I don't know if this is a weird opinion, but I feel like so much of the confusion surrounding TOYSNHK *(and maybe more)* could’ve been avoided if Scott had just decided to keep the original MCI lineup from 'The Silver Eyes' trilogy when making Pizzeria Simulator.

Like, seriously—what good did it do for the story to give Mike’s role as Golden Freddy to Cassidy if he wasn’t going to use it when writing one of the most important characters in the story anyway?

It makes absolutely no sense, from a narrative standpoint, to establish Michael Brooks as “the angry kid possessing Golden Freddy” in the books, only to completely replace him with Cassidy in the games’ timeline—only for the Vengeful Spirit to not even be Cassidy anyway.

Golden Freddy is obviously meant to play a special role in the story due to how different he and the child possessing him are from the other characters, and how the story (whether in the games or the books) always goes out of its way to create that separation between them and everyone else.

So the fact that TOYSNHK and the Golden Freddy child are separate characters not only undermines that aspect completely, but also raises questions like:

1) If Cassidy isn’t the Vengeful Spirit, then what role does she even play in the story?

And

2) if the Vengeful Spirit isn’t the one possessing Golden Freddy, then who are they, and why are they so special?

And I feel like so much of this discourse could’ve been avoided if Scott had just kept Michael Brooks as Golden Freddy in the games too, because then you wouldn’t have that same “different gender” discrepancy like with Cassidy—where you have to basically gaslight yourself into believing all the male pronouns are referring to the animatronic, or that there’s a secret seventh victim that just popped up out of nowhere and stole the spotlight.

Sure, it still wouldn’t explain why the Vengeful Spirit and Golden Freddy are so different compared to the other characters, but it would’ve been so much simpler if we could just go:

*“Hmm, the Vengeful Spirit is referred to with male pronouns, and Ultimate Custom Night has a weird connection to Golden Freddy… Golden Freddy is associated with aggression, and the child possessing him is male… Oh! The Vengeful Spirit is Michael Brooks!”*

So much could've been avoided if Scott decided to bring Michael Brooks in the games