u/CazLurks

Ohhh a Willcare post how original- SHUT UP!! This post is not really a "debunk of Willcare" because Im not setting out with that goal in mind, rather I want to analyze how William uses love throughout the series and how it's very in line with how abusers usually act.

So I dont wanna hear any variant of "willwhatever" because I think any theory name inherently betrays any nuanced discussion of character and themes and such

As the title says, William Afton is a man who views love as a tool. As is the case with a lot of abusers, love is not something unconditional. It's not something that he will always have for his children no matter what, it's something to be given and taken. He's only willing to provide it if his children stay in line... because he's selfish. He wants something, be it a tangible thing or just the feeling of control, William views love as something that is only really a means to an end.

The movies give us a more direct look at this. He stabs his daughter as soon as she stops following orders. She's only his as long as she remains loyal. Otherwise, she's just another body to add to the pile. This is also what he's doing when he screams "dont you know that I care about you". He's using what he knows his daughter wants, to be a good daughter and to be loved, and twisting it in a way that makes Vanessa into the monster. The one rejecting the love by rejecting him. Love under his conditions.

But that's boring. That's tangible. I know what you freaks want. You sickos. You want themes and such.

So let's look at the novels.

The novel trilogy takes the idea of William seeing love as a tool and makes it about as literal as it can get. Scott Cawthon employs a seldom used literary technique called a "metaphor" show William's abusive nature in a way that isnt directly interacting with his children. Love comes up a lot in the first novel. William is explicitly stated by himself to want to love, to love in the way that Henry did. This statement is often seen as separate from his desire for immortality, be it just another motive or something cast aside for a different direction but they are actually the same thing.

William's quest for immorality in the novels centers on recreating Henry's unique spark. A spark caused by Henry's immense grief leading to a piece of his soul being poured into the ella doll. Grief is love blah blah blah you get it.

William is trying to recreate love... as a tool... to empower himself.

The novels are literally about this idea. This is why Elizabeth is so important narratively. Henry loved his daughter unconditionally, enough that it broke off a piece of his soul. William, who lost his daughter, sees her as not enough. Not the right thing to recreate the spark. It's not subtle, it's a fairly direct parallel and statement on who William is.

This is why I disagree with any real form of willgrief, simply because this is such a stark contrast. Grief is the spark, and William cant replicate that. He cant bring himself to love anyone like that, his love can only extend to how useful they are to him. It's what leads to his continued failure, his desperation to climb to the top on a mountain of bodies.

It's why he's so freaky and strange as Springtrap. This is William on a power trip, believing himself to be immortal after surviving the springlock failure and no longer needing to regard anyone as useful. He's "more than Afton ever was". TFC shows that, of course, it's temporary. He cant escape death.

to reiterate, this isnt a debunk. It's analysis of what the series has actually shown us. That's the stuff I prefer anyways.

Ive been trying my best to figure out how I want to phrase this post because it's like my third go at talking about my issues with using the foxygrid to find a solution to the crying child's name.

Ive made it no secret that I dont really like the solution dave, or any solution for that matter, but it's a topic that's particularly hard to discuss because it's not something with a tangible way to disprove. That's not because it's right, but it's because there was no puzzle in the first place.

Before I get into actually talking about the logbook, Im gonna try and explain my line of thinking with a poor analogy.

Imagine two piles of scrap paper. The first pile has a note that this "this pile of scrap paper are actually pieces to form the shape of a duck". The second does not. The pieces of paper arent the same, but they come from the same place. So you assume that the second pile also forms a duck, and you begin to try and find a way to move the pieces until it looks like a duck.

Does that mean these pieces were intended to be made into that shape? No. But you assume they are so anything that looks like a solution will be taken as confirmation that they were meant to be. It's a very roundabout way of saying that it's a form of confirmation bias.

This is what happened with the foxygrid. This is why any solution looks convincing. If you go into it with the mindset that there must be a solution, anything that resembles a solution will work.

So to pull things back from the more abstract Im gonna focus on the ways people have gone about solving the foxygrid and why I think they're flawed:

First off, any use of the altered or faded text in the foxygrid lacks precedent. The word search gives a very clear prompt from altered, asking faded text for their name. Faded text responds with "my name" on several pages, and we know to tie it back to the word search since that's where the question was asked. The foxygrid does not have any prompting. No faded text or altered text... just Micheal writing letters in numbers. Obviously that is weird but why should that connect to the conversation between crying child and cassidy. To go back to my earlier point, this is confirmation bias.

Trying to use crying child's messages as responses to to Cassidy runs into a similar issue as well. There is only one time where I think this is really true: "The party was for me". The rest of the questions are basic yes or no questions, and there is no real way of knowing if these are intended. It's trying things until they yield something that resembles a solution, but again... how do we know that was the intent?

There's also just the fact doing all this gets you "evad" and then you have to assume "ah this isnt incorrect, we must use the mirror to turn it into dave" and just like... I dunno. These are all steps we're never prompted to take and it's not the precedent set by the cassidy puzzle.

Anyways that's all my yapping for now byyyeeee