each other a lot and things hadn't always been like that between them. Midnight Motorist where Mike is there putting himself between an angry and drunk William and CC, and mind you that's most likely the same year as the bite! Parallels with Mike Schmidt from the movie. Those two hearts he drew in the logbook when asked who he wants to see at the end of the day.

There's a whole game about an older brother who failed to do what he'd always tried to do his whole life and it broke part of him and he never fully recovered from it. The guilt still haunts him decades later. It comes in the form of nightmares where he's the one experiencing the torment he was inflicting on his brother that week - even if influenced by the fear experiments that might have happened around that time, remember, Nightmare Fredbear and Nightmare are not real! Those are products of Michael's mind. The IV bags and pills and flowers also aren't actually there. He is either hallucinating these things during the experiments because it's so fresh on his mind, or these things are being added on to the nightmares years later because the guilt never left, or both.

Then there's a whole game about a brother who's been told he might be able to find and save the sister he also failed to protect. One who'd been missing for years. (I'll spare the rant about why I think Sister Location is actually motivated far more by the small glimmer of hope for Elizabeth and less of Michael following William's orders. Like I genuinely don't think Michael knew very much about what he was getting into. Like he seemed so confused in the speech and blah blah I don't believe in MikeAccomplice but moving on).

I mean like, what's the game about, really? I think that at it's core it's about Michael and Elizabeth. You're playing as someone who Baby points out shouldn't have any good reason to be there. Someone who's listening to her and trusting her even though something nefarious is obviously brewing underneath it all. He realized it at some point. Maybe it was under the desk hearing the story and it's a pain that's agonizing to go home with that night. Imagine how he feels when giving the controlled shocks. Any sane person would quit after being knocked out and held hostage over night by her. But to him, all he can think about is how that "dummy" Circus Baby used is so familiar. On night 5 when he's in the room with Circus Baby for the first and only time, he's holding back tears, because he's literally eye level with her stomach and inches away from it. In the game files there's a sound that plays very lightly when you open Baby's keypad. It's the sound of bones crunching. It's labeled that way too. And then she says "there's something bad inside of me." Imagine that. And then once you're in the scooping room you as the player no longer have the option to run away because Michael didn't. Was it because he was frozen with fear? Maybe. I think he realized what was about to happen. But he stood there and let it happen because to him, there's someone who deserves to see the light of day again and another who's death would be a reasonable tradeoff. And then there's the cherry on top of all of that: Baby doesn't even know this is Michael. The entire time, she thinks this is William.

Yes, I think part of Sister Location was hoping even a little bit that William might be proud, even if that's a pipe dream. Yes I think part of it was suicide wrapped in a bow of virtue. But I think most of it was about her. I mean, the game is literally called Sister Location!!!! And I'd never thought about it like this until I saw this amazing animation reel on Instagram where the sequence made me realize that, Elizabeth is inside of Baby is inside of Michael. It's layered. I don't know if that makes sense but it really changed how I viewed this game as a whole.

The general fandom consensus at the time was that we played as William, who was there for the sake of Elizabeth. I believed this. MatPat believed this. The Living Tombstone believed it, as is evidenced by I Can't Fix You being addressed to William.

Do you see what's wrong here? Michael's body did not turn purple until after Ennard was already using it.

This song, which I assumed had been being worked on since not long after the game's release, dropped literally a few days after the Michael reveal which I always thought was kind of ironic. What were they supposed to do? Remake the whole song? I'm glad they didn't, because it is unbelievably good, and it still works since Baby thought Michael was William.

There were probably people who didn't believe you played as William, but they were definitely a minority. I'm going to be honest, I think it was a very logical conclusion to come to. A lot of evidence pointed to it, especially with Ennard using Elizabeth's voice to say, "Isn't this why you came here? To be with me again?"

The only counterevidence was the name "Mike" on Handunit. I guess we all ignored this because we thought it was a red herring or something. The Immortal and the Restless also featured the relationship between a father and a son, but still, I can see why it went over everyone's head. It was not obvious. Not at all. In fact it kind of felt like Scott wanted people to miss it (more on that later). Michael was only introduced by name two months later in December when the Custom Night DLC released, which featured the cutscenes of his body rotting and his monologue.

For years I thought Michael was a retcon (not like I would've cared if he was... best retcon ever) because it was very sudden. Scott dropped him on us like a bomb and it really uprooted a lot of the stuff that was believed, not just about Sister Location but about the entire story. The fandom was in a frenzy (see Miketrap, MikeKiller...). It wasn't until recently I changed my mind about him being a retcon after giving it some more consideration. But I want to explain why I thought this in the first place. When this game came out, people started to really over-empathize with William. This is when the whole "tragic father" thing started. Like yes, with the story that was given at the time, it's sad he lost his daughter, and it tugs at the heartstrings to think he'd come all the way down there to get her, but he is still a serial killer. She wouldn't have died if he hadn't made a robot to kill children! People were like, "Guys, he isn't all that bad! He didn't want Baby to kill his daughter! He wanted her to kill someone else's daughter!" See how ridiculous that sounds? I thought Scott introduced Michael because this bothered him, and he didn't want people to keep thinking this. (Funny how the reveal of Michael still didn't change that for some people...)

I changed my mind a few months ago after looking at it. There was his name on Handunit, the theme of father and unwanted son in The Immortal and the Restless, and also the name "Sister Location." It feels like the title of this game obviously has a double meaning. It's not just a sister location, but it's Elizabeth, the sister's location. And I've been aware of that for years, but it wasn't until recently I realized how these two beliefs of mine contradicted one another. Elizabeth cannot be a sister if she doesn't have a brother.

So why did Scott do this if he knew people were probably going to assume you played as William, and then completely shatter that idea a few months later? Well, I think it was kind of symbolic of how the animatronics also thought Michael was William. I think Scott withheld it intentionally so that all of us would be mistaken like they were.

I’ll start by saying that I haven’t been in the fandom since 2021 until recently, so it’s not like I’ve seen every single post or analysis about Michael. The spaces I’m around and have been around before do tend to talk about and explore the abuse. So I’m not saying literally no one does, because that’s not true. But the FNAF fandom is large and has multiple spaces and groups, and there are others where this aspect seems to be forgotten. You’ll probably pick up on the fact that what inspired me to make this post is Michael analysis videos on YouTube. I kinda want to see if anyone agrees with me on all of this or if I’m thinking too hard.

Lots of people always start their summary of the tragedy of Michael’s life with the bite of 83 and it’s like, no. I think it began the day he was born to a father that didn’t love him and would go on to neglect and abuse him.

I think Michael is a good bit older than the other two Afton kids, meaning he was by himself for a while. I don’t know, I feel like some people are really dodgy with talking about Michael’s abuse and how it affected him and his decisions, because that’s everywhere in his character, the bite of 83 included. So many people boil that down to “he was an immature asshole, but he changed after that.” No. He was reaching a breaking point after being mistreated for so long, and the final straw was being forced to take care of his very emotional little brother like a parent when he was still a teenager due to his parents not being around much anymore. All of that is implied in Step Closer, which I analyzed in this post, but even if we didn’t have that I think you might still be able to arrive at that conclusion with just thought and intuition. We have on screen instances of abuse and neglect towards all his other kids, even the ones he simultaneously had “affectionate” moments for (the complexity of what I’m implying here could probably be another post for another day, but I promise you it’s not the “William isn’t all that bad and he’s a good father!” bullshit). What I’m saying is that if it can happen to the ones that we don’t know for sure he hates, then what exactly do you think was happening to the only one of his kids that we have 100% confirmation that he does? Not even just indifferent or lack of love, but HATE. To a point where he legitimately wishes he wasn’t his son. I do think that’s the implication with The Immortal and the Restless, because Michael and William looking like each other is hammered into you over and over, and Vlad is just refusing to believe this kid is his, but it’s obvious because they look so alike (and are both vampires). I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally, like William genuinely doesn’t believe it or something, I think it’s just supposed to represent that Michael was unwanted and unloved by William. From day one. What do you think years of that during the most psychologically vulnerable years where you don’t even know who you are or have an identity yet would do to someone? And I think it’s just kind of a fact that a lot of the time the misbehaving kids who act out and cause problems come from troubled homes. I knew a few in school growing up. I’m sure a lot of you did too.

It just irritates me that it apparently needs to happen on screen for it to be a worthy talking point when it comes to his character. Seriously I’ve watched like 7 YouTube videos about Michael’s character and all of them kind of failed to bring this aspect of his character up. Not that all of those videos don’t have any good points, it’s just that you’re missing a HUGE piece of the puzzle.

I’m kind of neutral on Mikeaccomplice. For years I thought this theory implied Michael was a willing participant, which obviously left a sour taste in my mouth, but recently I realized it could also have been unwillingly, and I can see that happening. And many of the people in those videos seem to be Mikeaccomplice believers, but still there’s not much discussion about why that would be happening. If it was happening, it’s absolutely not because he admired William or trusted him (one of the videos said this actually lmao). And now we have Vanessa in the FNAF movie as a wonderful example of what Mikeaccomplice would be like - fear and manipulation. When Mike asks Vanessa to come to Freddy’s with her where William will be, she gets visibly distressed and stumbles backwards a bit. But again, I don’t think we needed her and the movie to arrive at that conclusion in the first place.

This is something that I see said in Michael character analyses, and this has been said for yeaaaars, “it’s his path of redemption to make up for his sins.” And every time I hear that I think to myself “what sins?”

Now the bite of 83 is a huge mistake that absolutely made him back up and think about who he is, and it 100% contributed to his change as a person, but that’s not something William did. It may be indirectly caused by William like I was saying earlier, and William clearly didn’t do anything about the way Michael was treating CC, but it’s not part of the string of atrocities committed by William. And Michael ESPECIALLY isn’t going to think to himself “well isn’t it technically dad’s fault because the way he treated me made me act like that?”

Other than the bite of 83, I can’t really identify anything else Michael did wrong, and anything you could argue (like Mikeaccomplice) is very much William’s fault either way. So what is up with the “path of redemption” talk? What’s he redeeming himself from by stopping William? Not a god damn thing William did is his fault, and I think THAT is where the tragedy lies actually. It shouldn’t have to be his burden to bear, but he feels like it is. Why does feels responsible for everything his father did? Because years of abuse and neglect have psychologically shaped him to be that way. And I also think he’s just a good person too.

The tone of the message to William says a lot about that first part. If I’d experienced the treatment that Michael did from William for so long, and then found out about the things William had done, and had just been sacrificed, I would’ve had some MUCH harsher words for the man. Michael may hate William, and I think he’s hated him for a long time, but he is still scared of him. And he also, deep down somewhere, still wants approval even if he knows that won’t ever happen. P.J. Heywood said it sounded to him like that element of wanting approval was there in the monologue. And he also said Scott gave very clear directions in what he wanted Michael’s voice to imply and be like.

Now, you could say that what people mean when they say this is “Michael did help William and HE feels that those are his sins even if we as outsiders might place the blame on William.” And I can absolutely see that because it would be very much like him to see it that way. But if that’s what they’re trying to say then I wish they’d spend time talking about why Michael would end up in that position in the first place (manipulation, threatening, history of abuse) because then it makes the message more clear.

And even if that’s true, I think framing it like Michael is doing it to redeem himself more than he is for the sake of the people that were hurt and killed by William and to put a stop to it is a bit skewed too.

How I always interpreted it was William went missing, then out of the blue contacted Michael to ask him to go get Elizabeth. Michael was tricked, because he ended up being a sacrifice/tool/puppet (literally). He might have chosen to let that happen at the end when he didn’t run just to fulfill what he said he’d do. Says a lot. But also, becoming aware again, waking up when he wasn’t supposed to, that’s when the reality might sink where he felt he was deceived, and how truly disposable he is in William’s eyes. Other than that, I didn’t see him assisting William in any way when the murders were occurring. That had been my takeaway for years so I think you can understand why the “path of redemption” thing confused me, but I’m recently starting to consider Mikeaccomplice being a factor, but even if it’s true I still wouldn’t describe what he did as his “path for redemption.”

Either way, I don’t know why William’s hatred for him and abuse of him isn’t that talked about a lot of the time in stuff like this.

I’m gonna come full circle here. Imagine post scoop Michael who’s been at it on his mission for a decade or two. It’s easy to think “I wish I could go back to before any of this ever happened” but I’m sure it would hurt to remember that if that happened, he’d just be back to being the eldest son who can’t do anything right, who William always looks at like he killed the good mood by walking into the room, and subject to a good amount of physical and verbal abuse too. Every day. That’s the real tragedy of it. Michael’s life would still be tragic even without the murders, possessed robots, remnant, being scooped, etc.

He can’t participate in society like a normal person, so a lot of the time he just watches. You can’t always learn something just from watching it. You can get an idea maybe, but the idea could be wrong. The transition from the 20th century into the 21st century might be the worst time to be in his position because the world and technology began to develop rapidly. How do you keep up when you can rarely ever participate in any of it? Mind you a lot of people his age already had trouble adjusting to it all and are still incompetent when it comes to some things. But you know what a lot of gen x has to help with that? Kids and younger people they know. Kids that show them the new trends and media and apps. Even if it’s a little silly or weird to them they can gain an understanding because they have someone actively engaging them in it. You have kids filming their parents in Tik Toks and making that their brand. Some of those older people become a part of it doing it directly themselves. You’ve got my dad who’s the same age as Michael who knows the FNAF lore because when I was younger I told it all to him and showed him the Game Theory videos and him and I went to see the FNAF movie together and he was talking about it with me like he were a fan himself. He can use a computer because it’s part of his job. Participation and connection to other people is how you learn. My mom can use a cellphone fine but sometimes she forgets how to close an app, and sometimes I’m watching her do something and I have to go “you can do this so much faster if you just did it like this.” The way they type is slow. They can’t take selfies. And again, everything is always moving forward and it’s getting to a point where I feel I’m out of touch because I don’t understand gen alpha humor at all and I don’t know anyone irl of that generation to explain to me why 67 is funny.

So imagine having little to no connections. It’s not like he’s an idiot, he can get his hands on what he needs and figure it out enough to at least use it, but by the time you finally get a semi good grasp of one thing, something else has already come along. (Read a fic one time that takes place during FNAF 3 in 2023 where the protagonist mentioned he had an ancient iPhone 4 with a cracked screen. Made me laugh really hard). Some of its fascinating, some of it’s confusing. Culture in particular is something I feel might be hard to grasp. Like fashion was always changing. He blinks and a new trend has started. It all seems to pass by kind of quickly. New words he doesn’t know the meaning of. Music like he’s never heard before. At one point people are making fun of mullets which he used to have so he’s like “huh… guess those have gone out of style” but then all of the sudden it’s back in style and lots of people have them? There are things people do where he has no idea why you would do something like that. Things people do and things people watch where it’s like “this would’ve been considered insane back then” or “we never would’ve gotten away with something like this.”

I say stuck in the 90s not only because it’s the last time he was a part of the world but also because it’s the last time the world truly made sense.

When it comes to how he feels about it, I think it’s definitely a lot of different feelings all at once. For one thing it’s just confusing. But also fascinating, as in I can’t believe this is something that was invented, I can’t believe how better a lot of things are now. Even if he feels out of touch and out of place I think he may enjoy watching younger people doing their thing. And maybe wondering why they find this funny or why they don’t do this thing people that age did when he was young.

But then there’s also a somber feeling and a longing to be a part of it. Sometimes a little maddening. He might see people he used to know who’ve aged, and I doubt he has physically after being scooped. Some of them have families. That’s gotta sting.

By the way, I’ve seen some people say since remnant has healing properties his body may have healed? I’m not opposed to the idea. I mean even if this didn’t happen, I don’t think he never did anything outside of the mission or never came across people he spoke with. I think he may have had some connections. First of all I honestly doubt he was purple. It may have been a color he’d be able to cover with makeup or pass off as a condition. But I still don’t think he’d be going around interacting like normal because I feel like he’d think it’s a distraction or that he doesn’t deserve to whenever he wants to. But it still makes it not so isolating. But if his body did heal some I doubt it’d be fully, and it may take a while. Maybe he’d eventually be able to indulge in some of life’s simple pleasures again like eating and drinking.

I think Michael had always been a person who made the most of everything. Even in youth he’d found ways to get enjoyment out of the horrible circumstances of his life. He smiled the biggest and laughed the hardest and a lot of people could’ve never guessed he dealt with so much pain, and his close friends wondered how he could stay so cheerful so often. I think after Sister Location he’d forgotten a lot of that and was consumed by mostly bitterness. I don’t think he always felt bitter when he looked around him (like I said, confusion and fascination and longing) but like when he did enjoy watching things or seeing people it probably wasn’t with the same appreciation as he used to have. I think somewhere along the line before he died he gained that back. I’m not sure at what point that was or what triggered it but the best way I know how to describe it is the song Time Stand Still by Rush. Great song by the way, would recommend it.

I felt like he’d spent a lot of his life wondering why he’d even been born, wishing he hadn’t sometimes, thinking about why all of this had happened to him. I think he may have began to internalize that as fate. Another post for another day. But despite 50 years of a life that many would describe as absolutely miserable, and in many ways it was, I don’t think he wished it hadn’t happened in the end, especially during the last few minutes when the flames began to surround him. At that moment especially is when he began to think about the good there was. His siblings, his friends, the fun they had, and all the moments of seeing what he saw of the world that he may not have been able to fully appreciate at the time but were certainly valuable. Overall, I think what he was thinking to himself during his last few minutes is very similar to the ending monologue of the movie American Beauty. The whole thing is amazing, but this part in particular: