Character Analysis: William Afton (Five Nights at Freddy's)

Hello, internet! Welcome to Loka’s Prediction Blogs! Though you’ve probably noticed this isn’t really the usual kind of blog we do around here.

And that’s because Loka isn’t really here right now.

The name’s KrisWarlock. You may know me from various verdicts in the past and my contributions to G1’s own blogs the past year. If you have elite enough ball knowledge you might even have known me back when I went by HeavenPiercerChris, though that part is irrelevant. Last year, I helped Loka make a blog for Sprintrap vs Junko, and in the process became a bit of an expert on all things FNAF. However, I felt like I could make a separate blog going a bit more in-depth on what Afton can actually do in a VS setting, and quickly got to work again.

I wanted to try my hand at making a solo character analysis, and while I must admit my lack of ability at calculating feats, I wanted to show what I can achieve and find all by myself.

I have to thank Loka a ton for publishing this personal project of mine, I appreciate it a lot, and you can expect to see a lot more of my work later down the line ;)

But enough with the setup, let’s get on with the show. 

He will come back. He always does.

Primary Sources:

• Games: Five Nights At Freddy’s, 2, 3, 4, Sister Location, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator, Ultimate Custom Night, Secret of the Mimic
• Five Nights At Freddy’s The Silver Eyes, The Twisted Ones, The Fourth Closet
• Fazbear Frights: Into The Pit, To Be Beautiful, Count The Ways, Fetch, Out of Stock, 1:35 AM, Step Closer, The Man in Room 1280, The Real Jake, Blackbird, Hide-and-Seek, all of the Stitchwraith Stingers

Secondary Sources:

• FNAF AR Special Delivery, FNAF VR Help Wanted, FNAF VR Help Wanted 2
• Tales from the Pizzaplex: Dittophobia
• Movie: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2025)

Background

Due to the nature of FNAF’s story, we are never outright told William’s full story in the games. I’ll be listing all information we actually know for a fact that applies to William in the games, alongside supporting information from his appearances in the Novels.

Games:

William Afton worked as a major member of Fazbear Entertainment Inc., likely being one of the founders of the company. He was also the founder of the company Afton Robotics, LLC. As a businessman, it would appear that one of Afton’s primary methods of growing his company was by manipulating and sabotaging other businesses, allowing him to swoop in and buy them, which he was shown to do with Murray’s Costume Manor.

• Secret of the Mimic: Murray’s Costume Manor had spies who stole and sold out information
• Secret of the Mimic: “WA” (William Afton) claims ownership of “software development and the entire MCM catalogue” as well as owning the land that the Manor was built in

William has at least two children: Michael and Elizabeth. While it is possible (and heavily speculated) that he has a third child, this has never been confirmed in any of the games.

While the exact timeline of these following events is unknown, William Afton has been directly involved in various deaths.

For reasons still completely unknown, William himself drove outside of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and killed a girl who was locked outside. This girl was the daughter of Henry, the co-founder of Fazbear Entertainment. This event is implied to have happened during a birthday party, perhaps even the girl’s. It is implied that William was under the influence when he performed this act.

• FNAF 2: In the “Take Cake to the Children” minigame, Afton is showing killing a child outside of Freddy’s
• Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator: The “Security Puppet” minigame showcases the same incident in a bit more detail, showing that the building’s Security Puppet mechanism found the body of a girl outside of the building
• Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator: The “Midnight Motorist” minigame shows an orange man with the same car as William driving back home. He passes by a building named JRs, where is barred from entry. The files for this minigame are named “later that night.”

In Circus Baby’s Pizza World, a restaurant owned by Afton Robotics, his daughter Elizabeth was murdered by the titular Circus Baby, an animatronic designed by William. This event was completely covered up, with it being reported that the opening of Baby’s Pizza World was “cancelled due to gas leaks”. Afton would later take Circus Baby, and his other animatronics, to an underground bunker known as “Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental”

• FNAF Sister Location: Circus Baby tells the story of the day Elizabeth died
• FNAF Sister Location: Arcade game depiction of Elizabeth’s death
• Scottgames teasers: Circus Baby’s Pizza World’s grand opening was cancelled, covering up Elizabeth’s death

Most famously, William was the one responsible for the infamous Missing Children’s Incident. Five children were lured to a back room by a man wearing a mascot costume, later revealed to be the Spring Bonnie springlock suit. William would use a variety of reasons to lure the children into the backroom, including personal information such as telling Susie that her dead dog was still alive.

• FNAF 1: Newspaper clippings explaining the Missing Children’s Incident
• Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator: Spring Bonnie lures one of the children by promising her that her dead dog is still alive.

While details are unclear, Afton also appears to be involved in the events of FNAF 4 in some way. In the secret ending of Sister Location, it is confirmed that Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental contains cameras that watch over the bedroom in which the fourth game takes place.

While its connection to the games is uncertain, the short story “Dittophobia” from the Tales of the Pizzaplex series tackles that connection, featuring a man stuck in a replica of his childhood home that is located within CBEaR, forced to relive the same day and night repeatedly for decades.

• FNAF Sister Location: Inputting the code 1983 in the Private Room reveals cameras of FNAF 4 locations
• (supporting evidence) Tales from the Pizzaplex: Experiments to study the effects of fear were hosted in an area identical in description to Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental

Sometime after at least all of those events, Afton was present as a daytime security guard in the 1987 Freddy Fazbear’s location, where it’s implied that his actions were directly responsible for angering the animatronics and causing the Bite of 87.

• FNAF 2: “SAVETHEM” minigame shows William Afton in the FNAF 2 pizzeria, with dead children scattered around the building
• FNAF 2 Phone Guy dialogue
• Night 1 “You’re only the second guard to work at that location. Uh, the first guy finished his week but complained about… conditions. Uh, we switched him over to the day shift so hey, lucky you, right?”
• Night 3 “I can personally assure you, that whatever is going on out there, however tragic it may be, has nothing to do with our establishment. I-It's just all rumor and speculation... People trying to make a buck, you know... Uh, our guard during the day has reported nothing unusual. And he's on watch from opening 'til close.”
• Night 4 “Uh, just as a side note, though, try to avoid eye contact with any of the animatronics tonight if you can. Someone may have tampered with their facial recognition systems; we're not sure. But the characters have been acting very unusual, almost aggressive, towards the staff.”
• Night 5 “Uh, no one is allowed in or out, y'know. Especially concerning any... previous employees. Um, when we get it all sorted out, we may move you to the day shift. A position just became... available.”
• Night 6 “Someone used one of the suits. We had a spare in the back, a yellow one, someone used it... Now none of them are acting right.”

Even later, Afton made his way to the final Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, with the brand at its last legs, and dismantled Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy. However, the ghosts of the children that haunted those suits remained even after the destruction of their metal shells, with William hiding in the Spring Bonnie suit to hide. As a result of this action, and the leaking water from the ceiling, Afton was springlocked and killed in the backroom where he committed so many of his sins.

• FNAF 3 End-of-Night Minigames: Afton dismantles the animatronics before being haunted by the children, resulting in him getting springlocked.

Afton would eventually be found and removed from the backroom by the creators of Fazbear’s Fright, a horror attraction dedicated to the rumors and stories surrounding the Fazbear brand. However, William was still alive, now trapped inside the suit as a walking corpse known as Springtrap. He remains in the attraction for around a week, before the building is set on fire. A fire that William survived.

• FNAF 3 Phone Dude dialogue Night 2 “But I have an even better surprise for you, and you're not gonna believe this- we found one. A REAL one. Uh-oh-uh gotta go man- uh, well-well look, i-it's in there somewhere, I'm-I'm sure you'll see it.”
• FNAF 3 ending newspaper: Fazbear's Fright burns to the ground.
• FNAF Sister Location Custom Night: Springtrap is revealed to have survived the fire.

Silver Eyes Trilogy:

In The Silver Eyes, we get direct confirmation that William was one of the founders of Fazbear, and in addition, we gain a bit of insight on this version of the character and his views on the Missing Children. He views their current state as haunted animatronics as them having become his family and “living out their Happiest Day”

• Silver Eyes: William explains how he feels about the missing children. “Your father loved, and now I have loved.” “They are home, with me. Their happiest day.” “I am one of them.”

In The Fourth Closet, Afton reveals that due to his springlock failures, he is terrified of death, and will do anything to stop himself from meeting that fate again.

• Fourth Closet: William’s fear of death and hatred of his current state lead him into experimenting ways of living forever free of pain.

Technology

Spring Bonnie Suit

The suit William’s corpse is permanently bonded with. The Spring Bonnie suit uses the unique springlock technology to double as both a suit worn by entertainers and an animatronic that operates by itself. The way this works is that the animatronic parts are held back by spring locks once the suit is to be worn by a performer, and those locks can trigger to make them go back into animatronic mode. The problem, however, is that the locks are extremely sensitive. Even the most minor of movements could trigger them while they are being worn, and kill the wearer. In the Novel continuity, William had survived a springlock failure in the past, but wasn’t as lucky the second time.

• The Silver Eyes: William explains in detail how a springlock suit works, as well as explaining the consequences for triggering the locks while wearing it. “First the locks themselves will snap right into you, making deep cuts all over your body, and a split second later, all the animatronic parts, all that sharp steel and hard plastic will instantly be driven into your body. You will die, but it will be slow. You’ll feel your organs punctured, the suit will grow with your blood, and you will know you’re dying for long, long minutes. You'll try to scream, but you will be unable to: your vocal cords will be severed, and your lungs will fill with your own blood until you drown in it.”
• The Twisted Ones: After his second springlock incident, William’s corpse was so mangled that it became practically fused with the suit

Sound Illusion Discs

One of the most incredible things Afton has in his arsenal. Invented by Henry and then mass produced by Afton Robotics, these discs produce five separate frequencies of sound that overload one’s brain and alter their perception, making them see things that weren’t there and changing things that already exist into looking like things a person would have already seen in the past.  This is the primary mechanic of most of William’s contraptions in the second novel, The Twisted Ones.

• The Twisted Ones novel opens on an explanation of how the human brain processes the information of their surroundings “Your mind creates motion when there is none. It fills in colors and trajectories based on what you’ve seen before, and calculates what you should be seeing now. It’s why when you enter a house for the first time you experience a moment of dizziness. Your mind is taking in more than usual. It’s drawing a floor plan, creating a palette of colors, and saving an inventory of images to draw on later, so you don’t have to go through that exhausting intake every single time. The next time you enter that same house, you’ll already know where you are.”
• The Twisted Ones: Charlie analyzes the illusions discs and understands how they work. “In class we learned that when the brain is overstimulated, it fills in gaps for you. So, say you pass a red hexagonal sign on the road, and someone asks you what words were on it. You’d say ‘STOP.’ And you’d imagine that you saw it. You’d be able to picture that stop sign the way it should have been. That is, of course, if you were properly distracted and didn’t notice an obviously blank sign. This thing distracts us. Somehow it makes our brains fill in blanks with previous experiences, the things we think we should be seeing. The disc emits five sound waves that continuously vary in frequency. First they match one another, then they don’t; they go in and out of harmony, always on the edge of forming a predictable sequence, then branching away. The tone fluctuations happen so fast that they’re only detected by your subconscious. Your mind goes mad trying to make sense of it; it’s immediately overwhelmed. It’s like the opposite of white noise: you can’t follow it, and you can’t tune it out.”

Twisted Animatronics

Throughout the second novel, William commands the Twisted Animatronics, four robotic monsters designed to capture Charlie Emily. Through the sound illusion discs, they take on appearances that seem more friendly in order to lure targets, and they possess a stomach hatch that can open up to capture humans, though since it is filled with springlocks, most tend to end up dead.

• The Twisted Ones: Throughout the early parts of the novel, Charlie finds multiple corpses with similar injuries to a springlock failure. As the story progresses, she discovers the Twisted Animatronics are responsible.
• The Twisted Ones: Charlie is captured by Twisted Freddy and trapped inside it, realizing quickly that her body was surrounded by springlocks that could trigger at any moment.
• The Twisted Ones: Charlie explains that if someone is only aware of the appearance of the Freddy animatronics from exposure through commercials and posters, the Twisted Ones would take the appearance of regular animatronics, what people expect to see. Since Charlie and her friends were already aware of the Twisted Ones’ true nature, they see the creatures as monsters.

Interestingly, Afton claims that once he fused with Spring Bonnie, not only was he able to control the movements of the Twisted Animatronics, but also “see through their eyes”. He claims that the former is due to the movements of all robots being linked for the sake of choreography, but the latter implies that Afton’s control over the system is more supernatural. While he is bound to Spring Bonnie this would only apply to the Twisted Ones, but it is an interesting detail to keep in mind if he happens to possess other machines.

• The Twisted Ones: “Ever since Charlie remade me, set me free to my destiny, I’ve been master of all these creatures.” He crooked his fingers and made a sharp gesture forward. Bonnie and the wolf took two steps forward, in unison. “See? All the animatronics are linked together; it was a system designed to control the choreography for the shows. Now, I control the system. I control the choreography. All of this belongs to me.” Springtrap shuffled forward, and Charlie shrank back. “I owe you both another debt of gratitude as well,” he said. “I was imprisoned in that tomb beneath the stage, scarcely able to move, only able to see through the eyes of my creatures.”

Balloon Boys

In William’s underground pizzeria base of operations in The Twisted Ones, he keeps a massive horde of Balloon Boys around. Combined with the effects of the Illusion Discs, these Balloon Boys become incredibly distorted and heavily affect one’s perception, making them almost completely unable to comprehend their surroundings.

• Twisted Ones: Charlie is overwhelmed as both her surroundings and the several Balloon Boys are altered by the illusions.

Endoskeletons

Afton also has mechanical endoskeletons without animatronic suits under his employ. He uses one, combined with illusion tech, to create a false Springtrap in The Fourth Closet, just another method of his trickery.

• Fourth Closet: Afton tricks Jessica by disguising an endoskeleton as Springtrap himself

Circus Baby

While Baby is only one of the Funtime animatronics, she is the only one that showcases loyalty to Afton across continuities, so only she will be listed here.

Circus Baby is the animatronic containing the soul of William’s daughter, Elizabeth. In both the Fourth Closet book and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator, she displays extreme loyalty and a desire to make her father proud.

• Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator: Baby believes that she was summoned to this pizzeria by Afton, and wants to make him proud.

Circus Baby comes equipped with a massive claw on her stomach, which is how she killed Elizabeth. She is also extremely manipulative, and spends the entirety of Sister Location tricking the protagonist into helping her until she eventually manages to break free. Additionally, the novels give her access to Illusion Discs which she uses to take the appearance of Charlie Emily, tricking her friend group and convincing them that she was Charlie, at least initially.

Supernatural Powers

Agony

In the Stitchwraith Stinger #3, the most likely source behind all supernatural phenomena in the series is revealed: Human emotion. According to the research of Dr. Phineas Taggart, human emotion has energy that can directly influence its surroundings, being more powerful and effective the more negative the emotion. His research has led him to believe that the feeling of Agony is the most powerful emotion of them all. The mixing of Agony and intelligence transforms the energy of emotion into the energy of physical action.

Agony is usually left behind in objects placed near the site of a tragedy, or involved in tragic events. Afton's Spring Bonnie suit, for example, would likely contain all of the Agony left behind from the Missing Children's Incident and Afton's own death.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #3: “As I expected,” he typed, “extreme human emotion appears to impact its surroundings far more powerfully the more negative it is. Agony, I’m convinced, radiates farther from people than any other emotion. Love has its influence, but the experiments being done with water crystals have been misinterpreted. Just because love forms beautiful ice crystals doesn’t mean it’s the most powerful emotion. Yesterday, I mimicked the ice crystal methodology, and by allowing all the hurt and anger I usually keep well in check to burst forth, I watched water manifest a hideous crystal in a matter of seconds.”
• Stitchwraith Stinger #3: “You see, I’m convinced that agony has a greater energetic radius and power than any other emotion. I have done numerous experiments to measure, capture, contain, and study the leftover emotion embedded into objects that were near a tragedy. My work is focused on my hypothesis that you can take a saturation of agony, add any kind of intelligence—even an artificial one— and they will combine together to transmute the energy of emotion into the energy of physical action. This, I believe, is what explains what people call ‘haunted’ objects.”

Shadow Freddy / Nightmare

this one is a really weird case

In Five Nights at Freddy’s 3, a strange purple Freddy lures the FNAF 1 animatronics to the Safe Room, telling them to follow it as it leads them directly to William Afton. Henry claims that this was a trap set up by William, though he didn’t understand what exactly it was. In The Twisted Ones novel, the same shadowy Freddy leads the protagonists towards Afton, and there are implications that the animatronic known as Nightmare from FNAF 4 has some relation to this entity.

Unfortunately, we really don’t know nearly enough about Shadow Freddy to know for sure what his abilities would entail. All we see him do is lead victims directly towards Afton, which could be useful in some scenarios, and nothing else.

Possession

Perhaps the ability most synonymous with the FNAF series as a whole. If a person dies while experiencing powerful enough emotions, their spirit will be drawn towards the place of their demise and can then proceed to take possession of whatever is nearest to their corpse. That distinction is important, as it is said that “the spirit follows the flesh.” Interestingly, there doesn’t appear to be limits as to what the victim of possession might be, as a spirit can possess another soul if it so desires, and if the host for a ghost happens to be completely destroyed, it can move on to a different body, if its emotions are powerful enough.

Mechanics of Possession:

• The Silver Eyes: Charlie and her friends have a brief discussion on the nature of ghosts. Charlie doesn’t believe in the existence of ghosts, but she strongly believes that one’s memory can linger on after they pass away. One of them, Marla, explains that her grandmother’s doll collection suddenly felt as if they were “watching her” and that their eyes felt “like the eyes of a stranger” after her grandmother passed away.
• The Fourth Closet: According to William Afton, the reason why the souls of the Missing Children were bound so thoroughly to the animatronics was because “The spirit follows the flesh.” Because of this, Afton plans to move his flesh piece by piece into a purely mechanical body.
• Stithwraith Stinger #4: Andrew explains that his desire to hurt Afton and make him feel pain forever led to him attaching himself to William’s soul, making it impossible for him to move on and die.
• Stitchwraith Stinger #4: Andrew also explains that he felt the desire to “be everywhere”, which led to him infecting several objects from the Fazbear Entertainment Distribution Center. Andrew also claims to “remember being in lots of stuff”, so all of the objects he infected were in fact possessed by him.

Afton showcases:

• Afton became one with the Spring Bonnie suit after being crushed by its springlocks. This is the only state of possession William performs in the games and novel trilogy, though in the latter, he is able to perform surgeries to escape his prison, his spirit still being connected to his corpse
• In Fazbear Frights #4, Jake theorizes that someone could have latched onto Andrew's soul the same way Andrew attached himself to Afton, and it is later revealed that that spirit was William Afton himself.
• After Jake and Andrew compact all of the objects that Andrew infected with his anger with a trash compactor, William Afton takes control of the compacted objects and reforms them into a giant, fifteen meter tall Amalgamation of animatronic parts.

Hallucinations

During his time in the Fazbear’s Fright attraction, Springtrap displayed the ability to cause incredibly potent hallucinations on those who it hunted down. In the games, this is the most likely explanation behind the elusive Phantom animatronics, whose appearance can serve as a distraction or cause systems like ventilation to shut down. While the games have no direct proof of Springtrap being the source of the Phantoms, the story What We Found from the Fazbear Frights is a direct adaptation of FNAF 3’s events, taking place in Fazbear’s Fright and featuring Springtrap as the only real antagonistic force as he hunts down a security guard. In that story, Springtrap is the cause behind the hallucinations experienced by the protagonist Hudson.

All following links from Fazbear Frights #8: Gumdrop Angel

• Springtrap makes Hudson hear the voice of his old teacher Mr. Atkin
• Springtrap makes Hudson see all of his surroundings as his bedroom, and a hallucination of his step-father Lewis slams his head into a desk. The slamming actually happened, with an arcade game being left with Hudson’s blood.
• Springtrap makes Hudson hallucinate a memory of having his head submerged in a toilet. Hudson vividly feels the swirling of the water, but once the hallucination ended, the toilet and its surroundings were completely dry.
• Hudson is grabbed by remnants of a Chica suit, who refuses to let go while using the voice of a girl he fell in love with, and once he manages to toss it away it gets consumed by a pile of costume parts.
• Hudson is surrounded by animatronic mouths who all simultaneously berate him using the voice of Mr. Atkin, making him piss himself and curl into a fetal position in the process
• Springtrap, initially taking on the appearance of Lewis, breaks Hudson’s wrist and stabs him with a butcher knife. Soon after, with the bloody knife on the floor and his injuries still present, Hudson discovers that Springtrap had never left the place he was in at the very beginning of the hallucinations.

Corrosive Shocks

While latched on to the Stitchwraith through Andrew’s soul, Afton could transform Andrew’s harmless electric shocks into corrosive shocks that annihilate one’s consciousness and make their body wither until they appear mummified.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #3: “Phineas held his breath as the metal fingers met his skin. Then, in one crowded instant, three things happened: Phineas saw the being’s battery pack pulse bright red. He suddenly sensed danger and attempted to throw up a mental shield. He began to convulse, grabbing his head to attempt to contain the excruciating pain that annihilated his consciousness.”
• Stitchwraith Stinger #3: “Phineas was dead. He was not only dead, he was withered into near mummification, his mouth gaping open, his eyes gone.”

Magnetism

With the combined Agony of Andrew’s possessed objects as a source of power, Afton gained multiple new abilities as the Amalgamation. The first is his ability to suck in nearly any object in his surroundings and choose to add it to his body, becoming larger and tougher as he does so. Late in the fight against Detective Larson, Afton assimilated an entire forklift into himself.

• “As it began to assemble itself, the being sucked in all the remaining junk and debris in the factory. However, it also rejected some of the waste. Just as it started to form, the vaguely man-shaped structure of trash shuddered for a second, and then it ejected part of itself. A mutilated mass of robotic endoskeleton and crumpled fabric spewed through the air and landed several feet away. When the rejected detritus hit the concrete, it lay still.”
• “Pieces of the forklift began peeling away and flying through the air toward Afton. First the mast, then the lift cylinder, then the backrest. One after the other, parts of the forklift disconnected from the whole and swept toward Afton’s Amalgamation. The tilt cylinder, the wheels, the overhead guard—they went in quick succession, followed by the fork’s prongs. Everything was being absorbed into Afton’s merger of metal, plastic, and wire. Larson watched in frightened awe when even the evidence he’d hung on the front of the forklift got slurped into Afton’s continually evolving construction. He thought he saw one black-and-whitestriped arm get siphoned up into Afton’s left leg. Then the steering wheel was snatched from his grasp, and he felt the operator’s seat gyrate under him. Larson jumped off the forklift, and fell to the dock. Holding his gut again, he began crawling backward, away from Afton’s macabre evolution. It continued to consume the forklift. Within seconds, the forklift was nearly gone. Just a few pieces of battered yellow metal remained. The rest was wriggling through Afton’s crevices, joining with a jaw here, a gear there.”

Soul Poison

As the Amalgamation, William can inject his soul into others, which would fill them with his evil or cause their death.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #7: “This particular spirit smelled really, really bad. And when it had stabbed the detective, the smell had gone into the detective’s body. Jake was afraid the detective had been infected, and he didn’t know exactly how bad the infection would be. Pretty bad, was his guess. For sure, Afton’s spirit would fill the detective with evil. But what if it did more than that? What if it killed him? Jake had to get the infection out.”

Abilities used by Andrew and Jake

While not abilities directly performed by Afton, both Andrew and Jake are lingering spirits similar to Afton. Andrew is powered primarily by his anger (Agony) while Jake is mainly powered by positive emotions, meaning he is likely weaker than a peak condition Afton based on Taggart’s research.

Immortality: Once Andrew possessed Afton, Afton would not die no matter what happened to him. Afton had been burnt to a crisp to the point where he could barely be recognized as human, but his organs were still functional and his blood was still flowing in his veins, though it was visible that it should be impossible for a man in his condition to be alive

Nightmare Inducement: REM sleep patterns found by the hospital Afton was placed in revealed that he was suffering from horrific nightmares while Andrew possessed him. 

Fear Instillation: Andrew was capable of manifesting and filling nurses who tried to kill Afton with such fear that it “extracted the strength from their limbs” and made them crumple on the floor

Technology Manipulation and Telepathy: After Afton's corpse exploded, Andrew moved directly to the dog animatronic Fetch. Fetch was originally designed to connect to phones and retrieve information to its owner. Likely due to Andrew's presence, Fetch could connect to modern smartphones in spite of it being extremely outdated technology. Fetch could forcefully download apps on phones and listen in to any conversations the protagonist Greg had on his phone. Later on in the story, Fetch begins to know desires that Greg had manifested outside of his phone, be it in real life conversations or just his own thoughts, “Listening in to Greg’s life”.

(Possible) Teleportation: The Ella doll from the story 1:35 AM was one of the objects infected by Andrew. She would appear next to her owner Delilah and cause some method to wake her up at 1:35 AM due to being programmed to operate as an alarm clock. In the story, Delilah notes that even though she never turned the lights off when she went to sleep and had felt Ella make direct contact with her body, Delilah was never able to catch Ella doing it. It’s unclear how this is done, however. Ella might just be really fast.

• “The fact that Delilah didn’t see Ella as soon as Delilah opened her eyes gave Delilah a clue about just how advanced her nemesis was. Ella could disappear in the blink—or the opening—of an eye.”

Curse (Debatable): The Foxy shown in the story Step Closer was one of the objects infected by Andrew. In the story, it sang a hypnotic tune where it proclaimed that “You can be a pirate, but first, you need to lose an eye and an arm”. After hearing the song, the protagonist Pete begins to experience several situations which could have resulted in him losing an eye or an arm if he wasn’t careful, and eventually ends up dying and having an eye and arm removed for donation purposes.

• Fazbear Frights - Step Closer: After hearing Foxy’s song about losing an eye and an arm, Pete experiences several accidents that nearly made him lose an eye and an arm

Memory Reading: After Jake survived the battle against the Afton Amalgamation, he went on a brief journey of his own. During it, he discovered he had some special abilities unique to him, such as being able to enter and experience all of a person’s strongest memories through contact.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #8: Jake touches a man and experiences his strongest memories

Memory Manipulation: Similarly, Jake can choose one of the memories and then amplify it several times over, making it the only memory a person experiences, at least for a while. Jake primarily does this with happy memories to stop people from feeling pain.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #8: Jake amplifies a man’s memories of a family dinner to make his mind stop suffering from memories of agony.

Memory Entrapment: In order to defeat Eleanor once and for all, Jake managed to force her into his soul, and used his power to find a memory where Eleanor felt extreme anguish, before trapping her there for the rest of time.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #11: “Using the ability that Jake had discovered after his confrontation with the trash rabbit, Jake reached into those years and found a moment of seething anger and anguish. He figured if he could stuff Eleanor into a bubble of that moment, he could subdue her. He was right. With that one intention, Eleanor was defeated, contained. Her foul spirit folded in on itself and was silenced.”
  

Remnant

What is Remnant in the first place?

We are only ever given two explanations on the nature of Remnant from reliable sources throughout the FNAF series, one by Afton in the Fourth Closet and one by Dr. Talbert in Fazbear Frights. Understanding the nature of Remnant is difficult, but these sources are the only keys to understanding it.

• Fourth Closet: Afton explains his Remnant experiments with the following: “Heat is the key to all of this. If you keep all this at just the right temperature, it’s malleable, it’s moldable, and it’s highly, highly effective; or maybe contagious is the word. I suspect you could put it in anything, but it’s best to put it into something that you can control—at least to a certain extent. It’s an interesting alchemy, you can make something that you control completely, but that has no will of its own, like a gun, I suppose. Or you can take a drop of ... pixie dust. And you can create a monster that you ... mostly control, one with unlimited potential.”
• Stitchwraith Stinger 11: Dr. Talbert explains Remnant as “it’s like the metal is haunted. It’s more complicated than that, of course, but it’s similar to the way water conducts electricity. Remnant is the mixing of the tangible with the intangible, of memory and the present. The people and things that are lost- it makes them almost real again.”

Based on these explanations I believe that Remnant is the result of spiritual or emotional intangible energy being mixed with a physical object. Remnant isn’t the soul itself, but what it produces once it becomes attached to something in the material world.

The best way to create Remnant, the best conductor for that energy, is through metal. Because of metal being so good at keeping that spiritual energy, it can be melted down and still maintain its supernatural properties, though heating it up too much would result in it losing all of its properties. This “Liquid Remnant” can then be injected on other things or molded into a new solid object.

What does Remnant do?

Remnant has showcased the following properties:

• Regeneration: In the ending of Sister Location, Michael Afton is disemboweled by the Scooper present in Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental, all of his insides being replaced with the endoskeleton known as Ennard. However, even after Ennard leaves his decaying body, Michael still manages to live on, able to stand up and continue pursuing his father. This is because the scooper, actually SCUPer, was a reservoir and injector of Remnant
• Animating inanimate objects: In Chapter 3 of the Fourth Closet, William Afton manually removes several wires and other inner parts of Funtime Freddy, shutting it down and making it unable to function. William proceeds to inject it with Remnant, and even a small amount is enough to give it enough life that its eyes could track William’s “subtlest movements”
• Spiritual Awareness: In The Fourth Closet, Carlton is directly injected with liquid Remnant by Afton. After this event, he awakens being able to see the spirits of the Missing Children and view the world through their perspective.
• Power Amplification: In Fazbear Frights, Eleanor uses Dr. Talbert’s supply of Remnant in order to gain more power and “life eternal”. In FNAF AR, Remnant can be used to create MODs that amplify animatronic capabilities.
• Illusions: The silver pendant used by Eleanor throughout the Frights books was made entirely of Remnant by Dr. Talbert. This pendant could create extremely potent illusions, and allowed Eleanor to take a human appearance.
  

Feats

Strength

• Broke a cop’s arm
• Crushed Charlie’s windpipe and lifted her up as if she weighed nothing
• “Overpowered” and dismantled the classic animatronics
• The Amalgamation can crash through walls
• The Amalgamation is stated to hit “with the force of a battering ram”

Speed

• Driving in his car (right after a beer) he could travel and move out of the way of other vehicles at 200 MPH
• Springtrap lunges at Charlie with “preternatural” speed
• Generally portrayed as moving through ventilations and across pizzerias extremely quickly
• The Amalgamation is stated to move “with the speed of a race car”

Endurance

• Once survived a springlock failure
• Spends the entire third novel in a state of never ending pain, but is able to power through for the most part.
• As Springtrap, is able to withstand gunfire
• Survived the destruction of Fazbear’s Fright
• Game canon Afton is probably still going through Ultimate Custom Night to this day

Scaling

• Bonnie can rip apart metal bathroom stalls
• Foxy can create cracks in metal doors just by pounding on them with “the force of a sledgehammer”
• Similarly to Afton himself, most animatronics can travel through ventilation in the span of mere frames and cross entire hallways in a few seconds.
• The Twisted Ones survived a large gasoline explosion
• One of Edwin’s animatronics for the 70s, Nurse Dollie, remained functional after being dropped in molten metal

Weaknesses

Fire: While heat hasn’t been shown to be able to destroy Afton’s actual soul, it is the most prominent way he is defeated, being his ultimate defeat in both the games and the novel trilogy.

• Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator: Henry’s gambit to destroy Afton was to trap him in a pizzeria and burn the entire building to the ground, likely separating his spirit from his body permanently.
• The Fourth Closet: William Afton is defeated once the Missing Children become aware that he was the one who killed them, trapping him inside a furnace alongside them to end him once and for all.

Spring Bonnie’s Programming: In FNAF 3, the main way to keep William away from your office is by luring him away with audio cues. Phone Guy’s audio in Night 2 directly calls out that springlocks animatronics are programmed to move towards sound cues and go towards children. William doesn’t appear to have any other limitation based on his suit’s programming and only really showcases this weakness in a major way in FNAF 3, and it is a weakness he can easily work around since it appears to be just specific sound cues, but it’s worth noting all the same.

• FNAF 3: Phone Guy Night 2 “For ease of operation the animatronics are set to turn and walk toward sound cues. This is an easy and hands-free approach, to making sure the animatronics stay where the children are, for maximum entertainment / crowd-pleasing value.”

It’s possible that the RASC designed by Henry in Pizzeria Simulator takes advantage of this, as it is likely the tool he used to lure the animatronics to the pizzeria in the first place. This, however, remains unconfirmed.

Other Souls: If multiple souls are in possession of the same Animatronic, the stronger soul can take full control of their shared body’s movements. Afton’s soul being weakened allowed Eleanor to take control of the Amalgamation for a while, and it was the reason why the Puppet managed to force it into destroying itself.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #7: Jake notes that William’s soul was “barely clinging to this reality” and that Eleanor was the one controlling the Amalgamation.
• Stitchwraith Stinger #7: The Puppet defeats William Afton by entering the Amalgamation and forcing it to rip itself apart

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE: In the movie continuity, William Afton was unable to possess the Spring Bonnie suit until the Missing Children moved on to the afterlife. This supports the idea of souls being able to interfere with the possession process

Memory Absorption / Entrapment: In the Fazbear Frights stories, the most consistent way for a spirit or soul to disappear is for them to get absorbed into a memory, no longer having any need to remain clinging to the material world. In Stitchwraith Stinger #5, Jake showcases this by remembering a memory of his dad, almost being completely sucked into the memory, but managing to power through and remain alongside Andrew.

• Stitchwraith Stinger #5: Jake began to feel as if he was being sucked out of the thing he was in. He felt like he was a puff of smoke, and he was being borne by an air current away from the being that had contained him. He could feel himself being pulled into the memory itself, and he intuitively understood that if he was enveloped in the memory, he could stay in that happy place forever.

While unconfirmed, it is very likely that the game continuity’s Ultimate Custom Night operates on similar principles as Eleanor’s defeat in Frights, which was done through Jake’s memory powers. If nothing else, it is decent evidence of this kind of ability working on Afton.

Ultimate Custom Night is being lived by Afton: 

• The Puppet recognizes the player character and claims “I’m not afraid of you, not anymore.” Implying that she is speaking to Afton.
• Nightmarionne claims to be “a fearful reflection of what you have created”, likely in reference to Afton’s murder of Charlie.
• Nightmare Freddy claims that he is “remade, but not by you.” and Nightmare Fredbear claims “This time, there is more than an illusion to fear.” Implying that the player character would both be aware of the Nightmares being illusions and responsible for their initial creation.

Ultimate Custom Night is a reality created by a spirit:

• The Mangle claims that “The One You Should Not Have Killed” is present in UCN and “Always Watching”.
• Withered Bonnie, who should hold the spirit of Jeremy and have moved on during FFPS, claims that this is a “new prison” where both him and Afton are trapped.
• Nightmare Freddy claims that Afton is “A victim that can’t perish”, implying that whatever UCN is, it makes it so that Afton’s torture will never end.
• Adding to the last point, Nightmarionne claims that this “is a nightmare you cannot wake from” and that “This time, Death cannot save you”.
• The Vengeful Spirit itself speaks to Afton directly through the Mediocre Melodies, claiming “This is how it feels, and you get to experience it over and over again.” That it would “Hold you here no matter how many times they burn us” And “I’ll never let you rest.”

Summary

• Grounded but still superhuman physical prowess, with ways of enhancing himself even further
• Several animatronics that he can see through and control remotely, giving him incredible battlefield control
• Plethora of methods to heavily alter one’s perception and make one’s senses completely unreliable
• Multiple esoteric abilities that could theoretically instantly win fights
• The ability to infect other objects or even people with his evil, ensuring survival even if physically destroyed
• A form of immortality that makes it so that destroying or sealing his soul are the only ways to truly guarantee his demise

Glitchtrap?

Not yet.

It is still very much possible for the virus from Five Nights at Freddy’s Help Wanted and Five Nights at Freddy’s Security Breach to be Afton himself, it is still too up in the air for me to really feel comfortable including here. I believe that by the next couple games we’ll be more sure on how to stand when it comes to it. If the most likely theory is correct, it would be a similar enough possession ability to what’s present in Frights to be viable in an Afton match.

Are the powers from Fazbear Frights viable?

Yes, to a degree.

In the context of how the events unfold, it is heavily implied that Eleanor’s presence was fundamental for Afton to sustain the Amalgamation. However, the story also takes place while Afton’s soul is extremely weakened and “barely clinging to this world.” Afton initiates the process of forming the Amalgamation before Eleanor becomes a part of it, and Jake directly says that it was Afton’s soul that had been placed in Larson. Those powers explicitly were done by Afton, and Eleanor simply took control of the Amalgamation due to her soul being stronger.

As for the Supernatural Powers demonstrated by Andrew and Jake, it is a bit unclear how much exactly Afton can replicate. Andrew is extremely reasonable, as Afton was sharing the possession of every single object we’ve seen Andrew haunt, but Jake’s memory powers would be a bit more difficult to argue Afton using in the middle of a fight. Regardless, they were mostly included here for the sake of being as thorough as possible.

Discussing FNAF World

While this blog started development a few months ago, a couple of blogs came out recently making some arguments to buff FNAF through FNAF World. This is not meant as a takedown or a debunk, at the end of the day most FNAF discussion is sharing theories, I just found it really interesting and wanted to leave my view on the matter on record.

While I implore you to read the blogs yourself and come to your own conclusions, the shortened version of it is that, since FNAF World is very likely created through the power of a spirit, other similarly powerful spiritual entities should be able to not only replicate the level of power shown in the game, but also gain access to all of the items available throughout it. In short, it argues that spirits would scale to five times universal level of power.

As for my stance, my issue is that FNAF World, while holding some canonical elements, is far from the most trustworthy of sources.

FNAF World is a metanarrative. Characters describe the world as being a game, the major update that overhauled the story focused on Scott Cawthon making new FNAF games, and throughout the entire experience there is an underlying narrative of Scott being unable to let go of the franchise due to not wanting to leave his fans disappointed.

Even the Clock Ending, the one tied to Happiest Day, says that the game and world you're exploring was created by a Storyteller and Puppetmaster who is all but confirmed to be Scott, since Animdude calls himself the Storyteller in the ending where you murder him.

If the world of FNAF World was truly created for the sake of Happiest Day, what's the point? Why would a spirit create this entire cosmology only for nearly none of it, by Glitchbear's own admission, to be related to the true purpose of placing the breadcrumbs?

But of course, there's the connection to Ultimate Custom Night. If it was all just meta then why are characters from that setting manifesting in a widely agreed to be fully canon game?

It is possible that all of FNAF World was created by a spirit. It is just as possible that World is just a game being tampered with by supernatural forces, as the recently released Ticket to Fun guide hints at Fazbear Arcade cabinets being haunted. It is also just as possible that it's all meta and the Clock Ending embodies a “here's the only hint to FNAF 4 I left in this project, this is all that you came for, just go and find it” message from Scott.

It is a frankly very strange situation, and there is some degree of canon to World, but I don't think it's reliable enough to base an entire massive buff entirely around it.

Finally, I don't believe William should get access to any of World's items since… he wouldn't know what they are or that they exist. There is nothing to properly claim that World features any actual spirits other than MAYBE the one who created it that aren't completely speculatory, so even if Afton was reduced to a spirit he has no reason to know of these items, much less use them in battle.

In conclusion, due to my issues with World as a source and similarly not agreeing with Afton getting anything significant from it, it was not included in this blog. Though I must reiterate, you should read through the blog and come to your own conclusions. I'm not the boss of you.

How should William Afton be used in VS?

The three primary sources for William’s material are very different takes on the character, so the question of if they should be composited is a valid one. The Silver Eyes trilogy is openly a very separate continuity from the games, and William’s presentation in Frights differs a lot from how the games portray him, in addition to Secret of the Mimic all but confirming its timeline is separate from the games.

But I think in a VS context, all three should be used in a soft composite.

William in the games built a lot of equipment that he himself never utilizes as Springtrap, but that’s due to the context of him being locked away in a room for 30 years and not having nearly enough time to plan or prepare like he did in the Twisted Ones. The Silver Eyes trilogy shows us how William operates when he is allowed access to his creations, and should be seen as how he can work in a VS match.

Frights also is very different since it mostly shows William in the hypothetical scenario where he remains present after the fires, but it is important to include. It gives us plenty of new abilities tied to William’s supernatural nature that he can utilize even as Springtrap as long as he has enough Agony to draw from, and gives us an idea of what happens after you destroy Springtrap without properly trapping William’s soul. It is our best method of viewing what haunted objects and spirits, like Springtrap and Afton, can do.

So yeah, I think the soft comp approach is more than reasonable for William. The movies haven’t given him anything noteworthy yet, but I’ll likely make an update if that ever changes.