#i mean springtrap was doing his thing which might involve ending the world but golden freddy over here just pissed he wasnt invited still

[the-acid-pear]

Can you believe this game has toxic yaoi? This is mental.

[adobe-outdesign]

To quoth Se7en: WHAT'S IN THE BOX, SCOTT

Transcript under the cut.

So now that the angry mobs have left, let’s move on to Part 2: The Box. I know this sounds like a strange topic to switch to after we were just talking about the Brother, but we need to understand the box before we can answer that question. So to start, let’s go over:

[Everything We Know About the Box]

First, in FNAF 4 the Fredbear Plush tells Sammy that they will put him back together. In Scott’s post about the box, he said that the box contained all of the pieces put together. This links the box with Sammy.

Our next hint comes in Sister Location, when Michael says this:

And I found her. I put her back together, just like you asked me to. She’s free now.

People tend to misinterpret this as Michael referring to putting Ennard together, but that’s not the case. Rather, based on FNAF 4 and some things in TFC, it seems that being “broken” refers to the state of one’s soul - if you are broken, you are possessing something, and you can rest when you’re fixed. This both indicates Sammy is indeed possessing something, and creates a parallel between him and Ennard.

However, FFPS contains our biggest hint with Candy Cadet.

Candy. Candy. Candy.

I know, stay with me. Each of Candy Cadet’s stories relates to a different aspect of the lore. The story about the burglar probably refers to the original five kids and how their remnant is in Molten Freddy, or maybe just refers to Ennard. The second story about the woman and the keys likely refers to the Puppet - she gave life to the original five, but in the process let William find out about the remnant, which caused him to kill another five kids.

But then we get to the last story.

Now I will tell you a story about a little boy. He had a red snake that he kept in a metal cage, whose hunger could not be satisfied.

One day, the boy found five baby kittens outside his house. He brought them inside and kept them in a shoebox. He knew that the snake might kill them, but could not bring himself to get rid of the snake. He knew that if he chose one kitten to feed to the snake, it might be satisfied, but he could not choose. So, he went to bed, leaving the cage open. The snake went to the shoebox, chose a kitten at random, and ate it.

After five nights had gone by, the boy was full of regret, and cut the snake open. He pieced the remains together, and put the kitten back into the shoebox.

A young boy had five “kittens”, one of which was “eaten”. Filled with guilt, he took the pieces of the “kitten”, stitched them together into one, and put it into a box.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the story is an analogy to FNAF 4. After Sammy was killed by the Brother’s negligence, he was wracked with guilt. He took the items that Sammy was possessing and stitched them together into one in an attempt to “fix” him. He then locked the final amalgamate into the box and tried to forget about the whole incident, which explains the “some things are best left forgotten” text that appears above it.

This means that Sammy is possessing multiple objects. These objects have to be something that a teenager could put together easily, and they must be small enough to fit into a box.

And if we go back to Sammy’s death, you might notice that as he’s dying, the plushies fade out around him, one by one.

It’s the plushies. Sammy is possessing his own plushies - IE his “friends”. The Brother realized this and stitched the plushies together into one, then locked it away and tried to forget about the entire incident.

But is that it? After all, this would mean he’s just possessing the plushies and has no further lore relevance. Well, we’re not quite done, which leads me to our next topic:

[The Nightmares]

So if you look at the SL Breaker Room map, there’s a dot for every Nightmare animatronic, which seems to confirm they’re real. However, there are two dots missing: Nightmare Fredbear and Nightmare are not listed.

One thing that’s been pointed out by many people regarding the Nightmares being real is that there are quite a few inexplicable things that occur during the games, such as Nightmare Fredbear’s head showing up on the bed and the hospital items that appear. A lot of theories have been tossed around regarding this, ranging from the Nightmares being dreams or even the disks from TTO.

However, I have a different theory. If you pay attention to the 6 AM screen, the numbers screw up before fixing themselves. People blame this on it being a dream… but if your alarm clock is going off, and you’re looking at your alarm clock, doesn’t that mean you’re awake? This indicates that the Brother is not asleep, and something is causing the protagonist to hallucinate.

There’s one other odd thing about FNAF 4 that you might have noticed. The gameplay has a weird obsession with plushies - Nightmare Foxy turns into one, and there’s one sitting on the bed where the Freddles spawn from. Why is there this weird connection between the plushies and the Nightmares?

Additionally, you’ll notice that the animatronics appear in a pattern that matches that of the minigame nights. Nights 1-4 are just the core four, representing the bullies. Night 5 is Fredbear, for the Bite. Night 6 is all four followed by Fredbear, showing the order in which the Bitten Child’s plushies fade away… and Night 7, with Nightmare, is after the Bitten Child has died.

Finally, the box appears at the end of Night 7, with the “some things are best left forgotten” text, and according to the code it was meant to be opened after an unprogrammed Night 8, thus meaning opening the box was supposed to somehow end FNAF 4′s story.

Putting all of that together, I believe that Nightmare Fredbear and his alternate form, Nightmare, are the Sammy’s ghost. He’s locked inside of the box, so he appears as a representation of the Bite and his own death as he attempts to kill his Brother. Ghosts have been shown to cause hallucinations in this series before - thus, it is safe to assume that he’s the one making you hallucinate all of the strange visuals in the game. This is why the Nightmares are connected to the plushies, and why the box was supposed to end the game - once you open the box, Sammy will stop haunting you.

While this explains everything nicely, we do have one potential issue: Scott’s post about the Box suggested that the answer was going to piss everyone off, and this explanation certainly wouldn’t.

Now, keep in mind that I’m less confident about this part of the theory than the first part. I do want to talk about it however, because it does have quite a bit of evidence going for it.

[Sammy, FNAF 1, and how they’re connected]

There’s actually one more hint about the Box that i kind of glossed over in the first part of this video. We do have another hint, and weirdly enough it comes from…

[FNAF World intro]

You see, at the beginning of the game, you’re told to leave breadcrumbs for someone, to help them find their way. After completing a series of minigames, you get a cutscene of the Fredbear Plush, which uses the same dialogue it says to Sammy with the addition of saying the pieces are in place. When you go back to the main screen, you’re rewarded with a statue of a not-crying child.

However, what’s weird about this is that the “pieces” you’re putting into place… are the hints leading to the hidden minigames in FNAF 3.

And what’s even weirder is that every minigame in FNAF 3 ties back into Sammy. We already went over Charlie’s toy Mangle in the last video. Stage 01 shows off Charlie’s kidnapping and involves Fredbear giving cake to the Foxy-mask kid, a reference to the Bite. BB’s Air Adventure shows 3 silhouettes under a tree, which seem to be a nod to the girl outside with her three toys.

Chica’s Party, meanwhile, shows us four cupcakes, one of which follows her around. Judging by the golden cupcake Easter egg, the one moving is gold - thus these represent Sammy’s plushies, as four remain static while the Fredbear plush follows him.

The glitch minigame shows RWQ giving cake to one of the kids. In FNAF 4, Sammy was terrified of the shadows of the animatronics. Scott later gave us this hint about “things in the shadows being misunderstood in the mind of a child”. And indeed, here we see RWQ helping the child rather than hurting them.

And finally, Happiest Day ties back into what the Fredbear Plush said in 4 - that the Puppet would put Sammy back together, IE help him pass on, which fits with her giving the final cake. The cake, meanwhile, could be the birthday cake Sammy never got to have because of the Bite.

But that’s… weird, isn’t it? We see the five kids pass on in this game, along with the now not-possessed FNAF 1 animatronics. Why are there so many connections to the Bitten Child in a game that seemingly has nothing to do with him?

Well, here’s the thing. There’s one thing that I see a lot of people get wrong with the FNAF timeline, and that’s the placement of William’s death. Most people place it after FNAF 1, due to it taking place in the FNAF 1 pizzeria.

However, this is not the case. William walks in and out of the saferoom freely in this minigame before dying there. Then, we hear this in Phone Guy’s message:

Uh, this is just to inform all employees that due to budget restrictions the previously mentioned safe rooms are being sealed at most locations. Including this one. Work crews will be here most of the day today constructing a false wall over the old door face. Nothing is being taken out beforehand, so if you left anything inside, then it’s your own fault. Management also requests that this room not be mentioned to family, friends, or insurance representatives.

Phone Guy says nothing is being taken out and not to mention it to insurance companies because William’s corpse is already in there. Note that he says they’re constructing a fake wall to hide the saferoom, and where does Phone Dude find Springtrap?

Uh, but you know, like I said, we’re trying to track down a good lead right now. Uh, some guy who helped design one of the buildings says there was like an extra room that got boarded up, or, uh, something like that.

William died in the saferoom, so management constructed the false wall over it to hide his body. He stayed there until Fazbear’s Fright found him behind said wall and removed him.

But that’s the issue - it’s Phone Guy who tells you about the sealing of the saferoom. Phone Guy was dead after FNAF 1, so this means William must have died before it.

While you might be wondering why the place looks like the FNAF 1 location, note this phone call from FNAF 2:

Uh, now, I want you to forget anything you may have heard about the old location. You know, uh, some people still have a somewhat negative impression of the company. Uh, that old restaurant was kind of left to rot for quite a while, but, I want to reassure you, Fazbear Entertainment is committed to family fun and above all, safety.

This sure looks like a location that was left to rot to me! It’s likely that after the FNAF 2 location shut down, Freddy’s was forced to move back into their earlier location where the murders took place due to budget reasons. William was the night guard before you in FNAF 2, so this was likely between 2 and 1 - they had already fixed up the Withereds at this point, but hadn’t finished cleaning up the pizzeria before Will died.

This creates an odd gap in the timeline, however. When incorrectly assumed the minigames take place after 1, the kids are put to rest after Will dies before passing on in FNAF 3. Easy. But in actually, the kids vanish before FNAF 1, which shouldn’t be the case as the animatronics are still possessed at that  point. Shadow Freddy even shows up in 3 with his FNAF 2 appearance, which would be weird if the ghosts had changed to match the FNAF 1 models. Likewise, the endoskeletons of the animatronics don’t look the same, which lends credence that these aren’t the Withereds. So what is going on here?

Well, in UCN we get a couple anime cutscenes. Freddy talks about it being his birthday and how Foxy has killed someone, so this is obviously a parallel to the older Brother and Sammy. What’s important here is that Freddy tries to defeat Foxy for five days before Foxy leaves, Freddy swearing to follow him. If Freddy represents Sammy, then that means that he followed the Brother to at least one other location than the FNAF 4 house.

Basically, what seems to be implied here is that Sammy is possessing all of the animatronics in 1. William dismantled the original 5 between 2 and 1. The kids stopped actively haunting the place at this point, though they don’t fully pass on until FFPS, hence why the gravestones pop up at the end. This left an opening for Sammy to possess the Classics in an attempt to kill his Brother, as he never opened the box he’s trapped in. This is why the Classics behave like the Nightmares, and in turn draw parallels to FNAF 4, such as Foxy not moving when you look at him.

This is why there are so many parallels to FNAF 4 in the FNAF 3 minigames - it’s not the original five you’re freeing, but rather, the pieces of Sammy. Not that TFC claims that broken children show up as multiple copies of each other, which we can assume applies to canon. All of the sprites look like greyscale versions of Sammy’s sprite - except for the Puppet, as she’s the only different character here.

Note also that the fifth child or piece here is probably not Golden Freddy, as is commonly assumed, but rather Fredbear - the one with the purple accents - matching Sammy’s last plushie and Nightmare Fredbear. The final minigame is greyscale and it’s too dark to fully see the head in the back of the ending screen, meaning that you can’t see the color of the top hat.

While the idea of Sammy being all the kids in this minigame sounds crazy, think about what Scott said during Dawko’s interview:

Dawko: This game, um, was when things went a little bit crazy with, like, the minigames, and stuff, and the good ending and the bad ending. Um, if you can answer this, which ending really happened?

Scott: I’ve given it a lot of thought as to whether or not I should answer this question. And I went back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. And, the answer is very interesting, you know?

The answer is very interesting. The answer is complex. However, I’m not gonna answer it, because it’ll only cause strife. I mean, you see the kinda trouble that erupts, especially several years ago. The flame wars that would go on over Mangle’s gender, something as simple as that, you know? You know, I mean, you know, people with torches and pitchforks, you know? Now, yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna answer this one, I’m afraid.

This… seems weird, doesn’t it? The answer is either that the bad ending is canon or the good ending is, and yet Scott claims that the answer is “complex”. On top of that, the game itself implies the good ending is canon, as it’s just labeled as “the end” while the bad ending is specifically labeled as “bad”, making Scott’s hesitation all the odder.

However, this makes sense when combined with this theory. The good ending is canon, as Sammy is freed at the end of 3. But that’s the thing - it’s Sammy who’s freed. Everyone believes that these minigames show the original 5 kids, but the original 5 aren’t freed until FFPS. In that sense, both the good ending and bad ending are canon. That is indeed a complex answer, and one that would cause a ton of confusion and fighting. And it’s also an answer that would piss people off if they found out about it, leading back into Scott’s “would people accept it that way” pondering from the post about the Box.

Of course, Scott’s also said the contents of the Box have changed over time, so it’s possible that this was canon at one point but isn’t anymore, or maybe I’m just overthinking things and none of this is correct. Still, it’s a good thing to keep in mind as we move into discussing what the actual plot of FNAF is.

[Continued in Part 3]