Who is William Afton? ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ lore, explained

There is a lot of interesting lore surrounding Five Nights at Freddy’s, although it’s not spoon-fed to the player; you have to go looking for it. The events of the game revolve around a character called William Afton, who owns the restaurant chain, oh, and he’s also a serial killer. We know he appears in the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, played by none other then Matthew Lillard, but who exactly is this mysterious villain?

Whilst the games keep a lot of the story purposefully ambiguous, the fan theories and the information that has been gleaned from the games all comes together to tell quite a terrifying backstory. Turns out there is quite a well thought out history of characters and events for fans to sink their teeth into. Most of the lore is compiled on the wiki, but the games creator, Scott Cawthon has also released books expanding the mythology.

Of course, it all comes down to William Afton, who has to be one of the most evil characters to exist in video game history. If the movie adaptation keeps even a shred of the backstory we’re in for a wild ride, especially with Matthew Lillard playing the character, as Afton is a character that’s well within the actor’s particular niche.

William Afton’s backstory

For the uninitiated, William Afton is one of the most important characters in the FNAF games. Whilst he’s never really seen in any of them, he is the one responsible for the killer animatronics who seem to love eating kids. And as we’ve already established, he’s also a serial killer himself, so he’s definitely not the kind of guy you’d want to spend much time around. Afton is the co-founder of Freddy Fazbear’s pizzeria alongside his business partner Henry Emily. William is also the creator of the animatronics as he also founded a robotics company, Afton Robotics.

He has a family, an unnamed wife and three children who all play significant parts in the story later down the line. There isn’t much explanation given as to why Afton began killing children in the first place, but the games show us some of his backstory, including the killing of his partner, Henry’s daughter, as well as five other children. He’s frequently seen wearing the Spring Bonnie costume, which he used to lure children into the restaurant.

William Afton in the games

As previously mentioned, Afton rarely appears in the games. In FNAF 2, we see him as the purple figure and in FNAF 3 he appears as the main threat in the form of a possessed Springtrap suit.

The second game gives us little pieces of information about Afton’s killings that slowly come together. He features as the so-called Purple Guy in the pixelated minigame that can be played in between player deaths. It took the fanbase a while to figure out what the minigames were actually showing but this little bonus feature adds so much to the lore of the franchise.

One of these shows the Purple Guy approaching a child outside of the pizzeria. Whilst it’s not entirely clear within the game itself, story-wise this is one of the first instances of Afton killing. For whatever reason he kills his Henry’s daughter, Charlie, who subsequently finds her spirit trapped in the puppet. We also see the aftermath of some of Afton’s other murders during that minigame, too.

How did William Afton create the remnants?

Afton quickly learns that killing children creates something referred to as remnants. Remnants are the souls of children and they tend to attach themselves to inanimate objects like, you know, animatronics and other such things. The animatronics in all of the games are controlled by the remnants of children who stalk the corridors of the establishment trying to enact revenge on their killer. Most fans believe that they attack the player because they mistake Mike Schmidt for Afton.

Around the same time (although it’s not clear if it’s before or after the murder), Afton’s youngest son is killed by his eldest, Michael, after he pushes the boy’s head into the jaws of one of the animatronics. You might be wondering if this is the famed Bite of ’87 that so many talk about. Whilst it actually isn’t, this one is often confused with that bite.

After figuring out how he could use the remnants for his own gain, Afton begins his quest to collect them; he believes they can help him gain immortality. His desires and his experimentation with remnants lead him down a dark path, in which he begins luring children into the establishment and mercilessly killing them in order to trap their souls. He opens another restaurant and programs his animatronics to snatch children and kill them, although this results in his own daughter dying at the hands of one of his contraptions.

William Afton’s “death”

Afton disappeared for a while after his daughter’s death, re-appearing to kill another five children and then vanishing again. He emerged one more time as he returned to the original restaurant to harvest the remnants of his first five victims. However, he awoke their spirits and the animatronics gave chase to him. In an attempt to scare the spirits, Afton put the decaying Bonnie costume on. However the mechanisms inside ended up malfunctioning and giving him a pretty ironic death as his body was mutilated inside. Afterwards, Afton’s remnant became fused with the Bonnie suit and he becomes Springtrap, the animatronic that hunts the player in the third FNAF game.

The background for this character goes on and on, and he appears in multiple other games after the third, always in the Springtrap suit, though his incarnations can differ in appearance. The original Springtrap suit is decaying and half ripped apart, exposing wiring and some human tissue. His later incarnations have even more missing parts, while he also appears as Glitchtrap in Five Nights 3 and Burntrap in Five Nights: Security Breach.

How William Afton will appear in the FNAF film

The movie is definitely looking to expand upon the lore and give us a more fleshed-out version of the character. Whilst it may ruin the element of mystery surrounding the villain, it will be great to see Lillard killing it as such a truly terrifying bad guy, a role which he’s used to playing by now. On top of that he’s acting opposite a hugely talented cast.

Will Afton play a larger role in the film? Will he primarily appear in flashbacks explaining the plot? Who knows? The plot has been kept relatively under wraps but considering his importance to the story it’s likely he’ll have a pretty big part in the film adaptation.