This is something I've been thinking about for a while. For some context, I'm someone who believes ITPG is hard continuity, while the other stingers are soft continuity. I'm not really going to be talking about the debate itself (Nothing I'd say would matter, anyway), but a decent amount of bookshit will be focused on.

Historic Recurrence, or the idea that history repeats itself, is the concept/practice that humanity will repeat the same events if they are not learned from. I believe that this is currently happening to the FNaF speculation space.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 was advertised as a sequel to the previous game, but even upon release, the idea of it being a prequel was not accepted. Here's a couple threads I dug up. Five Nights at Freddy's 4 was teased as a game set in 1987, which grew into the bite debate. Then Sister Location gave us Willtrap vs Miketrap debate. After this, FFPS was in development, despite Scott saying that it wasn't.

This created a culminating frustration towards Scott. This excellent thread breaks down many of Scott's problems, is a great time capsule of the fandom at that point, and focuses on the (some) same concepts I will be focusing on here. Within that post, the ideas of history repetition and the bait and switch are explored, and it comes to the conclusion that Scott must have been lying about the development of FNaF 6. We now know that he was right.

Strong opinions and heated debate aren’t a bad thing at all, anything that keeps the fire burning is a good thing! - Scott Cawthon, 2014

Before I get into my thoughts on the current fandom, I want to make something clear. As seen in the examples and threads above, Scott has lied/mislead the community before with intention. He has stated in the past that heated debates are good for the community, and there are many examples within Smaher's thread of how he has deliberately (and excellently) screwed with the community for the sake of making the story more mysterious. This isn't for the sake of "demonizing," Scott. Remembering the old debates and how they were handled are important to how we handle current debates.

I emphasize this point due to how the community has currently switched their opinion on the man. "Narrative satisfaction," and "Good writing," are used as indicators for the quality of a theory, in a series where mystery has been valued above the story itself multiple times. In other series and mysteries, that probably is a good indicator of quality. However, this is Five Nights at Freddy's. 87s in the source code and Mike turning purple should be lessons for the future, Scott likes fucking with us.

The Bait and Switch

The Bait and Switch is Scott's oldest trick, and the switch was always the answer to old debates.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 was advertised as the re-opening. the robots were broken, the toys were new and improved, and this new location was bigger and better then the last. Even some of Ralph's dialogue, "That old place was left to rot for quite a while," fed into these ideas, even if Ralph himself did not. But this switch was the easiest one to figure out of them all. The check at the end of the game states 1987. Retrospect is 20/20, of course, but I want you to think about that; the check being dated to 87 wasn't enough to convince many people that the check was written in 87. That it just had an old year on it for no explicable reason.

I'm not saying that the game wasn't misleading, because it was. But the answer was also right there, and people refused to acknowledge that. Future switches wouldn't be as clear cut as this.

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 was advertised with 87s in the source code, with "Was it me?" being a reoccurring question on the Nightmare's teasers. The implication people came to was obvious- This game would reveal the Bite of '87. And the game did, in fact, reveal a bite, in minigames where the toy animatronics are referenced multiple times. This wasn't as easy, however.

The thing about the bait in FNaF 2 was that it still went somewhere. The robots weren't broken for no reason, there really was an older restaurant they came from. the FNaF 1 building, which is clearly shown in the second game, was open prior to '87. While are some theories about what's going on with the toys, the 87's in the source code? Unless you're a complete crackpot (I've been there) those don't payoff. There is no reveal, there is no context in the final game where they make sense.

The 87s exist exclusively to fuck with us as an audience. And this was something that Bite87ers had over the 83ers, because there still is no explanation for them 10 years on. This was part of why 87 was so popular over 83, not to mention that the one piece of 1983 evidence, Fredbear & Friends, could somewhat reasonably be dismissed as a copyright date.

Sure, there are some more contextual problems with FNaF 4 showing the Bite of 87, including that Fredbear's Family Diner was open (Which Ralph says has been closed down for years in FNaF 2) but there was so much more to indicate 87. The evidence for the switch was much smaller by comparison. It wasn't until we got Sister Location where Bite83 became much more formidable due to the Private Room easter egg, that clarification alongside Scott's comment about clearing up misconceptions made the debate much less lopsided. Despite this, the debate continued.

Then we also got the Sister Location Custom Night cutscenes. In them, we see Mike slowly decompose into a purple person, we get a post from Scott telling us that the Golden Freddy cutscene will reveal Mike's fate and complete the FNaF story, then we get the new Golden Freddy cutscene where Michael's voice becomes robotic, and Springtrap comes on screen after said robotic voice.

We were initially lead on to believe William was Springtrap, which was also depicted in the novels, but then we got the ending of Sister Location which seemingly recontextualized previous events.

I really want to focus on Miketrap because I think to this day it is one of the most egregious examples within this series.

This isn't just a couple of 87-related things like in FNaF 4. What we're looking at is two back to back cutscenes, both pushing the same conclusion, and a developer comment stating that the conclusion of this cutscene will complete the Five Nights at Freddy's story. In retrospect, we now recognize the SLGF cutscene to be a cliffhanger which leads to the next game, Michael going to find Scraptrap. But at that point in time, there was no next game, and this was the final reveal. Michael going to find his Dad as Springtrap rose from the ashes was completion.

Now again, I'm not saying that MikeTrap was infallible (It was wrong) and in some of the links above are counterarguments to Miketrap. But I want you to understand that people didn't just believe MikeTrap because they were stupid. Contextually, that was obviously and so clearly the answer. What we run into is an even more extreme case of The Bite Debate Bait.

If you were WillTrap, now it's not just some tiny toy animatronics, you have two cutscenes and a developer comment against you. Sure, there was a case for WillTrap, this image is a great example, and I'm not trying to delegitimize WillTrap. But this is also something that has gotten worse with retrospect. FFPS, our sequel to Sister Location, Mike being purple is never acknowledged- Mike being the protagonist at all is barely referenced. Mike's promise to find his father didn't even really come to fruition, it was Henry calling William which brought them together.

Just as we don't have an answer to the 87s in the source code, we don't have an answer to why Mike became purple. The story never did anything with that, him being purple was never explored, it's something that, in practice, exclusively existed to trick people into MikeTrap. The Switch was the answer.

History of Bookshit

I'm not going to pretend that the original novel trilogy was somewhat divisive, because it was. However, it isn't even close to how divisive modern books are. I don't think I even need to cite sources here.

Do you, personally, believe that the Cassette Man is Henry Emily? Do you believe that "William Afton," is the name of the Purple Guy? Do you believe the Missing Children Incident happened in 1985, and do you believe that FNaF happens in Utah? Do you believe that one of the missing kids is a girl named Cassidy? Do you believe that Charlie is the name of Cassette Man's daughter, and do you believe that Henry created the classic animatronics? We could push it a little further too. Do you believe that Cassidy is the ghost of Golden Freddy? Do you think Garrett possesses Golden Freddy with her?

Because all of that. All of it. That's all bookshit.

Despite the fact that the books "Not being canon," was a sentiment in the old community, it wasn't always viewed that way. People were floating the idea of the nightmares using illusion disc technology almost immediately after the book's release, and that theory spiraled so far into popularity that prior to Dittophobia, the nightmares being illusions was seen as a casual fact of the series. Sammy, despite being irrelevant in the books, has always had some cracked theories about him. But on the more important note, Sister Location and FFPS. These were the games that "adopted," book elements into "canon" (In the eyes of the community).

Now I deeply disagree with that sentiment, partially because Scott disagrees with that sentiment. But the way the community saw things back then, was that the books were non-canonical and worthless, and exclusively things that were mentioned in the games meant anything. Purple Guy was a game character, William Afton was a book character, and they didn't become "The same guy," until Sister Location.

The problem here is probably from misunderstanding what canon means in this context. Scott's comment about The Silver Eyes says that it's canon, not continuity. But because so many people see canon and continuity as the same thing, people just disregarded his own statement. I recently made a post explaining what Scott meant about canon in this context, since it's so deeply misunderstood within the community.

This is a fairly complicated subject, so I'm not going into the nitty and gritty of it all, but in short: Nearly everything in the series is canon; they all have authority on the story and the way it works. Continuity does not change that. The definition Scott is using canon would moreso suggest that everything that isn't contradicted in the games is true for the games. As oppossed to the community's default "No until proven otherwise," Scott is saying "Yes until proven otherwise,"

And the reason I bring this up is because of the behaviors the community has toward's bookshit, if you take a step back, is deeply hypocritical.

Another Guide I made recently, which looks at the book/game relationship across canon

I'm going to look at the relationship of 5 characters in particular. First, let's look at Golden Freddy's ghost.

The Missing Kid who possesses Golden Freddy briefly shows up in Foxy Go Go Go, Give Gifts Give Life, Follow Me, and is given cake in Happiest Day. All we can tell about this ghost is that they haunt Fredbear.

"Cassidy," is a book character who was referenced in the Survival Logbook, and officially debuted as a girl with black hair in The Fourth Closet. The Survival Logbook softly implies she might be Golden Freddy, but we need Help Wanted 2's graves to fully lock that in, given the ambiguity of The Puppet and TFC.

TOYSNHK first shows up in Ultimate Custom Night, and is his only game appearence. The game at least gives us a face and a couple voice lines to work with, but not much else.

"Andrew," is a book character who debuted in Stingers. We learn he was killed by William and perpetually torments him in a nightmare, and that he's a boy with black hair.

Cassidy is as much of a book character as Andrew is, as almost everything we know about their "game version," comes from books. The only thing that changes between the two is which books are referenced.

Henry is a book character who debuted in The Silver Eyes, and has never actually been properly name dropped. Cassette Man has many similarities to Henry, but the only tangible connection is the "HRY," in the insanity ending. The only thing which would clearly indicate Henry is in the games would be Into The Pit: Game for using his Character Enyclopedia design, but TCE is also bookshit.

Edwin is a book character who debuted in The Storyteller, and has been name dropped twice. Three times if you count laps. We know nothing else.

Now I'm not actually arguing that any of these characters aren't in the games. The "Book versions," of characters prior to UCN have been completely assimilated with their game counterparts in the eyes of the community, and this is a double standard held against new book characters. Henry and Edwin, Cassidy and Andrew. If you consider one of those to be a "Book character," irrelevant to the games, then you should consider them all irrelevants.

Scott hasn't changed the way he handles the lore. Henry, Charlie, Edwin, Oswald, they were all introduced from the books. "William," "Cassidy," "Andrew," "Ralph," are all names that came from the books. Scott has created game characters, made names, fleshed out their lore in the books from the very beginning. This has never changed.

What's funny, I think, is the most egregious book character of them all is someone the fandom has no problems with. At least Andrew didn't retcon anyone. Charlie did.

One of the only genuine retcons in this series is that Charlie (Assuming you believe it's Charlie, she doesn't even get hints of a name drop!) replaced the TCTTC victim. He doesn't exist anymore. We had a game exclusive character get replaced by a book character. Can you imagine what would happen if that happened today, in this political climate? Imagine if Jeremy Fitzgerald or Susie got replaced, people would go thermonuclear.

But in 2017? People were fine with that. It was cool, even, tying the games and books together like that. People weren't trying to argue that the TCTTC boy was still the Puppet, that it was okay to misgender Charlie, or anything like that. People weren't coming up with book contradictions to argue that Cassette Man wasn't Henry.

Caught in a Loop

So where does this leave us?

Well. For one, I don't think Scott has any intention of solving this in the near future. If you're waiting for an official statement....

Strong opinions and heated debate aren’t a bad thing at all, anything that keeps the fire burning is a good thing!

Beyond this, though. Bait has been one of the most effective (and destructive) tricks Scott has used throughout the franchise history. As much as we talk about Prequel vs Sequel, Bite83 vs Bite87, and Miketrap vs Willtrap as old debates, those tricks are almost certainly still being used to decieve us. We have been lied to, and it'll probably happen again. It keeps the fire burning, as Scott says. Even if he did, it's not like the community taking the literal opposite of what he says has been a recurring problem before

This happens so often with so many things and it drives me up the wall

Furthermore, I would implore you to seriously think about why you find some characters to be "Book characters," and others aren't. What makes the Golden Freddy kid getting a name, gender, appearence, and narative role from the books any different from TOYSNHK? And if there is a difference, what is it?

What makes a book that references games "In the games," while a game that references games is not "In the games"?