#thefourthfixed's analysis

I see this alllllll the time, less on here and more on other social media sites I'm on. "It's impossible for him to love." But love can be subjective in the minds of each individual, is the thing. We're dealing with someone who's got something wrong with him, so of course it's cruel. Or if they ever admit that part, they'll be like "well it isn't real love." But hold on, if he thinks it is, then to him it is real love, right? And I thought the way he views things was what we were talking about here. But noooo you need to be right, don't you. Your interpretation is right and anyone who thinks differently is wrong. If you try to make the argument that he can care about them and be a horrible abusive father at the same time, you'll get one of three responses. You're either called a child abuse apologist, told you're missing the point of his character, or one that I've seen more of recently: "yeah it's true that abusive parents can love their kids, but William in particular is canonically stated to be incapable of love." Because that's what it's about at the end of the day: it's a William characterization issue more than anything else. That's why all the Willcare debunk posts conclude with "it ruins his character because he's canonically incapable of love!!!" Because sometimes it feels like child abuse is being treated as a joke. People go around saying stuff that just isn't true like "abusers can never their victims." I've seen people get mad at the interpretations of people who are child victims themselves. There are all these theory names, "Willcare, Willdespise, WillTwistedCare, WillGrief, WillTrophy, WillIndifferent," and when you back up a bit, it just looks so incredibly stupid. Everything is a theory with FNAF and I guess child abuse isn't any different. It's all some big debate you have to choose a side and fight for. And I see people treating genuinely horrific scenes of William's cruelty as gotcha moments in these arguments. Like I saw people basically CELEBRATING the confirmation from Emma Tammi that Vanessa was physically abused by William, because I mean, it's PERFECT for owning the Willcare believers on the internet or something. Like I just can't believe that's your first thought when hearing something horrible like that. Also the fact that I saw some people saying this information was "confirmation" that she's an abuse victim, when it's so obvious from the first film she's been emotionally abused... tells me everything I need to know. (Quick note: It really annoys me how "Willcare" despite being a pretty generic name technically refers to this really specific theory that he's a tragic grieving father and only became bad once broken by CC's death - a theory I do not like at all, one that I think does start to genuinely venture into apologist territory in some cases. It's kind of misleading. But at this point I think it's also been conflated with the idea that he cares in general, so I'm using it loosely here).

The funniest thing to me was them saying Vanessa's nightmare from the movie is definitive proof he hates his kids... even though he was literally saying that he cared about her. I left the theater thinking that scene was so perfect for framing how he views it. You can see that his idea of love and care comes from a place of selfishness. There's a level of ownership and objectification to it. A job well done and a purpose fulfilled, will get you gratification, but disappointment or resistance or failing to live up to his expectations results in cruelty. There's nothing to illustrate the dichotomy better than having him aggressively screaming when saying "I care about you." And I was thinking that was going to make some people reconsider, but of course not. I don't know why I thought that scene would change anything because no one ever thinks about anything past surface level. Another example of an extremely surface level reading is the way people bring up him telling Elizabeth she isn't enough in The Fourth Closet as proof he hates her. First of all, in the exact same book we see him talking fondly about her and calling her death a tragedy. But second of all, more importantly, it's leaving out the extremely important context of Charliebot's existence. Baby even says this, she says "I'm not enough because it's YOU he wants." William is speaking of Circus Baby as his invention, not Elizabeth herself. It drives him crazy that Henry was able to create this thing that he never could. So he's looking at Circus Baby and is frustrated he can't get her to be like Charliebot. And also, another thing she says is that it upsets him he can't make himself like her, so he's jealous of her as well. All of these are things that don't apply to the game universe at all. There's just no consideration of nuance. This isn't FNAF fandom specific either. Nuance can never exist when you talk about characters. They just can't fathom that humans aren't one-dimensional. And god, this one dimensional interpretation of William where all he can do is hate and hate and hate, is so boring. In fact, I would actually argue that if you think everything he does is out of hate and that there's no love in him, YOU are the one missing the point. Because so much of what he does is with care and passion. It looks cruel to the average person like Jessica who says "William Afton never made anything with love," but to William himself, Elizabeth's possession of Circus Baby is, and I'm paraphrasing him here, a tragedy that bore beautiful fruit, that made her something more. Whatever it is he did with CC after his death, it's not some sick unethical experimentation, it's "being put back together." And like in the passage I posted above, the children he murdered are "home with me." Do you see the pattern?