Puppet is the Killer Theory

[Doctor Script]

While I could go intensive into why I believe this to be the case, in my last couple days on the forums, I’ve learned a fair bit, including that people value time over annotation in their theories. So, this will be a small sample of just FNAF 4, and bring the game into more light for the rest of the community. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

The Purple Man

you can't

In any story, can you tell me of a functioning character that kills for no reason? Superman’s planet killed his entire species and even it had a reason. I don’t want to delve too deep into it, especially since Purple man could barely be said to have a cameo in this game, but there have been some eccentric leaps of logic into why the purple man is killing the kids.
Lost his job, learned from pink guy, revenge on the bullies, etc. Individually, they’re flimsy at best. Not because writing never has characters go off the deep end for little to no reason; That happens all the time. No, the reason its flimsy is because you have to add it to the story to make sense. While a number of characters have lost their jobs, nothing signifies that they just decided to kill because of it. This is a plot defining action, it’s the reason people are debating theories every day. It needs significance. Aside from the pink guy in the GIVE CAKE death mini-game, I don’t think any of the purple guys have killed.
A lot of what Cawthon does in his writing is present things that look really important and hide actual important details besides them. He draws the eye away from plot defining details by making you watch the sleight of hand at work. Need an example?

The Puppet

I’ll be Honest, I never liked that puppet thing

How could I possibly point the finger at the puppet? He wants to S-A-V-E T-H-E-M, right? Let’s clear our minds and think about GIVE CAKE. Back to square one. If MatPat is to be believed, this is the first mini-game in chronological order. Ignore the initial game, watch it on pause if you have to, what do you see?
A kid, crying outside and hungry kids screaming and flailing their arms right? You have cake, the game is called GIVE CAKE TO THE CHILDREN, and the children want cake. This is an indie game, you came here to play right? How can you resist the allure of winning.
Because resisting the allure is what you’re not supposed to do. As long as you’re playing, you aren’t paying attention to what’s really going on. I’m not going to assume you don’t notice the kid dies. I’ll even assume you know the game slows you down to watch it.
How many kids are at that birthday party?
The answer is six, by the way. The more critical question though is why Scott put the game in, in the first place. He wouldn’t slow you down if he didn’t know it was distracting. So what is he distracting you from? The kid is crying outside because he wants to go to a birthday party. Just like the one he was watching when he died.
That, better than any purple guy, is why we have a killer in the game. I can even explain why pink guy exists. He serves to distract the audience from figuring out what’s going on. Purple and pink guys are all one solid block color because the point is to make them mysterious. Cawthon is luring you in to the narrative. A child killer, caught on camera, used springlock suits to kill kids and somehow was never caught. We’re there two killers? How could this happen? We swirl around trying to understand what’s going on just like management of Freddy Fazbear Pizza did. We assume a child killer has to be an adult man, and the one time Scott shows us a death on screen, it’s an adult man.
As a rule of thumb, never lie to your audience unless you’ve got a damn good reason. This is a damn good reason. Let’s mosey across the check list and see if the puppet can fit the criteria. He knows the store layout, he lives there. He is the only animatronic that could wear a golden suit. He is always present, he wouldn’t be arrested, and he can go into the safe rooms (Phone guy “I never liked that puppet thing, it’s always… thinking… and it can go anywhere.”). And unlike any Purple guy theory you can present, you don’t have to add anything to see the motivation to kill, and it explains why he kills 5 at a time. He wants to be part of the birthday party. He needs 5 guests.
We knew he put them in suits, we never understood why. Now we do. As a puppet he’s not like the other kids, but if he puts them in suits, and himself in a suit, they’re all alike. He doesn’t want to be left out. He died last time he was left out. It also explains why they sealed up the golden suits suddenly; Phone guy saw him dressing up the kids in the SAVE THEM mini game. To the store’s knowledge, the old suits never were stuffed, (They pinned it on another employee) so they kept the old suits and left the others to rot.
Finally, purple guy in FNAF3 intermittent games? He’s a manager of the old store. Note the kids fade away once he’s locked in the suit, not when he dies. As long as the puppet can’t have his suit, he isn’t part of the group. If the manager is lodged inside of their, no one else can be in it. Problem solved.

Victim

Your brother is kind of a whimp

Now with the heavy lifting out of the way, why is victim important to this story? That really is the heavy question to answer. Fortunately I’m going to answer it vaguely and explain in further submissions.
He’s the twin brother to the girl that possesses mangle, and maybe the younger brother to Mike Schmidt.

Mangle

Now they just call it The Mangle

See, over and done quickly and vaguely. Now it time to get in deep.
Twins in literature have a special significance to us a species, particularly fraternal twins. Two bodies with one soul is a common motif. The game is thoroughly littered with the theme of the kids being toys and the toys being kids. From Victim calling the plushies his friends, and the kids on the street either taking classic poses of animatronics we know, or having plushies of the animatronics from earlier games.
Let’s take it slow. How do I know he has a twin sister? For starters, he has a room identical to another room in the house. This second room has two major differences. First, it’s pink, and secondly, it has a poster of a flower in it. This poster is her symbol, the flowers. 5 or 6 petals. The 5 dead kids, plus one. We will go more into the dichotomy of the puppet and victim later, but for now, let’s embrace this oddity.
If the toys are kids (He calls his toys in his room kids, the toys of the animatronics bare resemblance to the actual animatronics themselves), the logos is a bit off. Unless it’s foreshadowing their fate, they can’t be dead and asking him about the party.
The party, is a symbol of its own in FNAF though. From the puppets wish, the game reaching finale with a ‘Party’, and everything seeming to have gone to hell in FNAF2 when they only had a party left. The party is a bad thing.
The kids are ghosts.
They’re asking if he is going to die. The reason he can see them is because of his twin sister. We know it’s his twin, because designing the rooms to be identical was done with purpose. If the plushies in his room are his friends, Mangle is his sister.
The obvious question is why didn’t Cawthon mention his sister through the game. He obviously has a brother, but no mention of the sister. So far, since FNAF 2, sisters have been secrets in the game. I would be shocked to hear that there isn’t a hidden sister in FNAF 1 as well. JJ is a hidden animatronic, a twin to balloon boy. The sister location is mentioned for the first time in FNAF 2.
Mangle having a brother whose still alive makes some decisions come to life as well, pardon the joke in bad taste. The second head is her carrying her brother with her, she’s literally a Gemini. Kitsune (Japanese foxes) are messengers from the spirit world, and Mangle happens to be colored like traditional kitsune masks.
Speaking of messengers…

Psychic Friend Fredbear

Don’t be scared. I am here with you.

What is this thing? It’s the voice of his sister. With the original generation of animatronics, The puppet used the Golden Bonnie suit, because the Golden Freddy suit was reserved for the Birthday boy. If the event that shut down the store was due to the birthday party, and the birthday party already had 6 guests, the puppet had to leave one behind. Since there are two birthday kids, he left the other one behind.
The toy generation didn’t have a second golden Freddy, so by choosing the girl, he put her in the feminine Foxy, now known as Mangle. The reason Scott pointed the tiny toy Chica missing her beak? That’s her in her more natural form. She’s not taking the pose of Withered chick, she’s standing like JJ. With victim as her twin, Balloon Boy, and the rest of the toy animatronics, we have a full set.
Also, with the other kids asking about the party; The girl with the plush trap doll asks where his plushie is. The obvious answer is Psychic Friend Fredbear, His connection to the now dead children.
Again, tying back to some of Mangle’s territory, Psychic Friend Fredbear states that we will put you back together again.

The Bullies

I think he wants to give Fredbear a Big Kiss!

I have to admit, I have no clue about these guys. What I want to be true is initial read, they are friends of Brother who like picking on Victim. One thing always rubs me the wrong way though; why are they wearing masks? Of all the things to focus in on, it’s those damned masks that keep me from just letting them be jerks to a poor traumatized little kid.
Continuing the theme of toys are kids and kids are toys, are big kids animatronics?
What that would mean is that the reason we don’t see the old generation animatronics around Fredbears is because Victim sees the Bullies living the life of an animatronic. If this is the case, then it perfectly explains what was important about the bite of ’87. Foxy and friends were just seen carrying a kid to golden freddy who bit his frontal lobe off. Now the animatronics are allowed to walk around during the day.
But what are the odds of a kid losing his older brother, twin sister and being bitten himself at a freddy Fazbear pizza…
Unless he is the son of Phone guy. Hear me out here;
What’s in the box isn’t the head of Gwyneth Paltrow, (someone tell Kevin Spacey), It’s all the pieces put back together. Brother, the twins and Phone guy… all you would need is family photo… except we have no idea what these people’s names are.
This is where I go back and forth. I want to say Brother is the night guard of FNAF 1, with the animatronics giving him his due diligence, and him having to listen to his father. Then when a name is revealed we can realize that Victim really is in the center of all of this. I can buy a father would know the condition of his son’s brain injury and I can buy that the last surviving member of the family would want to ‘defeat’ his father’s, sister’s and brother’s killer. It’s especially cinematic since no one in this family has been named yet, and seeing ‘The Schmidt’s’ with all four of them around and the older brother being ‘Mike’ would be a bit of a tear jerker. He listened to his father die as he is accosted by the masks he wore to torment his little brother to cope with losing his little sister? Gah… Most importantly, it gives context to FNAF 1.
But it leaves the bite of ’87 open. Geez Louise. I don’t know anymore. [bradpitt]What’s in the Box!?[/bradpitt]

The Puppet and The Victim

Aren’t you the kid that always hides under the table and cries?

So why is all of this important. In terms of literary theory, the role of protagonist and antagonist is to clash against one another. They need to be each other’s opposites. This way, the way they approach different things draws out all the character between them. Within Cawthon’s writing style, he uses dynamic writing to its utmost potential, and this is no different.
The puppet is literally killing for a birthday party, while Victim is scared to death of having one. The puppet wants to belong where he doesn’t, The Victim is haunted, tormented and tortured because he does belong. The puppet feels no guilt, while the crying child is wracked with it. The puppet is neither animatronic nor alive, and the victim is both. The puppet was killed because he didn’t run, Victim died because he couldn’t run any more.
But at the same time, they are very similar, to the point where people like to think he is the Puppet. What we lose in elegance of him being the puppet, we gain in pathos. The final showdown isn’t some big climatic battle of forces, or a duel of wits… it’s the victim passing on, the puppet finally having a birthday party. The two coming together against all odds, perfectly imbalancing to one another, and everyone letting go.
Floating away like balloons in peace.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading, Let me know if you have any questions, and I will answer them swiftly. I had to work to trim it down, it’s not my usual style. If you ask a specific question, expect a specific answer. I tend to measure my posts by the paragraph, sorry.

[Doctor Script]

Originally posted by The Marionette TO ADVENTURE!:

B-but i-i wouldn't do that

A Likely story, Marionette... Or should I say...

THE PUPPET!?!

[UtterTrash]

Originally posted by Doctor Script:

Originally posted by The Marionette TO ADVENTURE!:

B-but i-i wouldn't do that

A Likely story, Marionette... Or should I say...

THE PUPPET!?!

XD

[wifeburger]

This theory doesn't make any sense.

[Doctor Script]

Originally posted by Crispy Calamari:

]This theory doesn't make any sense.

Can I clarify anything for you?

[wifeburger]

Originally posted by Doctor Script:

Originally posted by Crispy Calamari:

]This theory doesn't make any sense.

Can I clarify anything for you?

Why would the child that possessed the Puppet kill himself?

[Doctor Script]

The terminology is a bit difficult here. Do you mean puppet, victim or whom?

This write up is almost strictly ignoring FNAF 3, if that is what you're talking about? I'm not sure when I suggested that the puppet kills himself.

[wifeburger]

Originally posted by Doctor Script:

The terminology is a bit difficult here. Do you mean puppet, victim or whom?

This write up is almost strictly ignoring FNAF 3, if that is what you're talking about? I'm not sure when I suggested that the puppet kills himself.

A child was murdered, that child became the puppet. If the puppet is the murderer, why would he kill himself AND other children?

[Doctor Script]

Yes, The child was murdered out side of Fredbear's or Freddys or whichever restaurant.

That child was murdered by a strange figure that doesn't appear again in the games. (I'm well aware of GO!GO!GO!, but i'll cover that in a second.)

Beyond the murder, the crying child is crying outside of the resturaunt. He is crying before pink guy arrives. 6 kids are celebrating a birthday inside. After the child dies, and possesses the puppet, the question is how does he celebrate a birthday like he watched dying.

There is no reasoning or rationale to killing kids 5 at a time otherwise. In fiction, we have a hard time not giving reasons to our protagonists, even when they are serial killers. Out of curiousity, did you read the puppet section?

[wifeburger]

Originally posted by Doctor Script:

Yes, The child was murdered out side of Fredbear's or Freddys or whichever restaurant.

That child was murdered by a strange figure that doesn't appear again in the games. (I'm well aware of GO!GO!GO!, but i'll cover that in a second.)

Beyond the murder, the crying child is crying outside of the resturaunt. He is crying before pink guy arrives. 6 kids are celebrating a birthday inside. After the child dies, and possesses the puppet, the question is how does he celebrate a birthday like he watched dying.

There is no reasoning or rationale to killing kids 5 at a time otherwise. In fiction, we have a hard time not giving reasons to our protagonists, even when they are serial killers. Out of curiousity, did you read the puppet section?

There is no "Pink guy" only the Purple Man.

[Doctor Script]

Shockingly, I think each sprite is a different character.

In GIVE CAKE, it's an actual murderer. In GO! GO! GO!, the puppet has become a reflection of his own murderer. In SAVE THEM, it's phone guy. in FNAF3, It's the manager and in FNAF 4, It's phone guy again.

[Funtime Foxy]

Someone call Scott to verify

[Darrelkun]

I think this is a very interesting theory! I really enjoy it.

Man, there are some creative and perceptive people in this community, haha.

[Doctor Script]

Indeed. The fandom is a bit of a spectacle of it's own right.

[wifeburger]

Originally posted by Doctor Script:

Indeed. The fandom is a bit of a spectacle of it's own right.

You're right, quite right. The fandom may be terrible, but at least it's better then the Sonic fandom, however, the best fandom I've ever been in so far is the Splatoon fandom, it's not perfect, but atleast people know their limits when it comes to porn or vulgarity.

[Doctor Script]

I think I'm going to use this discussion as a bit of a blog of sorts. After classes, before turning in for bed, just post a few musings and go a bit more in depth on a few points here and there. Filling in more details and honoring Scott's work. One question though, how do I link to a specific post? I'm not particularly skilled in HTML format, and I'd like to create a table of contents for the points I'm jotting down.

Please let me know!

Twins

Right now, we have two specially designed suits, that double as both Animatronic and Suits

Continuing the theme that Puppet and Victim are opposites of one another, I'd like to point out how frequently there are doubles within the game. All the withered animatronics have Toy animatronic counter parts. Golden Freddy has Golden Bonnie. Spring trap has Fredbear. Shadow Bonnie has Shadow Freddy, and so forth.

There are two stores for the original establishment. Two different phone guys. Two general colors for purple guy sprites. The phone guy purple guy sprite has two different things on his chest.

But it goes deeper then that. The first game mirrors the last game. similar layout, but in the first game, all the info was in plain sight and nothing had to be looked too deep into to understand the gist of what was going on. The last game shoves a brief story into your face with all the emotions and the unsettling spectacle of the bite of 87 (Or 83, or 12, or 91 or...) and still refuses to relinquish the last bits of information within it, hosting a box that has yet to be opened.

The second and third game also mirror each other. One is overflowing with animatronics, full of mini games you can only reach by dying and a single resource that is vulnerable to Balloon Boy's presence. The third game has a multitude of animatronics (functionally, at least) and where before all but one could kill you, Now only one can kill you. Further, to reach the mini-games in FNAF 3, you had to break out of physical possibility to 'win' them, while in FNAF 2, the games were abruptly simple and couldn't be broken. And you had to break physical possibilities just to play them, and by doing so, you extended your life by playing them.

The obvious counter to Puppet being the only odd man out within the games is that he is balanced by Balloon Boy. Initially this does seem to be the case. Balloon boy is round, Puppet is tall. Both are 'human' analogs. But the issue is one little animatronic, who hides under your desk, JJ. Not only does Balloon Boy have a counter part, he is the only animatronic to have a true twin. And further more, a Fraternal Twin. If Scott ever releases the names of Victim and Mangle, I whole heartedly would put money on Elijah and Bebe. Elijah, commonly shortened to Jay, and the main character of the biblical book Kings II, and Bebe, for obvious reasons.

But Hey, That's just a Theory...

A Game theory... And Plagiarism... Don't sue me...