This Perfectly Sums Up Williams Character, Though I Think He May Have Had Some Sort Of Twisted Obsession

This perfectly sums up Williams character, though I think he may have had some sort of twisted obsession with family. He sees them as objects he owns, and wants to force them to be perfect.

William Afton is not a loving father and is not sympathetic in anyway

Might be a hot take. But I honestly feel like William Afton always being awful works.

William Afton being an unfeeling psychopath who kills because he gets some sick pleasure out of it and because he discovered remnant is better than William being a loving and caring father who turned mad because he lost CC and Elizabeth.

Some people are just evil. William Afton is just pure evil. Freddy Krueger nor Pennywise needed motivations on why they killed kids. Not knowing why Afton does what he does makes things better.

And its probably the most engaging thing about Afton. Also his always coming back thing is the only instance that I accept a character coming back from the dead. Like, I've never seen this trope work EVER except FNaF.

William Afton just being a garbage person just WORKS. He is so evil that his eternal hell is facing torture at the hands of his creations and the one vengeful child who wants him to suffer.

You know the meme

“Cool story, still murder”

For William it’s

“I’m just awful, it’s murder time children”

Also, William using his kids as an excuse to justify the murders does work, but only because he likes using his children and only wanting to bring his kids back in animatronic form can only work so they can do his bidding and collect more remnant so he can always come back. William being awful works.

Henry might've been neglectful of Charlie Sammy, but William canonically abuses Elizabeth. He did nothing to help CC against Michael's cruel bullying and no, being the probable voice for psychic friend Fredbear is NOT a sign of good parenting. He used Michael to help him in his experiments and used him to clean up the mess HE MADE. William Afton is not a good father.

And if Midnight Motorist is about the Aftons, how is that not an abusive home? "leave him be, he had a long day" "I TOLD YOU not to lock the door" and then either it being CC or Michael, they broke the window to literally get away from the unhappy home.

And let's not forget he experiments on children in his fear experiments to recreate the events that lead to the death of his son.

There's a reason why Unbroken to me is the definitive Afton song.

He's so goddamn happy that he committed murder because of the remnant it gives him and doesn't give a shit about anyone else. It's chilling to watch. And the last line is so goddamn evil that it's amazing: "If I can't have my perfect little family, well, now I'll have plenty of time, to make a better one."

People have to realize that William never meant anything good whenever he wanted to "put something back together". It's referencing combining souls into one thing. When he did this in the novels, he did it because he believed it would somehow help him achieve eternal life. When he scooped a collection of remnant that came from who knows where into the Funtimes, it was likely for the same reason. He didn't want to help the Crying Child. He wanted the Crying Child to willingly give himself to him.

So I think Unbroken really shows how he is. Break them and put them back together. Let their combined cries build immortality.

This is why I use Unbroken as the definitive song and basis for William's motivation and goals. An unfeeling psychopath who sees killing kids as a fair trade for immortality and if he can't have a perfect family, then he'll just build a better one.

William in all his iterations is never shown interacting with his children in a positive way. The closest we get to him is telling his daughter Elizabeth not to go near Circus Baby. And even though Sister Location is when voice acting began to take hold of the franchise, we never hear how William speaks to his daughter. In these moments, the only instance of him speaking about his children in the games is up for debate. But if you believe the orange man in Midnight Motorist is Afton, he speaks about the runaway child with disdain and frustration. "he will be sorry when he gets back" whether it's Mike or CC he made them sorry either by locking CC in the parts and services in FNAF 4 or made Mike sorry via Nightmare Animatronics. All throughout the FNAF 4 cutscenes, he neglects his children entirely. Even when he is AT THE PIZZERIA with them, he doesn't acknowledge them during his own child's birthday party whose death is meant to be the catalyst for his descent into madness that the fandom widely believes and as that child cries out in fear, he is nowhere to be found.

Moving on from the games. Nothing about the books paints William to be a warm person. He's depicted in the novels as not only neglectful to Elizabeth, but physically abusive to her as well, even after she's killed by the animatronic she idolized, William does not soften at the loss of her, we do not see him grieve and he treats Circus Baby just as poorly as in the games, only thing missing is a scene of controlled shocks. Circus Baby is just a vessel for remnant and a devoted follower who is helping him with his experiments.

Game Michael is tasked with potentially cleaning up after William, but definitely with putting Circus Baby back together just as his father asked and his reward is getting scooped, being injected with remnant and having his body filled with animatronic parts and when Ennard abandons his body. Mike is left confused, alone and slowly rotting, but never dying. Immortal and restless.

In the movie William treats Vanessa like a tool to be ordered and it's implied Vanessa helped William cover up the the murders or killed as she was tasked with killing Mike and she lives in fear of him. When Vanessa finally stands up to him, he doesn't hesitate to dispose of her.

Whether it's the games, books or movies. William treats his living children as tools at best and obstacles at worst. I believe there is more than enough evidence to say that William Afton is not motivated by a design or desire to reunite with his lost loved ones or recreate some beautiful family. I don't think he wants to play pretend the way Henry seems to do in the novels with Charlie. Afton never really appreciated a single thing he ever had, not when he had it and certainly when he lost it. In Afton's eyes he only sees what others have and views things and other people through the lens of what they can do for him. He needs to be in control of his environment and everything should be at his disposal.

What motivates William Afton? He became enthralled with Henry's creations, jealous even. Perhaps they made him feel inferior as they were better than anything Afton had ever been able to create, so he studied Henry. The resentment in the obsession growing inside him as they became partners and their business was a success, it wasn't enough. He wanted the animatronics to be his own. He deserved them, he built the business and he shouldn't have to share the success with Henry, but he knew he needed Henry and that was infuriating to him and seeing Henry having the perfect family William always wanted was what caused him to kill Charlie that night. He wanted to take something from Henry and William needed to feel in control and for Henry to be vulnerable just to prove it could be taken away from him if William really wanted to and he did. What William wasn't expecting was that the security Puppet assigned to Charlie's bracelet would do exactly as it was programmed to do, it found Charlie and as she died, her soul fused to it. Upon discovering this, it would set William on a new path. He needed to understand why this would happen and how. Not because he was desperate to see his son or daughter again. But because he needed to be able to harness this ability to control it. His son lying in a coma would be brought back by his hands and he'd have the power to do something Henry cnever could. However he came to the conclusion he decided he'd need to kill again and he did. Stuffing bodies into the animatronics to see if they too would become possessed. Besides, who was going to go looking for the missing children in the suits? From here he would learn about remnant and conducted a particular gruesome experiment. What if a person died inside a spring lock suit? The result was something more powerful, but it was less predictable and obident than the others had been, but he did learn a valuable lesson about spring locks. He created the Funtimes to keep collecting and experimenting with remnant and he used electric shocks to keep them obedient and when he was no longer able, he enlisted Michael to continue his work.

We don't have all the information, but from what we do have, these motivations track with of Afton. Far more than the idea of a grief stricken father. If something happened to William to make him an insecure jealous man whose morality was shaped only by his own selfish desire. It happened before the events of FNAF. I don't think that's unsatisfying, I think it's a reminder of what we become when we reject humanity when our insecurities turn to jealousy, when we refuse to accept that some things are out of our control and allow fear to become hatred. While we can point to Henry and Edwin's rage against their respective machines, we also see the other side of them, the love of their children. You never see this human or soft side of William and personally I believe that's because it isn't there. William Afton's choices were not the choices of a man acting out of love or grief and that is why he's not a sympathetic villain and that is why it works so well and how it gets under our skin. When his actions are explained by those emotions because he's never been shown expressing them. If Afton is trying to rebuild his children, he is doing so to create loyal and obedient versions of them to do his bidding to make sure his work can continue and that he can always come back.

"YOU WILL DO AS I SAY. YOU WILL BRING ME WHAT I WANT AND IF YOU FAIL ME, THEN YOU WILL, BOTH OF YOU WILL BURN"

I believe this is what the original Security Breach story was meant to be. Vanessa was meant to be Elizabeth reborn and Gregory CC reborn as robots and tasked with slowly replacing William's body with animatronic parts injected with remnant and it lines up with what we know from the books. But Sony fucked the game and the original plan fell through and they course corrected.

But bottom line is, I don't believe William is this loving father with originally noble goals as the fandom likes to paint him because Scott writes William anything but than what the fandom portrays William to be and I think it's good that he's not a sympathetic villain. Sometimes some people are always awful and they don't have to have something bad happen to them. The masses have forgotten the simple pleasures of experiencing a nasty villain who delights in their crime and is the pettiest specimen one could ever design. William Afton to me is Scott pouring every negative/evil trait he could think up into the shape of a character and I just think it's good way to write William Afton.

There’s a reason the Afton Amalgamation is one giant Bunny made out of trash.