Draft:William Afton
Five Nights at Freddy's character
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William Afton, nicknamed the Purple Guy by fans and also known as Springtrap after his death and subsequent resurrection in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, is a fictional character and the overarching antagonist of the Five Nights at Freddy's horror media franchise created by Scott Cawthon. The co-founder of the in-universe entertainment restaurant chain "Fazbear Entertainment" (also known as "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza") and genius designer of its animatronic mascots, he is portrayed as a mad scientist serial killer, targeting children that attend his restaurants and hiding their corpses in the animatronic suits for the sake of experimenting on their spiritual essence.
Comment: Any future reviewer should be aware that this subject was deleted at AfD multiple times (1 2 3). Current consensus is that the character is not independently notable from the franchise, and fails video game character article standards especially. λ NegativeMP1 20:28, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
 | This is a draft article. It is a work in progress open to editing by anyone. Please ensure core content policies are met before publishing it as a live Wikipedia article. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Last edited by TalkTuahLunchly (talk | contribs) 9 days ago. (Update)
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| William Afton | |
|---|---|
| Five Nights at Freddy's character | |
 Close-up of the face sprite of William Afton from Five Nights at Freddy's 2 | |
| First appearance | Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2014) |
| Created by | Scott Cawthon |
| Portrayed by | Matthew Lillard (Five Nights at Freddy’s film) |
| Voiced by | PJ Heywood (video games)[citation needed] |
| In-universe information | |
| Full name | William Afton |
| Aliases |
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| Gender | Male |
| Children |
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First introduced in minigames accessed byrare changes after receiving a game over in Five Nights at Freddy's 2, he has since become one of the most iconic characters due to only having scare information and the franchises' cryptic transmedia storytelling allowing for mass theorizing about his backstory, personality, and motives.
Concept and design
William Afton first appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 2 as a purple figure appearing in backstory minigames, causing him to be dubbed "Purple Guy",[1] also appearing in Five Nights at Freddy's 3 as the main antagonist in the form of an undead corpse called Springtrap.[2] He would later appear in Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, and possibly Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted and Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach.[2]
Afton is also the main antagonist of the Five Nights at Freddy's book series, as well as the film adaptation, in which he is portrayed by Matthew Lillard, and for most of the film uses the fake name "Steve Raglan".[3][4][5] Lillard will portray the character in at least two more films.[6]
Appearances
Five Nights at Freddy's (video game franchise)
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Afton was a businessman with ties to the robotics and restaurant industries. He founded Afton Robotics, providing animatronic robots for a pizza restaurant called Circus Baby's Pizza World, with the animatronics being secretly designed to abduct children. His daughter, Elizabeth Afton, would ignore his warnings and got too close to the titular Circus Baby animatronic, which killed her. Elizabeth would go on to possess Circus Baby.[7]
William would also team up with Henry Emily in order to create Fredbear's Family Diner, which was represented by their two creations: Fredbear and Spring Bonnie. Afton would go on to murder Henry's daughter Charlie. His youngest son would also die to the Fredbear animatronic. Afton and Henry also founded Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, and in 1985, Afton murdered five children while dressed in the Spring Bonnie suit. He would then stuff their corpses into the restaurant's animatronic entertainers: Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie, Chica, and Golden Freddy.[4][7][8]
After witnessing the spirits of the children he murdered appear before him once he destroyed the animatronic robots within the restaurant, he donned the Spring Bonnie suit in an attempt to scare them away, but was killed due to the suit's faulty spring lock mechanics crushing him to death.[9][10] Thirty years later, Afton returned as an undead corpse called Springtrap.[2][4][8][11] The suit and his body were almost entirely destroyed in a fire, and his remains became a disfigured form called Scraptrap, where he was burned once again in a fire engineered by his son Michael as well as Henry.[2][10] In the following games, a character known as Glitchtrap serves as a recurring antagonist, but it is debated if he is Afton's soul or an artificial intelligence copying his actions.[12] In Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, an animatronic similar to Springtrap, called Burntrap, appears in one of the endings.[8][10] However, the events of the game's Ruin DLC make the canonicity of Burntrap unclear.[13][14]
It's implied Afton is incapable of dying due to being eternally tormented by Cassidy, the spirit of one of the children he killed. Cassidy keeps Afton alive in order to torture him with a recurring cycle in which he is continuously destroyed by his own creations.[15]
Five Nights at Freddy's (film)
In the 2023 film adaption, Afton is portrayed by actor Matthew Lillard. In the film, Afton is never officially stated as the co-founder of Freddy's, but is implied to have been with the franchise since its inception. Donning a springbuck suit designed as a golden rabbit, Afton murdered five children, and stuffed their bodies into the animatronics of the building, leading their spirits to possess them. Some time later, Afton would kidnap and kill a kid named Garrett. He is also shown to have a daughter named Vanessa who works for the police, and is aware of his crimes, begrudgingly helping him to keep security guards off the scent.
Some time after, Afton would pose as a career councilor for the now shutdown pizzeria, hiring various security guards to work at the now defunct location. Aware of the animatronics true nature, Afton, whom the kids still liked as "The Golden Bunny", would trick the kids into attacking the security guards.
He appears early on under the name "Steve Raglan", where he serves as a career councilor for Mike Schmidt, a former security guard. Though Afton initially refuses to help Mike, he eventually recognizes Mike's last name: Mike is Garett's older brother. He then offers him the job, which Mike initially refuses. However, Mike later calls Afton and accepts the job.
In the film's finale, after Mike is able to save his sister Abby from the animatronics, Afton arrives in his golden bunny suit with a knife and overpowers Mike, intending to kill him like his brother owing to "symmetry". However, a remorseful Vanessa, who has grown to care for Mike and Abby, instead holds her father at gunpoint, only for him to unmask himself and overpower his daughter, before stabbing her. During this, Abby posts a picture of the Yellow Rabbit killing the kids, causing the animatronics to realize that Afton killed them. Chica's cupcake jumps at Afton's suit, causing it to malfunction and start making it's way through Afton's skin. Afton puts his mask back on, declaring that he always comes back, and is dragged away by the animatronics to the storeroom.
Reception
William Afton's role in the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise has been compared to that of Jigsaw in the Saw franchise; Slash Film described them each as the "puppet master behind all of the carnage" in their franchises.[16] Afton has been described as "the only character throughout the series that doesn’t have any redeeming qualities" by Pocket Tactics.[8]
Afton's character has received criticism, being described by Comic Book Resources as "roastable" due to his constant failures to achieve his goals and being defeated by "unremarkable" enemies.[17] Screen Rant called the designs of Springtrap and Glitchtrap "terrifying", praising them for their fear factor,[18] and TheGamer called Springtrap one of the best villains in horror games.[19]
Other media
Video games
- Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2014)
- Five Nights at Freddy's 3 (2015)
- Five Nights at Freddy's 4 (2015)
- FNaF World (2016)
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location (2016)
- Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator (2017)
- Ultimate Custom Night (2018)
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted (2019)
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach (2021)
Novels
Films
- Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
- Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025)