Five Nights at Freddy's (video game)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: The reason why Mike Schmidt returns to Freddy's after Night 1 is left up in the air. Is he so pressed for money that he needs this job to get by? Is he protecting other potential employees from the killer animatronics? Is he a colossal moron who doesn't understand the gravity of his situation? Or is he simply an adrenaline junkie who loves the challenge of surviving the killer animatronic onslaught?
    • The upper management. Are they incompetent buffoons, or corrupt, absolutely evil bastards? While this game provided enough wiggle room for one to assume they were acting from a place of ignorance, later games would remove all doubt by showing that Fazbear Entertainment practically revels in criminally negligent behavior all in the name of squeezing as much money out of customers as they can, safety of their employees be damned.
  • Anticlimax Boss: Golden Freddy is scary if you don't know how to properly handle him, since he seemingly appears out of nowhere and crashes your game with no immediately obvious way of stopping him. However, once you know that looking at a certain poster triggers his attack and that looking back at the cameras will make him go away, it's hard to be afraid of an Eldritch Abomination that's so easy to get rid of. Then again, the fact that defeating him requires you to ignore every pre-established rule the game has followed can help him loop back around to being scary again thanks to it further showing just how wrong is compared to the other animatronics.
  • Breather Level: Set all the animatronics' AI to a pitifully low number on Night 7, and you've got an easy night to look forward to.
  • Broken Base: Thanks to the massive exposure that this game gets, everything about it will has come under fire. Is the plot incredibly stupid and nonsensical, believable and serviceable, or is it even worth arguing about at all? Is this game genuinely terrifying and suspenseful, or too reliant on cheap scares? Is the gameplay thrilling and exciting, or incredibly dull? The series' staying power and later entries would only intensify these debates.
    • While the debate has died down since this game's release, Bonnie's gender was a hot topic in its early days. You had one camp insisting that he had to be a girl due to his feminine name, and another one fiercely insistent that he was a boy due to his muscular and imposing build. There was also a third party who didn't really care either way and felt it was a stupid argument to begin with.
  • Common Knowledge: Despite frequent assumptions that Freddy's AI is adaptive and the bear himself can teleport into your office if you shut both doors, neither "fact" holds up to proper analysis of the game's code. His AI is actually similar to Foxy's and can be reigned in (to a degree) with careful camera usage, while the teleportation misconception likely arose from how good he is at sneaking into your office on higher difficulty settings.
  • Complete Monster: Not any of the animatronics themselves, but William Afton, head of the company that created all the animatronics (deliberately programming a murderous instinct in them) who fully embraced his psychopathic desire to take lives by becoming the killer from the Missing Children Incident, luring five kids backstage while dressed as one of the restaurant's beloved characters and mercilessly slaughtering them. There's absolutely nothing redeemable about a serial child murderer. Especially when we see him in action in the third game as Springtrap, showing that he doesn't even limit his victims to just children.
    • Hard as it is to believe, he's even worse in the film version. Every monstrous deed he does in the games is still included, but he also purposely turns his victims into the animatronics, Gaslighting them so they do most of his dirty work for him. He also intentionally hires Mike because he knows he is the brother of one of his victims (in the games, Mike was simply an average Joe who made the mistake of applying for the job), attempts to manipulate him into killing Abby, and stabs his own daughter when she simply gets between him and Mike. Oh and unlike most of the game franchise (where at least he has the excuse of being turned into an undead abomination to explain his madness), he is 100% a living human in the movie. Certainly says a lot.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Foxy. You have to monitor his location at Pirate's Cove at regular intervals, which will put you at risk of having Bonnie, Chica or Freddy (on the later nights) sneaking in and attacking. If you don't watch him enough, then he will charge straight for your office and kill you. If you look at the security feed and see an abandoned Pirate's Cove of Foxy running down the hallways, you have exactly one second to shut the door in his face, and at least half of that second is spent putting down the tablet. What truly puts him in this category though is that even if you successfully lock him out, Foxy will still penalize you by banging on the door, which will drain your power by relatively big chunks.
    • Freddy Fazbear himself is even worse than Foxy. When he finally comes out to play, he proves to be the stealthiest and quickest animatronic of the bunch. It's hard to spot him on camera since he's good at sticking to the shadows, and the one time you can easily see him, he's dangerously close to your office and ready to slip inside. And despite acting similarly to Bonnie and Chica, he lacks their big weaknesses: you can't see him through the window if he's close, and he'll attack you whether your tablet is raised or not.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: All of the animatronics fall victim to this. Despite the fact that they're merciless killing machines possessed by the ghosts of vengeful children who will slaughter you without a second thought, you get lots of fan fics and fan art portraying them as misunderstood characters who want to be friends with Mike Schmidt. Yes, they are undoubtedly tragic characters, but they are hardly innocent angels either.
    • Foxy gets this the most, thanks to the fact that he doesn't actually get in your face and scream for his jumpscare since he just leans into the room with a goofy look on his face. Fans have interpreted him as actually being benevolent and trying to save you from being killed by Freddy, Bonnie and Chica... despite the fact that you still get a Game Over screen whenever he attacks. The second game would put this mindset to rest by showing off his jumpscare in the trailer: he pounces on you. No room for ambiguity there.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Foxy. When the game first released, his popularity practically exploded overnight for multiple reasons. His behavior is unlike that of the rest of the Fazbear Four, making him stand out from his friends. The vagueness surrounding his attraction's derelict status and potential involvement with the Bite of '87 made him a living trigger for theorycrafting. And of course, him being a shirtless fox gives him a lot of appeal among the Furry Fandom.
    • Bizarrely enough, the googly-eyed cupcake in your office gets a lot of love from the fans due to how adorable it looks. Even stranger, the fan gets tons of fan attention as well thanks to jokes hyping it up as a Support Party Member to the animatronics that guzzles your battery power so its "buddies" can kill you.
  • Epileptic Trees: Since the backstory leaves a lot of information up to the player's interpretation, there are tons upon tons of theories being cooked up by the game's large fanbase in regards to just about anything, no matter how mundane or slight. While this has died down to some extent, some mysteries such as the culprit behind the Bite of '87 and Mike Schmidt's identity and motivations still haven't been solved, leading to plenty of theorycrafting to this day.
  • Fanon: Since Foxy isn't shown on stage with Freddy, Bonnie and Chica, fans have cooked up two popular theories as to what his role among the restaurant's characters is: he's either an antagonist who regularly bullies Freddy's posse so he can run off with their pizza, or a lovable storyteller who entertains children who visit Pirate's Cove with exciting tales about his seafaring adventures.
    • Speaking of Foxy, he was designated by the fans as being the culprit for the Bite of '87 thanks to his area being condemned, his loose jaw, and incredibly sharp teeth. At least until the second game came out, where it was revealed that he couldn't have been responsible for the bite as he would have been locked up when it happened. Instead, the blame has shifted to his Toy Animatronic counterpart "Mangle", but even he/she/yes isn't quite a slam dunk.
    • Since the kitchen's camera feed is permanently down, there's no telling what Chica is eating in there. However, most fans assume that she's likely chowing down on something innocent such as leftover pizza.
  • First Installment Wins: While every game in the series has its share of loyal fans, this game is often considered to stand head and shoulders above the rest. The simplistic story and butt-clenchingly tense atmosphere help it avoid issues the other games run into, and the vagueness of its setting (in a vacuum) adds to its creepy charm.
  • Follow the Leader: The success of this game created an Indy boom of games with a similar plot, like Poppy Playtime, Hello Puppets!, Happy's Humble Burger Farm, and My Friendly Neighborhood. None have achieved much success, mostly due to the Trope being obvious.
    • There has also been at least one movie that was clearly inspired by it, Willy's Wonderland.
  • Genius Bonus: Those who are well-versed in music would recognize the music box tune that Freddy plays when he's about to kill you is from Carmen, a song about a man who loves his incredibly dangerous job where he combats creatures that want to kill him. It's fitting, considering Mike's job as the night watch in a place packed to the gills with killer animatronics.
  • Goddamned Bats: Bonnie and Chica are this to Foxy and Freddy's Demonic Spiders. Bonnie isn't as difficult to deal with as Freddy, but he's still annoyingly persistent and aggressive, and will get the jump on you more than once thanks to how pushy he is. Chica is less aggressive than Bonnie, but her tendency to linger around your door for way longer than she needs to will waste precious power when you shut the door on her.
  • Hell Is That Noise: The animatronics' ear-piercing scream when they catch you. Dear god, that is a sound that will haunt your nightmares for weeks. Even worse, if you're able to listen to the full scream (it gets cut off at around the beginning), you'll realize that it sounds like a child's scream.
    • Golden Freddy's is even worse: his is the same scream pitch-shifted to the point of sounding like a roar.
    • If Bonnie or Chica gets into your office while you're occupied with the cameras, they'll make their presence known with an unsettling groaning noise.
    • Whenever Freddy is out and about, he'll belt out a disturbing deep laugh as he moves around the restaurant. Even worse is if you set his difficulty to 20, he'll stay on the move constantly which means that the pizzeria will be flooded with his horrible, horrible laughter.
    • After Night 4 where you hear the recorded message of the animatronics murdering Phone Guy, you wouldn't expect yet another phone call, right? Cue the phone ringing on Night 5, and horrific demon voices speaking to you through the telephone.
  • Hype Backlash: Thanks to Youtubers like Pewdiepie and Markiplier helping the game receive a big popularity boost, people have gotten sick and tired of the game and its fans being everywhere. The incredibly odd behavior of a large portion of the fanbase probably doesn't help in the slightest.
  • It Was His Sled:
    • Since he was absent from any and all promotional materials before the game's release, Foxy was a surprise for those who expected to only have to deal with Freddy and his bandmates. However, thanks to the fact that the game has received wide mainstream exposure and the power of his fanbase, Foxy's existence is pretty much common knowledge.
    • Ditto for Golden Freddy. He used to be a better-kept secret than Foxy, but not anymore.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Freddy's intelligence makes him leaps and bounds more dangerous than the other animatronics, and his body language alone (at least on the game's cover art) conveys a lot of confidence and charisma. Despite his lack of dialogue, he really comes off as an evil genius who's got you all figured out, and surviving any night where he's active is no small feat.
  • Memetic Mutation: "Are you ready for Freddy?" and similar phrases regarding the game have become popular on 4chan and other such sites.
  • Memetic Sex God: Yes, even this game isn't immune to having these. Every animatronic is considered this to some extent by some fans, to the point to where a surprisingly huge amount of porn for the game has been put out on the internet.
  • Most Annoying Sound: Scary as the jumpscare scream is, repeated scares can desensitize you to the horror, especially on 4/20 mode. At that point, you're less likely to react with a terrified "OH MY GOD!" and more likely to grumble "Damn it, not again!" before restarting the night.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: There is no better feeling than hearing the chimes signaling the transition from 5 to 6, signaling the end of the night. Even moreso if you know that an animatronic is juuuust about to kill you.
  • Nightmare Retardant:
    • Most of the fanbase's horny artists and twelve-year old roleplayers can really, really take off the game's edge for some.
    • While seeing Foxy tearing down the hallway will definitely make your heart stop as it means that you have barely a second to shut your door, his actual kill-screen is probably the least scary out of the animatronics. Mainly because unlike the others who get in your face while they scream at the top of their robotic, non-existent lungs, Foxy just kind of leans into the room and drops his jaw. Thanks to this, he comes off as goofy rather than threatening.
  • Paranoia Fuel: There's no feeling worse than scrolling through your cameras and not being able to find an animatronic. They could be in the kitchen which has no functioning camera, or they could be hanging around your office ready to slip in. But in a worst case scenario, they are in your office and will scream like a banshee once you look away from your monitor... assuming they don't just pull it down themselves.
  • Ron the Death Eater: A lot of fans have theorized that Mike Schmidt himself is the murderer who was behind the Missing Children Incident, and is taking up the night watch basically to rub it in to the ghosts of the children that he killed that he got away with his crimes. The second game makes this unlikely since it's a prequel, and the murders happened before Mike was ever at or near the Pizzeria. He's not completely ruled out mind you, but he's still less likely to be the killer.
    • This goes double for Phone Guy, even moreso thanks to a game over mini-game in the sequel that features one of the purple men (avatars for the murderer) holding what appears to be a phone. Thankfully, the third game finally stomped out this theory as Phone Guy was killed before the murderer came back to the restaurant and died a gory death.
    • Jeremy Fitzgerald, on the other hand, has evidence stacked against him that he might be the murderer, if he wasn't taken out by the Bite of '87 that is.
  • Self Fanservice: Lots of fanartists like to portray the animatronics as either non-scary, cuter animatronics than they are in the game or flat out sexy anthropomorphic animals. A bit odd that these are interpretations of bloodthirsty killer animatronics, but you know what they say about Rule 34...
  • That One Level: Night 4 marks the game's true difficulty spike. Freddy steps down from the stage, and proves to be a terrifying force to be reckoned with thanks to his speed and stealthiness. The other animatronics don't let up either and become a lot more threatening as well: they'll often start moving right when the night begins, and are generally more aggressive and persistent than usual.
  • Ugly Cute: Thanks to his goofy looking face complete with half opened/closed eyes and his slack jaw, Foxy can be surprisingly adorable even when he kills you. The other animatronics can qualify to an extent, though not quite as much as the beloved pirate fox.
  • Uncanny Valley: Thanks to the CG used for the animatronics, Freddy and friends look genuinely unnerving even when they aren't trying to kill you. Adults in-universe certainly share this opinion on them, but children still adore them despite their inherit scariness.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Bonnie and Chica caused a lot of this at the start, and still do to newcomers. While Chica's name is very indicative that she's a woman, there's nothing all that feminine about her appearance-wise (Unlike her Toy Animatronic counterpart in the sequel). Bonnie on the other hand has a name that is always used for girls, but is very bulky and almost muscular looking. Bonnie has been confirmed to be a male, but it was still a hot button topic during the game's initial release.
    • Going off of a species spin on the trope, Chica has also been confused by many players for a duck instead of a baby chick. Like with her gender, her toy counterpart has features that make her species less ambiguous such as a more angular beak.
  • The Woobie:
    • Poor, poor Mike Schmidt. The dude is stuck with a job where the slightest slip-up will grant him a truly horrifying death at the hands of the animatronics he's tasked with protecting, and the piss-poor paycheck he gets at the end of the week isn't even sort of worth it. It's quite obvious that the job is wearing away at his sanity since he will start having terrifying hallucinations more often as the nights go by, and he can survive a night while being right at death's doorstep if Freddy comes in while the power goes out. You can almost consider him getting fired as an act of cruel mercy: the fact that he sticks with the job after Night 1 implies that he NEEDS the money, but he no longer has to worry about getting slaughtered by scary animatronics.
    • This goes double for Phone Guy. Unlike Mike who at least gets his warnings about the animatronics in advance, he had to learn how to deal with them all by himself, and dies at the hands of the animatronics during his last night on the job. Even worse, the poor guy knows he's screwed, and he's trying to convince himself that his impending death won't be as painful as he thinks before he gets cut off.
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