We need to mentally prepare ourselves for William Afton fancams

The inevitability of turning a known murderer into a sex symbol.

*Spoilers ahead for Five Nights at Freddy’s lore*

My first introduction to the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise was through Markiplier. After watching so many Let’s Plays of horror games, making me realize it could be fun to be scared, the phenomenon of Five Nights at Freddy’s came at the perfect time for me to be sucked in. As soon as we all realized there was a deeper story beyond the crazed murdering animatronics, I was hooked. So like all FNAF fans, I was eager to see what would come next.

Amongst the multiple “final games”, book releases, and theory videos, we got the announcement that Five Nights at Freddy’s would be receiving a movie adaptation. And with the recent teaser trailer release, I must admit I am terrified. Not because it’s a horror, not because of the animatronics’ new glaring red eyes, and not because almost all video game to movie adaptations flop.

I’m scared because I know there’s going to be an influx of people horny for William Afton.

A brief summary of William Afton’s character for those who are unaware. And if you somehow have gone the past decade without hearing any Five Nights at Freddy’s spoilers and want to keep it that way, click away now.

William Afton is a businessman turned engineer turned child murderer turned immortality seeker. He’s a family man, with two of his children dying at the hands of his animatronics, and the third going through so much psychological and physical torture from this man’s antics that he would have been better off dying young as well. After murdering his best friend and business partner’s daughter, William embarks on a journey to chase immortality. Through a wacky series of events, he becomes fused inside one of his animatronic creations, half alive and vying for revenge. He continues his murder spree from inside the bunny suit for decades, continuing on his quest toward immortality. He was thought to be burned to death by his son (his dying, rotting, animatronic-body-hosting son), however he survived, as his fate was to eventually perish at the hands of an amalgamation of his deceased family members trapped inside a compound of broken animatronics.

Basically, the man is a mess.

And yet despite this man’s despicable history, actions, and motivations, I am 100% positive I am going to see dozens of fancams of him within the first hour of the FNAF movie’s release.

If you have never been blessed with viewing a fancam, it is a fan made video, usually about 30 seconds long, set to the tune of some bangin’ music. The edits will be of the character or person in question, with slow motion moments of what is considered them being exceptionally attractive. They usually include sparkles and graphics, with tinted filters to spotlight the person’s hotness.

This description sounds wild to pair together with the above described murderer William Afton, but I really don’t think I’m far off in my prediction.

There are many factors at play here. The first and most obvious is a large portion of society’s sexualization of murderers. Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy in particular come to mind, described as “evil geniuses” and getting the “I could fix him” treatment. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the trope of a quiet, dark soul, and how that could objectively be attractive. But these people were not “quiet, dark souls”. They planned and executed actual murders, and would have continued to do so if they hadn’t been caught. It’s not a personality quirk. It’s evil.

It doesn’t help that we’ve had dozens of movies and shows retelling their stories, putting a Hollywood spin on actual tragedy. Even shows about fictional murderers that I will put my hands up and say I thoroughly enjoy, like Dexter, Hannibal, and Bates Motel. There is something undeniably appealing about watching the chaos that ensues during these characters’ murdering escapades.

And while I would love to assume that people’s media literacy is high, and that they will recognize the difference between a character and real life, I know there will be some movie viewers who will see William’s antics and be turned on by this horrendous man.

I am unfortunately also reminded of the Onceler. I say unfortunately because I was an active Tumblr user in 2012, and therefore was an unwilling witness to the mania that ensued.

A full summary of the Onceler treatment deserves its own case study, let alone snippet in an article, but the shortest way I can describe it is:

After the release of The Lorax (2012), people became drawn to the antagonist of the film, the Onceler. He became the internet’s lanky-white-boy-with-dark-hair of the month, which expanded to many months, and then years, and I’m sure it is still going for some people. The expansion of his character from the original book, where only his eyes and gloved hands were seen, sent people into a frenzy. People saw he had well meaning motivations and big dreams, and was slowly seduced into nefarious actions, and that turned them on. There’s also something about a deranged man in a slightly off-kilter suit, tie, and top hat that makes people go feral. Fanart, fanfiction, and roleplay ensued, all revolving around this beanpole of a villain. And it became so sensationalized that he practically became a separate entity to the story he came from. There is so much more to the story, including but not limited to romantically and sexually shipping the Onceler with himself, but I truly do not have the mental capacity to encapsulate it all here.

And as crazy as this was to witness, this was more innocent! The Onceler at least wasn’t murdering people. But I know a similar treatment is going to happen to William Afton once viewers see his origins on screen, what led him to murder, and ultimately forgive him because they find him hot.

The power of society’s ability to mold a murderer into a “sexy” archetype will be pushed to its limit with William. This is a man who actively planned on murdering children to increase his lifespan. This is a man who spent decades half-alive in a bunny suit terrorizing a pizzeria. This is a man who, for the majority of the franchise, looked like this:

And even he will not be immune to the sexualization of murderers.

Let’s talk about the casting for a moment, because I do think this plays a heavy role as well. As the main antagonist of the franchise, the role of William Afton is an important one. And I will say, I think Matthew Lillard is going to knock it out of the park. Like any sane person, I am a huge fan of Matthew Lillard. He is excellent at comedy and drama, and just generally being weird, and all of this in combination makes for a very attractive man. And I know I am not alone in this. Matthew Lillard is hot, and if you disagree, please let me know how it feels to have incorrect opinions. Matthew Lillard bringing his talent and inherent attractiveness to the role will of course play a huge part in creating slow motion, sparkle-covered videos of him grinning and planning murder.

But ultimately, there’s something more at play. Even if William Afton were to be played by someone else, I know his character would ultimately get the same treatment. Because it’s not about how he looks, it’s about how his story is going to be told.

This will all come down to how exactly William Afton will be portrayed on screen, not in acting, but in writing. How much of the story are we going to get in this movie? There is almost 10 years of lore, thousands of hours of fan theories and dissecting the story piece by piece. That little paragraph above describing William is the smallest tip of the iceberg, and so much of that has been discovered after years of gameplay in this franchise. There is so much content to divulge in that it will be interesting to see how much is actually revealed to a potentially new audience. The fact that they even wrote in William’s character tells us a lot. Although William has been present since the second installment of the game in 2014, his character was always shrouded in mystery, first being dubbed “Purple Guy”, and then “Springtrap” as an animatronic, until the lore was pieced together that both characters are in fact William. So how far into the backstory of Freddy Fazbear Entertainment’s creator will the movie reveal?

If it’s as little as I’m anticipating, it’s all the more likely we’ll get fancams, simply because people won’t know what this man has done. If we don’t see him rotting in the bunny suit, terrorizing a hallucinating employee, destroying his family ties, and murdering children to chase immortality — are people going to know how evil this character is?

I know someone is going to get it twisted along the way that he was just ‘trying his best’, when in reality, he’s a child murderer, and regardless of his on-screen portrayal, should be treated as such. I hope we all remember that despite the elements at play to create a good movie, at the end of the day, this is a character, and an evil one at that.

The counterargument to all of this, of course, is that people will make William Afton fancams just for the meme. And if that’s the case, then I take back this entire article, and I say go for it.

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