Mike is an Emily? (FNAF Movie Theory)
Josh Hutcherson killed it as Mike Schmidt in the Five Nights at Freddy's movie. I pulled the image from this article.
Well, I have taken a small break to think about the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie and now it is time to get to work. Today I hope to answer the question of who the characters are in the FNAF movie and how each of them fit into the story.
I’d like to start with Garrett, who I believe is the kidnapped victim who becomes the Puppet. According to some videos I’ve seen floating around YouTube, like this one by Brensnorf, Garrett is meant to be a parallel to Charlie. This lines up since the secret message “Come find me” comes up during the end credits.
Also, there has been a lot of conversations about The Fourth Closet graphic novel. In this novel, the “Charlie bot,” built by Henry, was stolen by William and used for parts in the Circus Baby animatronic, giving Baby some of Charlie’s memories. You could say William kidnapped the Charlie bot, just like he kidnapped Garrett in the movie.
So, the “Father, it’s me, Michael” cutscene in Sister Location…is Michael Emily? Did Charlie have an older brother this whole time? Was he the one in the Sister Location gameplay? He was, after all, looking for Circus Baby, who had Charlie’s memories (at least in the books, which Scott Cawthon himself said are canon).
We always assumed Michael was an Afton who tormented his younger brother and ended up killing him, but if Michael was an Emily all along, then the older brother in FNAF 4 is not Michael. In fact, Henry kept his family away from Freddy’s at all costs, but that didn’t stop William from seeking them out.
Now, that’s not to say the original intention of the Sister Location cutscene was for Michael to be an Emily, given that Springtrap was the last thing shown in the cutscene. In fact, there could be both a Michael Afton and a Michael Emily, given FNAF’s history of giving different characters the same name.
I tried crafting my theory around FNAF 4 being about the Emily family, but it’s not a strong argument and there’s a lot of holes. We will stick to it being about the Aftons. Elizabeth was closer with her father, so she was probably at work with him throughout the minigames, which is why she never appears in them.
This is why Vanessa has a picture of herself and William in the Spring Bonnie suit in the movie. He forced her to change her name to Vanessa to cover up the family’s dark past and pulled some strings to make her a cop in the movie, security guard in the games. He wanted to keep it in the family to stop people like Michael from discovering the truth.
If Michael is Charlie’s older brother, then Garrett’s kidnapping in the movie represents Charlie’s murder in the games. Abby, therefore, is a character we haven’t been introduced to in the games, and Mike is forced to take care of her after Henry loses himself in his work/disappears after his wife dies. This could be a parallel to the theory that Henry goes to jail in the games, which is why his character doesn’t appear until Pizzeria Simulator.
Michael looks a lot like his father, and the children possessing the FNAF 1 animatronics could be easily convinced that Henry Emily is the bad man because of Afton’s manipulation and because he was supposedly the one arrested for the Missing Children Incident.
Plus, this explains why Springtrap tries to kill the player in FNAF 3. I really don’t think he would want to kill his older son no matter how mad he was about Crying Child’s death. Maybe I’m wrong, William is a pretty messed up guy.
This puts “Midnight Motorist” into perspective as well. I’m glad I posted my theory about it before the movie came out because I knew it would probably be wrong. I still think this minigame is about the Aftons, but it makes a lot more sense now that William is the Orange Guy and it takes place after he killed Charlie.
This video by ID’s Fantasy on YouTube provides a pretty clear explanation as to who is who in “Midnight Motorist” and what is going on. She talks about Charlie’s death being the first, even before the Crying Child or Elizabeth, and it makes a lot of sense to me.
Also, can we talk about the Dream Theory book on Mike’s bedside table? Scott actually found a way to make Dream Theory relevant to the franchise, and for that, I applaud him. Well done!
Mike is our main protagonist. His version of Dream Theory is that our memories are stored in such a way that we can go back to them in our dreams and notice small details we didn’t notice when we were forming the memory.
Mike’s character is clearly dealing with a lot of regret, which is something that isn’t directly addressed very often in this franchise. Crying Child’s older brother expresses regret when he says, “I’m sorry,” and Henry expresses regret in Pizzeria Simulator while he burns Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place to the ground. Mike’s wish to change the past and his self-blame connects him to Henry, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say Mike is an Emily.
Plus, Vanessa and Mike flirt with each other throughout the movie, so having the big reveal be that Afton is Mike’s father and that Mike and Vanessa are siblings would be very strange to add as a plot twist. I don’t think Blumhouse wanted to pull a Star Wars on the audience.
Lastly, I want to say I really enjoyed this movie. I heard mixed reviews about it before going to the theatres, but I have to say, this was a really great way to spend Halloween. I didn’t expect the movie to perfectly line up with the game lore, and anyone who does is going to be sorely disappointed.
I hope you enjoyed my take on this theory. Thanks for reading!