R
ReaperDragon4
Guest
This is the letter I wrote to the Game theorists via the messaging feature on youtube. I'm using it to explain my account and thoughts on Mattpat's and other people's attempts to piece together FNAF. Mattpat came up with two seperate theories of FNAF's timeline, one involving a dream, the other involving a paranormal story. And at the end of one of his videos he asked the audience to give their opinion. I couldn't completely sort out my impressions immediately so weeks later I'm writing this and I'm storing it here. I'm not sure if what I saw was really an encounter with Scott Cawthorn or not. But it /would/ be consistant with his overall behavior.
Re: FNAF Timeline Theory vs FNAF Dream Theory
I have something to say both about these two competing theories and the videos you've done about FNAF 4. You see while you were trying to fit the timeline together, I was critiquing Scott Cawthorn's technique as a game designer and story teller. There /was/ an interesting bit in your video debating whether the crying child was the Puppet /or/ Golden Freddy, and looking at your dream and timeline theories, I think I /may/ have had an encounter with Scott in the comments for that video but I can't find it again.
The account username was Scott C or Scotty C or something like that, but the userpic wasn't his usual neon 8bit man running across a black background, so i thought it was someone impersonating Scott for the attention. And it still /may/ be this.
However, I snapped at him and said "don't bring the many worlds interpretation into an already complicated franchise thats stuffed so full of paranormal phenomena and references that I can't even go back through a single lets play and count them all." Referring of course to the quantum physics theory about parallel universes. I do feel bad now that i think about it, possibly snapping back at the game creator when he was actually trying to drop clues.
Either way, while you were trying to figure out the story behind FNAF, I was trying to get a good grasp of Scott's storytelling style and abilities because I'm more interested in that than the FNAF storyline. I think Scott was trying to drop a clue about which of these timelines were correct. The comment in question that he was something along the lines of "unless there's a world in which he's golden freddy /and/ another in which he's the puppet."
Its simple, FNAF is both a dream and reality, Scott made it so that both theories are right at the same time despite them being at odds with each other. In one, the crying child is dreaming, and dying. He's the puppet. In the other, the crying child is really dead, and the puppet already exists and transforms him into golden freddy.
This fits with what I suspect is a timeline split in FNAF 3, the good and bad endings. The bad ending is that purple guy dies, the children have taken a life in vengeance rather than trying to get justice. If they were acting in the spirit of justice, they wouldn't have killed purple guy, just maimed him and made sure that the authorities found him permanently marked amid a decades old crime scene and the evidence of his crimes.
This interpretation fleshed itself out in my mind believe it or not as a result of one of your film theories, the one about Walter in Breaking bad. To me, the purple guy ended up in a similar situation to Walter, being seriously injured amid the evidence that links him to his crimes.
The good ending in FNAF 3, therefore, is Purple Guy being found, or as he put it in FNAF 1, "I'll try to hang on, maybe later you can check in one of those suits?" Scott's left the possibility open that purple guy survived.
Further, my theory is more consistant with my assessment of Scott's creative style, he likes to play mind games.
Here's my evidence supporting that statement...
1. How many people actually /did/ get scared or freaked out by FNAF gameplay? *points to Markiplier* I have Theater 101 under my belt as well as 4 years of creative writing classes and 10 years active on FF.net as practice so I like to think I can assess Scott's setting.
He wants people to feel like they're being hunted, to /see/ the animatronics coming to kill them and have nothing they can do about it. In FNAF 1, the lights are dim, even inconsistant, the doors have a meter on them for their power that ticks down, and the clock ticks down till the end of the level at 6 am. Two opposing clocks, one you /want/ to tick down, the other you /don't/ want to run out. He's creating tension, making the player nervous.
This assessment is also supported by your reported initial reaction to FNAF, writing it off as a fad to watch people overreact and rolling your eyes going "its not that scary!" Well look at your background. A. you have a background in theater. B. you're a very logical science oriented kinda guy. Odds are you're not easy to scare IRL. Your videos point to it on a number of occasions simply by their content.
But Markiplier, I mean look at him. He's a big mushy emotional kinda guy. Look at another youtuber that freaked out at FNAF, Jack Septiceye. He chooses artistically to be foul tempered and destructive. Again, a personality that likes to cause destruction doesn't like the tables to be turned against them.
Scott knows how to make a person nervous and he /knows/ how to activate the fight or flight response. I'm holding Markiplier up as an example of flight response to FNAF, and Jack up as a fight response to FNAF.
2. Scott's command of the completion principle has kept the franchise's fans going over and over, fan songs and comics, entire forum sections dedicated to FNAF, by your own assessment he's used this psychological concept repeatedly to keep the fandom guessing, and having two timelines would fit into this because fans would keep debating the validity of each timeline.
3. Scott's repeatedly dropping clues on his website when he knew the theorist who came the closest to being right would be livestreaming. Even the possible encounter I had is consistant with this.
4. His "would the fandom accept it that way" comment about the dream theory. This SEEMS to bring up a whole host of questions involving the reality or unreality of the series.
5. Psychologically, our subconscious can't tell the difference between a game and reality even if consciously we /know/ its not real. A psychologist who played COD and saw its airplane scene came up with that theory. He decided to test whether or not the brain could tell the difference between a game and reality by studying guilt reactions to the player committing violence in a game, in this case creating a "murder game" designed to elicit a guilty response in a normal player. After playing the game he observed the behavior of the participants as they went about their daily lives. The people who played it, almost all of them appeared to have been disturbed by the violence and actually became more polite and more helpful to those around them than was normal.
I'm making an educated guess here, I'm guessing Scott's got a psychology degree or training in a psychologically based pursuit as well as a background more in writing than in game production.
But also that Scott enjoys playing mind games with his audience, see the above four points. Combine this assessment of his character based on his online actions and production choices and the timeline details as well as my encounter... I honestly think both timelines were intended to be equally true in order to create a paradox that would keep the fanbase guessing.
So to answer your end of video question "which version do you think is true?" My answer is "both".
Re: FNAF Timeline Theory vs FNAF Dream Theory
I have something to say both about these two competing theories and the videos you've done about FNAF 4. You see while you were trying to fit the timeline together, I was critiquing Scott Cawthorn's technique as a game designer and story teller. There /was/ an interesting bit in your video debating whether the crying child was the Puppet /or/ Golden Freddy, and looking at your dream and timeline theories, I think I /may/ have had an encounter with Scott in the comments for that video but I can't find it again.
The account username was Scott C or Scotty C or something like that, but the userpic wasn't his usual neon 8bit man running across a black background, so i thought it was someone impersonating Scott for the attention. And it still /may/ be this.
However, I snapped at him and said "don't bring the many worlds interpretation into an already complicated franchise thats stuffed so full of paranormal phenomena and references that I can't even go back through a single lets play and count them all." Referring of course to the quantum physics theory about parallel universes. I do feel bad now that i think about it, possibly snapping back at the game creator when he was actually trying to drop clues.
Either way, while you were trying to figure out the story behind FNAF, I was trying to get a good grasp of Scott's storytelling style and abilities because I'm more interested in that than the FNAF storyline. I think Scott was trying to drop a clue about which of these timelines were correct. The comment in question that he was something along the lines of "unless there's a world in which he's golden freddy /and/ another in which he's the puppet."
Its simple, FNAF is both a dream and reality, Scott made it so that both theories are right at the same time despite them being at odds with each other. In one, the crying child is dreaming, and dying. He's the puppet. In the other, the crying child is really dead, and the puppet already exists and transforms him into golden freddy.
This fits with what I suspect is a timeline split in FNAF 3, the good and bad endings. The bad ending is that purple guy dies, the children have taken a life in vengeance rather than trying to get justice. If they were acting in the spirit of justice, they wouldn't have killed purple guy, just maimed him and made sure that the authorities found him permanently marked amid a decades old crime scene and the evidence of his crimes.
This interpretation fleshed itself out in my mind believe it or not as a result of one of your film theories, the one about Walter in Breaking bad. To me, the purple guy ended up in a similar situation to Walter, being seriously injured amid the evidence that links him to his crimes.
The good ending in FNAF 3, therefore, is Purple Guy being found, or as he put it in FNAF 1, "I'll try to hang on, maybe later you can check in one of those suits?" Scott's left the possibility open that purple guy survived.
Further, my theory is more consistant with my assessment of Scott's creative style, he likes to play mind games.
Here's my evidence supporting that statement...
1. How many people actually /did/ get scared or freaked out by FNAF gameplay? *points to Markiplier* I have Theater 101 under my belt as well as 4 years of creative writing classes and 10 years active on FF.net as practice so I like to think I can assess Scott's setting.
He wants people to feel like they're being hunted, to /see/ the animatronics coming to kill them and have nothing they can do about it. In FNAF 1, the lights are dim, even inconsistant, the doors have a meter on them for their power that ticks down, and the clock ticks down till the end of the level at 6 am. Two opposing clocks, one you /want/ to tick down, the other you /don't/ want to run out. He's creating tension, making the player nervous.
This assessment is also supported by your reported initial reaction to FNAF, writing it off as a fad to watch people overreact and rolling your eyes going "its not that scary!" Well look at your background. A. you have a background in theater. B. you're a very logical science oriented kinda guy. Odds are you're not easy to scare IRL. Your videos point to it on a number of occasions simply by their content.
But Markiplier, I mean look at him. He's a big mushy emotional kinda guy. Look at another youtuber that freaked out at FNAF, Jack Septiceye. He chooses artistically to be foul tempered and destructive. Again, a personality that likes to cause destruction doesn't like the tables to be turned against them.
Scott knows how to make a person nervous and he /knows/ how to activate the fight or flight response. I'm holding Markiplier up as an example of flight response to FNAF, and Jack up as a fight response to FNAF.
2. Scott's command of the completion principle has kept the franchise's fans going over and over, fan songs and comics, entire forum sections dedicated to FNAF, by your own assessment he's used this psychological concept repeatedly to keep the fandom guessing, and having two timelines would fit into this because fans would keep debating the validity of each timeline.
3. Scott's repeatedly dropping clues on his website when he knew the theorist who came the closest to being right would be livestreaming. Even the possible encounter I had is consistant with this.
4. His "would the fandom accept it that way" comment about the dream theory. This SEEMS to bring up a whole host of questions involving the reality or unreality of the series.
5. Psychologically, our subconscious can't tell the difference between a game and reality even if consciously we /know/ its not real. A psychologist who played COD and saw its airplane scene came up with that theory. He decided to test whether or not the brain could tell the difference between a game and reality by studying guilt reactions to the player committing violence in a game, in this case creating a "murder game" designed to elicit a guilty response in a normal player. After playing the game he observed the behavior of the participants as they went about their daily lives. The people who played it, almost all of them appeared to have been disturbed by the violence and actually became more polite and more helpful to those around them than was normal.
I'm making an educated guess here, I'm guessing Scott's got a psychology degree or training in a psychologically based pursuit as well as a background more in writing than in game production.
But also that Scott enjoys playing mind games with his audience, see the above four points. Combine this assessment of his character based on his online actions and production choices and the timeline details as well as my encounter... I honestly think both timelines were intended to be equally true in order to create a paradox that would keep the fanbase guessing.
So to answer your end of video question "which version do you think is true?" My answer is "both".
