Why The FNaF Timeline is IMPOSSIBLY BROKEN (FNaF) - DMuted
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- čas přidán 15. 03. 2023
- In this video, I cover why I generally don't like FNaF timeline videos, and why I think the actual timeline of the games is impossible to solve. (Spoiler: it's bad writing.)
Music Used:
Lancer's Theme - Deltarune Ch. 1
The Runaway - Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator
Objection - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Examination - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Cynthia's Theme - Pokemon Black/White
Soul Sanctum - Hollow Knight
Core - Undertale
My Twitter:
MutedNotSuited?t=... - Hry
Yeah the biggest problem is the amount of rebooted or abandoned lore. We can't possibly know what things are canon, which things have been overridden, what was just sillies, etc.
Help Wanted was the perfect solution for this...except it somehow made things even more confusing. They were sooo close to fixing things and just totally whiffed it!
That’s the issue. Nothing is confirmed so we can’t ever be sure of anything. At this point I could make up BS theory’s but because of the fact there are no clear answers I can’t really be proven wrong.
@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 The harsh truth is that Scott made fun of us; he created random bs so the community could create theories and give free publicity for his games. He is a shitty writer ,as shown by the TES trilogy, yet we trusted him enough to believe he had a big secret plan for his games. He has no clue of what the real story is.
@@andreyu5640 I don't think thats entirely true. I just think fnafs story was made up on a whim and scott doesn't want to admit that he doesn't really know what he was doing later on. To be honest the reason why newer fnaf products like the movie or security breach will be bad in lore, is because all of the lore is stuff we made up. We made our own story for fnaf that is completely different from what scott thought it was. The problem with the later fnaf games is that fnaf was built on a sand foundation, Fnaf 1 to 3 never really had a good story if we are being honest here. If they had good lore or storys, We wouldn't be having this issue later on of the lore being so screwed. We need to stop praising the older games story and lore. ITs just not good and it never was. Good storys don't hide the story behind rare minigames that you have a rare chance at getting. The average person just wont be able to figure out what the story is in one playthrough and thats not good. Sure you can have hidden lore but not having any lore at all that can be told to the average person will have your story fall flat.
@@andreyu5640 that’s not entirely true, Scott has said quite a few times that the fist game was supposed to be his last game, and then his second, and then his third. He didn’t know what was gonna take off so while they have a “connecting” story, they were also built around being a short story that you can play and intake. Think back to fnaf 1, it has a story you can see from start to finish without any timelines or anything else because it was intended to be the last. 2/3 build on one, and 4 builds itself before 1.
@@andreyu5640That’s not true the first game was his last effort at game design if it failed he would have got a job.
The third game was supposed to be the last fnaf game but when he heard that people thought it wasn’t that scary he decided to make fnaf 4.
Thing with fnaf 4 is it’s story is the same as the first three games just presented differently but sense it confused people its gameplay was sown into the story itself with sister location.
That brings us to now after much success and failure the games have become Scots Disney, aka his greatest success and lives savings.
Currently he pawns the development of the games to other companies bringing in a whole new can of worms into the lore issue.
I've said this elsewhere, but the biggest problem, currently, is the complete lack of confirmation of anything.
Scott's definition of a retcon is a change to ingame information, i.e. SAVE HIM=Charlie, who we now know to be female. When fans talk about retcons, they're generally talking about intended but UNSTATED lore, the implications of things.
The lore of the games evolves, and details that were once intended to be important no longer are, or have changed meanings. We're not just solving one story, anymore. We're solving FNAF 1-3, 1-4, 1-6, and 1-SB all at once. There's multiple competing narratives, and we haven't been given enough guidance to separate them properly.
If we don't get some more confirmed canon information that's legitimately useful, the fandom is going to collapse in on itself sooner or later. There's too many points of friction, and working together has become incredibly difficult because of it.
Scott's kinda gotten himself into a shitty situation with this tbh. He's never going to confirm anything because the speculation is what drives the community and continued interest. On the other hand, the community is eventually going to get tired of all this and lose all interest. He can either confirm lore and lose the appeal of theorists, or drive it into a convoluted mess that no one cares about anymore. We're already getting to that last point imo.
@@verminscum I think what needs to happen is CALCULATED confirmations. It's easy to forget, but we have very little confirmed canon to work with,
It wouldn't even necessarily need to be confirming theories directly, but we've hit a point where we NEED more reliable information. Have we missed something important in any of the games, or the Security Logbook? We don't even seem to know that.
I think Midnight Motorist is a great example of the problem. Damn near every detail of that minigame is a point of contention, INDIVIDUALLY, and none of the explanations that make real sense feel like they tell us anything significant.
I agree. If Ruin doesn’t significantly improve on Security Breach I think the fandom probably collapses. But who knows? There are so many new FNAF theorists on CZcams that they might keep the series itself alive after it should be dead.
Good, good. The sooner fnafdom collapses the sooner we'll see the downfall of mascot horror games that plagued horror genre, and hopefully Amnesia Bunker will revive horror genre
Retcon just means something already established being irrelevant, right?
The thing that’s frustrating me the most is the puppet’s treatment since fnaf 5-6. Scott didn’t needed to create a whole ass new timeline to introduce remnant, we already HAD the puppet who was the most mysterious and genuinely interesting character , and incidentally the one who showed us throughout the mini games important bits of the lore.
Remnant is basically the FNaF universe's equivalent of midichlorians. It's probably the best example in the FNaF franchise of favoring explanations over a compelling story
I think the biggest issue is that Scott has a strong case of False Consensus Fallacy (I think that's what it's called) where he thinks that the things that he knows are also the things that everyone knows. Add to that his insistence on explaining every plot point almost exclusively through in-game (or in-book) cryptic riddles, and you get the mess that is FNaF lore.
Here's a basic non FNaF example. Try clapping out a song (say, Happy Birthday) to a friend and see if they can determine the song. To the clapper, the puzzle seems very easy, because they _already_ know what the song is supposed to be and so their brain naturally fills in the gaps. But the listener doesn't know what the song is so they can't fill in the gaps.
The William and Michael both being purple and William being both purple and yellow are examples of this in the FNaF storyline. Scott wants a visual connection between William and Michael to show they're related, he expects the fan base to realize that Michael has purple skin because his skin is rotting, whereas William's skin only appears purple because he's only ever seen in the shadows. When the majority of the fan base didn't figure it out, he decided to give out a new hint. He showed William with yellow skin to show that his skin isn't literally purple. Neither of these moments were meant to intentionally confuse people, they were both hints that likely made complete sense to Scott, but to anyone who doesn't already have the answer it's incomprehensible.
This is made worse by the fact that hints are given almost entirely through the games or books (outside of rare vague hints on Steam and Reddit (half of which were really just him confirming something someone else theorized)). Which means we have to wait for him to make an entire game before getting any new hints, and those hints are inevitably in the form of a cryptic riddle that seems obvious to him alone. And of course, those new games also contain new plot points which are also told in the form of cryptic riddles, requiring the usage of a new game to hint at the cryptic riddles present in the previous game.
Second biggest issue with solving the lore (which is stated in this video) is it's rarely made clear what is canon and what isn't. Which Fazbear frights stories are canon, which are non canon, and which are non canon but metaphors for canon events? Is the guidebook canon? Can we take everything definitely stated within it as gospel truth, or is some of it just speculation? And on and on it goes.
At this point the FNAF Series shouldnt have anyone create a timeline. There are so many holes and things that overlap. It just isnt possible to make a FNAF timeline anymore.
Wendigoons is good
@@WhaleManManyea it’s solid but it has a few holes
For example, something I noticed recently: if the Safe Rooms supposedly aren't boarded up until after William Afton gets Spring-trapped, and that takes place after 1993, then how can Phone Guy make a tape about it if he's dead at that point?
I think Scott owes it to the community to come out and say what has been retconned for our sanity
@@MattTOB618 the safe rooms being sealed was before fnaf 1 so phone guy mentions this before 1993
I think the worst thing with the whole "some of this is cannon and some of it isnt" thing is... its effected the games in one of the worst ways. In help wanted they said the games (at least SOME of them) were made by a rouge indie developer and werent true but then we are told they were hired by fazbear entertainment. So.... are the games cannon? How much of the games can we trust? If the books are ALSO fiction in the universe (security breach with the plushtrap chaser on an arcade machine) then how much of those actually happened? And if some of those characters are meant to parallel game characters that enteres a whole new realm of wtf.
Honestly I was hoping they were gonna leave things as they were and move on with a new story completely but they just cant resist.
And now the movie is coming
is THAT gonna be cannon to the in game universe now too? Who knows
Movie will probably be like the books. Alternate timeline but canon in that it follows similar ‘rules’. Like any other adaptation, probably won’t be 1 to 1. However, the question is will it be pulling a Jeremy with characters like Vanessa appearing but not being related to their game characters?
@@GendoRokabundi I just hope the movie can be good on its own so you can kinda just turn your brain off and have a good horror film
a horror film that explains too much is almost never good
Mayve the movies gonna be like Dbs maybe if it's popular it becomes canon later in a different way
The movie seems to be adapting FNAF 1 so no it's not canon to the games
@@DToTheB seems to be, but in this series even that is held to reasonable scrutiny due to all of this
Honestly being able to admit that the FNAF story just isn't very well written actually makes me like it a lot more. It somehow makes it all more approachable in its fallibility as opposed to viewing it as some holy scripture that can never be wrong.
Yes I have been saying this for years, a well written story doesn’t require me to read books outside the games to understand the lore. A good story doesn’t have people always giving you different answers to what it is. I remember halo 5 got so Much crap for that
@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 Lol yeah Halo 5 was a mess. Not quite FNAF levels of mess but certainly wasn't good.
fr
Another thing that makes the fnaf timeline kind of impossible to solve is it's very likely the story has changed at least once or twice while Scott was making the games
likely twice by the time of fnaf 6, once at the end of 3 and once with the end of 4 but then ended the era with 6
I wonder if Scott has an actual COMPLETE timeline going on or if it is just one overlapping mess of stories?
Scott's answer would be "yes" I believe.
@@sonic8005 i sure hope so. Maybe when he fully retires he’ll release it in like a book or podcast or movie version
i 95% believe he makes it up as he does along
@@thegreatscribbles960 absolutely
I very much doubt he does.
But if he has made one, it definitely didn't exist for the first few games (at least up to sister location).
The biggest problem isn't the amount of lore, it's that Scott is making things confusing for no reason. I could understand if he kept things simple and expanded on the story just a little bit but he chose to dump a bunch of information that has absolutely no reason or rhyme. At this point he owes it to the fans to give them actual answers and give a cohesive story. It's ridiculous that there's this much material and people are still confused about something as simple as who the characters are. It's like someone gives you a jigsaw puzzle to complete but they took 60% of the pieces, scratched them up and hid them inside a brick wall.
The fnaf lore is like a spinosaurus reconstruction. We keep having to rebuild it each year because there is new stuff that makes it even more complex. But even constructing an accurate spinosaurus is more easier to do.
@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 i agree, at this point scott needs to answer some questions lmao
Yeah I believe Scott should release a definitive canon that answers everything related up until help wanted. I can understand if he wants to preserve the mystery to keep discussions going for the new stuff but when it comes to the original Scott made games it’s time to put all those mysteries to rest.
@@kaiserreichempireofohio834 The mystery is completely dead the moment Scott decided to make the games story based. At that point things completely shift and he has to tell a cohesive story. It gets worse when the books came out and Scott says that some of it is true but never actually says what's canon. Which translates to " Everything in the books may or may not be canon depending on how I feel".
Bingo
The problem is we are missing one key piece of information: why did William Afton start killing.
Knowing that would nail down the timeline, or at least go a long way to solidifying certain events. Was it jealousy of Henry? Grief over his son's death? Some other unknown event? Just for the fun of it?
There are two causes of this. First, this story was put together piecemeal. It's a Frankenstein's monster of multiple different stories. Especially if you include the books, but even without them, the games are all over the place.
The second issue is that they can't decide if William is a monster or a villain. A monster works best the less you know. A good monster relies on your imagination to do the heavy lifting. A good villain works best the more we know. We should feel like a villain is someone we could know in real life.
The games want him to be a monster - mysterious and unknown. But the lore has gone too far to the villain side. Giving us enough information where he's no longer a good monster, but not enough to let us understand him as a villain. (This is also one reason why SB wasn't that good.) This goes to the motive of keeping too much of the lore obscured. They need to commit to making him the villain, give us the rest of the lore, and make a new monster for the franchise.
Fnaf 1-3 did an amazing job at making him a monster and seeing it get ruined by later games is kinda disappointing
I don't believe in a single timeline anymore. I just think there's various Canon parts that are just fill in the blanks for whatever timeline you want.
Thats probably because everyone believes in different answers for pieces in the lore.
the ooftroop´s timeline is the most accurate right now
I think another point is half of the games were supposed to be “the last”. This leads to Scott try to finish the story on multiple occasions which leads to every subsequent game trying to explain why the story didn’t actually end
Simple explanation of why fnaf lore is confusing: “I think” Scott has retconned the lore too many times to the point of insanity
Edit: this comment section is and example why the fnaf lore is an insanity lol go theorize on dora instead kids
Fnaf 4 was a retcon of the bite of 87 that’s where I think it started. There is so much proof leading to the fact that fredbears was supposed to be one that did 87 and that it wasn’t supposed to be 83
@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778
The CC was probably going to be the Puppet too, there's soo many parallels between them and "Save Him", but that was changed bc books
@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778Not quite in fnaf one it’s literally said that the victim of the bite of 1987 survived.
In fnaf 4 the crying child dies to the bite and thus are different innocents.
That said we actually know nothing official about the bite of 1987 other then it happened and this is coming from someone who once shared your same view.
@@Quinhala11Not quite as before the books we had no clue who the puppet actually was possessed by.
Many different timelines gave different ideas such as a older sister who died or a mother even to of course the crying child.
That said we had no ideas on who the kids where and what beings possessed which animatronics til after the books.
Before it was all speculation and theories.
@@darth3911 who is the animatronic that jumpscares you if you type in 1987 on custom night in fnaf 1? Oh right it’s golden Freddy. I think that’s a big clue that he was the one to original do it. But can we tell for sure? No because there will never be any clear awnsers here.
I'm kind of over the FNaF lore at this point because, unless you're one of the people actively trying to solve it, everything gets so annoying and dull. It's cool that people get to have fun crafting theories but this is too much. We shouldn't be still trying to solve pieces of the story that's canonically happened decades in the past. Scott should have just swallowed his pride, wrote a book or guide to explain the story from point A to point B with specific things finally confirmed and then moved onto the next generation of Fnaf. There is too many retcons, forgotten plots, and unattached threads that make this whole journey feel pointless and not fun.
Its why I prefer Dayshift at Freddies.
It has a story. Its clear, concise and you have to work to find it, but its in the games
it's just a weird point for you to go "this happened so long in the timeline's past, why don't we know it concretely?" as if like unknown history doesnt exist in real life, and that mystery doesnt add immensely to the experience of the games lol
@@colorblockpoprocks6973 Some mystery is totally fine, but this isn't real life. This is Scott's video game lore, one that has been retconned many times and we've only gotten vague answers to what is actually true. It makes it extremely difficult for new people to enjoy the lore because you have so many different theories that contradict each other and each game makes the lore more confusing than the last in some cases.
Especially considering the fact that the story is so dark and gloomy. Whenever Scott tried to end this series it ended with Afton being dead and everyone else moving on. Examples of this being 3, 6 and UCN so I’m pretty sure he wants to end it on a positive note. However he just doesn’t know when to stop…he just keeps going! Not only is the story never ending, but it keeps getting more and more ridiculous the more it’s “upgraded”. Then he wants to be super subtle about it and not confirm anything so we can all make theories about it and get it wrong then try again.
@@colorblockpoprocks6973Video game lore made by a person who can explain it since they made it isn’t the same as real life history were not even the people involved in it know what happened 100% clearly.
I just finished Death Note and all I can think about is how every scene would work PERFECTLY if you switch Light for Scott and L for MatPat.
The moving the goalposts on where the series was meant to ‘end’ is also a problem. The first game was a stand alone. The second and third completed a trilogy, with revealing and ultimately defeating the killer. The fourth game and FNAF world were all about dream theory.
Sister Location, Pizzeria Simulator and Ultimate Custom Night then became lore builders, putting names to characters, etc.
Then post UCN, we get the Indy developer story. My guess is that it might have been meant as a hand waving excuse to explain inconsistencies in the first 4 games that might exist because the long term lore wasn’t developed yet, or justify stuff that doesn’t work without dream theory.
That's what happened. He retconned stuff as the lore was changed. Like the bites for instance. It's pretty known by now that 87 pretty much ended being replaced by 83 thanks to hidden numbers in fnaf 4's promo images...
He changed the ONE THING that should not have been changed. Why? Who knows.... presumably because he realised the dream theory wasn't gonna pass.
At least he tries, That's one thing nobody can complain about.
Corrections according to my opinions:
1. Lefty may not have the Puppet itself controlling it to walking around, although she is inside it, he is just keeping her. He may actually imobilize you during the night because you are too loud, meaning you can wake up the Puppet, he says "Shhhhhhh!" after that.
2. I think Vanny is Vanessa.
3. I don't think the Encyclopedia is reliable to consider for lore-solving due to various reasons already discuessed, which is also why I don't believe in Crying Child being the protagonist of FNaF 4 being confirmed through it.
4. I think Gregory is unrelated to the Crying Child, but I don't know.
Lefty’s schematic proves that Puppet shouldn’t be able to control him because of the steady voltage used to keep her asleep.
@@MeemahSN Yeah, but it also says what happens after the Puppet is captured is impredictable, so I would not use it as a 100% proof, but it is proof.
Yea the character encyclopedia is not reliable
14:38 This will quite literally never happen. Scott knows for a fact that the lore is what keeps the most people coming back to the series. To make ANY sort of definitive statement on anything would inherently decrease interest, and he knows this. Which is why he'll continue to string people along until the end of time
thing is eventually people are going to get tired of it. they already are frankly. imo it'd be better to end it with solid answers than string people along with a convoluted story until they get sick of it and lose interest anyway.
@@verminscumIf you find and ask if this theory is cannon he will answer truthfully.
In the past when asked he did confirmed how right or wrong a game theory video was.
Some are died on some died off, not including that he has worked on making the story as clear as possible sense fnaf-4.
He can’t keep doing that if he wants people to keep enjoying the series. He should confirm things that have been floating around for years, but keep the newer stuff vague so people can work on solving new lore instead of constantly having to go over the same old stuff from previous games because they still don’t have the answers needed.
@@verminscum doesn't matter if people get tired. If he ends it now - no more money, if he keeps it running forever - a smaller amount of money than now, but it's money form the die-hard core audience that will buy literally anything he releases.
Keeping a dying franchise is probably easier than making a new one
@@gerdost ain't his literal thing that he started his big career from starting anew from a dead franchise (his old games that looked creepy)?
Yeah, making the timeline William-Centric, and giving him a motive really breaks the Michael Story.
You have to assume a lot. Scott hasn't directly confirmed anything since fnaf 4, instead choosing to communicate through vague statements about cannonisity and the provided clues.
I personally believe the most coherent era of fnaf lore was in FNAF 1-3. It was a pretty basic horror story, and comprehensivable, despite the wierd debates that rose around phone guy.
I have a really weird question btw. Was Elizabeth ever declared dead? Her death was covered up. The fact Michael went looking for her seems to imply that she just went missing.
There seems to be some implication of a divorce occurring at some point in time. His wife may have had custody of Elizabeth. That explains the empty girls room and why mike is babysitting in 4. It would also explain why Elizabeth was such a daddy’s girl and wanted to see the animatronics. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. William could cover up Elizabeth’s death from his son by just saying she’s back with her mother. Perhaps William also did something to his exwife to make sure no one reported Elizabeth missing, and allowing him to basically say that she must have taken his daughter and disappeared to deny him visitation.
Definitely getting into speculation.
It’s also possible he just blamed her death on the fictional gas leak, which would mean he didn’t have to pretend she was missing, just had to conceal the cause of death.
i'd say that Elizabeth's body couldve been kept inside Baby or smth, like... as out there as that call can feel, considering that human bodies and endoskeletons both have mass and we don't see evidence of stuffing on the animatronic like we would with the springlock fiasco
Elizabeth was declared dead by Baby's eyes turning green from blue after killing her, indicating that her spirit was now housed inside of Baby. And Michael went looking for her because either A) he knew she was in Baby, but not about William's murder sprees, or B) he was in cahoots with his dad the whole time up until he got turned into a skin suit, after which he went on his "Fuck you, dad" journey. As he says, he "put her back together just like you asked me to; she's free now." So he was not led there on entirely false pretenses. William told him to do something, and he did it.
i just saw someone make a timeline video where they made a timeline for each “story” Scott had created. like Fnaf 1-3, then 1-4, then 1-6, and so on. i think this is really the only way to do it to understand where old pieces of lore get “used up” so you know it may be unusable in modern fnaf
i tried finding it to put the title here bu i cannot find the video in my watched history even if I search
EDIT: I found it!
The SOLVED Five Nights at Freddy's Timeline by Brussel
Could you describe what happens in the video, I’d really like to know about this video
@@pexavex7295 I have a really bad memory, but I do recall the creator saying how Fnaf4 originally was a dream then the secret security room in FnafSL states it as real. They also talked about The Box and how the comment Scott left about "it's contents changing over the years" was in direct reference to how Scott had to rewrite the story to continue the franchise.
@@pexavex7295 I just found it actually! The SOLVED Five Nights at Freddy's Timeline by Brussel. I rewatched the intro and the video just takes into account the possible retcons Scott has made in order to narrow down relevant evidence for present day Fnaf lore
While I'm slightly mad that it took this long for fans to get it, but I'm glad more and more Fnaf fans re finally realising they've been duped this whole time by Scott, there was NEVER this grant "master plan" or "timeline", each new game either retconned something or made timeline and lore more confusing without ever giving us a concrete game that canonises x, y, z theories.
I can't wait to seen in the next game that William Afton can transcend time and space and explain why the timeline does'nt make sense.
The (sad) truth is: the lore will never be solved. Memorable jumpscares aside, what made the game so famous is the indecipherable chaos of the story and if that ever changes, it's over. The harder they make it to understand, more people talk about it and more engagement it generates.
As much as I wanna agree with your analysis of the small details, fact is that this timeline is extremely complicated. What I think MatPat has decided and what I think is a great decision, is stop looking at details like the ones you tackle in this video and look at the bigger story. Don't get me wrong, the details are important but sometimes, especially when the info is old like the FNaF 3 minigames, it's better to ignore one piece of evidence that's contrasting rather than trying to work the entire thing around that one piece of evidence when the entire trend of the rest of the data all points in the same direction.
100% agree. Plus, we should consider how times Scott retconned the story. I'm pretty sure we won't be able to fit every detail from the first 4 games into the current state of the story (especially dates).
I think everyone is trying too hard to fit all those pieces that don't have a place any longer. The story is broken, completely at this point. Scott should just say, VERY CLEARLY, what is canon and what not. Keeping going with this hide and seek of lore and then retconn is not useful.
@@cryinginstupid261Upon playing the games I can tall you the only major contradiction I can find is the using purple guy figure to represent both Afton’s.
I feel like the main issue is there was no long story or lore in the beginning and because of that a lot doesn’t make sense and the “timeline” is all over the place.
FNAF continuity has taken the comic book approach to storytelling and regrettably that means that all of the theory crafting kind of doesn't matter. It is fundamentally opposed to the method of storytelling and is dependent entirely on the author of the characters instead of the characters themselves. There is minimal sense of internal consistency you just have to take what you're told in the first act at face value and run with it each game which again is antithetical to the structure of FNAF lore being hidden in multiple playthroughs
This story is so convoluted at this point that it’s super discouraging to even attempt to figure it out. Like what if the drawings of nightmare Freddy was made to scare the crying child and is why he knows what they look like? Who knows? I feel like some random piece would randomly make that incorrect so any attempt feels inherently unsatisfying.
Honestly that’s a pretty solid explanation lol
@@kaiserreichempireofohio834 Really? I just took a shot in the dark
@@Ismatic1906 Yeah, no way of knowing if it's right or not, but it's a pretty good explanation.
The thing is, he draws that picture on a "dream diary" page of the logbook in which one of the spirits within the logbook speaks through faded text: "Do you have dreams?" That's what I call a massive neon sign with the words LORE RELEVANCE on it.
I suppose it's possible he could have done that to his brother, and is now having guilty dreams of it or something. However, that doesn't explain why audio of Phone Guy plays during the FNAF4 nights, something only Michael would know. The only way to counter this bit of evidence is to assume it's just a random soundbite that Scott threw in for the lols. And again, that's certainly possible.
But I just feel Scott was really pushing for an unclear narrative with FNAF4, given that the trailer asks us, "What game do you think you're playing?"
@@damkylan3 Well nevermind then
The books being referred to as “required reading to understand the FNAF timeline” legitimately makes the FNAF fandom sound like a religious body that has splintered into multiple different churches or some shit lmao
This is why I’m more of a fan of Fnaf 1-4’s lore, because back then, it was a relatively simple story with little to no plot holes, and the story itself was heartbreaking and sad
I hope the Fnaf movie can have better lore then then modern Fnaf
I personally think F.N.A.F.4 was the 1 that didn’t make sense when fitting with 1-3.
Like how he’s implied to possess FredBear yet there were 5 people, not 4.
I know that the timeline of events for FNAF is convoluted as hell and painful for some, but I feel like that is part of the charm and beauty of the series as a whole. The fact that the timeline is confusing just makes me excited to hear other people's takes on what they believe is the potential answer to a specific mystery. It's the ambiguous state that the franchise is in right now that really intrigues me. We just have to wait until the Ruin DLC drops and hopefully, some answers are given.
Honestly another reason is simply just retcons. Like changing purple guy from some crazed serial killer to a business owner capable of building advanced robots and becomes obcessed with harnessing ghosts for immortality.
Or turning normal underplayed nightgaurds into this self possessed revenge seeking son of Afton, because it's not just a simple swap of details that can be accounted for with most retcons, albuet harder cause the story is never explained.
It's a fundamental change in the story from focusing on nobody's put into rundown locations while defenceless from possessed robots, to a story about William Afton...
Like the original trilogy the purple guy stuff was backstory explaining how the events are happening, now the purple guy stuff is the main story so shit that happened decades ago suddenly need to become last week like it's a modern Simpsons flashback episode making homer and Marge teens in the 90"s while the classic show has them as adults in that era, it's a fundamental clusterfuck that puts advanced funtimes in the same time as uncanny chucke cheese style animatronics.
It's just fundamentally flawed at this point due to that one change in direction
The main problem is sister locations pinpoint, because at the end of the presumably canon ending (scooper ending) Michael is a walking corpse, meaning fnaf 1 and 2 take place afterwards, but we also presume that Michael goes to sister location after William goes missing for a unannounced length of time, presumably being dead (placing SL after fnaf 1). This in turn causes a paradox where both are simultaneously true, AND false.
Pulling a Jeremy single handedly fucked the timeline, and unless it is officially stated by Scott that the pink slips are either canon or a joke for players being sweats (odor) and playing with custom difficulties (tampering with animatronics) then we will never be able to solve the most vital part of the timeline.
In the first two games, the odor is just due to tampering with the animatronics (with stink from dead bodies), but it might be retconned to mike being a corpse.
Lore at this point is really messy and things overlap a lot of the time. Its really fun to just go over it but, damn.. I gotta say it LOL. I liked that Mat tried to make a timeline for this mess that's the lore. Even if a little fanfiction-y.. I like it a lot.
But for the lore and how it goes about it, the way it's told can make for such a confusing way of how fans should go about it. You basically went over it pretty well. Also gave me some things to think about when going over the lore itself. Good vid!
I truly think if the lore from the start was structured and Scott had the story he wanted to tell from the start, it wouldn't be as messy as it is now. Even around the releases of 5 to 6..it might've been able to be more cohesive than it is now. But those are my thoughts.
The thing is fnaf was made on a whim. Scott didn’t expect it to blow up, it was just a small indie game. It’s quite obvious it was made up along the games. And to be honest we kind of made up the story’s ourselves. I guess that was the magic of it all.
@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 Oh no, I’m well aware of that. I was going to mention it but didn’t LOL. I think a lot of the way the lore is what it is now.. is because of him doing it on a whim. He didn’t expect for it to blow up like it did!
So it is what it is now
@@soomi5667 oh nice! I just thought I’d bring it up lol
@@Wizardjones69 He prolly has one (I mean I would hope) but it probably isn't perfect lol.
my biggest gripe is when people pull out the "scott doesn't do coincidences, scott isn't wrong etc." shtick. Like the guy has released lore books that contradict themselves, and he's admitted to doing coincidences.
I'll always maintain that the fnaf timeline isn't solvable unless they remade the first seven games with an eye for actually 1) making things consistent and 2) actually telling us the timeline and not just vague-posting at us.
what do I mean when I say "make things consistent" well a few things,
stuff like changing midnight motorist to a) make orange guy noticible as william. maybe the guy outside of Jr.'s says his name when you visit? or you know... make him purple b) informing us who the other two characters even are. if it's the mom watching the TV have her say "leave Michael alone" if it's Michael have him say "leave Evan alone". An additional note there, I wish they would actually give us a name for the CC, the fact that we're only somewhat sure it's Evan is honestly criminal at this point.
But then there's fnaf4 and SL's retro games. the implication of SL is that Elizabeth was killed first and that's what the CC should remember seeing, but why would william have a child killing robot if he's not killing children yet? so we're just not sure which happens first CC dying or Elizabeth being killed. and we'll probably never know at this point.
Also, what the hell is meant by both endings of FnaF3 being canon? that's some of the most infuriating vagueposting I've heard from scott.
What's actually in the Box? the fact that people are still like "oh the fnaf6 ventilation is symbolically the box" is asinine. just like... open it I promise you I will never hate anything in this series more then mpreg!Springtrap so I'll be willing to accept whatever is in the box so I wish they would just open it.
People need to realized that this started off as a one and done game by Scott
Anything else he added or created later on wasn't to add to a lore or create a lore, it was just horror, what worked worked
He had no idea people would latch on so much to so many details
So you cant expect to connect things that were never originally intended to connect
As a MatPat fan myself, I don't view every video as gospel. Fan theories are entertainment first and foremost, and I've personally enjoyed his and others' videos because I think it's fun to hear people out and learn their interpretations of fictional works.
all we have to do is forget that books and post ucn fnaf exists. problem solved
so has anyone pointed out the obvious fact of the aliases supposedly used my Michael (Fritz and Jeremy) are names of two of the dead children? Is that not note worthy?
its impossible to solve because the series was supposed to end like 3 times but kept going
If you think about it, maybe, for some of the games and books, scott did intend to mislead us. In a post he made where he talked about the box from fnaf 4, he claimed that he thought there was nothing he could hide from the fanbase because they kept uncovering secrets from FNAF 1-3. Yes, this does cause chaos and mistrust and maybe he hadn't intended for such an aspect of the series to escalate this far, but in a way, he could've been trying to point us in the right direction. As MatPat said in one of his FNAF 4 videos, we as humans try to put the pieces together and aren't satisfied until a conclusion is reached. And because of cognitive dissonance, it's hard for us to change our view on aspects of the series when new information arises because we're so strong on our beliefs of the story. So maybe all these inconsistencies were a way for scott to keep our brains open to the new information and try to put things together in a different way, even if it's impossible.
Everything began going down hill when they retconned the game's lore to match the books instead of keeping them their own separate canons.
But they are different continuities, they just share some repeating ideas/hints which an cross over
it doesnt match the books?
Tbh, the timeline being this convoluted is why I love trying to piece it together so much. Piecing together the bits of lore given to us in SB is actually the most fun I've had trying to piece this story together.
FNAF definitely has some of the most complex lore of any series I've ever seen for sure
Edit: i always start random arguments with out knowing lmao
Complex and incoherent isn't the same
@@awsomesause pretty coherent to me
@@aubergineman3205 I wouldn't necessarily call it coherent unless u shoehorn in fanmade theories into the mix. It's just an issue that sprouted from scott initially not having a clear cut story for the franchise at the start
@@aubergineman3205 Explaint it then
@@dsurio4383 sure
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Scott is actually not the genius writer that people think he is, and the “lore” of FNAF is carried at least 60% by fans and fan theorists. He even said outright that fan theories changed the way he wrote the story. While it’s fine to adapt your story to what your fans like, I think he forgot the “what your fans like” part in favor of “what is the biggest plot twist”, and that’s why he ended up in this situation. People make fan theories bc they want to guess what happens next. They want to be /right/. They want their theories to be confirmed. One or two plot twists is fine, but when every single new installment in the series requires a complete lore rewrite, it just comes off as dragging out the story as long as possible to wring as much attention and money from the fanbase as possible.
The yellow disguise kinda makes sense. Yellow is the complimentary color to purple, meaning it's on the opposite end of the color wheel and the use of complimentary colors in narration can sometimes imply two sides of the same coin or completely opposing forces. For Afton, the choice of making him yellow might imply that he had yet to experience whatever event or viewpoint that prompted him to become purple guy. This breaks the timeline further though if we do not have confirmation of why exactly he went on such a killing spree.
It could also imply his literal disguise as the child-friendly Spring Bonnie. Not necessarily that he's wearing it, but that it's a part of who he is now that he's committed his first murder. It happens again when we unlock the Susie cutscene that led to her death. William's dialogue alternates between yellow and... blue... goddamn it, Scott, lol. But nevertheless, it's similar enough that it seems like an intentional connection, since there is clearly one person talking, it's clearly William inside Spring Bonnie, and his dialogue keeps shifting between the two colors. The only issue is that he didn't use the Spring Bonnie suit to kill Charlie, so it's a bit random.
I really don't think his motivation is necessary for any timeline. Some real life killers just have no motivation. We have no idea if he ever killed before all this.
BUT... if I were to jump to wild conclusions for the fun of it, I could say that Charlie's death happens after CC, which is the event that pushes him to kill to get a form of revenge on Henry. And how did CC die? By getting bitten by a YELLOW bear with PURPLE accessories. Dun dun dunnnnnn.
@@damkylan3 this is what I think as well. That Scott needed something brighter than dark purple to contrast with the night setting of midnight motorist so he picked the other color strongly associated with William; the color of Golden Bonnie.
FNaF LORE is completely understandable but the timeline is.....uh, hard to understand...a little?. yeah,
I think things like illusion discs really suck for the story. There’s almost no way to prove or falsify if something is an illusion, meaning it can be used anywhere. I feel like some weak theories will use them to patch up things that don’t make sense .
12:47 If Cassie's dad is Jeremy Fitzgerald, he was absolutely in the right place to become the Jeremy who got his face cut off.
I always wanted to have Scott or someone come out and help us a little, and also keep up with the theories too from all of us, not everything Game Theory says is true, but dang, I like these points and glad someone pointed them out, I wish I could do the same, and make a 'timeline' ish video, but wouldn't know where to begin, and I was here at the start of it all.
I hope you're on the talkback stream. BTW, love the Ace attorney music, makes lore solving so much more dramatic
I hate people who bash other peoples timelines when the source material itself is just incredibly poorly written. Like this isn't some logic puzzle that has one right answer, it just has straight up bad writing. Does that make it not entertaining? Absolutely not, but I don't think it's fair for people to attack others for "getting something wrong" when there's basically no way to do everything right.
Frankly, anyone who puts in the time to make a full timeline of their interpretation of the story deserves credit and should be appreciated. I can't stand the timeline elitist people that mock other people's work, it's not like you can do anything else with this broken puzzle besides fill in holes with what makes the most sense to you.
Case in point, great video, and thanks for bringing this up. They really just need to release an official timeline like Zelda did, even if it retcons stuff. Basically just say "Here it is. Don't like it? Too bad, it's official." That could end up leading to potentially a more cohesive story for future games, and allow us to enjoy something that is not only fun to play, but actually makes sense.
i think we should honestly stop trying. the fnaf lore will never be solved and we will never get an accurate timeline UNLESS its told by scott himself. its so confusing
The real reason the timeline can never be solved is the constant retcons, which mean that all details in any previous game garbage and nothing can be used as evidence or trusted.
Nothing in FNAF 4 can be trusted since its entire premise has been retconned at least twice. Nothing in the first few FNAF games can be trusted because of Help Wanted, but Help Wanted also can't be trusted because the easter eggs in Security Breach undermine the idea of the early games being reboots. And is Burntrap even real? We don't know. Is Golden Freddy a boy or a girl? Well that was established then changed 6 months later. I also firmly believe there is no logical point in the timeline for Sister Location because of retcons between FNAF 3 and SL
the problem is nothing is ever said by scott what was retconned and the games refuse to elaborate on old stuff most of the time
The biggest problem with trying to solve the fnaf timeline is that dream theory was right and now it isn't. It was retconned and it was retconned hard. Fnaf 4's game play WAS meant to be the crying child, and now it belongs to Mike.
Honestly, I genuinely think a lot of this is something the fandom created or at least magnified through sheer stubborn attachment to certain interpretations, rather than Scott's intent.
On "cheap disguises": People _assume_ that Mike is going around place to place under pseudonyms, but might it just... not be true? Similarly, with Midnight Motorist the fandom has decided it's Scott trying to trick everyone by making William orange, but what if it's just not William in the first place and people are overthinking it? Maybe they are and Scott is really just being intentionally obtuse, but I dunno, the way nobody seems to be able to make a consistent timeline fitting those theories in satisfying ways makes me doubtful. (As for graphic novel designs, they often don't even match the descriptions in the books, so I don't think much stock can be put in them.) The whole Miketrap thing was pretty annoying, though.
On the books and continuity: As far as I can find, the only source for any Frights stories being part of the game timeline is this sentence: "The series will launch with five books, each containing three different short stories with unique characters and plot lines, some connected directly to the games, and some not." It feels much more intuitive to me for it to just mean "some stories like Into The Pit will show you a vision of the Missing Children Incident, some stories like Bunny Call won't even mention Fazbear Entertainment", not that there's some weird continuity divide in Frights never even hinted at anywhere else.
On "pulling a Jeremy": Outside the pink slips, has this actually been a problem in the past where people thought a recurring pattern was important when it turned out it was a joke? I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head, but I don't want to dismiss the idea because it's very possible there's something else I'm not thinking of.
I think honestly this is the most accurate comment I've seen out of all the FNAF videos I've watched. Because you're absolutely right - the fans are kinda what made things complicated simply because they made their own canon. Scott made it slightly worse by adhering to these interpretations instead of telling HIS story. He wanted to please everyone and in the end... probably pleased no one. Including himself. I think that's the true tragedy is we won't ever truly know what Scott intended for this story. So what if its boring, weird, or not as good? Doesn't mean that it shouldn't be written.
@@Pendragon44321 Yeah. As buck wild as SB lore seems to be shaping up to be, at least right now I feel confident this is genuinely one cohesive vision, rather than something self-contradictory caused by backtracking to try to make others happy with something unplanned. (Though it does make the lack of evidence in the game itself more frustrating.)
Do you ever think FNAF will do a CoD Zombies thing and literally just give fans a piece of paper with the entire storyline (Up until that point)
Yes that really happened. It's a poster I think some folks got.
Cod zombies was very simair with Fnaf. Both having hidden lore, tons of theories and a convoluted plot till after Revelations they finally gave us answers and confirmed stuff we all assumed and rewarded people for piecing together the lore.
God knows they should, at least for 1-UCN, if they want to keep the steelwool stuff a mystery then I can understand why, to increase interest in the newer games. The old stuff should be answered by now absolutely.
I don't think anyone can make a timeline without retcons, but if steelwool made one and stuck to it, things would eventually settle down. Although the debate is probably good for attention (companies love that unpaid marketing).
Scott doesnt care about canon, and he just trolls people who do. Cash grab terrible books, he cant be bothered to make a canon he is making so much money he dont care anymore lmao
10:51 Oh and to seperate him from Micheal.
The Miketrap-Willtrap thing was an issue at this time
It starts to feel like everything past the 3rd game is its own bubble. While not entirely a true statement, it used to be a lot easier to digest on what was going on.
heyy dmuted just subed and have been bingeing for a bit. pissed youtube didnt recomend you sooner. your fuckun great,. love the deltarune doobie refrence still.
the Cynthia piano really gives the right emotions when talking about this
fear
Ain't gonna lie even though fnaf's timeliness is beyond f, Matpat's vids on those were pretty epic. Matpat himself knows that crap is botched he is just giving his take on it.
I've never seen Matpat's because I find his voice really irritating to listen to, but I've seen Wendigoon's and really enjoyed it.
I always just figured that we couldn't be playing as Michael in fnaf 4 because the characters height compared to the doorknobs and generally everything else in the room just wouldn't make sense unless it was a small child
The fnaf encyclopedia isn't to be trusted as it also states that Bonbon is female and yet it states that Bonnet (who came after bonbon) is the first ever female Bonnie.
@@artanshabanaj8599
I do think it can be trusted, there are mistakes but I do think it can be trusted.
@@azimuddin1890 Nah
FNAF 4 is a dream Michael has about when he was attacked by the Twisted Ones and about his brothers death
I'm on the opposite side of the timeline videos thing. I love those videos because at least I finally have some form of a full story to hold me over until Scott decides to stop being so cryptic and let it all out. I'm honestly getting sicked and tired of all these failed solutions at this point & just resorted to begging Scott to reveal it all. It's nearly been a fucking decade at this point. The man needs to give us something, no more clues, no more breadcrumbs, just give us the full story!
There is a part of me that that sees the heavy parallel between Mike from the games, and Charlie from the trilogy. And part of me doesnt think Micheal had a brother, and thinks Micheal is the crying child. Micheal was remade Fourth Closet style at his father's image, hence why they look so much alike. William is harsh to his son, like Henry was harsh to Robo Charlie, because they knew what they were looking at was false. If William knows Mike is a robot, he'd have no qualms sending him to the bunker.
Woah...this is...incredible...you've explained EVERYTHING clearly and concisely. The concepts you identified were clever and original, and this would be a perfect way to introduce anyone, FNaFer or not, to the hot mess of inconsistency that is the FNaF Lore now.
I loved the story of 1-UCN. I think some of the Frights books were bangers. Even those had their flaws though, and in tandem with the nonsense happening in the Steel Wool games, the franchise is totally incomprehensible now. Its really sad how things have ended up...the lore used to be FNaF's no.1 selling point. Now it is FNaF's greatest weakness.
I'm glad I found you. S tier video essay, hugely underrated, thank you for the insight :)
the books were a mistake.
?
all of this just makes more certain that Scott should had the whole story planned out before he even made FNAF1
but if he had would FNAF really have lasted as long as it has,
i mean almost 10 years after the 1st game there are still new ones coming out
The problem is Scott couldn't have predicted FNAF 1 would become a hit
@@burner555 true
rule of red herrings: red herrings shouldn’t be more interesting or satisfying than the actual solution
You know shits Complicated when this is the fourth time matpat tired a timeline series on fnaf
I mean the series lore is held together by duct tape and glue at this point
For the books, i consider that only the silver eye triology thing is the only thing needed and even that its only for the confirmed parallel between the two stories but everything after the trio is 𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘥𝘫𝘦 SPECIALLY the character encyclopedia which should not be taken into account into any lore what-a-so ever
They reassembled the FNAF 1 animatronics, boom that one part explained.
8:45 Fetch also appears on an arcade game in Security Breach. I believe some of the Novel Trilogy characters appear on arcades too.
Sister location kinda implodes any timeline because of how wonky the whole thing is in terms of placement and tech
I do think that fnaf 4 takes place after fnaf one but before sister location. The reason for this is cause of the fnaf one call in the background and that Michael Afton is the fnaf 4 protagonist because he is experiencing ptsd from working at fnaf one and seeing golden freddy. I also believe that sister location takes place almost immediately after the follow me mini games because the souls of the original children are in the fun times and ennard. It also makes sense because Freddy’s is closed from what the hand unit says.
I can't wait for The4thSnake to try to do a Line Through Time on Fnaf
when it comes to the purple guy dying in the FNaF 1 location, it’s more likely he did it before FNaF 1, as the place could’ve just not been open to the public yet, and the animatronic sprites in the FNaF 3 mini games have buttons that the withered animatronics had that their FNaF 1 counterparts did not have, with the newly repaired withered now being in shambles, it would only make sense that they made new ones, the animatronics we see in FNaF 1, in fact, before William Afton was introduced and all that, it was heavily implied the purple guy was phone guy, due to him dying in a backroom sometime before the events of FNaF 1, and we know purple guy in FNaF 3’s mini games died in a backroom in the FNaF 1 location sometime before the events of FNaF 1, as shown by the player playing as the repaired withered animatronics during said FNaF 3 mini games so uh… do with that as you will
I just go with one understanding if the lore I got in my head and I basically stop it at Ultimate Custom Night lol
i think the Nightmares are plushies that use the illusion tech to make them look like monsters. UCN has you fight off 2 nightmares and Circus Baby by buying their plushie, which seems weird for Baby to be in there until you consider that she also canonically has "illlusion disc" technology.
She does not canonically have illusion disc technology.
I think if Scott can at least change and out show is the dates for some events not all but just enough so that we can connect the story the right way
In regards to "pulling a Jeremy"; I think the names in "The Real Jake" might have been simply to ease the confusion theorists have on CC being called Evan or not.
I feel like the things with the twisted ones is almost like a nu/hi-nu gundam situation
even though they're technically both the "RX-93 v Gundam", there's still two very different designs for it between the Char's counterattack movie and the manga.
Here's something on Jeremy - most being faceless: the missing child likely possessed Bonnie (once Withered), Fitzgerald the prime suspect of the '87 bite, and the VR tester with the paper cutter. As ooftroop said, "Bonnie, possessed by Lil Jeremy Fitzgerald, was merely a prophecy of more face trauma to come for that bloodline.
Heh, at this point the Bobbiedots have me compare the mouthless Elizabeth to the 2 girls prominent on the Ruin poster.
For yellow guy
It could be william, whereing a rain coat it was raining during midnight moterist
5:57 unless this is in fact Michael! The purple rotting flesh from Inard, shows him wearing a night guard badge, there to dismantle the animatronics…seems legit 👀
From what we know.
The film that is announced as coming out at Halloween this year (from a tweet),
will follow the game continuity and will feature Michael as main protag.
So if it's true, we could finally see the end of the tunnel until at least Simulator.
You're joking yourself if you think it's gonna follow game continuity
@@dmuted It was before Scott departure (don't know if there was an update, since)
but for a moment they posted on Reddit some advancement in therm of what they were doing.
And in those, they stated that after deliberating what would be the subject of the movie, they decided that I would be Michael story from the game continuity.
So, except if it's changed, since there is still a chance that it will append.
If we could at least get a yes or no on wether the 'odour' was important or a joke we could say for sure that SL came before fnaf 2 or not.
My favorite fnaf timeline video is Wendigoon's. I like the order, the order makes sense to me.
As great as it is, it unfortunately still has cracks in it like any other timeline video
6:26 technically the fnaf 1 location did exist before fnaf 2, its where the original mci murders took place and we see animatronics moving about the old fnaf location in the fnaf 2 death minigames even featuring pirate's cove. Fnaf 1 location --> shuts down --> fnaf 2 opens and closes --> fnaf 1 location reopens during fnaf 1
I think the simplest FNaF story would've been just one game long, Where Henry and William open up a small attraction named Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, William kills kids so he can fulfill his deepest desires, and the animatronics become haunted when you come in to work there. It would've been a lot more simple.
And more boring
@@aubergineman3205 and make more sense. and be more mature
@@randomannoyance not really more mature
1 game is too little.
2 games is too little.
3 games, you could leave it there but a 4th wouldn't hurt.
4.nice, possible conclusion
5.ok getting a little more confusing but I'll roll with it.
6.ALRIGHT just end it there!
@@aubergineman3205 yes, fnaf shouldve been over at the sixth game. that was the perfect ending. steel wool turned the dark story into your average mascot "horror" for infants and ruined the ending of fnaf 6.
and the cringy fan service that fnaf ar is while trying to add lore elements to the story is a mistake of the entire fnaf franchise
As someone who is writing fanfiction and trying to have it make any sense, the Incomprehensible timeline is the most irritating and frustrating thing I have ever tried to tackle
personally i think the fact that the lore is so batshit insane and self-contradictory is part of the fun
With the books I feel like some of them are meant to be like, interpretations of canon events like stitch wraith perhaps
I noticed a lot of flaws inside of matpats timeline theory, and I really wanna go down the list I just dont know how I would do it since im not good at making videos.
Okay, one, in the FNAF 3 night end mini games, the Freddy animatronic has buttons on his torso, which looks a lot like what the Withered animatronics have on them. Two, it's safe to assume that after William Afton dismantled the animatronics they were rebuilt into the FNAF 1 versions, which means that the FNAF 1 animatronics used to look like the Withered animatronics.
Well, yeah... and?
@@Wizardjones69 I promise you it does not