The Origins
The story of Five Nights at Freddy's begins not with animatronic bears and haunted pizzerias, but with two men who shared a dream of bringing joy to children through entertainment and cutting-edge robotics. What followed would become one of the most tragic sagas in modern horror folklore.
Fredbear's Family Diner (1973-1983)
In the early 1970s, William Afton and Henry Emily founded what would become the cornerstone of a multi-decade horror story. Fredbear's Family Diner was more than just another restaurant—it represented the cutting edge of entertainment robotics. Henry Emily, the brilliant engineer, poured his soul into creating animatronics that could truly interact with children. William Afton, the businessman, saw dollar signs in every smiling child's face.
The diner featured only two animatronics: Fredbear, a golden bear with a purple top hat and bowtie, and Spring Bonnie, a yellow rabbit that would later become synonymous with death itself. These weren't ordinary animatronics. Henry had designed them with a revolutionary "spring-lock" mechanism—a dual-mode system that allowed the suits to function as both animatronic characters and wearable costumes for human performers.
The spring-lock suits represented a breakthrough in entertainment technology, but they came with an inherent danger. The mechanism relied on a series of spring-loaded locks that, when wound up, would compress the animatronic components against the inner walls of the suit, creating space for a human to wear it. However, moisture, sudden movements, or mechanical failure could cause the locks to release, and when that happened, the metal components would snap back into place with deadly force.
The Partnership Begins to Fracture
From the beginning, Henry and William approached their business with fundamentally different philosophies. Henry saw the animatronics as vessels for bringing happiness to children—machines that could create magical moments and lasting memories. He spent countless hours perfecting their movements, their voices, their ability to seem alive.
William Afton, however, viewed the technology through a darker lens. While he certainly appreciated the profit potential, he became increasingly obsessed with the animatronics themselves—not as entertainment, but as something more. Those who worked closely with him during this period noted his strange fixation on the machinery, the way he would study the endoskeletons long after closing, the odd questions he would ask about the strength of the mechanisms, the security of the suits.
The diner thrived throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. Children flocked to see Fredbear and Spring Bonnie perform. Parents appreciated the unique entertainment. The business expanded, and discussions began about opening additional locations. But beneath this veneer of success, darkness was growing.
The First Victim
In 1983, tragedy struck in a way that would set the template for years of horror to come. Charlotte Emily, Henry's daughter, was murdered outside Fredbear's Family Diner. The circumstances remain unclear, but evidence strongly suggests William Afton was responsible. Charlotte had been locked out of the restaurant during a party, left alone in the alley behind the building. When she was found, it was too late.
What happened next defies rational explanation. Charlotte's body was discovered near a defunct animatronic that had been discarded in the alley—a character known as "The Puppet" or "The Marionette." This security animatronic, designed to stay inside a gift box and emerge when triggered by music, had somehow left the building. When employees came to investigate the next morning, they found the Puppet slumped over Charlotte's body.
From that moment forward, the Puppet began to exhibit impossible behavior. It would move when it shouldn't, appear in locations it couldn't possibly reach, and most disturbing of all, seemed to possess an awareness, a consciousness that had never been programmed. Henry Emily, devastated by his daughter's death, refused to believe it at first. But he couldn't deny what his cameras were showing him.
Charlotte's spirit had found a new home.
The Bite of '83
If Charlotte's death marked the beginning of the haunting, the Bite of '83 marked the beginning of the end for Fredbear's Family Diner. The incident occurred during a birthday party, involving William Afton's own family in a cruel twist of fate.
William's youngest son, whom many refer to as the "Crying Child," had developed an intense fear of the animatronics, particularly Fredbear. His older brother, Michael Afton, along with his friends, thought it would be funny to confront this fear head-on. In a moment of bullying that would haunt Michael for the rest of his life, they picked up the crying child and carried him toward Fredbear, who was performing on stage.
"We just wanted to scare him," Michael would later confess. "Let him give Fredbear a kiss, we said. It was supposed to be a joke."
What happened next occurred in seconds but would reverberate for decades. As the older boys held the crying child up to Fredbear's mouth, either a malfunction occurred or—as some darkly speculate—something else intervened. Fredbear's jaws clamped down on the child's head with the full force of industrial hydraulics meant to move animatronic parts weighing hundreds of pounds.
The sound, witnesses reported, was indescribable. The screaming stopped almost immediately. The birthday party descended into chaos. The child was rushed to the hospital, where he lingered in a coma, his skull fractured, his brain damaged beyond repair. In the hospital room, his father William Afton made a promise—whether to God, to science, or to something darker, no one knows—that he would find a way to bring his son back.
The child died five days later. The date was sometime in late 1983.
Fredbear's Family Diner closed its doors shortly after. The spring-lock suits were deemed too dangerous. The liability was too great. But more than that, something had fundamentally changed. The joy that had once filled the building had been replaced by something else. Employees reported feeling watched, hearing children's laughter when no children were present, seeing the animatronics move in ways that servos and motors couldn't explain.
Henry Emily wanted to abandon the entire venture. He had lost his daughter, witnessed a child die in the machine he built, and could no longer look at his creations without seeing death. But William Afton had different ideas. The business had potential, he argued. They just needed a fresh start, a new name, better safety measures. And perhaps most important to William, though he didn't say it aloud: he needed access to the technology. He had made a promise to his son, and he intended to keep it.
In 1983, as Fredbear's Family Diner closed for the final time, plans were already being drawn up for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The nightmare was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning.
The Birth of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza
In 1984, less than a year after the Bite of '83, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza opened its doors to the public. The new establishment represented both a fresh start and a continuation of the dream that had created Fredbear's Family Diner. Henry Emily, still reeling from his daughter's death, had been convinced by William Afton to give the business one more chance. New location, new characters, new safety protocols. What could go wrong?
Everything.
The new restaurant featured a cast of characters designed to be friendlier, more approachable, less intimidating than the spring-lock suits of the previous establishment. Freddy Fazbear, a brown bear with a top hat and bowtie, served as the lead singer. Bonnie, a blue rabbit with a red bowtie, played guitar. Chica, a yellow chicken with a bib reading "LET'S EAT!", served as backup vocals. And Foxy, a red pirate fox, became a fan favorite with his own stage in Pirate Cove.
These new animatronics were not spring-lock suits. They were purely mechanical, designed to remain on their stages, to perform their songs, and nothing more. Henry had learned his lesson about hybrid designs. These machines would be safe. These machines would bring joy without the shadow of danger that had plagued Fredbear's.
But William Afton had kept one of the old spring-lock suits. Specifically, he had kept Spring Bonnie.
Complete Timeline
A chronological reconstruction of the events spanning from 1973 to the present day, compiled from security footage, police reports, employee testimonies, and evidence found within the games themselves.
Key Figures
The human souls and mechanical bodies at the center of the Five Nights at Freddy's tragedy. Each character represents a life cut short, a dream corrupted, or a curse that refuses to end.
William Afton & Henry Emily
William Afton stands as the architect of every tragedy in the Five Nights at Freddy's universe. A businessman, engineer, and serial killer, William co-founded Fazbear Entertainment with Henry Emily in the early 1970s. While Henry focused on creating joy through technological innovation, William became obsessed with understanding death, remnant, and the possibility of immortality.
William's descent into murder began with Charlotte Emily, his business partner's daughter, in 1983. What drove him to commit this first killing remains unclear—jealousy of Henry's success, a psychotic break following his own son's death, or something that had been lurking inside him all along. Regardless of the cause, Charlotte's murder awakened something in William. When he discovered that her spirit had possessed the Puppet animatronic, his obsession crystallized into purpose.
The Missing Children Incident of 1985 revealed the full extent of William's madness. Using the Spring Bonnie suit, he lured five children—Gabriel, Jeremy, Susie, Fritz, and Cassidy—to a back room in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Their bodies were hidden inside the animatronic suits, where they decomposed over time, creating the blood and mucus that employees reported leaking from the machines. Their spirits, however, remained trapped in the metal bodies, mistaking night guards for their killer and seeking revenge.
William's fascination with remnant—the physical manifestation of soul essence—drove him to continue his experiments. He built Circus Baby's Pizza World as a front for kidnapping children using animatronics designed specifically for that purpose. But fate intervened when his own daughter, Elizabeth, was killed by Circus Baby on the restaurant's opening day. Even this didn't stop him.
In 1993, William returned to dismantle the animatronics at the abandoned Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Whether he sought to destroy evidence or harvest remnant, he never got the chance to complete his work. The spirits of his victims cornered him, and in desperation, he climbed into the Spring Bonnie suit he had used to murder them. When the spring-locks failed, William Afton experienced the same death he had subjected so many others to—except he didn't die.
Remnant, the very substance he had spent years studying, kept him alive inside the suit. He became Springtrap, a nightmarish fusion of corpse and machine, trapped but conscious, dying but unable to die. When Fazbear's Fright opened in 2023, he was discovered and brought to the attraction, where he killed again. After the fire, he evolved into Scraptrap, his body further deteriorated but his consciousness intact.
Henry Emily's final gambit—luring all the animatronics into one building and burning it down—should have ended William Afton's reign of terror. But death has never held him. His consciousness survived in circuit boards salvaged from the fire, eventually manifesting as Glitchtrap, a digital ghost haunting the virtual reality training systems of Fazbear Entertainment. William Afton, in some form, continues to exist, continues to kill, continues to corrupt. His own words prove prophetic: "I always come back."
Henry Emily, by contrast, represents the tragedy of good intentions twisted into nightmares. A brilliant engineer and loving father, Henry created the animatronics to bring joy to children. He designed Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, built the Puppet, and pioneered entertainment robotics. Every innovation, every late night in the workshop, every breakthrough in artificial movement and interaction stemmed from his desire to create something magical.
When Charlotte died in 1983, something broke inside Henry. He had built the machines that were supposed to protect her, had created the Puppet to watch over the children, but none of it had mattered. She died alone in an alley while music played inside the restaurant, while animatronics performed for laughing children, while he was too busy running the business to notice his daughter wasn't beside him.
Henry tried to walk away after the Bite of '83. Two children dead, one by the very machine he had designed. But William convinced him to try again, to open Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, to give the dream one more chance. This decision would haunt Henry for the rest of his life. He had given William access to the technology, the facilities, the perfect cover for murder.
By the time Henry realized what William had done, it was too late. Five children were dead, their spirits trapped in the animatronics Henry had built. The machines he had designed to bring joy had become prisons for tortured souls. Henry spent the next decades trying to make things right, trying to understand what his partner had done and how to stop it.
In his final act, Henry designed one last pizzeria—a trap. He lured every haunted animatronic, every tortured spirit, and William Afton himself into the building. Then he burned it all down, himself included. His recorded message, playing as the flames consumed everything, stands as both confession and absolution: "I'm sorry that on that day, the day you were shut out and left to die, no one was there to lift you up into their arms the way you lifted others into yours. And then, what became of you. I should have known you wouldn't be content to disappear, not my daughter. I couldn't save you then, so let me save you now."
Unresolved Mysteries
Despite years of investigation, testimony, and evidence compilation, certain elements of the Five Nights at Freddy's story remain frustratingly unclear. These are the questions that keep theorists awake at night, the gaps in the narrative that refuse to close.
The Identity of the Crying Child
The youngest son of William Afton, victim of the Bite of '83, remains nameless and, more significantly, his ultimate fate remains unknown. We know he died five days after the incident. We know his death devastated his family. We know his father promised to "put him back together." But what does that mean?
The leading theories suggest he either became Golden Freddy (along with Cassidy), Shadow Freddy, or somehow survived in a form that manifests throughout the later games. Some evidence points to him becoming the Fredbear plushie that appears throughout his final days, speaking to him, watching him, promising "I will put you back together." If that plushie represents a remnant-infused object containing the child's spirit, it would explain the supernatural elements present even before Charlotte's death.
What makes this mystery particularly vexing is that solving it would likely unlock understanding of other mysteries as well. The Crying Child's fate is intertwined with William Afton's motivations, the nature of remnant, and possibly the true identity of Golden Freddy.
Golden Freddy's True Nature
Golden Freddy stands as the most enigmatic animatronic in the entire franchise. Unlike the others, Golden Freddy has no physical form that can move like traditional animatronics. It appears and disappears, manifests in impossible locations, and seems to exist on a different plane of reality than the other possessed machines.
Evidence strongly suggests Golden Freddy contains two spirits: Cassidy, one of the Missing Children from 1985, and possibly the Crying Child from 1983. This dual-possession theory would explain Golden Freddy's unique properties and abilities. It would also explain why Golden Freddy seems to have both aggressive tendencies (Cassidy's revenge) and more protective or observation-focused behavior (the Crying Child).
The question of whether Golden Freddy is synonymous with Fredbear or a completely separate entity adds another layer of complexity. Some evidence suggests they are the same suit, while other elements indicate they might be distinct animatronics with overlapping designs.
The Box from FNAF 4
At the conclusion of Five Nights at Freddy's 4, players are shown a locked box with the message: "Perhaps some things are best left forgotten, for now." This box has become legendary in the FNAF community, representing the ultimate unanswered question.
Scott Cawthon, the creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, later admitted that the community never solved what was in the box and that he might never reveal its contents. This statement has led to endless speculation. Does the box contain evidence of the Crying Child's true identity? Does it hold the key to understanding remnant? Is it metaphorical rather than literal?
Some theories suggest the box contains the Crying Child's broken toys, symbolic of his shattered life. Others believe it holds evidence of William Afton's first experiments with remnant. Still others think the box represents Henry Emily's guilt, locked away because confronting it would be too painful.
The True Nature of Remnant
Remnant represents the closest thing the FNAF universe has to a magical substance, yet its exact properties remain maddeningly vague. We know it's connected to souls or life essence. We know it can be extracted from haunted objects and injected into others. We know it allows spirits to possess inanimate objects and can preserve consciousness beyond death.
But how does it work? Is remnant a physical substance that can be measured and quantified, or is it something that exists beyond conventional physics? Can it be destroyed, or does it persist forever once created? Most importantly, what are the rules governing its behavior?
William Afton's experiments with remnant led to the creation of the Funtime animatronics, designed specifically to harvest remnant from victims. His understanding of remnant also allowed him to survive as Springtrap and later as Glitchtrap. But even William doesn't seem to fully understand or control remnant—if he did, he presumably wouldn't have spent thirty years trapped in a spring-lock suit.