The biggest problem with FNAF is that it has yet to officially end, because, for every new instalment that has been added to the series since the original game, it keepings losing more and more focus of what its original identity even was (there is one caveat to this, but I will get to that later). In FNAF 1, the lore was simple: five children had gone missing and were presumed dead, and, although the suspect was charged, the bodies were never found. As it would turn out, the killer had hidden the bodies in the animatronic suits of the main attractions. As a result of this, the animatronics came to be possessed by the souls of the missing children, which is why they attack the player, in an attempt to get revenge. It was a simple but effective story to not only hook the player into the game but to also provide an explanation for why the animatronics were trying to kill the player. In contrast, what even is the FNAF lore at this point? How did it come to deviate so far from this simple premise, when that premise should have been what took centre stage? Was it not because of that very premise that FNAF got as popular as it is now? The answer is that Scott made the lore too convoluted for the sake of making it convoluted, which resulted in the initial premise being left forgotten in favour of trying to unravel the finer details.
Unlike what many might claim, this trend did not start with Sister Location but started instead as early as FNAF 2. On initial inspection, it would seem like FNAF 2 was destined to be a sequel to FNAF 1. However, when the game was released, this was revealed to not have been the case. FNAF 2 was not a sequel but was instead a prequel to FNAF 1. Although the evidence for why this is the case is certainly definitive, I was never a fan of this being the correct answer, because all it ultimately did was to dilute the story. By introducing this red herring, the story was stripped of all its emotional weight, because instead of treating the tragedy that had occurred in the original game with the respect and gravitas it deserved, like how it was originally treated, all attention was diverted towards what the timeline of event was. Ever since this shift in priority occurred, no one seems to really be able to take the murder of five children seriously, which is a real shame because not only was that the original premise of the entire story but it was also why the original game still has the best atmosphere. This did not happen as a result of Steel Wool taking over production, nor as a result of Sister Location releasing. No, this happened as early as FNAF 2, the second game in the entire series, during a time when the timeline was thought to be much more focused than it is today, when it is supposedly not as focused as it was during the release of FNAF 2.
I do not necessarily intend to put all the blame squarely on Scott, even if it was ultimately his decision to remove focus from the initial premise and to therefore strip the story of all its emotional weight by introducing unnecessarily complex plot points. With that being said, I believe an equally, if not grater blame, could be put on us fans, because the reason Scott decided to make the lore even more convoluted in FNAF 3 was because he realised that we loved FNAF 2 for being more convoluted than FNAF 1. If only we had rejected the lore added in FNAF 2 for being unnecessarily convoluted, Scott would have never tried to make the lore in FNAF 3 even more convoluted than FNAF 2 and would have instead dialled it back to the way it was in FNAF 1. In other words, because Scott wanted to please us, and because we clearly wanted a never-ending mystery, that is what we received, which is why the lore is as convoluted as it currently is and is also the reason why FNAF did not end after UCN: because Scott understood that there was still an unsatiated demand for FNAF lore and, being the kind-hearted person he is, decided to give us exactly what we wanted by continuing the story of FNAF.
It is for these reasons I very much do not like it when people accuse Scott of "milking the series," because that is clearly not the case. I am sure that he likes making bank, and even though Scott has admitted during the first interview he did with Dawko, that the original intention for FNAF 1 was simply to make some extra money to pay the bills with, I do not believe that remained the only or even the most dominant intention for this series after the success of FNAF 1. Because, if all Scott was doing was simply milking the series, then why had he, after the release of FNAF 2, planned to end with the following game? Would he not have tried to milk it harder, instead of ending it when FNAF was at its peak of popularity? If all Scott was wanted was to make more money, why did he, after receiving heavy backlash for FNAF World having been released unfinished, take it down from Steam and request for Steam to allow anyone, regardless of how much they had played, to request a full refund for it, only to, then, release it for free on GameJolt. Also, why would he have released Pizzeria Simulator or UCN for free if he was milking the series? Maybe he was simply happy that, after having spent two whole decades making game without much success, people were finally playing and enjoying his games.
Out of all theories to have been made about FNAF, there is only one that people actively want to not be true: Dream Theory. This is because people thought everything except for FNAF 4 being rendered a dream would render the emotional weight of the first three games insignificant. This is not entirely incorrect, but it is also not defensible. This is because, as I have already explained, FNAF 2 already rendered the emotional weight established in FNAF 1 insignificant by focusing on the timeline rather than the tragedy of the murders. As such, the argument that FNAF 4 rendered the emotional weight of the story insignificant is simply not true. What is, however, true is that FNAF 4 did indeed invalidate the fanbase's efforts in trying to piece together the timeline of the first games, since, if they were nothing more than the product of the Crying Child's nightmares, what was even the point in trying to figure out the timeline? Although I can understand this certain frustration, I frankly do not care. As should be obvious by now, I do not care for the timeline discourse, because it strips the story of its emotional weight, which is bad storytelling, as any writer can attest to, because it makes it basically impossible for people to care about the story and the character. As such, I really do not care if FNAF 4 invalidated the fanbase's efforts in trying to solve the timeline, because that never interested me, in the first place. What peeked my interest in FNAF was how raw FNAF 1 felt, in both its lore and atmosphere. Everything about it, from the animatronics to the settings, feels like a decrepit relic stuck in the past, unable to move on. Then, FNAF 2 and 3 ruined the series by not having this atmosphere and placing all importance on some timeline. But, then, FNAF 4 was released, and it made me care about the story again, precisely because it rendered the timeline irrelevant, which gave the story its much needed emotional weight by making the entire lore of FNAF centred around the tragic life of a small, young child who was being tormented by his older brother during the day for being the only one who was afraid of the animatronics, only to, then, also be tormented by the animatronics he feared in his sleep. There was no rest for him. No escape from the nightmare. And, then, he dies, on his very own birthday, all because he was afraid of the animatronics. In my opinion, there are only three instances of good storytelling in FNAF: FNAF 1, FNAF 4, and Henry's speech in Pizzeria Simulator. The rest is simply not good. Although most do agree that Henry's speech is probably the best piece of writing in FNAF, most also seem to not regard FNAF 1 and 4 with the same level of respect, if any, at all. It seems like most do not care for FNAF 1 because it has already been solved and do not care for FNAF 4 because it convolutes too much (I sure do wonder why). From my perspective, it does not seem like these people care about actual, quality writing, because, if they did, they would also agree with me that FNAF 4's story was good. But they do not, because they do not care about the story or its emotional weight. All they care about is the timeline, which, as I have already admitted, FNAF 4 does indeed render irrelevant, which is why they dislike FNAF 4 and Dream Theory. However, it is also for these reasons I really do not care for the direction Scott decided to take with FNAF when he saw the fanbase's reaction to Dream Theory and realised that what the fanbase want is not a good story but a convoluted puzzle that will never end.
As should be obvious by now, I very much like Dream Theory, and I am glad that it was Scott's original intention for FNAF 4 because that means that I can not only ignore everything that FNAF 2 and 3 introduced to dilute to story but also ignore everything that comes after FNAF 4 and pretend FNAF ended with FNAF 4, like Scott had intended for it to do, before he decided to retcon Dream Theory after the backlash he received for it. What irritates me somewhat is when people try to deny that Dream Theory was ever the original intention for FNAF 4, when it clearly was, only because they hate the thought of it so much that they would rather that the theory had never been canon. To clarify, I do not think Dream Theory is currently canon, nor do I except the reader to change his mind about Dream Theory being bad if he dislikes it, but what I would except the reader to do is to admit, either now or at the end of this section, that Dream Theory was indeed the original intention for FNAF 4 before it was later retconned in Sister Location due to backlash. That is all that I demand.
To understand why this was the case, it would be wise to first provide the reader with some much needed context, since I do not suppose he spends his free time watching decades old videos on FNAF. FNAF 4 was released on July 23rd, 2015. On the 25th August of the same year, Scott would make this post on the Steam forums about the Halloween update for FNAF 4. In the last paragraph, Scott claims that not a single person had managed to solve FNAF 4 before the making of this post, which surprised him, because, his last game, FNAF 3, had been solved within 24h, as a result of data-scraping. I will be returning to this post later (a lot). In response to this post, MatPat decided to host a livestream on September 3rd, and with the help of some of the biggest YouTubers in the FNAF community that he had invited on, hopefully solve FNAF 4. The only problem was that this livestream was riddled with technical difficulties so bad that they never managed to make new grounds or, really, discuss anything. Worse, yet, it was unfortunately never archived. In an attempt to try again, MatPat decided to host a second livestream on September 18th. This livestream, on the other hand, is available on YouTube and is the "livestream" I will be referencing continuously throughout this section of the essay (if you can even call this one section and not simply "the essay" itself). During this, the second, livestream, Scott decided to take pity on them (because there was still technical difficulties) and decided to give them something to chew on by updating his website three times. For each time, Scott made a different statement relating to FNAF 4. When presented with these statements, MatPat postulated a new theory that has come to be known as "Dream Theory," which I strongly recommend the reader to actually watch before reading any further if the last time he watched this video was 10 years ago. This is the origin story of Dream Theory. From this, it is possible to conclude a very important detail that is often times not known: because Dream Theory was presented after Scott made the post claiming that no one had solved FNAF 4, that post could not have been, inter alia, referring to Dream Theory, which means that Scott has never officially debunked Dream Theory, which, alone, refutes 50% of all attempts to "debunk" Dream Theory. This, alone, should also tell the reader the level of logic we are going to be operating on.
However, there are those who still disagree. In this video made by Nickolops, he claims, at 21:58, that because it is possible to find traces of people discussing Dream Theory before Scott made his post, it must mean that Dream Theory cannot be true. Simiarly, I have seen others claim that because some people have speculated that the character we control during the gameplay section could be the Crying Child before Scott made his post, it must mean that Dream Theory cannot be true, because, in-order for Dream Theory to be true, the character we control during the gameplay section must be the Crying Child. The problem with both of these statements is that if absolutely everything stated about FNAF 4 prior to Scott making that post can be deemed "incorrect," then absolutely every single theory about FNAF 4, including the ones that they want to be correct, automatically becomes incorrect. For example, according to those who oppose Dream Theory, the character we control during the gameplay section is not the Crying Child but is instead his older brother. The only problem with this is that, according to their very own logic, because it is also possible to find traces of people speculating that the character we play as during the gameplay section is the older brother before Scott made his post, it must mean that we cannot play as the older brother during the gameplay section. To further demonstrate how flawed their logic truly is, if, as Scott claims, that FNAF 1-3 had been solved but FNAF 4 had not been, and if this means that everything stated about FNAF 4 prior to this post was therefore rendered incorrect, then that must mean that everything stated about FNAF 1-3 prior to this post, including things that obviously make no sense, must also be correct. But does the reader want to know the best part of this entire argument made by Nickolops? It is that, at 38:16, he directly refutes himself by admitting that people were already speculating that we play as the older brother during the gameplay section prior to Scott's post on the Steam forums. What an absolute fucking moron.
What Scott meant by that post was not that everything stated about FNAF 1-3 was correct, only that he had seen a theories that had solved them, like how he mentions how MatPat did an incredible video on FNAF 2. Likewise, what Scott meant by that post was not that everything stated about FNAF 4 was incorrect, only that he had yet to see a theory solve it. For example, in Matpat's first video on FNAF 4, which was released prior to Scott's post, MatPat claims that the character we play as during both the gameplay and mini-game sections cannot be the victim of the bite of '87 because science. The reason why Scott declared this video "wrong" was not because everything MatPat stated in his video was wrong but rather because his general thesis was wrong. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, we do not play as the victim of the bite of '87 but instead as the victim of the bite of '83. Secondly, even though MatPat does claim that the gameplay section of FNAF 4 was a nightmare experienced by the Crying Child, he fails to induce that this suggests that all previous games were nothing more than the product of the Crying Child's nightmares as well. This is true for Nickolops as well. At 22:14, when Nickolops shows the post made prior to Scott's post talking about "Dream Theory," there is no mention of the idea that all the previous games could have also been nightmares. All that is stated is that FNAF 4 is a "coma-induced nightmare." However, if I were to be incredibly pedantic (which I should be allowed to be, since that is how those who oppose Dream Theory treat Dream Theory), although this idea is treated as gospel by the community, it is never actually explicitly stated anywhere in FNAF 4 that the Crying Child is in a coma, only that he is in the hospital. But I digress. What I believe is that what Scott wanted us to figure out was that not only was the gameplay section of FNAF 4 a nightmare experienced by the Crying Child but all other games as well. That is why the three statements made by Scott during the livestream very explicitly hint towards all previous games having been nightmares experienced by the Crying Child, because that was what Scott thought the fanbase had failed to realise. If this were not the case, the reader is more than welcome to try to resolve the objectively impossible logic error in the previous paragraph.
The other, more important aspect to consider is that whilst Scott did indeed directly interact with the fanbase on Reddit back then, it does not mean that Scott was acutely aware of everything that was posted about FNAF on the entire internet. That would simply be absurd. In other words, if someone made a post on an obscure website detailing Dream Theory in a way that would have satisfied Scott, there is absolutely no reason to assume Scott would have seen this, because Scott would not have been able to fine comb the entire internet for a theory that would have solved the lore of FNAF 4 prior to making his post. No, he probably just watched the most popular YouTuber's videos on FNAF, like MatPat and Dawko (both of whom Scott has admitted to watching), read a couple of threads on Reddit, and concluded that no one had solved it. As such, when Scott stated that "no one had solved it," he merely meant "I have yet to see a theory that solves it." To assume he was talking in absolute terms, or that, even if he did not intend to, that his statement should be read in absolute terms, is absurd, because, in-order to do that, you would have to be able to prove that Scott did indeed fine comb the internet before making this post, which is an impossibility. Because, guess what? If even NEETs who do nothing but waste away their lives on a certain Mongolian basket weaving forum cannot even manage to read all the posts made on their homeboard, how do you expect Scott, who had two children and was working on the Halloween update for FNAF 4, to have the time to scour the entire internet? Get real.
As stated in the opening of this section, the original intention for FNAF 4 was Dream Theory, which, then, got retconned by Sister Location. So far, I have disproven the idea that Scott has ever officially debunked Dream Theory, which means that this thesis is, at the very least, not incorrect. However, if what I am attempting to do is to conclusively prove that Dream Theory was the original intention for FNAF 4, having disproven the idea that it was ever officially debunked by Scott is not the same as having proved it to have been the original intention. First and most straightforward of all, if Scott has never officially debunked Dream Theory, has he ever officially confirmed Dream Theory to have been the original intention? No, not explicitly, but he has pretty much confirmed it based on circumstantial evidence. In his first interview with Dawko, Scott explains, at 36:30, that the contents of the box has changed over the years, and that the reason he decided to change the contents of the box was because of people's reaction (to it). Despite not explicitly stating that what he was referring to was the reaction to Dream Theory, it is possible to infer from previous context that he was specifically referring to the reaction to FNAF 4, because, at 34:50, he explicitly states that he was left unsatisfied with the reaction to the story of FNAF 4, since many had expressed their dislike for it. In case the reader is not aware because he was not there at the time, people only started to react negatively to the story of FNAF 4 after the release of MatPat's video on Dream Theory, when it became undeniable that Dream Theory had been the original intention.
Before that, people were simply confused, not unsatisfied, like Scott claimed they had been, because, in-order to become unsatisfied, you first have to learn what the true answer is and realise that no other answer other than it could be the right one. Otherwise, it would simply be possible to keep looking, which the community was no stranger to, even back then. But that is not what people did, because the evidence for Dream Theory having been the original intention was and still is overwhelming in its favour, which left people unsatisfied, because they did not like Dream Theory. But they did not deny it having been the original intention. They simply did not like it. Seeing this, seeing that people had solved the mystery but were unsatisfied with the answer, Scott decided to retcon Dream Theory, because he did not want FNAF (which he had hoped would be well enough received so that the series would have ended on a good note instead of having ended on a bad note, like it had done with FNAF 3, when that was supposed to be the end of the original trilogy) to once again end on a bad note with FNAF 4. If this were not the case, if Dream Theory had not been the original intention, why did Scott not simply leave a comment on the video debunking it, like he had done on MatPat's first vide on FNAF 4? If everyone hated it, and it just so happened to not have been the correct answer, why would Scott not have simply debunked it, if he had wanted the series to end with FNAF 4, instead of having to make an entire new game to retcon a theory that was never the original intention?
It is for these reasons that Scott explains, at 35:59, that he felt the need to ground the lore again, "not necessarily in reality, but I need to ground it in kind of storytelling again." In case it was not already obvious, his desire of wanting to "ground" the story is a fairly pecuilar choice of words if by "ground" he had simply meant, "tell a story that was not 'too broad for interpretation,'" like he claims FNAF 4 had been at 35:13. If, as I believe, Scott's original intention for FNAF 4 was Dream Theory, which is a story that inherently makes the story of FNAF not grounded in reality, since it was all a Dream, it would make sense why he accidentally let the term "ground" slip, only to quickly after correct himself so as to not reveal too much, because, when he was thinking about where FNAF 4 had gone wrong, it would make sense for him to think about Dream Theory, since that was what people were not happy with. This is why he uses the term "grounded," because when he thinks about where he went wrong, it was that the story was not grounded in reality enough, which is why he makes that clarification about "not necessarily in reality," to avoid making it too obvious, despite neither of them having even remotely referenced Dream Theory, because that was what Scott was thinking about, when he was thinking about how he wanted to write a better story that the fanbase would accept.
Despite my intent to, it is impossible to conclusively prove that Dream Theory was the original intention of FNAF 4, and that it was later retconned with the release of Sister Location. The only way to conclusively prove such a thing would be for Scott himself to confirm that FNAF 4 was retconned, which he has not explicitly done. He has, on the other hand, confirmed that theoughout the original fours games, he has only done one retcon, and that this retcon was seamlessly integrated, which means that the retcon he was referring to cannot have been referring to him retconning Dream Theory, because that retcon, as the reader will no doubt soon understand, was not integrated seamlessly, in any capacity whatsoever, but left instead a very distinct mark on the lore. If it was not already obvious, I do not trust Scott when he says that he has only ever done one retcon, because I do not trust that his definition of what a "retcon" is is the same as the standard definition of it. What I think Scott means by retcon is not that he has changed the story, because the story, within the span of the first four games, changed four times, but that he instead wrote something out of the story. For example, I and a large portion of the FNAF community seem to agree that the "seamless retcon" Scott was referring to was that the original killer in FNAF 1 had been charged, because the Purple Guy is still a free man in FNAF 3, which takes place after FNAF 1, despite having allegedly been charged for murder. In this case, Scott did indeed write something that had been established out of the story. To Scott, this is what a retcon is. This is why Scott did not think him retconning FNAF 4 counted as a retcon, because he never contradicted anything that had been explicitly established when he did. Usually, Scott very rarely confirms anything but instead gives us vague clues for us to interpret, but, in one of the many ways FNAF 4 was unique compared to its predecessors, it was even more open ended, which Scott admitted to by referring to it as "too broad for interpretation." This was because, unlike the previous games, due to the lack of a Phone Guy and newspaper clippings acting as an exposition dumps, nothing in FNAF 4 is really confirmed or established. That is why, to Scott, he never retconned FNAF 4 because he never explicitly establishes that FNAF 1-3 were the nightmares of the Crying Child, even if that is what he implied. As such, to Scott, this was not a retcon. It was simply the case of "the contents of the box having changed over time," like it had done when FNAF 2 and 3 were released.
In-order to prove that Dream Theory was retconned, it would need to fulfil two conditions. Firstly, if Dream Theory was retconned, it would have to be able to exist as a probatio diabolica prior to Sister Location and not be able to after it. After all, if Dream Theory was true prior to Sister Location but not after its release, it would have to have been true prior to Sister Location but not after its release. It is pretty straightforward, when you think about it. Secondly, if Dream Theory was retconned, that would imply it was the original intention for FNAF 4 by Scott, which would mean it would have to be the theory to make the most sense contextually, using only evidence from FNAF 1-4. Basically, if Dream Theory was the theory that made the most sense prior to Sister Location but made no sense after it, it is safe to assume Scott retconned it.
Starting with the first conditions, this should not be controversial in the slightest, because it actually is something everyone who opposes Dream Theory admits to being true by virtue of opposing it. For example, according to Dream Theory, the nightmare animatronics are not real but are instead merely nightmares. According to those who oppose Dream Theory, the nightmare animatronics are real but their appearance is altered by nightmare gas to look the way they look. This was determined to be true using evidence obtained from material released after FNAF 4. In other words, prior to Sister Location, the nightmare animatronics could be interpreted as being both real and nightmares, whereas, after Sister Location, the only viable interpretation is that they are real. To provide another example, according to Dream Theory, the room where the gameplay section of FNAF 4 takes place is not corporeally real but is rather a nightmare. According to those who oppose Dream Theory, this room exists corporeally and is not a the product of a nightmare. This is supported using evidence obtained from Sister Location where it is shown that that location is physically connected to the Sister Location bunker. In other words, prior to Sister Location, the gameplay section could be interpreted as being both real and a nightmare, whereas, after Sister Location, the only viable interpretation is that the gameplay section is a physical location, not a nightmare.
Moving on to the second condition, it would firstly be wise to establish what metric is used to decide what theories come to be accepted as being "true" in the FNAF community, because what it important to understand is that, even for most of the universally accepted theories, there is no definitive proof of them being true. It is all based on what makes the most sense contextually. That is the unspoken rule that the FNAF community has been abiding by since FNAF 1 for what determines whether a theory is more true than another. As such, it is possible, using the law of contradiction, to prove Dream Theory makes the most sense, contextually, via a process of elimination. For example, if 100 theories are put to the test, and 99 of them fail to survive under scrutiny, then it is reasonable to assume that the remaining theory is, at the very least, more correct than the other 99 ones. In other words, if Dream Theory successfully manages to account for details and clues that alternative theories are not able to account for, it is reasonable to assume Dream Theory is more internally consistent with FNAF and is therefore closer to what Scott intended for the story to have been. As previously briefly mentioned, this does not mean that Dream Theory has to be able to account for every single detail. It does not need to be perfect. All it needs to be is more correct than every alternative theory for it to be deemed the "most correct" theory, because that is how such a status is determined for every other theory. And, with that established, let the golden slaughter begin, and let us see what theory shall remain after the clock chimes in the end of the nightmare.
During the previously mentioned livestream, Scott made three different statements relating to FNAF 4. These were, "In the FNaF4 minigame, why would the tiny toy chica be missing her beak?," "What is seen in shadows is easily misunderstood in the mind of a child.," and, finally, "Four games. One story." In-order to fully understand their significance, it would be wise to revisit the context of this livestream. As already explained, this livestream was a collaboration between some of the biggest FNAF YouTubers, at the time, to try to solve the lore of FNAF 4, which, according to Scott in his post to the Steam forums, had yet to be solved. It should also be mentioned that this was not merely a happy coincidence. Scott did not just so happen to update his website at the same time as they were streaming. No, he updated his website at that time because they were streaming, as is evidenced by him being in contact with Dawko, who was on the panel, via email. From this, it is possible to infer that the reason Scott made the decision to make these statements was because he was watching the livestream, in the hopes of seeing them finally solving the lore of FNAF 4, only to clearly see that, despite their intention to solve the lore of FNAF 4, they were not even remotely close to being on the right track, because, as Scott would later admit in his first interview with Dawko, at 35:13, it was "too broad for interpretation." That is why Scott decided to intervene during this livestream to hopefully make it less obtuse, in an attempt to help them solve the lore.
When Scott made these statements, he did not make them with the intention of introducing more confusion than there already was about the lore of FNAF 4 by deciding to inconvenience the fanbase further, in a sadistic attempt to troll them during a time when they, as he had declared, had not been able to solve FNAF 4, which, as he would later implicitly admit in the Dawko interview, was not their fault, because it was instead he who had made FNAF 4 "too broad for interpretation," not them. Admittedly, it certainly would not have been entirely out-of-character for Scott to troll them, because he does like trolling the fanbase, but what would have been even more out-of-character for him to do would be to not try to clarify things he thought were not clear enough, as is evidenced by him always trying to clarify or expand upon things introduced in earlier titles in newer titles, and, considering that FNAF 4, prior to the backlash against Dream Theory, had been confirmed to be the final entry in the series, it would make sense for Scott to want to simply make a few clarifications directly to the fanbase instead of making an entirely new game, when he had already confirmed FNAF 4 to have been the last mainline game.
Despite it being obvious that Scott was trying to help them solve the lore, when those who oppose Dream Theory try to refute Dream Theory, they seem to fundamentally misunderstand what Scott's intention with making these statement was. When those who oppose Dream Theory attempt to approach these clues, they seem to regard these statements no as a helping hand, as Scott had intended for them to be, but as an inconvenience, not as an attempt to clear up confusion but as a way to introduce more confusion, not as an attempt to compensate for FNAF 4 having been too broad for interpretation by providing more clues and context but as an attempt to make it even more difficult to interpret. After having watched how these people treat these statements, I am sure, if they could, they would prefer it if Scott would have never even made these statements, because, to them, they are nothing but an inconvenience. Why? Because they hint towards Dream Theory too strongly for it to not have been the original intention. That is why they hate these statements.
But does the reader want to know what would have made these people, who only oppose Dream Theory, not of out intellectual honesty, but simply because they hate it, want to engage with these statements? If the statements had not hinted towards Dream Theory but had instead hinted towards the older brother having been the night guard in all previous games, and if he had been the one we played as during the gameplay section. But that is not what the clues ever hinted towards, because, if they did, these people would have already tried to make that stick. But they have not, which is why they simply choose to deny the existence of these statements, because they know all too well that the only possible conclusion that can be reached from these statements is Dream Theory. So, if Dream Theory was not the original intention and was never retconned, why is it that Scott never made a single statement even remotely hinting towards the older brother having even the slightest relevance if these statements were indeed supposed to clear up confusion, as basically even, even those who oppose Dream Theory, admit?
There are many reasons why Dream Theory was correct. However, if there is one that I find to be particularly telling, it would be that Scott's direct interventions function as clarifications only under a Dream Theory paradigm and as obstacles under every alternative interpretation. In other words, when MatPat originally presented Dream Theory, these statements were not regarded as bumps in the road for him that he tried to avoid or explain away. He instead used them, as Scott had hoped for him to do, as evidence for his theory, Dream Theory. In contrast, when someone tries to debunk Dream Theory or try to present an alternative theory, these statements are not treated as a friendly force of good but instead as something antagonistic that is therefore met with hostility. If Scott was trying to help because he wanted to clear up confusion, he would not have tried to mislead people by introducing more confusion, nor would he have chosen statements that did not very clearly point to the answer he wanted people to arrive at. As such, treating these statements as anything other than an attempt to clear up confusion, like those who oppose Dream Theory do, fundamentally undermines the claim that their alternative interpretations align with Scott’s original intention.
Concerning the statements in-of-themselves, I believe the chronological order in which Scott decided to make them, which is the order I previously arranged them in, is of note, because, when someone wants to make a point, they usually want to state their thesis or strongest point first and foremost, to cover as much ground as is possible, so as to course correct as much as is possible, and to, then, provide supporting arguments to reinforce that initial claim. That is why I believe Scott wanted to first draw attention to why the tiny Toy Chica would be missing her beak, because, to Scott, this clue would most strongly hint at the kind of thinking he wanted them to think along. When people discuss this statement, they seem to fundamentally understand why it was that Scott choose this Easter egg in particular. According to those who oppose Dream Theory, the reason Scott chose to highlight this particular Easter eggs is because he wanted to clarify that Toy Chica was the one responsible for the bite of '87, which I will discuss later. However, I disagree. I think the reason Scott decided to highlight this particular detail is because he wanted those on the livestream to understand that, despite constantly repeating themselves that all Easter eggs had importance, that every Easter egg in the game was important, including the one that seemed the least important and had never really been talked about, the tiny Toy Chica's beak lying on the ground, next to her. What Scott wanted was not necessarily for them to hyper-focus on this Easter egg, ignoring all other Easter eggs in the game, but for them to instead realise that these Easter eggs scattered across the mini-game section, which they kept telling each other were important but never really talked about them, were actually important enough to be the first thing Scott wanted them to take a closer look at. And, when MatPat did that, he realised Dream Theory was true.
However, because Scott only put emphasis on this detail, those who oppose Dream Theory seem to be under the impression that all they have to do to debunk Dream Theory is to provide an alternative explanation for why the tiny Toy Chica would be missing her beak, and that they, for some reason, do not have to account for any other the other Easter eggs, of which there is a multitude of. But they do, actually. Like people seem to be very keen on repeating without really understanding its implication, Scott specifically stated, in his Steam post, that he did not fill FNAF 4 with random Easter eggs "this time." In other words, he decided to include them not because they were meant to be Easter eggs but because they were meant to be clues. For example, if Dream Theory is not correct, then why is a girl holding a plushie of Springtrap in 1983 when Springtrap is, at the absolute earliest, revealed to exist to the public in 2015? Would it not make far more sense if she was holding a plushie of an animatronic that existed during this time period, like Spring Bonnie, instead of a plushie that is depicting a decaying version of Spring Bonnie that has yet to exist? What other possible interpretation of this Easter egg could it be than that it is not supposed to depict Springtrap but is merely the inspiration for him? Why is there a girl spreading rumours about the animatronics being haunted years before the MCI if she is not meant to be the reason why the crying child believes the animatronics are haunted? This is why the only theory that holistically explains all these Easter eggs is Dream Theory. In contrast, like how those who oppose Dream Theory treat the previously mentioned three statements made by Scott, neither do those who oppose Dream Theory treat these Easter eggs as clues to help support their theory but rather as obstacles for their theory being correct, which, if they were not too blinded by their hatred of Dream Theory, should have provided them with a warning that their theory is wrong, because if clues are not treated as clues, then you will end up on the wrong track.
The implications of the second statement, "What is seen in shadows is easily misunderstood in the mind of a child," are also not really understood by anyone, really. Everyone seems to be in agreement that what this means is that the reason the Crying Child is so afraid of the animatronics is simply because he misinterpreted an event, like seeing someone in the shadows, the Purple Guy, stuffing a corpse into an animatronic suit, which is an event that the player can witness in-game, where we can see the Purple Guy helping his coworker putting on his costume. But what people seem to not really understand is what the implications of what this means. If the Crying Child did not actually see someone get stuffed into the animatronics and this was simply something he misinterpreted, why, then, would this be a thing later on? Likewise, as previously asked, if, as it is implied by the second statement that there have been no murders yet, and that what the Crying Child thinks he saw was merely something he misinterpreted to have been a murder, why is there a girl spreading rumours about people being stuffed into the animatronics if there is no basis for this rumour? Also, why is that the only time we ever see the Purple Guy in FNAF 4 is not when he commits murder but when he is simply helping a fellow employee put on his animatronic suit? The problem is, if someone were to simply assume the Crying Child simply misinterpreted something, that the girl was merely spreading a baseless rumour, and that the Purple Guy was simply helping a fellow employee put on his animatronic suit, only for children to later on be murdered and stuffed into animatronic suits by the Purple Guy, then these would be meaningless Easter eggs, merely foreshadowing future events, which, as Scott has officially and very explicitly stated, is not the case. As such, there must be a reason for why these things exist, besides fanservice, which is something only Dream Theory manages to explain. Although, to be fair, memoryvictim does also provide a reason for these existing (but I will get to that later on).
Although I can understand how people did not realise the implications of the previous two statements, I genuinely cannot understand how anyone could look at the third statement, "Four games. One story," and simply conclude that all that Scott wanted to say with this statement, with one of the only three statements he made to help the community solve the lore of FNAF 4, that the individual four FNAF games were not isolated from each other but were instead parts of the same story, because everyone understood this already. I would be genuinely surprised if anyone has ever thought that the FNAF games were not a part of the same story. As already established, these statements were intended to be hints. However, a hint that merely restates of what everyone already knew is not a hint. It is simply a redundant confirmations, and, in this case, utterly useless for helping solve the lore of FNAF 4. Because, then and now, there has never been a debate about whether these games were telling isolated stories, or if they were telling parts of the same overarching story. For example, when FNAF 2 released, the debate was not centred around whether it took place in an alternative universe from FNAF 1, it was instead centred around whether it was a sequel or prequel to FNAF 1. In other words, there was never any confusion about whether the events of these games were connected or not. As such, if Scott knew, from not only having admitted to watching MatPat's theories on FNAF where he covers the timeline and gives precent to the discussion about the timeline but to also praise MatPat for his video on FNAF 2 about the timeline, that there was no confusion about these games taking place in the same universe, as he also saw that the debate during the livestream always implicitly assumed so by asking when and where FNAF 4 took place in relation to the other games, why did he make this statement if he did not wan the fanbase to consider the possibility that the story of these games where not four interconnected stories, like we had assumed before, but that they were instead on and the same story? Like, for example, being the nightmares of a child who is afraid of the animatronics.
In this YouTube video, which I will discuss at further length later on, The Unwithered Truth attempts to provide an alternative interpretation of these clues based not on the actual contents of the statements in-of-themselves but what Scott could have been responding to during the livestream, which is fair enough. However, what he tacitly admits, like everyone else who tries to do this, is that because these clues hint so strongly and obviously at Dream Theory, all they can do to attempt to sweep these statements under the rug is by reducing these clues from being vital clues for solving the lore of FNAF 4 to something that can basically be ignored. But I digress. At 2:21, he argues that the statement, "In the FNaF4 minigame, why would the tiny toy chica be missing her beak?," was an attempt by Scott to clarify that the references to the bite of '87 were not red-herrings, as suggested on the livestream, by hinting towards Toy Chica having been responsible for the bite of '87. This is not necessarily a bad argument. However, it could also be interpreted, as I have, that Scott simply wanted them to actually acknowledge the importance of all the Easter eggs in FNAF 4, and that none of them were red herrings, by highlighting the most overlooked Easter egg of them all. Then, at 3:08, he merely states the second hint, "What is seen in shadows is easily misunderstood in the mind of a child.," and claims that because it was made so soon after the first one, it was meant to be considered along side each other, which I do not necessarily disagree with. The only problem is that he does not provide an alternative explanation for it. In other words, he refutes himself. If these statements are supposed to complement each other, how would a tiny Toy Chica figurine missing its beak referencing the bite of '87 be misinterpreted by a child? If, as The Unwithered Truth claims, that Toy Chica was the one responsible for the bite of '87, how could a child misinterpret an event that actually happened? Also, if these statements are supposed to respond to what they were talking about during the livestream, then why does the second statement not correspond to anything they were talking about? The only time he tries to explain this hint is at 13:05 where he uses his own theory (which there is no evidence for, which I will explain later on) to explain it away. In any case, at 3:24, he claims that what Scott meant by, "Four Games. One story," was that MatPat's theory that FNAF 2 could have been a dream was wrong. The only problem with this is that this could very easily be interpreted as Scott not wanting MatPat to stop at only FNAF 2 and to consider that they could have all been a dream.
FNAF is a community that has always incentivised thinking outside the box and coming up with alternative theories, even if they may not be correct, simply because their existence would naturally generate more discussion, which would, in turn, allow people to gain a deeper understanding of the lore. In other words, there has never been a culture of simply rejecting theories for not being perfect or rejecting theories that contradict the common consensus. On the contrary, these exact theories have always been encouraged to be created and shared. What I therefore find to be rather unfortunate is that when it comes to what FNAF theories are accepted, it seems like the community is, at the very least, willing to entertain all theories, even the most obviously false and ridiculous ones, except for one: Dream Theory. It seems to me that, when it comes to FNAF 4 and Dream Theory, the community seemingly strops, dead in their tracks, to be interested in objectively analysing the puzzle pieces provided by Scott to figure out the true story, which, as I am sure the reader can agree with at this point, was supposed to be Dream Theory, and instead simply try to discredit Dream Theory, regardless of how absurd their arguments or claims might be. But what I also find to be rather interesting is that, despite how much scrutiny Dream Theory has been subjected to, its arguments have never been refuted. That, to me, is very telling, because if any other FNAF theory was ever subjected to as much scrutiny as Dream Theory, they would never have been able to survive. But Dream Theory has. Then again, these theories will never be subjected to as much scrutiny as Dream Theory has been, because the reason people scrutinise Dream Theory to the extent they have is not because they think it is wrong (if they did, they would not care) but rather because they simply hate it.
In this video made by GiBi's Horror Homestead, he tries to debunk the claim that Dream Theory was the original intention for FNAF 4. At 4:27, GiBi shows a few YouTube comments claiming that MatPat's claim that all hospital rooms come equipped with a digital alarm clock is wrong. Before I address this, I quickly wanted to mention that this is not MatPat's first argument for Dream Theory, like how this is GiBi's first argument against Dream Theory. The clock argument is instead MatPat's final argument for Dream Theory, after a series of other arguments. Despite this, those who oppose Dream Theory like to frame this argument as if it was his only argument for Dream Theory, which is intellectual dishonesty, at best, and a flat-out lie, at worst. As will soon become apparent, both GiBi and Nickolops happens to both be intellectually dishonest liars. But I digress. The other problem is that MatPat never really frames this as his "silverbullet" per se. In other words, judging from the way he presents it, MatPat never intended for it to be "the" argument for Dream Theory, that this would be the only argument needed to persuade someone of Dream Theory being true. If this was the case, this would have been the only argument MatPat would have presented in his Dream Theory video. But it is not. There are a lot of other arguments presented in the video. Regardless, the reason MatPat put special emphasis on the clock argument is not because he thought this argument would have been the only argument needed for Dream Theory to have been proven true but rather that, after having been presented with every other argument, it would have been the argument to tip the scales. Basically, it was meant to be the finishing move in a combo attack, not the supplement for the entire combo in-of-itself.
As previously mentioned, GiBi shows a few YouTube comments claiming that MatPat's claim that all hospital rooms come equipped with a digital alarm clock is wrong. My first problem, if I were to be really mean, which I am going to be because that is what those who oppose Dream Theory have been to Dream Theory, is that there is no proof whatsoever that these people either work at hospitals or have intimate knowledge of hospitals besides their claim that they do. In other words, they could simply be lying in an attempt to discredit Dream Theory. However, my actual problem is that neither the claim that all hospitals come equipped with digital alarms clock and the claim that they do not can be proven or disproven without physically going to every hospital in the entire world and checking if they do. Why? Because there are millions of hospitals across the world. Some are older and have older equipment, whereas others are newer and have newer equipment. Some can afford more equipment because of their bigger budgets, whereas others only have a limited amount of equipment due to budget restrains. To therefore claim that every single hospital is the exact same in every single country is beyond delusional because no hospital is the exact same as another, which, not to be too suspicious, is something someone working at a hospital should know. But the more important problem with this logic is to assume that regardless of whether hospitals do come quipped with a digital alarms clock, Scott would have been able to know which one was true. This is simply ridiculous. There is no reason to believe that Scott regularly visits the hospital, like going to Church on Sunday, and for him to therefore be intimately aware of how hospital rooms come equipped. All that matters is how Scott imagined what equipment hospital rooms come equipped with. If Scott imagined hospital rooms to come equipped with a digital alarms clock, then I see no reason to not accept that, in the context of the FNAF universe, hospital rooms come equipped with digital alarms clocks. I am not really sure why this point is particular has invited so much scepticism. Did the suggestion that all hospitals come equipped with digital alarms clock truly shatter everyone's suspension of disbelief in a series with a night guard who is fine working at a place where there are haunted animatronics trying to kill him each night? Really? That was the straw that broke the camel's back? But I digress, because this is completely besides the point.
The point of using a digital alarm clock to signal the end of each night in FNAF 4, like MatPat explain but GiBi ignores, was because Scott did not want to reuse the same chime from his former games produced by a grandfather clock and therefore chose to use its complete antithesis, a digital alarm clock, to signal to the player that the place we were previously in during the previous games is not the place we are currently in. In other words, according to Dream Theory, we are no longer at home but are instead lying in the hospital. Because of this, we are no longer awakened by the sound of a grandfather clock chime at 6 AM, like in FNAF 1-3, but are instead awakened to the sound of a digital alarm clock, since we are no longer able to hear the chime of the grandfather clock. If Scott did not intend for this to be the case, why would he use a different sound, when there is a grandfather clock standing outside the Crying Child's room, as seen in the mini-game section? If the Crying Child is not in the hospital during the gameplay section of FNAF 4, why would the grandfather clock not chime at 6 AM, like it had done in the previous games? Why would there be another sound? But more on that later. The alarm clock is not necessarily meant to be taken literally (assuming, of course, that Scott did not think hospital rooms do, in fact, come equipped with digital alarm clocks). It is merely meant to be taken as a cultural shorthand, like how a room having white, brick walls typically signals it being a hospital or psych-ward. In this case, the clinical and almost hostile chirping of the digital alarm clock is meant to signify that the character we are playing as is no longer at home and is therefore unable to hear the warm and domestic chime of the grandfather clock right outside his room. Like how the player had been conditioned to associate the chime of a grandfather clock signalling the end of each night, the player had come to recognise this sound as something familiar and as an insurance of safety, because, once it chimes, the night is over, and the animatronics can no longer harm the player. As such, when the player, excepting to once again hear the chime of a grandfather clock after having not only been conditioned to except to hear one at the end of each night but also because they had seen one when flashing their light down the hallway, is instead greeted with a foreign sound, it no longer invokes the same associations of familiarity and safety, like the chime of the grandfather clock did. If this had simply not been obvious to GiBi, that would have been fine, but, at 9:04, he actually admits that the reason Scott used a flatline track to signal the Crying Child dying, despite this not being a thing (I have no idea if this is true, to be honest), is because it is not meant to be taken literally but instead symbolically.
The problem with this video is not that GiBi is too stupid to make good arguments or even understand his opponent's arguments. No, the problem with the video is that I cannot trust anything GiBi says because he proves himself to be a liar in his very own video, for absolutely no reason, by claiming, at 8:16, that the grandfather clock outside the Crying Child's bed room, as seen in both the gameplay and mini-game section, is not a grandfather clock. Initially, I did not intend to dedicate an entire paragraph to this obvious lie, but, then, when I watched Nickolops video, I noticed that he also tried to claim that the grandfather clock shown in the game is not a grandfather clock. Not to mention that because no one in either of their comment section tried to correct them or accused them of being either blind or lying, I can only assume everyone who watched their video hated Dream Theory so much that they are willing to ignore reality if it means being able to discredit Dream Theory, which is insane, because that means I can no longer not only not trust anything GiBi says at face value but Nickolops, too, as they have, for no seemingly good reason, proven themselves to be intellectually dishonest liars. In any case, according to both, the grandfather clock outside the Crying Child's room is not a grandfather clock but is instead a wall-mounted clock, because we cannot see its fully body, in a pitch-black hallway, with a deliberately sharp contrast between that is lit up and what is not, when the grandfather clock is standing at the very end of the hallway, blending it in with the shadows. Of course, that makes perfect sense... Except for the fact that it does not. If, as they claim, that it is only possible to conclude what something is if it is fully lit up, with no shadows whatsoever, then there is nothing in FNAF they can use as arguments for anything, because everything in FNAF is covered in shadows or some sort of distortion. Even so, someone on Reddit found the exact asset Scott had used for the grandfather clock, which, to the surprise of absolutely fucking no one with functioning eye-sight that is no an intellectually dishonest liar, revealed it to be a grandfather clock. However, even assuming it to be a wall-mounted clock, why would Scott purposefully include one if it had absolutely no bearing on the story, especially when considering there is clearly a grandfather clock down the hallway from the Crying Child's room, as shown in the mini-game section of FNAF 4?
Admittedly, there is indeed a digital alarm clock in plain view, standing on a drawer. With that being said, I think this is a red herring, for a number of reasons. First of all, if the clock chime has no significance to the overall story and is only meant to signal in the end of the night, why would Scott have changed it from a grandfather clock to a digital alarm clock? No one, prior to FNAF 4, even batted an eye why a grandfather clock signalled the end of each night in the previous three games, when there was no grandfather clock in sight in any of those games, because everyone understood that all it was meant to do was to signal in the end of the night. If that was also all that the digital alarm clock in FNAF 4 was meant to do, why would Scott have bothered to change it? However, even assuming he actually just wanted to change the grandfather clock to a digital alarm clock for no reason whatsoever, why would he, out of the few pieces of furniture and details in the game, decide to specifically place a grandfather clock outside the Crying Child's bedroom both in the gameplay and mini-game section, if he did not want us to think it was strange that the end of the night was signalled in by a digital alarm clock instead of the grandfather clock right outside the bedroom, like how it had been in all previous games? If this grandfather clock had no significance, it would not have been included in the game, but it was, which means that its inclusion does mean something. After all, in his post to the Steam forum, Scott clarified that he did not fill the game with random Easter eggs.
At 5:05 and in this new video, he claims that FNAF 4 was never intended to be the last game, despite Scott having confirmed on numerous occasions that FNAF 4 was indeed supposed to have been the final game and that the only reason it was not was because of the backlash he received for it. For example, in this post on Reddit, Scott writes, "I had originally wanted FNaF 4 to be the end but wasn’t satisfied with what people took away from it." And in this update to FNAF 4 on Steam he wrote, "It's very important for me to say again that there will NOT be a Five Nights at Freddy's 5. The story is complete, and the Halloween update and new game will not add to it." Funnily enough, at 14:20 in his new video, GiBi actually references references a post made by Scott that specifically states that FNAF World was going to be the last game and comments, "It is pretty black and white that he's saying that the series is going to end with FNAF World." In other words, he refutes not only this new video but his entire video on Dream Theory all by himself. Thank you, GiBi. Very cool.
At 5:48, he shows a clip from Dawko's first interview with Scott but fails to provide a timestamp (it is at 15:50). During the clip he shows, Scott is talking about how he, during the development of FNAF 2, had already picked out the general aesthetic and theme of the third, fourth, and fifth game. However, he mentions nothing about the lore. To therefore assume, like Gibi does, that Scott had the lore planned out for Sister Location is a massive overreach with no evidence to support it, because all that Scott is talking about are the general aesthetics. Scott even even states, at 16:55, that apart from having picked out the aesthetics, he had nothing else planned for them. As a writer myself, I have many ideas about future content. Some of it makes it into the final draft. Some does not. Sometimes I combine multiple essay into one. Other times I divide one essay into two. Sometimes I have an idea and it becomes an essay. Other times I discard of it. Scott could have had an idea about what type of game FNAF 5 could have been during the making of FNAF 2 but during the creation of FNAF 4 (and 3) decided to not materialise it, because he had already told the story he had wanted to tell. In other words, simply because you happen to have an idea does not mean you have to or even will turn that into a something. Any writer would be able to attest to this, even GiBi himself, who I am sure has had many ideas about possibles videos he could make, but who most likely has not turned every single idea of his into a video. Basically, just because Scott had a vague, general idea about the potential of a fifth game that is now known as Sister Location does not imply that his original intention for the story that Sister Location ended up telling was planned out when he was making FNAF 2 and never changed. As a matter of fact, to claim that Scott has never altered any of his games in response to criticism is denying reality. FNAF 4 trying incredibly hard to be scary was born out of Scott's desire to prove to the fanbase that he can make scary games, after the fanbase had criticised Sprintrap's jumpscare in FNAF 3 for not being scary. And FNAF 5 having an incredibly overt storytelling instead of the usual cryptic way Scott had told his stories before was done in response to the fanbase thinking FNAF 4 was too cryptic. If Scott had planned out the games when he was making FNAF 2 and did not delineate from what he had planned out when making FNAF 2, none of these changes would have happened. It should also be mentioned that if, as GiBi believes, that Scott had the entire timeline planned out when he was making FNAF 2, why did Scott not mention FNAF 6? In case the reader was not aware, the story does not end at Sister Location. It ends at Pizzeria Simulator. As such, when GiBi later, at 6:26, concludes that because FNAF 5 was planned out all along, and because Sister Location refutes Dream Theory, that must mean that Dream Theory was never the original intent of FNAF 4, there is nothing to support this. FNAF would have ended at FNAF 3 if not for the backlash it received for not being scary, and FNAF 4 would have been the final chapter if not for the backlash to Dream Theory. In other words, nothing GiBi says could ever possibly mean that Sister Locaton did not retcon Dream Theory.
From this point onwards, GiBi tries to use evidence from the later title to debunk that the original intention for FNAF 4 was Dream Theory, despite this, as I have already explained, being nothing short of an admittance that the only theory all the available evidence from FNAF 1-4 support is Dream Theory, and that the only way to explain the events of FNAF 4 with an alternative theory is by relying on evidence from later titles, after FNAF 4 had been retconned by Sister Location so that Sister Location could exist. In other words, he is trying to use evidence that was deliberately crafted to contradict Dream Theory to disprove Dream Theory. Great. Regardless of this, there are a few problems that I nevertheless want to address, even if there is absolutely no need for me to even remotely entertain anything past this point in the video, which should speak volume, because I am not even at the half-way point of it yet. Namely, I want to properly refute his claim at 9:15 that the character we control during the gameplay section of FNAF 4 is not the Crying Child but is instead the Crying Child's older brother. And, no, I will not even be referring to the older brother by his name given to him in Sister Location, because there is no evidence of that being his name in FNAF 4, nor is there any evidence to support the claim that he is the character we control during the gameplay section of FNAF 4. As a matter of fact, not only is there not even the faintest shred of evidence that the character we control during the gameplay section is the older brother, every detail present in the gameplay section directly refutes this claim to the point that the only possible way someone could ever consider this possibility be true is if they had simply never played FNAF 4.
Simply from the way the character we control during the gameplay section moves about the room, like how the camera (the perspective of the character) is only able to reach up to the door knob and how it takes him a considerable amount of time to run back and forth, from place to place, as a result of having short legs, it is ridiculously obvious that he is supposed to be short. In other words, it is very obvious that we are playing as the Crying Child and not the older brother, because the older brother is clearly taller than the Crying Child, as shown during the mini-game section of FNAF 4. For what reason would Scott decide to make the older brother noticeably taller than the Crying Child, whilst also making it incredibly obvious that whoever we control during the gameplay section of FNAF 4 is short, if not for the purpose of signalling that we are supposed to be playing as the Crying Child, not the older brother? If the character we are controlling is supposed to be the older brother, and if the older brother is supposed to be roughly twice as tall as the Crying Child but only half the height of a door, then that would mean that the Crying Child would have to be one quarter the height of a door tall, which would make him roughly stand at a whopping 50 cm, the height of a 1-year-old. This is obviously absurd, which is why it is not the case. Not to mention that it is shown, during the mini-game section, that the Crying Child is allowed to walk around unsupervised, and that the Crying Child is able to walk around, on his own, without trouble. Neither of which a 1-year-old would be allowed or even able to do. It is also not true that the Crying Child and his older brother are simply that much short than their contemporaries, because the Crying Child is the same height as all other children scattered across the mini-game section, and the older brother is the same height as his friends. In other words, they are the same, normal height as everyone else, who we can only assume are meant to be of average height, because there is no evidence to suggest anything else, and because them being of average height is the assumption that makes the most sense in the absence of evidence to the contrary, in a series without a track record of people being either extremely short or extremely tall. As such, it would be far more reasonable, from both a common sense perspective and contextual evidence found in FNAF 4, to assume that the Crying Child is the character we are playing as during the gameplay section of FNAF 4.
At 7:19, he mischaracterises Dream Theory and tries to frame it as being something that it is not. He claims that, according to Dream Theory, after the Crying Child is bitten, he is moved home instead of being directly taken to the hospital. It is here he dreams of FNAF 1-3. This is simply another instance of GiBi being an intellectually dishonest liar. What Dream Theory actually proposes is that the Crying Child dreams of FNAF 1-3 before getting bitten, before getting sent to the hospital. This imaginary interlude between the bite and the hospital does not exist. It was simply something GiBi made up to make Dream Theory appear to be incorrect by appearing as too convoluted, because he is a pathological liar. But I digress. He, then, tries to claim that the gameplay section of FNAF 4 (which, according to Dream Theory, is a nightmare, as is evidenced by the fact that the animatronics are called the "nightmare animatronics") does not correspond to the physical layout of the house, as shown during the mini-game section of FNAF 4. This is not an incorrect observation, but is also does not contradict anything that Dream Theory claims. According to Dream Theory, the reason why the Crying Child's bedroom has a different layout during the gameplay section compared to the mini-game section is simply because it is a nightmare, which does not need to operate on the same logic as reality, nor does it need to correspond to what is true in "real life," which would be the mini-game section in the context of FNAF 4. In contrast, if this was supposed to be the older brother's bedroom, then why is there a grandfather clock down the hallway from the bedroom in the gameplay section, when the only bedroom in the house where opening the door and looking down the hallway would allow one to see a grandfather clock directly facing oneself is the Crying Child's bedroom, not the older brother's? Why would Scott decide to include this detail in both the mini-game and gameplay section of the game, and for them to line up with each other, if he did not want us to deduce that the bedroom we find ourselves in during the gameplay section is supposed to belong to the Crying Child, and that we are supposed to be playing as the Crying Child during both sections of the game?
At 9:30, GiBi claims that the older brother is experiencing these nightmares sometime before the events of FNAF 3. There is no evidence for this, and, although GiBi does not claim it in this video, from what I could find, there is also no evidence to support the claim made by Nickolops in his video, at 32:46, that we play as the older brother experiencing nightmares about what he did to his brother, or that the Crying Child's soul is influencing the older brother's nightmares, like people have also tried to claim. What is actually funny is that, by admitting that the only way to explain how the older brother could possibly be the one we play as during the gameplay section is by claiming that we play as the older brother dreaming about him being the Crying Child, the entire arguments becomes nothing short of a tacit admission that nothing in the entire game even remotely hints at the possibility of us playing as the older brother during the gameplay section. Admittedly, it could still work, at least in theory, if there was any evidence of this level of absurdity. But there is none. All evidence for this is borrowed from later titles. In any case, using only evidence from FNAF 4, if the older brother is the character we control during the gameplay section, like it should be possible to prove if he had indeed intended to have been the character we play as during the gameplay section, why is he fending off the nightmare animatronics? Is it because he is afraid of them to the point of having nightmares about them? No, because it is never shown throughout the game that he is afraid of the animatronics. As a matter of fact, he is shown to be actively bullying the Crying Child for being afraid of the animatronics, which would suggest that he finds the Crying Child's fear of the animatronics to be unfounded. If the older brother was also afraid of the animatronics, why would be bully the Crying Child for being afraid of the animatronics? Would he not express sympathy for his fears instead? As such, if it is not a nightmare, then the gameplay section could only be real... right? No, of course not. Why would the owner of Fazbear Entertainment, who make animatronics for the purpose of making their establishment seem more friendly to children, decide to make animatronics that serve the explicit opposite purpose of that? And, no, there is no evidence for the claim that these animatronics were built to kill or capture children, because the statement, "What is seen in shadows is easily misunderstood in the mind of a child," implies that there have been no murders, and that whatever it was that the Crying Child think he saw to make him scared of the animatronics was simply a misunderstanding. As such, it would make for more sense for the character we play as to be the Crying Child having nightmares about being attacked by the animatronics he fears in his own home, since he is afraid of them and also because he does not feel safe at home, because of his older brother's constant torment. That is, after all, the very reason he Nightmare animatronics lift our character up into the air when we get jumpscared, because the way the Crying Child was sent to the hospital was by getting lifted up into the air by his bullies, stuffed into the mouth of Fredbear, and, then, bitten.
I wanted to use this as an excuse to refute any lingering counter-arguments. At 18:06, GiBi makes the claim that because Scott included a reference to Dream Theory in UCN and treating it as a joke, alongside other commonly known crack-pot theories, that it must mean that Dream Theory was never true. Ignoring the fact that GiBi has yet to present a single argument that hold even a droplet of water, this could simply have been Scott wanting to distance himself from it by trying to portray it like it was never true, or it could simply have been self-deprecating humour. Then, at 13:34, he claims that Dream Theory is not true because a child would not be aware of the exact changes in minimum wage, years after his death, which is a fair point. However, this ignores the fact that Dream Theory was not the original story of the FNAF trilogy. Before FNAF 4, when only FNAF 1-3 existed, there was nothing to support Dream Theory being true. But when FNAF 4 was created as an attempt to compensate for the lacklustre horror in FNAF 3, there was suddenly evidence to support it. In other words, just like how Sister Location retconned FNAF 4, so, too, did FNAF 4 retcon FNAF 1-3. Likewise, just like how many Easter eggs in FNAF 4 can only be explained under a Dream Theory paradigm but make no sense after the release of Sister Location, so, too, will details, like the pay-check and phone-calls, simply not make sense, because Scott retconned them. In any case, there is no reason for me to further engage with this video, because he is not even engaging with the actual contents of FNAF 4. All he does is use evidence from later games, when FNAF 4 had been retconned, to disprove it. My favourite part of the video is when he, at 13:49, claims that the statements Scott made to try to guide the fanbase unto the right track do not actually need to have an answer... are you even hearing yourself talk? Because that is how everything stated in this video makes me think, like there was no thought behind anything at all.
Returning to Nickolops's video linked in the beginning of this section, at 30:45 he makes the claim that his entire thesis essentially hinges on the phone call heard in the background during the gameplay section. There are more detail than this explored in the video, but I have already refuted all of those, and now I am going to refute this one as well. The phone call heard in the background is the same phone call that plays during the first night in FNAF 1. Although heavily distorted, it is undoubtedly the same phone call. According to Nickolops, if, as I, too, agree with, FNAF 4 takes place in 1983, how, then, is it possible for the Crying Child, who dies that same year, to hear a phone call referencing the bite of '87, an incident that takes place 4 years after his death? From this, he concludes that because it would be impossible for the Crying Child to hear this phone call, it would be impossible for him to be the character we control during the gameplay section, which means that the character we control must be the older brother, which I have already refuted.
The problem with this train of logic is not that it is illogical. It does make sense, if FNAF 4 was always supposed to take place in 1983 and not 1987. In case the reader was not aware, in most of the teasers leading up to the release of FNAF 4, the different animatronics were displayed with the caption, "Was it me?," which everyone at the time suspected to have been referring to whether they were the one responsible for the bite of '87, since that was the only question in the entire lore, during that time, that had yet to be fully answered. Also, in this video by DJ Sterf, he makes the discovery that all of the bullies in FNAF 4 have "87" in their hex code. In particular, the older brother's hex code is "787878," which, in combination with "87" appearing in Foxy's eye in one of the teasers, would suggest Foxy was responsible for the bite of '87. Needless to say, for a game about the bite of '83, there sure are a lot of references to the bite of '87, would the reader not agree? I believe that the reason all these references exist in both the teasers and the game is because FNAF 4 was originally meant to take place in 1987 but was changed to 1983 last minute, for reasons I will discuss soon. Otherwise, their inclusion would simply not make sense.
The counter-argument to this is that it would simply have been too much trouble for Scott to have completely altered a game that was originally supposed to take place in 1987 into a game that takes place in 1983, especially since the hidden reference to "87" in the html for Scott's website only changed to "83" 2 mere days before release. There are two main problems with this. Firstly, it is very obvious Scott made no attempt to remove any references to 1987. After all, the older brother and his friends still all have "87" in their hex codes. Secondly, the only reference to 1983 in the entire game is a brief TV segment, which looks like it was made in less than 5 minutes, and, correct me if I am wrong, the last time I checked, 2 days is a lot longer than 5 minutes. As such, I think it is safe to say that Scott, judging from what clues there are in the game hinting at FNAF 4 taking place in 1983, would have been able to make this last minute change. But what I find particularly telling that this was indeed a last minute change is due to the fact that Scott explicitly had to spell out the date instead of leaving breadcrumbs for us to figure it out, like he had done in his other games. In FNAF 1 and 2, we figured out the date by comparing the minimum wage of each year to the amount we earned by the end of the week. And we have not even really been able to figure out what year FNAF 3 takes place in, only that it takes place 30 years after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed its doors. But, then, FNAF 4 comes out, after having been teased to take place in 1987, only for something that could have been made in 5 minutes explicitly state that the game takes place in 1983. Seems, to me, like a desperate, last minute change to correct course. But what do I know about writing stuff last minute (I release pretty much all my essays as soon as I finish them)?
But why did Scott decide to change the date from 1987 to 1983? I am not certain, but I do have my suspicions. FNAF 4 was supposed to be the final chapter. But, more importantly, it was supposed to be a game that the fanbase would not have trouble accepting as the final chapter, like we had had with FNAF 3. And what was it about FNAF 3 that led to many disliking it? That Springtrap's jumpscare was not scary enough. So, when Scott began to work on FNAF 4, like he explains at 32:17 during the Dawko interview, he began with the modelling of the nightmare animatronics and their jumpscares, before working on anything else. However, because he wanted to make sure that they were scary enough to please the fanbase, he spent a lot longer on them that he had done on the previous animatronics. Compared to the animatronics of the first two games, when it only took him 1 day to make one animatronic, it took him 1-2 weeks to make one nightmare animatronic. However, as he would later realise, because he had spent so much time working only on making sure that the game would be scary, he had forgotten that what the fanbase wanted was not only a scary game but also a good story, which he had not spent equally enough time working on. In other words, he released that the lore would not be able to satisfy the fanbase, which he could not allow, because FNAF 4 was meant to be a perfect final chapter to the series. Originally, Scott had intended for FNAF 4 to contextualise the bite of '87, because that was the only part of the mystery that had yet to be answered. However, when Scott saw that the fanbase had already gotten all their answers from the teasers, as it was fairly obvious Foxy was meant to be the one responsible for the bite of '87, he released that the current story would not been a difficult enough puzzle to satiate the fanbase's desire for a harder and harder puzzle. Because of this, he decided to change the date to 1983, so that it would be a different bite, the bite of '83.
If this were not the case, if FNAF 4 was not originally meant to take place in 1987, only for Scott to change it to 1983 last minute, why is it that, before he finally settled on 1983, he released two teasers that mention 1982, a date that is never mentioned anywhere in the entire game? If FNAF 4 was always meant to take place in 1983 and the 1987 references are merely red herrings, then why was 1982, a date not found in the game or the entire franchise at that point, mentioned in two of the later teasers, after Scott had already released all the 1987 teasers? Obviously, because there are no references to 1982 in the entire game, it would seem as if Scott had first decided to change the date from 1987 to 1982 but later settled on 1983, for unknown reasons. After all, this is not the first time something shown in the teaser to a FNAF game did not make it to the final product. For example, in the teaser for FNAF 1, Bonnie is shown to both run down the hallway, like Foxy ended up doing, and remove his face before presumably jumpscaring the player, which Bonnie does not do in FNAF 1.
It is for these reasons I believe the distorted FNAF 1 phone called heard during gameplay section is merely a remnant from when FNAF 4 was supposed to be about the bite of '87, like how the older brother and his friends still have "87" in their hex codes, suggesting that they were the ones responsible for the bite of '87. It could have also not have had any meaning. After all, Nickolops mention how it is possible to hear a dog barking in the background as well, but does he ever explain what the meaning behind this dog bark is? No. It could have merely been Scott reusing an asset, which would explain why he decided to distort it, so that people would not be able to recognise it. Assuming this was the case, it would also explain why Scott decided to chose this exact phone call. If the reader were Scott, and he wanted to reuse a phone call, what would the first track come to mind? The one for night 3 in FNAF 2? Or the very first phone call in the entire series, the one for night 1 in FNAF 1, the one Scott choose to use as background noise, like how we can hear a dog barking.
If this were not the case, if the phone call was neither merely some background noise or a remnant from when the game was supposed to be about 1987, and it was supposed to be the clue that solves FNAF 4, as Nickolops claims it is, then why did Scott not mention anything about it during the livestream? Assuming Scott wanted to help them solve the lore of FNAF 4, and assuming the older brother was supposed to originally have been the one we control during not only the gameplay section of FNAF 4 but to have been the one we play as in all other titles, why did Scott not provide anything hinting towards this? If this was what Scott wanted us to figure out all those years ago, why did he not even try to make us think along those lines once he decided to intervene? Why did he decide to, assuming this was the original intention, make three statements about things that Nickolops admit amount to nothing, if Scott wanted to help us solve the lore of FNAF 4? And when someone in chat who went under the alias of Scott Cawthon asked if they had thought of who the night guard was at 1:27:26, Scott decided to email Dawko and clarify that anyone claiming to be him in chat was an imposter at 1:32:56. If the original intention was for the older brother to have been the night guard, would Scott not have said something along the lines of, "Anyone commenting in chat is fake. With that said, have you thought about who the night guard is?," instead of merely debunking its validity? Clearly, he did not want them to go astray trying to figure out who the night guard was, because that was not what Scott wanted them to do.
In the previously mentioned video made by The Unwithered Truth, he claims that Dream Theory was neither retconned nor the original intention, and that what was actually Scott's original intention for FNAF 4 was that the reason the Crying Child sees the various Easter eggs in FNAF 4 is because he needs to see them for all future events of FNAF to happen. In other words, synchronicity. This theory is known as "memoryvictim." Alternatively, the standard version of this theory simply states that the Crying Child's memories influence future events. There is another, thinking along similar lines, called "loopvictim," which states that the events of FNAF keep looping, and that the reason the Crying Child sees stuff from the future is because they bleed into his looping memories. The problem with all of these theories is that there is nothing in FNAF 4 to support any of them. What evidence is there to support that the reason the Crying Child sees the various Easter eggs in FNAF 4 is because he needs to see them for all future events of FNAF to happen? None. What evidence is there that the Crying Child's memories influence future events? None. What evidence is there to support that time is looping? None. If any of these theories is what Scott had originally intended, why did he not, during the livestream hosted by MatPat, provide a statement that would have hinted at one of them having been true? If, as Scott admitted, FNAF 4 was too broad for interpretation, and his intention with providing these statements was to make things clearer, why did he not try to make things clearer by providing hints towards one of these theories, if one of them was the original intention? Because they are obviously not true, since there is not even the faintest shred of evidence to support their validity, using only evidence from FNAF 1-4.
All that these theories are is Dream Theory for people who hate Dream Theory. The Unwithered Truth even tacitly admits this, at 4:26, when he explains that the problem with Dream Theory is not that the evidence does not support it but that is was simply the wrong conclusion drawn using the right evidence (because reasons), which is a fair statement, because he, at least very least, acknowledges that the evidence supports Dream Theory being true, but the problem, ironically enough, with his claim is that there is no evidence for this other conclusion being correct, as I have already explained. On the other hand, there is evidence for Dream Theory to have been the original intention. There is no evidence for the reason the Crying Child sees the various Easter eggs in FNAF 4 is because he needs to see them for all future events of FNAF to happen, but not only is there a precedent of the Crying Child having nightmares about the animatronics because he is scared of them, there is also evidence of the Crying Child's memories of what he sees during the mini-game section inspiring his nightmares. For example, as already explained, the reason the Nightmare animatronics, which are inspired by the older brother and his friends tormenting the Crying Child by wearing the masks of the classic animatronics, lift the Crying Child into the air when they jumpscare him is because this is inspired by them lifting the Crying Child into the air and force him into the mouth of Fredbear. As such, it would not be a stretch to assume that other things in the mini-game section would inspire the Crying Child's nightmares, which is why Scott hinted at this being the case by asking, "In the FNaF4 minigame, why would the tiny toy chica be missing her beak?"
Also, so that I properly refute all of these pathetic attempts at theories, no, shattervictim is not true, because, not only is there no evidence to support that the memories of the Crying Child was scattered across the classic animatronics, it utterly fails to account for the evidence used by Dream Theory to support it, which loopvictim and memoryvictim, at the very least, are well realised enough to do. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support their conclusions. And, with that, I have now fulfilled the second condition of refuting every single worthwhile theory to engage with and can therefore confidently conclude that the only theory that remains standing is Dream Theory.
...What do you think, everyone?
So, what was in the box?. Nothing. I am sorry to disappoint, but there was never meant to be anything in the box. It was merely a metaphor for how the answer to FNAF had been stored away. That is why Scott was able to say that "the contents how the box has changed" because the answer to FNAF 4 has changed as well, since Scott retconned Dream Theory.
As has been referenced previously, Scott explained in his interview with Dawko that FNAF 4 was too broad for interpretation. In my sub-section about the three statements, I explained that what I think Scott meant by this was that base FNAF 4 was too broad for interpretation, because it alone was not enough for the fanbase to make the connection that all previous games had been the nightmares of the Crying Child, not only the gameplay section of FNAF 4. To combat this, Scott made his three statements, which strongly hinted towards the previous three games having been nightmares, that the animatronics were not haunted, and that no murders had occurred. However, I do not think this is the full scope of what Scott wanted to accomplish with FNAF 4. In short, I do not think Dream Theory, as presented by MatPat in his video on Dream Theory, was able to answer all questions posed in FNAF 4. For example, MatPat had no answer for what the Crying Child's Fredbear plushie was supposed to be and instead simply resorted to jokingly calling him "psychic friend Fredbear." In other words, he simply ignored the Fredbear plushie. I believe that FNAF World was an attempt to answer the still unresolved question of what the Fredbear plushie was supposed to be by Scott after having seen that not even MatPat was able to answer this question. Unfortunately, despite the fact that MatPat did indeed play FNAF World, he never made a video about it, trying to solve it. If the first part of this section was meant to be a defence of Dream Theory, then this last part of it will be an attempt to answer all remaining questions about FNAF 4, from the perspective of Dream Theory.
Some argue that the reason Crying Child's sister's room is empty is because she is dead and that her soul possess the Fredbear plushie. I do not agree with this theory simply because there is no evidence for it. There is no reason to believe that she is dead simply because her room happens to be empty. All that means is that she is not at home. Any other conclusion about her is pure speculation with little to no evidence. With that being said, it is certainly possible that the girl playing outside their house, outside the empty girl's room, is supposed to be her, because both her toys outside and her toy inside are broken, which would suggest that they have the same owner, an owner who does not care if her toys are broken, as can be inferred since her text, "Why are you crying? Don't you like my toy collection?," does not mention anything about how her toys are broken but seems to instead suggest that she is quite proud of them, despite her tiny Toy Chica figurine missing its beak. But I digress. The point I am trying to make is simply that there is no evidence for the initial claim, only speculation without evidence.
The second problem with the theory are its implications. If we are to accept that the reason the Crying Child is afraid of the animatronics is because he witnessed his sister get stuffed into a suit, it would directly contradict Scott's second statement suggesting that the reason the Crying Child is afraid of the animatronics is because he misinterpreted some he saw in the dark. It is heavily suggested from something that looks like hair sticking out of an empty suit, and from Purple Guy helping an employee put on his suit in a dark, staff-only room, that the Crying Child thought he saw someone get stuffed into a suit, only for this to not have been the case. As such, as is somewhat rare, unlike Dream Theory, this theory was actually debunked by Scott himself, because, in-order for it to be true in the first place, the Crying Child could not have misinterpreted this event. For it to be true, the Crying Child would have had to correctly interpret seeing his sister get stuffed into a suit, but, as should be obvious, this is clearly not the case.
The third problem, like with the second problem, is that the "real world" as shown in the mini-game section of FNAF 4 is clearly supposed to not have "hauntings," since every time something along those lines is referenced, it is very obvious that it is not real. For example, rumour the girl spreads about the animatronics being haunted because the corpses of dead children are stuffed inside them is simply that: a rumour, because the only time we see this happen is when the Purple Guy is simply helping an employee put on his animatronic suit, which as I have already explained multiple times by now, implies that that rumour is not true.
The evidence people typically use to prove that the Fredbear plushie is possessed by someone's soul is that its eyes are white dots on black, which is believed to be an indication for an animatronic being possessed by a soul, since that is how many of the possessed animatronics sometimes look, which is fair. However, whilst I do not necessarily disagree that the Fredbear plushie does not possess a will on its own (I will get to this in a moment), separate from the Crying Child, I fail see what evidence there is for a soul to possess the Fredbear plushie, given that there is none.
It should also be noted that the Fredbear plushie sold by Sanshee, which is often times cited as proof of the Fredbear plushie indeed being possessed, since it advertises the Fredbear plushie as the "Possessed Fredbear Plush," is not proof of what the original intention for the Fredbear plushie to have been, since this item, along with a few other plushies, was first announced on February 21th, 2016, after the release of the first version of FNAF World on January 21st, 2016, which I think should be regarded as the cut-off date for when Scott decided to retcon Dream Theory, since every game released before then supports Dream Theory, whereas everything released after does not.
There are some that argue that the sister is not the girl playing with the Toy figurines but is instead the girl with pigtails, spreading rumours about the animatronics being haunted, because, as DJ Sterfs uncovers in his video, the colour of her dialogue is the same as the colour of the dialogue the Fredbear speaks in during the Crying Child's final moments in the hospital, when one would expect to be surrounded by family. There are two problems with this argument. Firstly, when talking to her it is implied by, "See you at the party!," that the next time the pigtailed girl will most likely see the Crying Child is at his birthday party, which would not make much sense if they lived in the same house, where they would see each other every day. Secondly, it presupposes that Scott is very deliberate with his choice of colour and only uses certain colour for certain characters, which is simply not true. For example, in FNAF 2, when the Purple Guy is first introduced, Scott decided, for whatever unbeknownst reason, to represent him two different sprites with different colour and shape. Then, in FNAF 3 he gave him a different sprite, with a different colour, with a different shape. And, then, he did the same thing in FNAF 4 once again. Although, if we were to assume the Purple Guy present in FNAF 4 is supposed to be the final version of the Purple Guy, and that it was in FNAF 4 Scott decided to be deliberate with his sprite work once and for all, why is it, then, that the girl holding a Plushtrap and the kid sitting on the sidewalk, laughing, have the exact same colour for their respective dialogue, if the colour of all characters are unique to them and them only? My guess for why the colour of the Fredbear plushie's dialogue is different is simply because Scott made a mistake, and because it was so unimportant to the lore, he never really noticed it or cared to correct it, because it never meant anything.
When I re-watched MatPat's Dream Theory video for the first time in a decade (fuck me), one thing in particular struck my interest: if, as Dream Theory suggests, all animatronics are supposed to have been inspired by something the Crying Child would have witnessed in the mini-game section, where is the inspiration for the Puppet? In MatPat's alernative theory to FNAF 4, where he provides a literalist interpretation of FNAF 4 (in case the reader is wondering, this video ignore every argument Dream Theory and does not attempt to provide an alternative explanation to any of the three statements, which is why it, as well as every other theory on FNAF 4 except for Dream Theory, can safely be disregarded), he suggests that because both the Crying Child and the Puppet share the same design of wearing white stripes (or, in the case of the Crying Child, grey) on black, the Crying Child came to possess the Puppet after dying. Obviously, I do not agree with the latter statement. However, I do agree that the Crying Child himself was supposed to be the inspiration for the Puppet. More specifically, I believe that the Puppet is his fear of the animatronics made manifest in his nightmares.
Some have argued that the Puppet, the Fredbear plushie, or any other kind of figure trying to put the Crying Child back together is supposed to represent the Crying Child's sister. In case it was not already obvious, because the sister cannot possess the Fredbear plushie or anything, for that matter, she can also not possess the Puppet or represent the force trying to put the Crying Child together. But, more importantly, there is no evidence that she is supposed to be the Puppet or the one that promised the Crying Child to put him back together. But, most importantly, if the Puppet is supposed to be a sort of helping hand giving the souls of the dead children a chance to get their revenge on the Purple Guy for murdering them, like it was believed was the case during the original trilogy and is still believed to be the case after FNAF 4, why would the Puppet give life to the animatronics? If the Puppet is the Crying Child's sister, and she knows he is afraid of the animatronics, why would she, in own his nightmares, be the one who gives him a reason to be scared of the animatronics by bringing them to life, when she is supposed to help him? The answer is that it does not make sense, which is why the Crying Child's sister is not the Puppet.
I think the underlying confusion is that because the Puppet could be interpreted as trying to help the animatronics in FNAF 2, it must mean that the Puppet is also a force for good in FNAF 4. However, as should be obvious this is not the case. The Puppet is not a force of good in FNAF 4. The Puppet is simply supposed to represent how the Crying Child's fear of the animatronics is what brings them to live, which is represented by the Puppet giving life to the animatronics. If the Puppet did not exist, if the Crying Child was not afraid of the animatronics, then the animatronics would have never been brought to life, because the Puppet, the Crying Child's fear of the animatronics, would not have been able to give life to them (I will be returning to this exact point later, so I would like for the reader to keep this specific point in mind going forward).
This is also why the Puppet is the first victim of the Purple Guy, because, even though he no longer exists as a murderer in the mini-game section, since no one has been murdered and stuffed into a suit, the Crying Child still thinks there is a murderer loose, that there still exists a man in the shadows, a Purple Guy. My interpretation of the murder of child outside of Fredbear's Family Diner in FNAF 2 is simply that it is meant to represent how the Crying Child perceived whatever it is that he saw in the shadows. Afterwards, as a result of this, the Puppet's jumpscare plays, which represents how the Crying Child's fear of the animatronics was born. That is why it was the first "murder." The only problem with this interpretation is that the murder in FNAF 2 does not correspond to what is hinted towards in FNAF 4, since the Purple Guy in FNAF 2 simply drives off after having murdered them instead of having stuffed them into a suit. However, like I said in response to the pay-checks, FNAF 4 was never supposed to exist. Scott never planned for it to exist. He had planned to end the series with FNAF 3, until he decided to make FNAF 4 after seeing the response to FNAF 3. As such, he never planned for Dream Theory to be true. It was simply, as already explained, the only way to add more lore to a story that had already ended. As such, they do indeed not perfectly correspond, because they were never meant to perfectly correspond in the first place.
The Fredbear plush is a product of the Crying Child's psyche. That is why the Fredbear plush can talk to the Crying Child even when it is not visible on screen, like during the mini-game section before the third night, and why the Fredbear plush is able to seemingly teleport and shape-shift at will, because it is not corporeally real but is rather a delusion. As for why it exists, I cannot say for certain. My guess is that it is supposed to be some kind of guardian spirit that the Crying Child created in his mind to protect him from his fears. Regardless of the specifics of it, the evidence for the Fredbear plush not being possessed by either the Puppet or his sister but is instead simply a product of the Crying Child's mind is pretty much undeniable, mostly because I have already refuted every alternative theory.
In the opening cutscene to FNAF World, the Fredbear plush explains that the world of FNAF World was supposed to be a sanctuary, but, then, something went wrong in the outside world, and because the world of FNAF World is affected by the outside world, the world of FNAF World has also become distorted. This outside world or "flip-side," as it is referred to as, is the real world shown during the mini-game section of FNAF 4, whereas the world of FNAF World is supposed to represent the Crying Child's psyche. That is why the outside world is able to affect FNAF World, because one's psyche is influenced by the outside world. That is also why the map looks like the side-profile of the brain, and why the part of the brain that is supposed to be the frontal lobe is dead and covered with snow to represent that it is dysfunctional, because it was bitten off. In other words, FNAF World takes place after the events of FNAF 4, after the Fredbear plush promises the Crying Child that he will put him back together.
What is important to note is that the person the Fredbear plush intends to "put together" is not the same person who died at the end of FNAF 4. The Fredbear plush says, "Something went very wrong. That's why I am here." In other words, because the Crying Child died, the Fredbear plush is now "here" to fix things, to put everything together. After that, after establishing that the Crying Child who dies in FNAF 4 was the error that occurred, the Fredbear plush says, "But I won't let the same happen to you. I will put you back together." If the Fredbear plush wanted to save the Crying Child, would it not make sense for the Fredbear plush to not say, "But I won't let the same happen to you," and, instead something along the lines of, "I will save him." By establishing that the Fredbear plush does not intend to save the Crying Child who dies at the end of FNAF 4, whilst, at the same time, promising to save someone else, it should be fairly obvious that the one the player is tasked to put together and the Crying Child who dies at the end of FNAF 4 are not the same character. Hopefully, this was not too confusing, because it really is not.
There are two different "Crying Childs." The first, the one we are familiar with, is the one who dies at the end of FNAF 4. The second, the one the Fredbear plush intends to put together, is the one who receives his Happiest Day in FNAF 3. If it was not already obvious, the former timeline is the bad ending of FNAF 3, whereas the second one is the good ending of FNAF 3. In the first case, the Crying Child is not able to enjoy his birthday, the day that was supposed to be his happiest day, whereas, in the second case, the Crying Child is able to enjoy his birthday and is therefore able to receive his happiest day. The point is not that these are different characters per se. The point is merely that these are the same characters but in two different timelines, like how sometimes people joke about what would happen if Hitler got his happiest day by getting accepted into art school. That is considered a different "timeline." It would still have been the same Hitler, only that he did not get accepted into art school. This may seem to be unsupported by the games, but FNAF 3 does, at the very least, establish the existence of two different timelines with the good and bad endings. It should also be noted that Scott has never confirmed which ending is cannon, only that it is "complex."
It is my belief that although FNAF World takes place after FNAF 4, as already explained, it is possible for FNAF World to not only affect the flip-side, like how the outside world affects it, but to also change its past. This is what the player does when interacting with the clocks: the player goes back in time to make sure that the pieces are in place for the Crying Child so that he can receive his Happiest Day. That is why these clock mini-games are represented by clocks, because the player is travelling in time, going back in time to before the Crying Child dies. This may seem odd, but it actually makes sense in a very meta way, which would make sense for FNAF World, since it is very meta. When a player for the first time plays FNAF 3, unless they knew how to unlock the good ending, they are going to get the bad ending. After which, after realising there is a good ending, they may want to unlock it. So, they select a "new game" and try to get it by completing all the mini-games.
It is also worth mentioning that the very reason the all the FNAF characters exist in FNAF World as well as why the Fredbear plush is there is because they only exist as living beings in the mind of the Crying Child, which is what FNAF World is. However, unlike in previous games where all the animatronics were scary, in FNAF World, they are cute and chibi. Although this could have been because Scott simply wanted to make an RPG again instead of a horror game, I would actually argue this was a deliberate design choice, because, during all secret conversations with the Fredbear plush in FNAF World, not only is it never implied that the character we play as is the Crying Child, the Fredbear plush repeatedly wants for the character we play as to leave breadcrumbs for "him," the Crying Child, which would imply that we do not play as the Crying Child, the one who is afraid of the animatronics. To everyone else, including the character we play as, they are not scary, in the slightest, which is why everyone else makes fun of the Crying Child for being afraid of them. As such, if we were to not play as the Crying Child, it would make sense for the animatronics to not be scary to us.
However, if the character we play as is not the Crying Child, which would be the obvious answer, if not for the fact that it is directly refuted by in-game dialogue, who is it, then, that we play as? According to the Fredbear plush, the character we play as was only created to do one thing, "you were made for one thing." Then, the Fredbear plush explains that there is a task that we must complete, "There is a task for you to complete." After which, says, "Before you take this passage, g back. Find the clock.," which, in its full context, would imply that the character we play is was simply created, presumably by the Fredbear plush itself as it seems to be the only one who is trying to put the Crying Child back together, to facilitate for this happening. In other words, I do not believe the exact identity of the character we play as matters, since it seems like we are simply some kind of entity existing in the psyche of the Crying Child, so much as what our purpose is, which is to put the Crying Child back together.
There has been much debate about what the line, "You're broken," spoken by the Fredbear plush to the Crying Child is supposed to mean. Many, if not every single person, assume this means that the Crying Child became broken as a result of having been bitten. However, this makes no sense. If being "broken" is what causes the Crying Child to receive the bad ending, and that, in-order for the Crying Child to receive the good ending, he needs to be put together, how could the Crying Child in FNAF 4 receive the bad ending if he only became broken as a result of having received the bad ending? The answer is simply that what made the Crying Child "broken" was not him getting bitten. It was instead what caused him to get bitten: his fear of the animatronics. After all, if the Crying Child is broken and if being broken is not normal, that would imply the Crying Child is abnormal. And what is it that is unique about the Crying Child compared to every other NPC in FNAF 4? That the Crying Child is afraid of the animatronics.
The Crying Child's fear of the animatronics is what led him to receive the bad ending, it is what prevented him from receiving his Happiest Day, it was led him to getting bitten. After all, what is it that actually leads the Crying Child to dying? His older brother and his friends thinking his fear of the animatronics is so funny that they force the Crying Child to give Fredbear a "big kiss," resulting in his death. If the Crying Child had not been afraid of the animatronics, his older brother and his friends would have never bullied him, and if they would have never bullied him, the Crying Child would never have been in an accident that would later lead to his death. That is why the animatronics head shown during the bad ending still have one eye lit up, because the Crying Child's fear of them never died, which, as explained with the Puppet, is the reason why they are given life, because the Crying Child's fear of them results in him imagining them being haunted at night during his nightmares. However, that is also why their eyes are not lit up during the good ending, because the Crying Child no longer fears them. As such, they are nothing more than empty costumes.
What the Fredbear plush therefore meant by "I will put you back together" was simply that he will help the Crying Child get rid of his fears of the animatronics, so that he can enjoy his birthday, his Happiest day, without being afraid of the animatronics. How this was practically accomplished, I cannot say, besides that the mini-games in FNAF 3 where somehow completed. As for what that entails or means, I cannot say. But so can no one else, so it is fine. I suppose that because these mini-games, according to Dream Theory, are nothing more than the product of the Crying Child's nightmare, there does not really need to be any real logic behind what they are besides that completing them somehow leads to Happiest Day being unlocked.
Although many like to discuss what "You're broken" and "I will put you back together" means simply because they seem to be the most important, the unfortunate result of this is that the other two statements, "We are still your friends. Do you still believe that?," have pretty much been entirely forgotten by the FNAF community. However, to be entirely honest, I do not necessarily fault the FNAF community for not prioritising these two statements and choosing to instead focus on the other statements. After all, that is what I, too, have done. However, I would have preferred it if they had, at the very least, not been completely forgotten by the FNAF community. But I digress. The explanation for what these two statements mean is fairly simple. The reason the Fredbear plush refers to himself and the plushes of the classic animatronics behind him is simply a reference to the fact that the Crying Child considers those animatronics to be his "friends," as is revealed by having the Crying Child walk up to them during the first mini-game in FNAF 4.
The point of this statement, "We are still your friends," is therefore simply the Fredbear plushie trying to affirm the Crying Child's opinion of these plushies, of his "friends." The reason for this, hinted towards by the Fredbear plushie following this statement up with the question, "Do you still believe that?," Suggests that, even though the Crying Child considers these plushies to be his friends, he has a reason to doubt whether they are his friends. Why is that? Because the reason he is in the hospital, the reason he is dying, is because his older brother and his friends accidentally sent him to the hospital, whilst wearing the masks of his friends. In other words, because his friends sent him to the hospital, the Fredbear plushie asks if the still considers them to be his friends, because they still do, even if he does not.
As should be obvious by now, there are two timelines: one that ends with the happily because the Crying Child was not afraid of the animatronics, and one that ends not-so-happily because the Crying Child was afraid of the animatronics. Essentially, what separates these two timelines from each other is whether the Crying Child is tormented by the animatronics or not. In FNAF 4, the bad ending, it is established that the Crying Child is tormented by his older brother and his friends, who wear the masks of the Crying Child's friends, and that this bullying ends with him getting sent to the hospital. In contrast, during Happiest Day, the good ending, the animatronics are not tormenting the Crying Child. They are simply standing there, attending his birthday, because they are his friends. Finally, by putting on the mask of the animatronic he was afraid of, the animatronics that bit him, it represents how the Crying Child is no longer afraid of the animatronics and is therefore no longer broken but has instead been put back together.
On a final note, although I am not perfectly confident in my answer, I do have an explanation as to why Nightmare Balloon Boy is cannon, whereas the other Nightmare animatronics introduced in the Halloween update are not. First and foremost, what do all Nightmare animatronics, in the base game, have in common? They are all present at the Crying Child's birthday party. The only exception to this is Plushtrap, who Nightmare Balloon Boy replaces in the Halloween version. Even so, this detail also makes sense, considering how both Plushtrap and Spring Bonnie are both isolated from the rest. During the birthday party, Spring Bonnie stands behind Fredbear and is not the focus of attention. During the gameplay section, Plushtrap is only present in a mini-game isolated from the main gameplay section, where all the other Nightmare animatronics are found. As such, I believe the reason Nightmare Balloon Boy replaces Plushtrap in the Halloween edition is because he, too, was both present at the birthday party but was not the focus of the bite of '83, which is why I believe it is simply the Nightmare version of the kid with a balloon MatPat believed to be the inspiration for Balloon Boy in FNAF 2, as he says, when you talk to him, "Are you going to the party? Everyone is going to the party. Oh wait, you have to go! It's YOUR birthday! Haha!," which would imply that he does attend the birthday party.
This essay is unfinished. Sorry about that. I do not like releasing unfinished essays, like I used to do, but this ended up being unfinished. Fortunately, what I really wanted to discuss (Dream Theory) ended up being finished, but because it took a lot of time (way more than usual) to write it, because I kept rewriting shit, I ended up not being able to write about the gameplay, like I had planned. Well, not exactly, because I have already written like 50% of the gameplay section, but whatever. In any case, I wanted to release this on Friday 13th, for obvious reasons, so it ended up being unfinished. I will try to get the gameplay section out as soon as possible, like in a week or two. Until then, have a good one.
