Game Theory - The Circus Of HORRORS! (FNAF)

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Join Game Theory Host Tom as he goes back to the origins of FNAF and what it tells us about the franchise! *Credits:* Writers: Tom Robinson Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Pedro Freitas, Alex "Sedge" Sedgwick, Jerika (NekoOnigiri), Warak, Gerardo Andrés Mejía Torres, Nick Cramer and Tyler Mascola Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

Fred Bear's Family Diner. This is where it all began. The animatronic empire, the string of deaths, and Williams descent into madness. Everything stemmed from this one location. Or at least, that's what we all thought, until today. Hello internet. Welcome to game theory, where it is finally time. Today, I graduate from Fnaff Boy to Fnaff Man and take on my very first Fnaf Theory.

Although, I say that, I have actually been helped. helping Matt write FNAF theories for the past three years. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Matt. Have the head of safe flight back. Bye! I didn't get to talk to you about Gregory is a robot. All right.

I mean, to be fair, that was both of our sin. But, you know. I threw something out. My first FNAF theory, I threw something out there. Yeah, Gregory's a robot, first FNAF theory. And look how well received it's been. Look how good that's gone for all of us. It's done so well for all of us.

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? But don't worry, theorists. I promise today's theory is way less crazy, hopefully. Because today, I'm going to be tackling one, simple teeny tiny detail that I think is really important to understanding this franchise. Help Wanted 2 was full of collectibles, most of which you get from a prize machine after you beat a mini game. Some are set prizes that relate to the level you just completed, like a sun figure for beating the first daycare mission, or a meat pretzel for beating the Fazbear Theatre.

However, after you beat the game, there are some extra prizes to collect that are given to you at random when you replay a stage. Usually this is just extra plushies, models or food. But sometimes you get posters. And one of these posters, stood out above all the rest. It ends up on the back wall right next to the Fas Wrench entrance for the Princess Quest mini-game. It's a poster promoting Fall Fest 1970. Now, to the FNAV community, Fall Fest is nothing new. We first saw this name pop up almost five years ago in the curse of Dreadbear DLC for the original Help Wanted. A Halloween-inspired event full of attractions, rides, and of course, spooky versions of all our favorite characters to fit in with the

Halloween theme. But there is one crucial difference between this Fall Fest and the one we see on the poster from Help Wanted too. The date. The banners around the curse of Dreadbear Hub World show that this event was taking place in 1983. But this new poster is from over a decade before. This whole Fallfest thing has clearly been running for a very long time. In fact, it's been running since before the earliest confirmed parts of the Fnaf timeline. In the Silver Eyes, when Charlie is looking for news articles on Fred Bear's family diner, she starts the search at 1979, seeming to imply that this was when the diner was founded.

But that is nine whole years after this poster was published. And that's not all. Look at the design of this poster. While it's advertising Fall Fest, it's not inherently spooky like the event we see for the curse of Dreadbear. Instead, it has autumnal elements, but it's mostly designed to look like an old two-toned circus poster, complete with a giant circus tent right in the middle. And this isn't the first time Steel Will has offered us hints that circuses might be important to this franchise. There's the mini-games in Help Wanted 2, like the Carousel and Fazzablast, there's the circus costumes that are down in the basement of ruin. There's even circus-themed funco merch.

Clearly, Steel Will is beating us over the head. with this circus thing for a reason. But why? Well, back in 2022, in the buildup to Security Breach's Xbox port, Steelwall did an interview with Game Jolt to talk about how they made Security Breach, give some updates on Ruins development, and drop some little hints towards what might be coming down the pipeline for them and the FNAF franchise. And when asked what kind of game they'd like to make in the future, they said this. One thing that I've always would love to do is get back to kind of like the origin of like Fasbur Entertainment, kind of see how things we made. Same here. I'd like to head further back into the 70s.

They want to create a game about the origins of Freddy's set in the 70s. Most of us at the time assumed this would just be Fred Bear's Family Diner. But with all this circus imagery popping up, it begs the question, what if Fred Bear's Family Diner wasn't the origin of Freddy's? What if instead it was this circus? Fall Fest 1970. And once I realized that, things started to fall into place. This poster is the key to clarifying some massive holes in the FNAF timeline.

It confirms a number of things we've been predicting for a while, and it shines a little more light on the franchise's latest villain. Come to think of it, maybe this isn't such a small theory after all. Whoops! So, you better grab your popcorn theorist because the show is about to begin, and I'm going to reveal to you the true origins of Freddy's. Now, I understand there may be some hesitancy in me changing up the entire beginning of the timeline. I get it. It's a pretty big claim.

And while there have been a number of hints towards circuses throughout the games and books, it doesn't necessarily mean that's where this whole thing is. started. So, let's take a look at one of the more recent examples of the circus being hinted at, so I can show you where I'm coming from. In the basement of the ruined DLC where you find the mimic, there are two costumes hanging up. An old lady blackbird and an elephant dressed as a clown. In the game files, there's also a lion wearing a varsity jacket. Three animals all associated with the circus. Elephants often perform tricks. Lions were regularly tamed by lion tamers, and while crows or blackbirds aren't traditionally circus animals, they do often appear in circus-focused

media like Disney's Dumbot. Plus, the elephant is literally dressed as a clown. It doesn't get more circusy than that. But the most important part isn't actually their circus theming. It's the fact they aren't animatronic suits. In our initial theory on ruin, we talked about how these costumes seem to be related to circus babies, because, you know, circus. However, when Circus Babies Entertainment of Rentals, or even Circus Baby's Pizza World was due to launch, they were all animatronics. And complex ones at that. Why then would they have physical costumes? They wouldn't unless these costumes actually came from something circus theme that was before animatronics were part of this franchise in the mimic not the robot the tales from the

Pizzaplex story named after him we learn of a character named edwin who owns a robotics company getting big off of making a robot vacuum cleaner however with the birth of his son the death of his wife and then the crippling pressure of running his own business he decides to sell the company to none other than fassbear entertainment why does fasbear agree to purchase because they want edwin for his robotics knowledge. Specifically, they want him to turn their character costumes into full-blown animatronics. We've seen him do exactly this with Chica in the first few pages of the story. Later on, he goes on to explain that this is the 18th character he'd been asked to create, describing the collection as, quote,

a circus-like array of animal and other character costumes. Circus like you say. We believe for a long time that Edwin is the book's parallel for Henry, the animatronic genius that helped Afton to grow Fasbear into the animatronic empire we know today. So the circus-themed costumes we see in the basement of ruin likely came from that same time period, a period where Henry was transforming costumes into animatronics. And these costumes aren't Henry's only connection to the circus either. When Charlie goes back to her childhood home in the Silver Eyes, she looked through Henry's office and finds an assortment of books that, quote,

would have seemed eclectic to anyone who didn't know the man. There were books on biology and anatomy. Some on human beings, others on animals. There were books about the history of the traveling carnival and of the circus. There were books about child development, about myths and legends. and about sewing patterns and techniques. There were volumes that claimed to be about trickster gods, about quilting bees, and about football cheering squads and their mascots.

Most of these make a lot of sense. Things like anatomy, mascots, sewing patterns, it all ties into the idea that he was creating characters and turning costumes into animatronics. The books about child development either tie into the fact that he was catering to kids and so was trying to figure out how he could best serve his customers, or it's linked to the human anatomy books and ties into Henry creating robot versions of his daughter Charlie.

But there's one selection that has always stood out as odd, one that I've never had an explanation for, and that is the history of the travelling carnival and of the circus. Why would Henry need books on that topic if all the work he's ever done is on animatronics and diners? He needs it because the origins of Fazbear are rooted in travelling circuses and carnivals. It was a hint as to the first years of this business. So, this circus, Fall Fest, seems to be where Fazber Entertainment all began. But now the question is, who else was there? And I don't mean human characters, let's be honest, we don't have many of them that are out.

actually important, especially not back in 1970. I mean, which of the Fasbear characters were part of the original roster. As I've mentioned, during how one or two, we get a number of mini-games that take place in Carleval-like settings, namely Faza Blast and the Carousel, and it's the Carousel that I want us to take a look at first. The game itself is pretty straightforward, you know, when you don't have an ash trying to desperately keep your microphone attached. Oh my God! Oh my God! But despite this, Matt did manage to notice a very interesting detail in the level's design, a random pumpkin. Just sitting there, waiting to be thrown. I think we can all agree that pumpkins are something we specifically associate

with Halloween. And the only event we know to take place at Halloween in this franchise is, you guessed it, Fall Fest. We even get a Halloween themed version of Moon appeared during the nightmare level of the carousel ride. The carousel is from Fallfest, which means it's from the early part of the franchise. But then, take a look at the characters that are used on the carousel. Freddie, Bonnie, Jika, Foxy, which, you know, is what you'd expect. Except it's not just the original versions from FNAF1. The one that, immediately stands out to me is this white and pink version of Foxy. Fun Time Foxy? Well, kinder.

Because you might also notice it has a hooked hand. Something that Fun Time Foxy is clearly lacking in sister location. However, there is a version of Fun Time Foxy with a hook hand. And that's in Fnaff World, a game that came out before sister location and doesn't have any other Fun Time animatronics present. Implying that Fun Time Foxy didn't originally belong with that group of animatronics. Instead, belonging to an earlier set. Carousel tells us exactly which group that is. The other characters on this ride, besides Fun Time Foxy and the original four, all have rosy red cheeks, which aligns with the toy animatronics from

Fnaff 2. Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, and Fun Time Foxy, the toy version of Foxy. The toy animatronics being here feels wrong, doesn't it? The toys don't become a thing until 1987, with their special recognition software and new, more complex endoskeletons. They replaced the old withered versions of the original Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy from the original Freddy's. How then are they on a ride from 1970? Well, this is because I don't think the toy animatronics are meant to call back to the 1983 Freddy's animatronics.

They're supposed to be referencing the original circus costumes. Going back to the mimic story, once Edwin abandons the warehouse, Fasbear employees are sent in to collect any Fasbear property, things like their costumes. One character mentions a few of them. A Brown Freddy Fasbear costume, a yellow Chika costume, a Foxy costume, a Bonnie costume. The original four were all in existence, as costumes before their introduction as animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. And what's even crazier is the designs of those costumes actually exist.

A few years ago, there was a, let's just say, controversial, but at the time, official FNAF artist that dropped an image onto the FNAF subreddit was zero context or explanation. The only thing we knew is that these images contained Scott's official copyright. These images were commissioned by Scott, which makes them as good a piece of evidence as any. And what are these images of? versions of Freddy, Bonnie and Cheekar in a similar style to the mascot costumes you'd find at a theme park like Disneyland, all with large proportions and big round heads in order to have a human fit inside them. These appear to be the original costumes for the characters. And where were these costumes used?

I suspect they were worn at the circus. Why? Well, notice the bright red cheeks. Exaggerated features like big red noses or cheeks have been used by clowns and circus performers for centuries. Joseph Grimaldi is recognized as being the ancestor for my mother. modern clowns and in 1802 he created the design for his most iconic character, Joey the Clown. And one of this character's iconic features was painted red cheeks. Similarly, Albert Fratellini is known to have helped redefine a type of clown in the mid-1900s

known as the August clown, complete with the bright red nose we know today. Why did both these performers feel it necessary to have bright red features for the evolution of the clown? Because when the word clown was first recorded in 1560, it meant rustic, bore or peasant. This often boiled down to one simple stereotype, the town drunk, who you would often see after you'd had a bit too much to drink with a bright red nose and red cheeks. This happens when your body isn't able to digest alcohol properly, causing a release of histamines that essentially cause your face to have an allergic reaction, namely red cheeks and nose. The idea of referencing this was to make clowns or characters immediately look foolish, silly or disarming. So people would be quicker to laugh at them rather than be scared of them, which is pretty ironic when you think about it.

why I believe these costumes are circus costumes. Not because they're trying to make characters look like drunks, that wouldn't be very child friendly. It was to invoke those same reactions of silly, goofy fun. And the kicker is you can see this trait carried over into the most definitively circus costume we've got available, elephant costume down in the ruined basement. Usually you don't get a chance to see them up close,

but freeze the frame just right or, you know, search the game files, and you'll find that, although a little faded, it too has rosy red cheeks. So red-cheeked characters like the ones we see in these designs would have been right at home at a circus, which also opens up the door to other red-cheek characters from this franchise to potentially be part of the original roster. Maybe characters that weren't originally animal costumes, but more likely humans wearing the same kind of face paint. Case and point, Balloon Boy has never really fit in anywhere. We turned on FNAF too and he was just there.

And we've hated him ever since. But in security breach, he got his own. Cabin' Cabin' Wall. And if you played that game, you'd see a circus tent in the background. Balloon Boy's only standalone adventure places him at the circus. But while he never fit in with Fnaf 2's characters, he did have a striking resemblance to a handful of characters in sister location and circus babies. Other wooden puppets like The Magician and Fortune Teller, all jobs that would be found

at a circus. Selling balloons was an important part of any circus, so Balloon Boy with his little sign offering them to children would be right at home with the rest of them. And to top it all off, when Funko does. decided to release their new circus line of FNAF products, it can take not just clown versions of all the characters, but versions of all of them wearing Balloon Boy's iconic outfit. We were being shown that Balloon characters, and specifically that outfit, are inherently tied to the circus. Balloon Boy has to be a part of this. Fullfest is where he finally makes sense. Another example would be Circus Baby. She's been showing up a lot

in recent games, just like the circus imagery, so it feels like Steel Wool are purposely trying to connect the two. She's also got the red cheeks we've talked about as well as that white face paint that we see on most traditional clowns. She'd fit right in at a circus. Plus, you know, she's literally got circus in her name. Maybe this character, whose placement in the timeline has perplexed us for so long, belongs way earlier in the franchise's history than any of us expected. But above those two, in the books, there is one other costume that gets called out. The core four, but always one more, a jester costume. Now, I'm sure Mad is once again freaking out because jester's aren't clowns and they aren't part of a circus,

and dude, I get it, but just trust me on this. In that quote from the mimic story about the rack of costumes, after listing off the main four characters we know and love, they finish off by adding, and bright pink, yellow green court jester costumes, similar to the colours we see sun wearing in Security Breach. Yeah, I know, they're a little off, but they're pretty close. And just look at the rest of his costume.

Curly pointed toes with bells, puffy trousers, or pants, I suppose. And the tutu-like frills on his waist and ankles. He is 100% meant to be a court jester. He even jumps out of a freaking cut jester. castle when we first meet him in Security Breach. And as Matt was very keen to point out, Jester's originated as performers for royalty in their castles during the Middle Ages. Finally, there's the epilocks, where the Jester character once again returns.

But this time, we get a description of its mask. Quote, Lucius stepped up to the costume, suppressing a shiver at the Jester's leering, toothy grin and its wide eyes. One of Sun's most distinct features is his obnoxious toothy grin. It's so iconic that he had to have teeth underneath his teeth just in case. And those large vacant eyes definitely give off that leering vibe that Lucia was describing. So, even though Sun doesn't have the red cheeks like we talked about, he still appears to be very obviously connected to the original crew,

Freddy, Jika, Foxy, and Bonnie, as well as the circus. He is the last one mentioned when they're all being listed off, as if the costumes were grouped together, like they came from the same collection of characters. Characters that came from Fazbear's circus days. Sun and Moon actually make a lot of sense as characters in a traveling circus. In the tale story Bobby Dots, we get a bit of much needed backstory on this character who just showed up in Security Breach, not matching any of the 80s-tastic designs of the Pizza Plex. It turns out they weren't always a daycare attendant, but instead, a performer.

They put on shows where Sun would be the hero, and when the lights went out, Moon would appear as the story's villain. That ties into the comedy and tragedy masks that we've found in ruin, masks the display Sun and Moon's face. So, it would have also been an ideal performance to keep kids entertained at a circus venue. And later on, when the daycare was introduced, that same bobby dot story describes the daycare's design as a carnival-like space, hammering home the connection to the character's origins. And then the icing on the cake, during Help Wanted 2, he is the one we face when we're trying to fix the carousel from those old Fall Fest days. He's been there since the start. And when you think about it, in the early days of the franchise when you're trying to keep cost down,

buying a full mascot costume or fur suit from a trusted provider can cost upwards of $5,000. dollars, while costumes for professional jesters and clowns are typically just a few hundred bucks, keeping costs nice and low when you're first starting out. It really feels like the circus origin is helping characters that are out of place, have a place to finally belong. Sun and Moon, Baby, Balloon Boy, all of them will be right at home here at the circus. However, Fall Fest isn't just the origins of the Fazbear franchise. It's also the origins of William Afton's first major tragedy.

Fasablast in Help One or Two is a shooting gallery that matches the design of the Hubworld during the curse of Dreadbear DLC. Dreadbear even makes an appearance of the attraction. So, this attraction clearly takes place during Fallfest 1983. However, the Pen Ultimate Fazzablast level ends with you shooting a number of rockets and popping all the balloon versions of the animatronics that appear. Doing so seems to cause a chain reaction that leads to the whole thing ending up in flames. And when you go back for the final level, the place is burnt to the ground. We see the same thing happened during the carousel ride. As you try to fix it, sparks fly and the thing lights up, leading to the nightmare version of the level where the whole place is already ablaze.

And if you go out of bounds during that carousel level, you can see the red sky, burnt trees, water tower, and windmill that are all present during that final Fasablast level off in the distance. Steel wool is clearly showing us that much like every other establishment in this franchise, this event, Fallfest 1983, ended in fire. 1983 sucked for this franchise, but especially for Afton. He loses his kid to a malfunctioning springlock suit and his other son's negligence. Fred Bear's family diner gets shut down and top it all off. loses the thing that started this whole business, the circus. Steel wool is all about a sympathetic villain backstory. Try not to set out to make a cool looking villain. Go make a monster that have a reason for it. These aren't just like these supernatural forces that came out of nowhere to just hurt people and

punish people, right? Like there were results of other wrongdoing. Adding a fire to an already pretty awful list of tragedy and loss, it would make it a little less surprising that Afton could suddenly snap and go on a murder spree. But this fire tells us more than, than just how this first chapter in FNAF history ended. It also tells us that there was one other character here, someone else present from the beginning that you wouldn't suspect. The mimic. Yeah, I know, I was surprised too, but everything seems to be pointing to this guy being here since the earliest days of the franchise. We get a lot of different descriptions for the mimic during the epilogs of tales from the pizzaplex. Sometimes it's a traditional endoskeleton,

other times it's a spider-like mess of slimy black wires. But when we are first introduced to it, We're given one extra detail, a detail that I never fully understood. Quote, it wasn't just a basic metal structure, its steel frame was contained within a building collection of metal rods and curved plates and an impressive system of ball joints and pistons. All of it was topped with a long, vaguely rectangular shaped shiny steel skull. The skull was the only part that was shiny. The rest was dark and discoloured as if it had survived some kind of fire. That's a pretty specific way of phrasing it, especially when it points out that the head isn't blackened by the

same issue. We're being given a clue as to where this mimic came from. Because the other detail that's important to bear in mind is that quote comes from the very start of the story when the endoskeleton first arrives at the pizzaplex. It was delivered to this location already burned, which tells us that it had to be in a previous Fasbear fire, and I believe that fire was the fire of Fulfest. But what makes me so sure that the mimic got all burned during that fire specifically? Here's the thing. I know we always joke that everything in this franchise ends. in fire, but we can actually count the number of fires on one hand, even if you're an animatronic with only four fingers, which means it shouldn't be too difficult to go through each one

and determine which one the mimic came from. Working backwards, there's a fire at the end of security breach if you beat the burn trap ending. Afton is defeated, the blobs steals him away and the entire Pizza Plex catches fire and collapses. But as we've talked about before, it doesn't seem like this is the canon ending for security breach. We find Gregory's drawings for the non-canon endings during ruin and the last one we collect is his drawing of the burn trap ending, which means this fire wasn't a real fire. And even if it was, this ending takes place at the Pizzaplex, so the mimic couldn't have been delivered to the Pizzaplex burnt from a fire as the Burntrap ending comes later in the timeline. Second option is the

FNAF6 fire. But once again, we face issues with timeline. The pizzaplex is being built on top of the Fnaf 6 location, which means the mimic wouldn't be able to be delivered to that location when the pizzaplex is being constructed like we see in the book, because it would have already been there. The only other fire left other than four. Fulfest is the FNAF3 fire, but the owners of Fasbear Fright seem pretty stoked when they found their first working animatronic, SpringTrap. Up until this point, they'd only had bits and pieces like a foxy head. So it feels like they'd have also made a pretty big deal of finding a mimic, bringing it back to the location, even if they thought it was just an endo. So it doesn't feel like

it can be that one either, which leaves only one fire for the mimic to have been burnt in. The fire of Fulfest 1983, meaning the mimic has been around for a long time. We actually theorized this back when we covered Sun and Moon after the events of ruin, we connected the mimics thrown together thin, simple animatronic design to that of Sun and Moon, namely a very weird but distinct feature independently moving teeth. It's a strange design detail that we've never seen before, so for both characters to have the same detail in the same game makes it seem like they have to be connected in some way. And if Sun and Moon come from the early Fallfest origins of the franchise, then the mimic being around at the same time would explain that connection.

But there's one more detail that tells me that the mimic has to have been around. during the Fulfest era of FNAF. Some think that's been right under our noses for years. For a while now, we believe that the glitch-trap virus in Help Wanted One, the virus that takes the shape of a yellow bunny rabbit and takes over Vanessa's mind, isn't actually William Afton himself. But instead, a version of the Mimic Program that is mimicking Afton's behaviour. In the game we heard about FASBair trying to keep costs down for this new game they're developing.

I mean, they sent us that stuff in the first place with no explanation, told us to scan it, said it would expedite the process so we wouldn't need to program any path finding ourselves. It was a budget thing, I guess. It was just junk. Circuit boards and things like that. Look pretty old. That game was help wanted. It's an in-universe game that takes the original FNAF games and turns them into new VR experiences, which is exactly what we learn happen to the Mimic program in the storyteller. Quote, it's a simple template-style software that takes previously created stories and rearranges them into new scenarios for VR, AR, and arcade games.

That is what GlitchTrap is. The Mimic Program, having been scanned into the system, gets a crash course in Afton's murdery tendencies, and is now mimicking it. Hence, he appears as Afton's iconic Yellow Rabbit. Except there's one part of this explanation that never sat right with me. If the Glitch Trap Mimic was learning about Afton from the in-universe games of FNAF 1 to 6,

then why does he take this form? Afton in all of those games, even in the 8-bit mini-games, is always wearing his Springlock suit, because that was the costume he wore at Fred Bear's Family Diner. But the version of the suit the Mimic shows us as GlitchTrap is a completely different design. And at the time, we'd never seen this version before. This isn't his Springlock suit.

It's a hand-sown suit with plastic-looking facial features similar to the ones we saw on that concept are. Those suits came from Fallfest, and so it would make sense for this hand-sown golden rabbit suit to have also come from the same time period. But for the Mimic to have been able to copy this design, it would have to have some memory of this version of Afton in its memory, banks prior to being uploaded to the help wanted game system. It would have to have observed Afton perform in this iconic Golden Rabbit costume alongside a golden singing bear at Fall Fest. The mimic would have to be around during the early costume days of the franchise. Tape Girl did say the circuit boards looked pretty old after all.

It was just junk, circuit boards and things like that. Look pretty old. Maybe the mimic was originally meant to mimic Afton specifically. I'm not entirely sure of this to be honest, but it does feel like this is where the clues might be headed. Both Fall Fest and the Diner were open until 1983 after all. So they coexisted for at least four years with the Diner opening in 1979. And we know that Afton was performing a Springbony at the diner.

So it's possible that the MIMIC was part of Afton's plan to expand the business. He could literally be in two places at once. Eventually, the Mimic would be locked underground, with some circuit boards containing its programming set aside just in case. And when the Mimic software was finally used again to help speed up the process of a new VR game, it was shown all of those old FNAF games. And while it watched and learned, it recognized someone, William Afton, the Golden Rabbit from the Circus, and so decided to take on the form it remembered from all those years ago.

Creating the monster, we have spent the last three games and two DLCs trying to stop. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory! Thanks for watching.