#thefourthfixed's rants

Here's why he was acting like that in the FNAF 4 minigames. Just by the way. Years and years of compounded abuse and neglect and then this responsibility put on him.

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.

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?

And like movie Vanessa is neither analogous for Elizabeth or Michael or even her game counterpart. She kinda represents the idea of a reluctant follower of William's and what that would look like. Even then, a lot of William's other characters quirks are stripped away for something a little more palatable for general audiences. I guess that's kinda why I'm not as worried.

Idk the thing about fnaf is that scott is really cagey and cryptic about the story of the original games. Even SOTM is veryyyyy much not trying to add too much additional information about William or Henry despite some knee jerk reactions from some fans might have you believe. But even if they did try to make "movie michael" into games michael...Idk. That would feel like a pretty big retcon. Like maybe you can argue it's not a retcon because so much in the games isn't directly stated but. The thing I'm trying to get at is that games Michael is still going to be games Michael regardless of any postmortem retcons. And I think your insights are very valuable regardless. The thing I like about fnaf is that there's a bunch of different interpretations out there and that they can all be valid, insightful and readings worth exploring across various different source material. While my interpretation of Michael differs from yours, your blog definitely convinced me of a few things and made me want to look deeper into him in the first place. So don't feel the need to throw away your blog over some hasty changes to canon for an adaptation that's kinda meant to be more of a popcorn movie than anything else.

Also don't lose hope, there's always a chance that this Michael may be his Fake Charlie counterpart 😔 and sorry I keep clogging your askbox 🧍

Yeah, I've been talking about this with a few people lately and I've realized what it is I'm actually scared of. It's not a different universe version of Michael in a different scenario behaving in different ways as a result of a different lived experience I'm against. And it's not what I'm scared of. It's something else.

For a long time, I have often been the one to point out differences between counterparts across the books, games, and movies, and really stress the "different universe" part. It's one reason that as of now I strongly stand behind my opinion that Mike Schmidt in the movies is supposed to be this universe's version of Michael. My logic is this: No, he's not exactly the same, of course he isn't. He has lived a different life, and our experiences, how we grow up, what we go through, all of that contributes to our personality and how we behave and interact with others. But I think most of the core aspects of Mike's character are here. He is not William's son in this universe. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. In fact I kind of like this because it gives him a chance to be separate from William. Michael Afton was followed by the shadow of William his whole life and could never even completely break the connection because their biological relation gave him a face that's almost identical. But there is more to him than just being William's son, and this movie gives all the other parts of him room to shine. A huge portion of that is a big brother navigating the grief of the death of a younger brother and a troubling family situation. I do not necessarily view them as the same character. When I watch the FNAF movie, I look at Mike and I see Mike Schmidt, not movie universe Michael Afton. But I do think they are the same person, born twice, and then branched off by circumstances. If that makes sense.

So yeah. I am very aware of how the games, movies, and books connect to each other and I have been for a long time, since I was young actually. As a huge fan of the novel trilogy, even back when I was 11, it didn't confuse me when different stuff happened in the games. Alternate universe is just a concept I've always understood and I tend to support it because it is very fun to look at different scenarios. I mean, one of my favorite video games just got a remake announced, and it's the same game, but a universe where one minor difference caused the events of the whole game to go differently. They've made it clear it is its own thing and doesn't affect the previously established canon, and I am so excited for it. I think it was the best possible choice for a new game.

But yeah, I figured out what it is I'm scared of. It's how the fandom will receive it. I had some people point a few things out to me that helped me really understand this.

Person who wrote these tags if you see this, the Henry problem did not start with SOTM. God that's another thing. Even if 99% of the fandom starts thinking a certain way, if I personally don't think it's true, I'm not going to conform. I think a very large portion of FNAF fans are wrong about Henry. Wrong in so many ways. Ways I cannot understand. And actually, I am holding onto hope that the FNAF 2 movie is going to clear a lot of those things up. So why I'm so worried... I don't know.

So I'm starting to be a little more rational. I'm also just remembering that I need to trust Scott, because pretty much everything the first movie had to juggle was handled perfectly in my opinion. And that was a big deal to him, it's why the movie took so long. Script after script after script got scrapped. One reason being because he was trying to find away to balance the horror aspect of killer animatronics and the innocence of the children. And the FNAF movie got backlash from some fans for it's portrayal of the animatronics, but me personally, I'm glad he stood his ground with that one. Even if Michael is doing more bad than good here in the movies I kind of doubt under Scott's supervision it would swing very far in the evil direction or be shown without a clear indication that there's a reason he's like this, probably William. So yeah. Maybe it's a dumb fear. I'm excited as hell for the movie either way.