Game Theory - Was I WRONG About Secret of the Mimic?

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Was I WRONG about FNAF Secret of the Mimic? Game Theory Host Tom spent months going over tiny details, analysing everything frame by frame trying to solve this game, but he wasn’t alone. There were two other theorists who brought their own solutions! Are they right or was he wrong? Let’s find out in today’s episode!

Was I wrong about FNAF's Secret of the Mimic? I spent months going over tiny details, analyzing everything frame by frame, trying to solve this fascinating game. But I wasn't alone. There were two other theorists who brought their own solutions to problems I raised. So, are they right? Was I wrong? Let's find out.

Hello, internet. Welcome to Game Theory. The show that knows solving the FNAF law is a team sport. It's been a couple of months now since we finished our Secret of the Mimic, extravaganza, where we left off on a, let's call it divisive branching path. I did my best to present a couple of options as to why we were seeing so many similarities between the characters of David Murray, David Afton and Gregory, from their looks to their families, even the beats of their own stories.

One option was that the M2 mimic takes on the role of David Murray. Afton adopts him as his son becoming David Afton, and then when he breaks M1, the AI that assumed the identity of David's mother Fiona, decides to put him back together, creating Gregbot. Or, there was the option that the first seven games in the franchise weren't just in universe games, but completely fictional, taking elements of David Murray's story and transforming it into a narrative about the Fazbear founder and his family in order to remove the Murray's from the picture.

Like I said, two very different paths, and not everyone likes them. Heck, I even pointed out their flaws in those videos. But I wanted to show them as options of how we could interpret the ever. And since then, I've actually received a lot of comments asking me one very specific thing. Why wasn't I mentioning other people's theories? Especially when two of them were trying to answer the same question. Fate Fiona by Gibby's Horror Homestead and God David by T-Dreads. And the honest answer is, I hadn't watched them.

I know that might be hard to believe. Us FNAF theorists usually want to take in as much FNAF content as possible. But as the amount of theorists has grown over the years, so has the rise in comments accusing theorists of stealing ideas from other people. So to make sure I wasn't in any way influenced by their theories, even subconsciously, I purposely avoided watching any other FNAV theories while I was working on my own. It's a shame really because at the end of the day, solving FNAF has always been about collaboration. It's why Matt did his live talk back after FNAF 4 and it's why we still do them today.

We need to work together if we have any hope of getting through it. So, now that I've been out of my secret of the mimic hole for a few months, I figured it was high time I checked them both out to see whether they were able to fill in any of the gaps that I couldn't, or whether there's some combination of our ideas that could maybe make this story finally make sense. I hope you're ready, theorists, because it's time for another round of my trash takes. Leave your theories in the comments or subredit. I'll pick my favorite in the next episode of Trash. Let's start with Gibby. As the name implies, fate Fiona focuses on the character of Fiona Murray, David's mother. He posits that Fiona, after becoming the M1 mimic and put into the Mex's machine,

becomes this overpowering force that manipulates the world around her into repeating history. Not just her history either, but Fasbe's history as a whole, like the fires, the bad fathers, the houses being on top of the secret facility, and loads more. This immediately caught my attention as it explores a similar line of thinking to what I was exploring in my games are fiction branch. But it manages to keep it all in universe rather than it being a fictional story borrowing ideas from reality. Gibby suggests that Fiona is able to achieve this world manipulation through three main factors.

Firstly, the idea that Fazbear keeps building on top of previous establishments, meaning all the remnant and agony of its victims are still present in the area and essentially haunting the building. This explains why in games like FNAF1, we see the posters on the wall change, or why in security breach, there are random plushies hidden around the place. It's the classic burial ground trope. The buildings are haunted because they are built upon the dead. But when you think about it, thanks to Secret of the Mimic and Ruin, who specifically is dead and underneath all of these buildings, right in the basement of MCM waiting to put her son back together. Fiona. Secondly, he looks at the

story of Fetch from Fasbear Frights and the concept of how human thoughts, if strong enough, can actually affect subatomic particles in order to manipulate the world. world around them and other people's thoughts. This is a real world concept called the zero point field. Gibby explains that down there in the basement, Fiona's thoughts are so strong, her desire to rebuild her family so powerful, that she is able to utilise the zero point field

and affect the thoughts of those in the area. Namely, William Afton, subconsciously planting the name David in his head so that he calls his own child David, as well as subconsciously giving him the idea to stuff kids into suit, the mimic used to do back in the 1970s. And finally, there's the physical wires.

Fiona is plugged into everything Fasbear touches, much like the storyteller was in the tales from the Peterplex books, an AI designed to connect to everything, but ends up infecting it with bad ideas and code. Similarly, Fiona gets plugged into Fasbear and so witnesses everything that happens throughout Fasbear's history due to the agony and remnant they leave behind, causing the technology

to also repeat parts of history, like Fred Bear killing David when the opportunity presents itself because her son David also died on the premises, or glamorough Bonnie being locked away in a back room destroyed, being watched by possessed wet floor bots. Much like Springtrap was locked away in a back room after dying, being watched by five spirits. Fiona is the central hub for everything. With her memories and will, being so strong, she's forcing history to repeat itself over and over again. Now, when I first watched this video, I thought it was super out there. But the more I thought

about it, the more I realized it tied into a number of theories we'd already had on this channel. We did a theory ages ago about why we thought there were so much puppet imagery across the Pizza Plex, specifically in the wires connecting everything. At the time, we felt the best option was leaning into the only character, we knew that had an association with the puppet, Charlie. We even equated it to the idea that she was haunting the building like an old school ancient burial ground, rather than being tied to a specific animatronic like we'd usually seen. We had the same my dear, it's just we didn't know Fiona was a character in order to tie her to all the puppet imagery instead of Charlie.

Admittedly, it may still seem a little strange. Why would Fiona be associated with the puppets? Well, I think we can come up with a good explanation for it. In another one of our mimic theories, I suggested that M1 Fiona's memories are becoming muddied thanks to the amount of data she's received from the original games while being used to make her wanted. But while I focused solely on what she'd have learnt from Afton in order to make her glitch trap, There are other characters in those games she'd have learnt about and possibly even adopted as part of this new messy persona.

Characters like Charlie. I specifically called out that she seems to be adopting traits from characters that she identifies with. Afton is a man that wants to put his family back together no matter the cost, for example. But Fiona and the puppet share a couple of close connections too. They're both protectors of children, they both fail at their duty and the child dies on their watch. Fiona is also a puppeteer. So again, she has an association with puppets. And these similarities all add to M1 Fiona Fiona being a confused mess.

She can't tell what is her and what is someone else. Is it glitch trap? Is it Charlie? Is it David? But that could be why we see all these things connecting the pizzaplex giving off puppet vibes, even though it's supposed to be Fiona and not Charlie. On the flip side, if you subscribe to Gibby's theory wholesale,

it wouldn't just be data. But all the agony and remnant and memories of all the victims who died on this one piece of Fazbear land entering Fiona's system, meaning Charlie's memories are now part of Fiona too. But that also brings up the part of the theory that is possibly one of the biggest debates coming out of Secret of the Mimic. Is there possession, or is it just AI? For this theory to work, it requires you to be of the belief that the M1 mimic program didn't just become Fiona through being an AI, but through possession, using the classic old-school FNAF tools of things like Remnant and Agony. Two of the reasons I've seen for M1

being possessed are that she learned to be Fiona after Fiona had died and that Edwin uses the frequency 4625 on one of the audio logs and hears the voice of Fiona after her death. This frequency is actually associated with a ghost radio frequency in the real world, known as the buzzer. As the name implies, it simply broadcasts a static buzz across the airwaves. But occasionally, you can hear words, sometimes even voices in the background. But the key thing is, no one claims to be running it. Leading some to believe it's ghosts, speaking from beyond the grave. However, upon looking into it more, it seems that this radio frequency is something more to do with Russian intelligence.

With two other radio stations, the Pip and the Squeaky Wheel, also transmitting a similar signature sound, occasionally interrupted by coded Russian voice messages. It's real messages being sent by real people, not ghosts. Which means that if Steelwall is invoking the iconography of frequency 4625, They're telling us, while it may appear to be something paranormal, it's actually a real person, or at least thing that's sending the message. John Fanaf has a great theory about how it's actually the Mycelium men who have recorded Fiona trying to help Edwin. Because the AI, Edwin made in all of his inventions, was designed to...

Know what you want better than you do. Which also explains how M1 learns to be Fiona. It's not from Fiona herself, but from the recordings of her through the Mycelium Men, which is why she acts like her, but she feels more stilted and robotic. I baked it myself for David's special day. And no, it's not just because she's a robot, but because she never learned from the real thing. Plus, as I've mentioned before, Scott does seem to be moving away from the old paranormal stories he used to tell. I have a tendency to lean sci-fi.

It's the only thing that involves possession of AI or possession of machines or circuitry. I love that sort of thing. Since Help Wanted, we've been getting stories about AI taking over people. Not Remnant or Agony. In The Tales from the Peterplex series, while we still get ghost stories, we don't really get much in the way of remnant or agony specifically. There's frailty where a girl has a remnant necklace similar to the one from To Be Beautiful in Fazbear Fright, but it's rarely the focal point of this series. Again, emphasising the move away from those old Fnaf story beats and more into AI and machine sentience.

And without the real spirit of Fiona, it means there's no remnant or agony, and it becomes harder to explain things like the zero point field. That's not to say it's impossible by any stretch. There are signs of some paranormal things going on at MCM. I mean, the White Tiger costume feels very much like old school Golden Freddy. That, or it's just Arnold hallucinating. I just finished a 36-hour shift and struggling to stay awake. And the zero-point field idea comes from the story Fetch, and the Into the Pit game did tease a fetch sequel.

So maybe they are going to bring it in. And the fact is, if it turns out to be true, Faye Fiona would help to justify my theory that Old Bank consequences is actually what remains of Edwin Murray. I suggested that because Edwin from the books comes back to help destroy the mimic years later, that even though it seems like he died at the end of Secret of the Mimic, in reality, he didn't fully die, because no one ever dies in the series. I suggested that the king in Princess Quest, known as Old Man Consequences in the game files, was like Edwin's digital signature. A safety protocol inside the Mimics programming designed as a failsafe to stop the monster he created.

Fate Fiona also ties into this theory, just in a more classic FNAF way. Rather than Edwin leaving behind a digital signature, it's literally his agony and spirit that, like everything else, ended up inside Fiona's systems, which then plugged into all the arcade cabinets in the Pizzaplex, which then allowed him to appear in games like Princess Quest and even Fnaff World. So while I'm not entirely sure about the method this theory is based on, I do have to say, it helps explain a lot of it.

of our past theories, as well as a dozen other theories from across the internet. I also understand that it would be nice to have things like Remnant and Agony still feel like they're important today and not just a forgotten story device. But at the very least, Gibby and I can agree that one way or another, Fiona is definitely the one running the show here. But that's just one of the branching paths. The second and probably most requested theory for me to look at is called God David by T-Dreads. The reason this one came as so requested is because it actually has a lot of similarities

to the other branching paths I presented. The reason David Murray, David Afton and Gregory have so many similarities can't be coincidence, they must be the same person. However, rather than it being a bunch of robot kids, Tidreds takes a slightly different approach. He focuses a lot on Gregory, pointing out a lot of the same similarities I did. Similar appearance, both being called Broken, sitting on a hill with their robotic protector. But the one extra PC points out is the therapy CDs from Security Brief. These recordings are from therapy sessions with two different patients.

One is Vanessa, with her being named in the tapes, and one is a mysterious unnamed patient, who we all came to call patient 46. We theorized early on in the life of security breach that patient 46 was in fact Gregory. This was later seemingly confirmed thanks to the story Gigi, where we see a kid called Greg killing off these counsellors when they got too close to the truth. The truth that Gregory wasn't really himself anymore, but being controlled by someone else. Tedreds points out that multiple therapists call him out for making up stories, that he's lying about his past, almost like an AI reading from a script. The way you told a story is more like you were reading something from a book.

But rather than it being because Gregory is a robot, it's because he's possessed by a version of M2's programming, a version of David Murray. He points specifically to the Balloon World Arcade Cabinet in Gregory's Heidi Hall, the one which as you play begins to glitch out and become corrupted. ending with the words, good night, as if Gregory is going to sleep and allowing M2 to take control. That's why when the therapists say lines like, You had great parents. It's because Gregory is telling the story of David's parents, not his own. Edwin definitely wasn't in the running for Father of the Year, and both Edwin and Fiona met tragic ends.

But that wasn't true for Gregory's parents. I got to say, I'm a fan of this. Even in my video where I brought up Gregory being a robot kid, I said I wasn't in love with the idea of having more robot kids around. It meant that we had M1, M2, now what? M3? It's just a lot of robot kids and not enough real people. And this use of the therapy CDs actually helps move away from that.

A robot kid made inside the Pizza Plex by M1, Fiona and Vanessa wouldn't have physical records or files for the therapists to refer to. They wouldn't be able to say lines like, you had great parents, because he'd be an anomaly with no past. He literally just showed up one day. But if instead he's a real kid with his mind taken over, then he would have real records that might even explain why he ended up in therapy. Because his teachers noticed he suddenly started acting differently. From there, he starts acting like and dressing like a slightly older version of David Murray, just like M1 wanted, only for him to be set free sometime before security breach.

The only thing I would question about this idea is the specifics of exactly what is possessing Gregory. T-Dreads presents it as a version of the mimmy. program that contains David's memories, which would seem to imply M2. He uses Balloon World's Glitched Sun as evidence for this. The character looks a lot like Eclipse, which is a character that represents the collaboration between Fiona Sun and Edwin's Moon. And so, that shows us that David or M2 is taking over Gregory's mind. But just like in my previous theory, there are a few ways you could interpret this, and mine would be slightly different in this case. So far, there's been one AI that clearly has the ability to take over people's mind.

GlitchTrap. We saw it with Jeremy, who sadly sliced his face off, and with Vanessa, who mentions that in the therapy tapes as part of her that is locked away. In many of our previous theories, we've connected GlitchTrap back to the M1 Fiona program, who, after being used to make games like how wanted, became muddled and confused as to what her true identity was. M1 Fiona is also represented by Sun, as we see in both the parachute ending of Secret of the Mimic and during Moon.E.C. So when we see the Sun glitched out in Balloon World, it's possible, it's not showing, showing us eclipse, but simply a glitched out sun.

It's sun that itself has been corrupted by the memory and influence of Afton, becoming a glitched trap for Gregory. So, if we have an AI program that can take control of human minds, that that human can also have an internal dialogue with, and it's the same one already taking over the entire PizzaPlex, it makes the most sense for Gregory to also be taken over by that same entity. Rather than having a bunch of different mimic AIs all existing, at the same time. Otherwise, you end up with the same problem that I had with my own Gregbot theory,

where it's just so many of one thing, robot kids or AI, and it becomes so complicated that it's just not satisfying anymore. It's Occam's Razor. Sometimes the simplest solution is the right solution. It being an AI, M1, wouldn't actually change the fact that Gregory has been mind-controlled in order to make him a new David either. After all, M2 was a copy of M1's programming, and we theorized that M2 was originally being taught on how to be David through moon. EXC. Essentially, using the memories M1 had of David to help recreate him. It's just doing the same thing in Gregory's head. It would also tie more into Gregory's persona that we see in GGY,

where he takes on the moniker of Dr. Rabbit, which feels more connected to GlitchTrap than to M2 specifically. Plus, Gregory is shown to be hacking the animatronics in that story, which again is not something we'd necessarily expect of David Murray, but would make sense for someone infected by Glitch Trap, who's trying to take control in order to make their vision a reality. But that's just one part of that theory. The second half focuses on the similarities between David Murray and David Afton.

Diedreds once again does his due diligence and not only calls out the same things that I did, but adds a bunch more. Like the fact David Afton's favourite ride is the carousel according to the security logbook. But there isn't a carousel in Fred Beers. There is a carousel, however, in Murray's costume manner. Almost as if he's remembering a different child's memories. There's also the line, do you miss them in the logbook? to a picture of Foxy writing a note and in Moon.exe there is a note asking the Moon to bring back

the Sun because he misses them. Again, it makes it hard to deny there's a connection here. The challenge becomes the how of it all. Even T-Dreads admits that this part is a bit of a stretch because we just don't have enough evidence yet. But he presents the idea that psychic friend Fred Bear actually contains a version of the M2 David AI which William uses to swap the mind of his son with David Murray. We see the Mycelium men who contained mimicked technology have the same black eyes with white dots. Glitch trap resides in a spring bonny plush in order to swap minds with Vanessa and this particular story structure is repeated all over the books like the week before, into the pit, gumdrop angel, the Monty within, but most

prominently for this theory in a story called Lonely Freddy. A small Freddy asks a child questions to learn more about them in order to assume their identity, eventually swapping bodies with them. Ironically, this is almost identical to a theory we had many years. years ago. It's just now we understand why. M1 Fiona needs an animatronic genius like Edwin, and now, like Afton, to be able to rebuild her son. Afton is intrigued by these machines that feel alive, and so is willing to go along and plan so that he can study it. All of that makes so much sense, and again, lines up with the same motivations I presented. The main challenge I had with it was the timeline. In our original theory, and also in T-Dread's theory, it presents the questions that

psychic friend Fred Bear slash the Lonely Freddy is asking are so it can learn stuff about David in order to steal his body and become David Murray once again. Except by the time we see him in the FNAF four mini games, he's already exhibiting signs that he is David Murray. He's wearing the same clothes carrying the plushy around, he's scared of Foxy, has the same name. I suppose you could argue that these things are just things William conditioned him to do in order to make him susceptible to the mind transfer. But then, when does he take over? Is it after he gets? bit when he says, I'll put you back together, but then what happens to him after that? Why does he disappear from the story? And if it's before that moment, then it means Fred Bear wouldn't have

any need to ask those questions, or be the M2 AI, because he's already taken over David Afton's mind. Now, all of that being said, I do recognize that there's definitely evidence for the crying child being more like a human child than a robot one like I presented originally. After all, the key evidence that T-Dreads refers to, the security logbook, has two spirits talking to one another, vengeful spirit Cassidy and the spirit of David. If the Fred Bear plush was the M2 David Murray program, then David Afton's spirit would be present and able to attach itself to Fred Bear in order to take control

and then talk to Cassidy. Plus, in the logbook, we see David struggling with his memories. Hence, all the questions about favourite toys, rides and even his name. Cassidy is trying to help him remember. Maybe because its own memories had been suppressed for so long by M2, much like with Gregory and the therapy CDs. Although we don't ever get the last name, from that spirit. So I suppose there is a chance that this is really David Murray's spirit,

trying to remember itself after years of wandering, kind of like we see happen to Jake in the Stichrath stories. I mean, Cassidy is calling out that his favourite ride is the carousel, which, as T. Dredds points out, the crying child, David wouldn't have ever witnessed. But we know that David Murray did. And all of this can be happening while M2 is walking around dressed like David Murray. Now under the watchful eye of William Afton. And see, this is why I did the branching paths in that original theory to begin with, because it's important to explore all of the options. And I'm so glad to see other theorists exploring alternative ideas from the same evidence,

while bringing up new points that agree, but also counter my own. Every theory has its strengths and weaknesses. But just because we don't like one part of the theory, doesn't mean we have to throw the animatronic baby out with the bathwater. I love the evidence surrounding Gregory's possession by the mimic. We may differ on the specifics, but it solves one of the big, problems I had with the Gregbot theory. Even if I don't believe that M1 is physically possessed by Fiona, it doesn't mean that I can't use part of that theory to fill the gaps that I had with

characters like Old Man Consequences or The Puppet. And I hope that both Gibby and T-Dreds are able to take some of the additions or counters that I've made and run with them to help develop their theories even further. The point is by exploring all of the options, we can get a better sense of what's really going on. At the end of the day, it's all just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.