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William Afton

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William Afton
Five Nights at Freddy's character
File:William Afton.png
William Afton, as depicted in Five Nights at Freddy's 3 as the Springtrap, and in Help Wanted as the Malhare.
First appearanceFive Nights at Freddy's 2 (2014)
Created byScott Cawthon
Designed byScott Cawthon
Voiced byPJ Heywood
In-universe information
Full nameWilliam Afton
Alias
SpeciesHuman (as William Afton)
Animatronic A.I.
GenderMale
Occupation
  • Founder of Afton Robotics LLC.
  • Co-founder of Fazbear Entertainment
  • Mechanical engineer
  • Theme park attraction
Affiliation
  • Afton Robotics LLC.
  • Fazbear Entertainment
  • Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental
Family

William Afton (colloquially known as "Purple Guy" among fans and the media) is a video game character and one of the primary antagonists of the Five Nights at Freddy's series created, developed and published by Scott Cawthon. Afton is initially featured as a minor supporting character in the minigames of the second and fourth games, as the main antagonist of Five Nights at Freddy's 3 and Help Wanted, and as a supporting antagonist in other installments of the series. Initially depicted as a purple-skinned man, following his death after being crushed within an animatronic rabbit mascot suit, Afton becomes known as the Springtrap and trapped as a horror theme park attraction for 30 years, before being freed by his son Michael. After reuniting with his daughter Elizabeth, known as the Scrap Baby, Afton himself renames himself the Scraptrap, continuing their plans for immortality by trapping the souls of others within animatronics. After subsequently being trapped within "the Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience" after the destruction of his body chassis, Afton becomes known as Glitchtrap the Anomaly.

During Sister Location, the character has been voiced by PJ Heywood, who went on to voice all other incarnations in subsequent media. The character has received a generally positive reception, and will be featured in the film adaptation of the series.[1]

Conception and creation

Early concept art for the character depicts him with a more humanoid appearance, being that of a purple-shirted security guard. which was later used for his redesign in the Five Nights at Freddy's novel series. In the video game series, Afton is depicted as having purple skin. The character additionally adopts several different animatronic forms as the series progresses, the vast majority of which being based around rabbit symbolism. The novel series describes the character as immensely overweight in their original human form and "skeletal" in their elderly post-human form. The character is voiced by PJ Heywood in Sister Location.[2]

Characteristics and backstory

At the time of Five Nights at Freddy's 3, William Afton's soul is trapped within a decommissioned animatronic after he was crushed within its body chassis. Originally an animatronic designer and CEO of founder of Afton Robotics LLC. and Fazbear Entertainment alongside Henry Emily, investigating a method of trapping a human soul, William Afton grew unhinged following his daughter Elizabeth being crushed with his Circus Baby animatronic and his younger son having his frontal lobe being bitten off by the Freddy Fazbear animatronic due to the actions of Michael and four of his teenage friends. Subsequently, William kills Michael's friends and Henry's daughter (and Elizabeth's child minder at the time of her death), Charlotte Emily, and successfully imbues their souls into his animatronics in continuing his experiments. However, upon succeeding in allowing the five souls' control over their new animatronic bodies, William is cornered by the five and trapped within an animatronic himself, dubbed "Springtrap". Thirty years later, William's abilities to control his actions are restored by his oldest son Michael, who is then "scooped" by Elizabeth in Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location while trying to similarly restore her control over Circus Baby. Sometime later, by the time of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, William and Elizabeth are reunited as Scraptrap and Scrap Baby after Elizabeth's sentience is restored. However, before they can build new, more humanoid bodies for themselves and resume their experiments, their chassis are both destroyed by Henry after he burns down the restaurant they are in as revenge for Charlotte's death. Years later, by the time of Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted, William is inadvertently restored to existence within "The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience" as Glitchtrap the Anomaly (also known as Malhare) after the remains of his Scraptrap chassis are used in the program's construction.[3]

Appearances

Five Nights at Freddy's video games

In the first game, Five Nights at Freddy's, William's existence is alluded to via a series of newspaper clippings mentioning a series of murders in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, and a suspect arrested for the killings. In the second game, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, William is revealed to have imbued the animatronic known both as "The Puppet" and "The Marionette" with the soul of Charlotte Emily, repeating the action with several other children to inhabit the rest of the game's animatronics.

In the third game, Five Nights at Freddy's 3, William is featured as the main antagonist as the animatronic "Springtrap". In the first four minigames, William dismantles the four animatronics in which he has trapped the souls of the four kids as they attempt to enter his safe room; however, in the fifth minigame, William is chased into his safe room by their souls and puts on the Spring Bonnie suit in order to fight them. However, the suit malfunctions due to its faulty springlocks and crush William to death. In the main plot, set 30 years later, Springtrap serves as the main attraction of a horror attraction. Springtrap is freed by the newest night guard, William's son Michael, after Michael burns the attraction to the ground after five nights. In the fourth game, Five Nights at Freddy's 4, William makes a cameo appearance in the "Night 3" minigame where if the player returns to the dining room where a man in a Fredbear suit previously appeared, where William is seen forcing another employee into a Spring Bonnie suit.

In the fifth game, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, William Afton, revealed to be the founder of Afton Robotics LLC., is interviewed about an animatronic he designed named Circus Baby, over a hidden function that led to his daughter Elizabeth's death and her soul being trapped within the animatronic. William orders Michael to infiltrate Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental in order to retrieve Circus Baby and with her Elizabeth's soul, only for the animatronic to "scoop" Michael and use his body to host herself and several other animatronics as "Ennard".

Between the events of Sister Location and Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, Baby is expelled from Ennard after Elizabeth's awareness is restored and makes a new body dubbed "Scrap Baby", while William himself inhabits an updated animatronic dubbed "Scraptrap".[4] While seeking more souls to imbue within other animatronics, both are trapped within Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place by Henry Emily, Charlotte's father, who burns the restaurant, along with both of their chassis, to the ground, apparently killing them all.

In Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted, William is revealed to have been digitally revived after being burned to death in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Simulator, after his soul was infused into the animatronic chips of the Scraptrap suit he was wearing, which were then used to create "The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience". Now known both as Glitchtrap the Anomaly and Malhare, taking on the form of an animatronic rabbit, William inadvertently causes one of the game's testers to commit suicide, before attempting to escape from the game by merging with the player's avatar.[5][6][7]

In Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, Glitchtrap/Malhare returns as the main antagonist, having built a cult of followers in the real world.[8][9]

Five Nights at Freddy's novel series

William Afton first appears in the novel series in Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes under the guise of security guard Dave Miller, becoming Springtrap at the end of the novel, who serves as the main antagonist of The Twisted Ones and the secondary antagonist of the final book The Fourth Closet. Afton additionally appears in the short stories "Into the Pit" in Fazbear Frights #1: Into The Pit and "The Man in Room 1280" in Fazbear Frights #5: Bunny Call.

Other appearances

A red-eyed and degrading variant of William Afton's Springtrap form appears throughout Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery. Afton is also mentioned in the game's "Faz-Facts" files. The ending of Ultimate Custom Night heavily implies that the player character is William Afton himself, trapped in a purgatory-like state after the events of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator.[10][11]

Merchandising

Funko has produced scale figures of Springtrap, Scraptrap, Glitchtrap, and other Five Nights at Freddy's animatronics standing at over eight inches tall, as a part of their Funko Pop! line.[12][13]

Reception

Since the release of Five Nights at Freddy's 2 in November 2014 and Five Nights at Freddy's 3 in March 2015, William Afton and Springtrap have become one of its most iconic characters, with USgamer praising the depiction of Afton's relationships with his daughter Elizabeth and two sons,[14][15] and Kotaku describing his Springtrap form as "genuinely terrifiying", with various fan films and memes being made about the character.[16][17][18]

References

  1. ^ Aaron Perine (November 20, 2020). "Five Nights at Freddy's Movie Gets Filming Date". Comic Book. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
  2. ^ Dawko (August 8, 2018). "An Interview with Scott Cawthon – The Creator of Five Nights at Freddy's". YouTube. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  3. ^ Scott Cawthon (2016-10-07). Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location (PlayStation 4). Scott Cawthon. Level/area: Prologue. Mystery Board Member: There's no doubting what you've achieved on a technical level. These are clearly state-of-the-art. There are just certain design choices that were made for these robots that we don't fully understand. We were hoping that you could shed some light on those.
    William Afton: – She can dance, she can sing! She's equipped with a built-in helium tank for inflating balloons right at her fingertips. She can take song requests. She can even dispense ice-cream.
    Mystery Board Member: With all due respect, those aren't the design choices we were curious about, Mr. Afton.
  4. ^ Shook, Joseph (December 8, 2017). "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator Released". Blasting News. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  5. ^ "r/fivenightsatfreddys - Transcript for Tapes FNAF VR Help Wanted". reddit. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  6. ^ "Review: Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted". Destructoid. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
  7. ^ "Review: Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted". VRFocus. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
  8. ^ Blake, Vikki (July 4, 2020). "Funko tweets Five Nights At Freddy's Security Breach characters and hints of a possible release date". Eurogamer. Retrieved September 7, 2020.
  9. ^ Williamson, James (September 17, 2020). "Who The Bear Is In Five Nights At Freddy's". Screen Rant. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  10. ^ "Five Nights at Freddy's: Ultimate Custom Night takes robo-horror to anarchic extremes". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 2018-06-27. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  11. ^ "Ultimate Custom Night is a new, free Five Nights at Freddy's game". pcgamer. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  12. ^ Whritenour, Jacob (2017-06-20). "Sister Location Pop! Figures Coming this Fall". Hardcore Gamer. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
  13. ^ Paclibar, J. (2015-12-24). "'Five Nights at Freddy's' news: Collectible items coming to Funko; Scott Cawthon address backlash of 'The Silver Eyes' book". Vine Report. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
  14. ^ Oxford, Nadia (2018-06-29). "Murder, Dysfunctional Families, and Purple Guys: The Larger Story Behind the Five Nights at Freddy's Games [Updated for Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator and UCN]". USgamer.
  15. ^ Arthur, Ty (2020-08-07). "7 Most Terrifying Animatronics in Five Nights at Freddy's". Game Skinny.
  16. ^ Cooper, Dalton (2015-05-09). "GR Pick: 'Five Nights at Freddy's' Fan Film Features Creepy Springtrap". Game Rant. Retrieved 2015-05-09.
  17. ^ Hernandez, Patricia (2015-05-09). "Five Nights At Freddy's Fan Film Is Actually Scary". Kotaku. Retrieved 2015-05-09.
  18. ^ Page, Chloe (2018-12-27). "27 Classic Kids Characters Reimagined As Waluigi". The Gamer.
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