Narrative Essay Sample on Five Nights at Freddy's

If you are unfamiliar with this franchise, let me explain why this topic is such a debate in the fandom. Five Nights at Freddy's or commonly shortened to FNaF, is a long-standing game series of nine full-length games that are a continuous story (excluding AR and FNaF World because those do not really have anything to do with the story). In the most recent game, Security Breach, there is something that never has happened before, an animatronic is good. If you google, why is Glamrock Freddy- the search opticians are almost all; why does he help the player? 

You see, if you are unaware, FNaF is a horror game where you generally play as Michael Afton. You are being hunted and killed by possessed animatronics while taking the job of night guard at various Fazbear locations. Only in FNaF 4 (Where you play as Michael's younger brother), Help Wanted, and Security Breach do you play as other characters as Micheal dies before the two games making it so you can not play as him. 

In Security Breach, you play as a young child, likely about twelve, named Gregory, who seemingly has no connection to any previous characters other than some visible similarities to Michael's younger brother. In the game's opening scene, they introduce the different animatronics in the pizza plex, and as they start a performance, Freddy suddenly short circuits and falls over. In the next scene, Freddy wakes up in safe mode with our character Gregory having hidden in Freddy's stomach hatch, where Freddy promptly removes him as it is "not a safe play area." The friendly attitude alone is strange to anyone who has played the games before, but as you get a little further into the game, you find that the other animatronics are out to kill you. So that begs the question, why is Freddy also not trying to kill Gregory? Gregory even asks himself why he is not but only gets the response of "I do not know. I want to help you." 

The game does not give a concrete answer to this question at all; it is why it is asked so often. However, the big debates are the answers as to why Glamrock Freddy does so. The one I think is most likely based on the previous game's story formatting, though not the most popular theory, is that he is possessed by Michael Afton himself. 

A long time ago there was a terrible accident. You see, when Micheal was a kid, he was a bit of a bully, particularly to his younger brother. He usually dressed up in a foxy mask and jumped out of places to scare him as his brother was scared of the animatronics his father made, as FNaF 4 illustrates. However, on the brother's birthday, Michael and his friends thought it would be funny to put his head in one of the animatronics (Golden Freddy, to be exact). The spring animatronics are known to malfunction when wet and a child who is notoriously known to cry constantly so much that he is canonically referred to as only the Crying Child, well let us just say they do not mix well. This event is known as the Bite of 83. 

A few years after his brother's death, William, Michael's father, tells him about an underground facility that has something to do with what happened to his sister. There Michael gets his insides scooped out, and an animatronic wears him as a skin suit for a bit before it escapes as his body is decomposing, and somehow, Michael lives through this. After that, he realizes what his father has been up to and sets out to free the souls of the kids in the animatronics that his father put there. 

After several years Michael and Henery (William's old friend who helped him make animatronics) team up to gather all the possessed animatronics, including William, in a building and set it on fire as it allegedly can destroy the souls within them. Henery and Michael also decide to stay in the burning building with the animatronics dying alongside them. 

The new Fazbear location known as the Mega Pizzaplex was built atop the burned-down FNaF 6 location (where Michael died). The company worked quickly and made very advanced animatronics with advanced AI. These animatronics are; Roxxane Wolf, Montgomery Gator, Glamrock Chica, and Freddy Fazbear, commonly called Glamrock Freddy, to avoid confusing the different fredbears. 

At the Pizzaplex, a security guard named Vannessa worked on this game that had a strange anomaly in it. The anomaly was named William Afton, in the form of a virus or Glichtrap as he is called. This virus took over Vannessa's mind as well as the Glamrock Animatronics, making them behave strangely. However, it seems that Freddy has a greater resistance to Vanny's hacking. Freddy shut down and rebooted in Safe Mode when the hack was attempted, while the others succumbed to Vanny and Glitchtrap's control. It seems likely that this is Michael's ghost initiating the shutdown and reboot to thwart the invasion and maintain control. However, like all possessed animatronics, he still has to abide by the code of the body he possesses, and he is not aware of things like why he wants to help Gregory as the AI overrides it. 

Freddy has this seemingly innate need to defend Gregory at any cost. That is because Gregory reminds Freddy/Michael of his own younger brother, whom he could not/did not protect a long time ago. Similar clothing, hair, and most likely around the same age, the only really different thing is their personalities. The Michael part of Freddy wants to atone for his major sin and finally be able to save a child before they are screwed up by the crazy father who refuses to die. The majority of the adventure is subconscious, as Freddy says he does not know why he feels so protective of Gregory, but Michael is all over the motive. 

In the true ending, as Freddy and Gregory descend into the FNAF 6 location under the Pizzaplex, some lines stand out, specifically "I found myself down here" and "I AM NOT ME!" Freddy reveals in the basement dialogue that he found himself for the first time when he was brought down there. That might have been the time at which Michael's spirit entered Freddy, or it could have been the point at which Michael's soul, which was already within Freddy but inactive or so deeply co-mingled with the Freddy AI that he might as well have been dormant, was awakened within the robotic body. 

At one point, Freddy cannot reach the recharge station in time and becomes so weak that he is unable to move. When Gregory arrives at the main security office, Freddy finds a last surge of vigor to push on and catch up with him. When questioned about it, he says he mustered up a "second wind" odd, no? It is most likely that Michael's spirit is being channeled into the machine for a small recharge. He could only keep his mechanical body running on pure soul power long enough to bring Gregory to safety before passing out. 

The only thing that may cast doubt on this idea is that Michael was burnt, indicating that all of the remnant inside him and his spirit should have been released. Nevertheless, that did not stop William, so perhaps Michael discovered a means to avoid death as well. William Afton or 'Burntrap' is an offshoot of William via Glitchtrap. Burntrap was Glitchtrap in possession of Springtrap's or William Afton's corpse. However, he is still William, whose spirit became entangled with some circuitry to make Glitchtrap. As a result, spirits can be shattered into pieces or have bits pulled off them. So, if William can exist by channeling a portion of his spirit, who is to say Michael could not possess or get linked to Freddy? It makes a lot more sense and fits the story much better for Michael to "come back" like Afton, but not in the same way. Not to mention The Blob appears in Security Breach, which is made up of burnt animatronics that died (though whether or not it is made of the same souls as before is unclear but likely based on its behavior). Thus it is not a leap to suggest Michael is still alive and well, just in a new form. 

Why would Freddy be unique when the other animatronics could not overcome Vanny? Other animatronics simply do not have Freddy's level of consciousness and understanding of things like emotions and existence. Why would Freddy be so moved by a lost kid that resembles the crying child that Michael himself was guarding against William in the Midnight Motorist mini-game secret area? Because he is Michael Afton.