William Afton (Five Nights at Freddy's)

"You Can't."

- William after he attacked Freddy in the SAVE THEM minigame. "She can dance, she can sing. She's equipped with a built-in helium tech from inflating balloons right at her fingertips. She could take song requests. She can even dispense ice cream."

- William Afton talking about Baby in the opening of Sister Location.

Purple Guy (real name William Afton) is the main cause of the entire Five Nights at Freddy's story. Purple Guy was a man who dressed up as one of the mascots at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza (most likely Spring Bonnie or Golden Freddy) and used his kid-friendly disguise to lure five children into the Safe Room, where there were no security cameras. It was confirmed that Purple Guy was a former security guard of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. He is the undead animatronic Springtrap and becomes the main antagonist of 3 and Freddy's Fazbear pizzeria simulator.

Backstory
An unknown man emerged in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza with plans of death and chaos for the company. One day, in Fredbear's Family Diner, as Fredbear was serving cake to the children, a child was crying outside for an unknown reason. As he cried, William drove over in a purple car and murdered the child.

Fredbear was unable to protect the child. With that, Purple Guy drove away, leaving the child's corpse outside. The child, possibly driven by revenge, was theorized to have possessed an animatronic a certain time after that, known as The Puppet.

Years later, Fredbear's Family Diner is shut down. An incident occurred, an event where a boy was bitten in the head by Fredbear, inflicting severe damage to the frontal lobe of his brain, when the restaurant made a resurgence, only for the establishment to close down again. Later, Fazbear Entertainment, in 1973, opens Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, introducing Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, as the new mascots, alongside the original Fredbear and Spring Bonnie characters, which were made as springlock suits that doubled as both wearable costumes and animatronics. William returned to the restaurant and used the Spring Bonnie suit to lure five children into the establishment's Safe Room before murdering them. Afterwards, The Puppet, possessed by William's first victim, stuffed the corpses of the five children into Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, and Golden Freddy's suits, allowing their spirits to possess the animatronics.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2
In Five Nights at Freddy's 2, William can be seen in the Foxy Go! Go! Go! Minigame.

On the third playthrough, William, who killed the crying child in the Take Cake to the Children minigame, is seen standing in the corner of the starting room, smiling. When Foxy approaches the children, they seem lifeless. The minigame ends with Withered Foxy's jumpscare.

He also appears in the S-A-V-E-T-H-E-M minigame on rare occasions, where he attacks Freddy and crashs the game, by saying "You can't" which is responding to the various messages about saving the children.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3
William Afton then returns to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza to dismantle the animatronics. After Night 1, the player can have the ability to play as 8-bit Freddy, and Shadow Freddy appears and says "Follow me", after you follow it to a secret room, it will say "ERROR" at the left hand corner of the screen, then a static noise plays, and Purple Guy can be seen killing Freddy.

He then does the same to the other animatronics as each night goes on. After Night 5, the player has the ability to play as the ghost of one of the murdered children. The player then has to walk to the Safe Room, and the player has the ability to go inside it. William can be seen scared, with 4 of his victims blocking the exit. The player has to chase him around, and William will then immediately run into the empty Spring Bonnie suit. He then laughs at his victims, and the suit's springlocks activate. William is now stuck in the suit, with no escape.

30 years later, the managers of the pizzeria figured out that the animatronics were severely broken, so then they closed the pizzeria forever, and they made a horror attraction called "Fazbear's Fright" in an amusement park. They put William (now known as Springtrap) inside the attraction. William, as Springtrap, notices that he had no escape and attempts to kill the player for five nights. After Night 6, the attraction burns down. In Sister Location 's Custom Night ending on Very Hard Golden Freddy mode, it is revealed that William, still inside Springtrap, has survived.


 * Father. It's me, Michael. I did it. I found it. It was right where you said it would be. They were all there. They didn't recognize at first but then they thought I was you. And I found her. I put her back together, just like you asked me to. She's free now. But something is wrong with me. I should be dead. But I'm not. I've been living in shadows. There is only one thing left for me to do now. I'm going to come find you. I'm going to come find you.

Five Nights at Freddy's 4
William only appears in the Fazbear location shown in the minigames, at the end of Night 3. Sister Location implies that William is responsible for placing the main protagonist, who is heavily implied to be William's younger son, in a simulation of the Afton household, while observing him via the monitors in the Private Room.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location
In the opening scene of Sister Location, an entrepreneur is interviewing William about the Circus Baby's Pizza World animatronics. They inquire why certain features were added and express their concerns, but he avoids answering the specific features they refer to, which were designed to kidnap and murder children under the guise of kid-friendly entertainers.

William is also the CEO of Afton Robotics, the creator of the Circus Baby animatronics, the former owner of the Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, and, by extension, Circus Baby's Pizza World. It's revealed that during Circus Baby's Pizza World's opening, William instructed his daughter, Elizabeth, to not go near Baby, due to her being programmed to kill children when they are alone. Elizabeth is killed when she approaches Baby, luring her with ice cream. Baby drops the ice cream and grabs William's daughter with a robotic claw, pulling the girl into her chest cavity.

It's revealed in the Custom Night's final cutscene, that William sent his son, Michael, to his rundown factory to find his daughter, but ends up getting his son killed by Elizabeth, who is possessing Circus Baby. After Ennard vacates Michael's body, he repossesses his own corpse, which has rotted into a purple color. At the end of the cutscene, Michael vows to find his father and possibly kill him for the murders, and for revenge.

Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator
Wiliam Afton returns in the sixth and final installment as Springtrap once more, as the one of the two main anatgonists of the game, alongside his daughter, Elizabeth, who possesses Scrap Baby.

Personality
William Afton's background is mostly told via silent actions within retro-graphics, or by reading between the lines throughout the games. Between his minigame presence and piecing together information gleaned from the phone calls as well as the posters in Five Nights at Freddy's, the community has been able to piece together some information about William. He seems to be malevolent, sadistic and cruel, ominously smiling as he kills children. He is also increasingly sociopathic and demented, as he is able to hide his true nature under a mask of politeness, judging from the intro of Sister Location, and also psychologically manipulates his son, Michael, using his guilt over unintentionally causing his younger brother's death, in order to make Michael obey his every order. Despite his sadistic tendencies, he is shown to genuinely love and care for his daughter, and does express grief over her death.

William Afton's motives for his actions as of Sister Location remain unknown. He is seen dismantling the animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza twice, which appears to be linked to the spirits within the animatronics being released.

Trivia

 * His actual motivation for killing the children is still a mystery, although many people assume he did for his own enjoyment, or as part of an experiment to create life from the dead.
 * In Sister Location 's final Custom Night cutscene, Michael's voice becomes robotic near the end of his dialogue. The franchise's creator, Scott Cawthon, eventually confirmed that Michael's robotic voice was an error, and was unintentional. This error caused debate over whether William or Michael was killed inside Springtrap, until Scott's response to MatPat's final Five Nights at Freddy's theory video implicitly confirmed William as the spirit possessing Springtrap.
 * In the 1.031 update of Five Nights at Freddy's 3, Scott added the sound of William's groaning and Springtrap's saying "Help Me".
 * He seems to have a British accent, with his son and daughter having one too.