One of my terrible habits with this franchise is in asking "Ok, what if this commonly held position is wrong" and going off into a theorizing/speculation rabbit hole. While watching a TDread's stream, the idea of decanonising the Steel Wool games came up and it made me start wo wonder what the implications would be of the Steel Wool Era being Steve Snodgrass styled games. Retellings of events to lampshade the actual horrors.
So first, I'd like to address some of the issues that this potentially resolves.
The shift in tone from horror to fantasy fun for all ages.
The dreaded "P-Word" between Henry from The Silver Eyes an Edwin in the games.
The contradictions between Pizzaria Simulator and Secret of the Mimic.
With the exception of Sister Location, the protagonist of the games is stapled to the Security Desk as the horror comes to them. Regardless of what happens to the protagonist of the game, the story being told goes on - we are learning a story that took place before the game. If the protagonist of Pizzaria Simulator dies, Henry can always get a replacement for his plan to work.
The theorizing moved from "What are we supposed to learn about the story" to "What happened in the game?"
If we view the Steel Wool era games as the Steve Snodgrass style renovation of the company's history, we must go back to the question of "What are we supposed to learn about the story?" and away from them being literal events playing out.
The story of Tape Girl, an employee who is brainwashed into serving Glitchtrap tells us about the story of Michael Afton being brainwashed by his father. Jeremy slices his face with a guillotine paper-cutter because he went crazy is a sanitization of Jeremy getting his frontal lobe bitten. Two co-workers Jeremy and Tape Girl, Jeremy and Michael.
Security Breach is the story of a kid who has been kidnapped and is desperately trying to escape a killer in a bunny costume. Gregory has trouble remembering who he is, perhaps Security Breach is a sanitization of one of the kids captured and put into William Afton's nightmare chambers that had just woken up after a mechanical issue a la Rory in Dittophobia trying to escape William Afton.
Ruin is the story of one of that kid's friends looking for him and falling prey to William Afton.
These two kids, Gregory and Cassie are hyper-competent heroes that survive falls that should kill them. Compared to the Security Guards of 1-6, Gregory and Cassie are far less fragile, even pushing animatronics off of them. The way a game designer would tell the story of an adventurer fighting for their lives.
Help Wanted II tells the story of a father digging into the crimes of William Afton in hopes of destroying him once and for all, needing to join up with Vanney to do so; a re-telling of Henry setting traps to lure William and his victims into one place where he and Michael can work together to end the evil that is William Afton, at the expense of the their lives.
Secret of the Mimic is the story of Henry Emily, his actions in The Silver Eyes' story mirror the story of Edwin's in the game. Sanitized in such a way that slides the deaths away from the murderer founder and become the actions of a robotic entity. No longer do we have Henry in the books building a CharlieBot and then beating it and pouring out his agony into it AND Edwin making a DavidBot then beating it and pouring out his agony into it.
Do I believe this? No, but I could get behind it. It explains a lot of the gamification of the Steel Wool Era where environmental storytelling is found in collectables, duffle bags, and giftboxes. It explains upgrades and powerups that don't exist outside of games.