William Afton (Novel Trilogy) (2024)

Not what you were looking for? See Afton (disambiguation), Dave (disambiguation), Mill (disambiguation), or Spring Bonnie (disambiguation).

William Afton is the main antagonist of the Five Nights at Freddy's novel series.

He was Henry Emily's business partner and co-founded Fredbear's Family Diner and Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, as well as a serial killer, committing several murders during that time, including those children missing in an incident in 1985. He left and came back to Hurricane, Utah, under the alias Dave Miller, a security guard at an abandoned mall built over Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.^[1] Throughout the series, he creates the twisted animatronics and the funtime animatronics.

Physical Appearance[]

Human[]

William Afton is described as a tall and hefty man with round eyes that are described as dead, being dull and flat. When he committed the serial killings, he was considered fat.

William lost all the weight he had while in his Dave Miller persona. As described in The Silver Eyes, he is a tall and thin man with peaky, almost exhausted-looking features. William's shallow and thin skin is sagging and his sunken eyes are a little unfocused and undercut with heavy lines. His face has gaunt features and is poorly shaven. William's glassy eyes look empty. He's slightly too thin for his security guard uniform, causing it to bag at the shoulders and waist. William's uniform is also grubby and torn in places, and his name tag hangs askew. At the belt of his uniform is a large key ring that only a few keys hang from, one going to the restaurant's office and another going to the closet with the Spring Bonnie costume. William's body is horribly scarred, with a series of deep, knotted, and symmetrical white scars from a springlock failure. The biggest and most visible are a pair on the back of his neck that looks similar to half-moons, starting at the nape and traveling all the way up his scalp, disappearing into his hair.

In the graphic novel rendition, William is a tired-looking tall and thin man with pale skin, a long neck, medium-length brown messy hair, and large gray eyes. He has a tendency to smile a lot. He wears a security uniform. His shirt is white with a black tie and pants. He also has scars all over his body from a previous springlock incident, as there are slice marks on his arms and torso. He has two scars on the back of his neck.

Springtrap[]

After William got springlocked inside the Spring Bonnie suit by Charlie, he became "one with his creation" and named himself Springtrap. As described in The Twisted Ones, the suit has rotting fur with large tears in the yellow fabric, which has gone green and pink with mold in patches. Dried blood is soaked into the mascot’s fingers and hands, and the suit's fabric is stiff with blood. William's body can be seen through the ragged gaps in the costume and its eyes. His skin is desiccated and shriveled. William's wide, bloodshot eyes are a little too translucent, with something inside of them having gone jelly-like. His face is dark, the color mottled, and swollen with fluid. William's hollow cheeks are bloated with decay. The spring locks have been driven so deeply into his skin that the bases two, gleaming rectangular lumps are flush against his neck, extending from within and standing out from his mottled skin. Skewers of metal protrudes through William's entire body, dull and crusted with his blood. There are more complex parts, such as twisted knots of gore with many layers of machinery that stick out from his body. Metal pins and rods have buried themselves alongside William's bones and tendons.

In the graphic novel rendition, Springtrap has a similar appearance to his game counterpart, although with a more realistic depiction. The suit is more yellow in color, rather than the classic olive green. The top part of the right ear is missing. The suit in some areas is covered with blood splotches. There are many visible holes in the suit. William's body can be seen through the large tears of the costume. His skin has turned grey from a lack of oxygen in his blood, and his eyes are now wide open and veiny. William's mouth is also missing a few teeth.

Post-Springtrap[]

William, with assistance from Circus Baby, removed the outer shell of the Spring Bonnie suit off his body, but was left weakened and horrendously scarred, occasionally needing the assistance of a cane and an automated wheelchair. As described in The Fourth Closet, he is a painfully thin man with visible damage done by the costume's inner machinery. William's scalp was torn off, with only a small patch where hair still grows, leaving him with a bald head covered in ridged pink scars. In places where there were no scars, there are strange pallets of plastic, molding, and metal fused into his head. William has only one eye, the other missing with a thin steel rod shot through the gaping socket. The bones of his face are visible, and tendons can be seen moving under the surface of his skin as he speaks. William also has two full rows of stained yellow teeth. There is a wound on his neck covered with a clear material, with the surrounding skin fused to it and attempting to heal, making it red and ugly. William's throat can be seen through the material, with red and blue parts, blocks of muscle and strings of veins or tendons. Wedged in among them are small scraps of metal embedded in the tissue, like a spring's coils that are wrapped tightly around three veins, the sharp ends plunged deep into red muscle tissue. At the center of his chest is a mass of twisted flesh, crossed with neat, diagonal lines of black stitching thread. Along with that are marks from the spring lock suit, some scarred over from years before and some scarcely healed, the skin a shiny, angry red color. Two staves of metal are embedded in William's arm, both dotted with ragged pieces of gray rubber. He also has a withered hands and bony fingers. William wears white silk pajamas, a black robe of the same cloth covering him from chin to toe, and black leather slippers. Behind him, three IV bags hang from a wheeled stand, with the tubes extending up under the sleeve of his pajama shirt.

However, in the graphic novel rendition, it can be noted that in some panels his outfit is changed to a medium-length purple silk robe with nothing beneath it.

Personality[]

William Afton is vile and selfish. He kills any witnesses to keep himself from getting caught, which shows his cowardly side. Nevertheless, he is still a determined and extremely fierce serial killer, who will not hesitate a single moment to get in a fight with any of his foes or murdering them for experiments. William is also rather ungrateful, having murdered Charlotte Emily despite the fact that if it wasn't for her father, then the franchise wouldn't have achieved its earlier success. Afton is also neglectful and physically abusive towards his daughter Elizabeth, who later on seemingly only accepted her once she became Circus Baby. Despite this, he still acts verbally abusive towards her. Afton prioritizes his work over his own family.

He sometimes appears as a compassionate man, but like many serial killers, this is just a mere facade that he uses to manipulate others, especially children. In The Silver Eyes, after he realized that the spirits of the children he murdered are trapped in the cursed place, for a time, Afton actually believed this to be good, in that they can have an eternal party that never ends, while he was in fact trapping his victims' souls in metal prisons of restless torture. He momentarily refers to his victims as his "family". William is fascinated with the animatronics to the point where he disguises himself as one of them until he becomes that in his Springtrap form, although this wasn't intentional on his part.

It is shown in The Twisted Ones that upon becoming Springtrap and being released from the small room he was trapped in, William is in an invigorated state of being, having felt powerful due to his newfound strength and his control of the Twisted Animatronics. He expressed how he felt like he was ‘more’ than both his past self and Henry. William was extremely jealous of Henry Emily, loathing his former business partner to an obsessive degree, nursing his grudge in diaries.

In The Fourth Closet, once he escaped from the Spring Bonnie suit, William began to regain his sanity, which in turn made him feel that he doesn’t need to be inconspicuous due to his state of condition. He is miserable, commanding and impatient, yet he still remains to be theatrical, even when he is in pain. Considering the fact that his organic, human body is full of mechanical parts, William seemingly has a tolerance for pain, as he continues to commit scientific experiments, seeking to replicate immortality in the form of a substance called remnant.

Despite popular belief, William is not actually insane, as he makes mention of the fact that what he is doing is wrong, yet he kills anyway for his own gain. Afton also attempts to justify his crimes, as he says that killing the missing children was unfortunate and unavoidable, yet led to new discoveries in his experiments. William is also shown to have a twisted enjoyment in killing, as he himself says they were fun right before his demise in The Fourth Closet.

William fears one thing and one thing only, and that is death. While in his weakened state in The Fourth Closet, he expresses that he is afraid of thinking about how his time is running out, how he’d die if his goal of transporting his soul into a robot isn't achieved. He also mentions how he would rather suffer eternally in the chronically pained state he is in than pass on.

History[]

The Silver Eyes[]

For most of the book, William posed as the night guard of the abandoned mall built around Freddy Fazbear's Pizza named Dave Miller, a fake identity he created after fleeing town and returning. Upon catching Charlie and her friends in the act of trying to sneak into Freddy's, he threatened to have them thrown out. However, he accompanied the teenagers as they explore Freddy's, showing off his familiarity with the place. When the spirits of the children began to act out, he took the opportunity to sneak off and don his Spring Bonnie costume. As Spring Bonnie, he kidnapped Charlie's friend, Carlton Burke, and shoves him into a spare springlock suit. Jason witnessed the kidnapping and tried to tell the others that "Bonnie took him" to no avail. When eventually convinced his son is in danger, Clay sent Officer Dunn to find him. As Dunn explored the pizzeria alone, he found Afton in his suit in the closet. Afton attacked him, breaking his arm and eventually killing him.

While he has Carlton in captivity, he taunted him, showing off his scars from a previous springlock incident. He warned Carlton time and again not to move, as the slightest movement could cause the springlocks to go off and kill him. Charlie eventually found Carlton on the cameras and went to rescue him, taking the suit off of him carefully. When they encountered Afton again, Charlie hit him over the head with a pipe, knocking him unconscious. The teenagers tie him up with cords, believing it's too dangerous to keep him around otherwise. They try to interrogate him, but he's unresponsive, just staring at the head of the Spring Bonnie suit. When Charlie put it on his head, he explained that the animatronics will kill them, because they are close enough to adults for them to be afraid. He said that the animatronics won't kill him because he is "one of them" when he wears the Spring Bonnie costume. After the teenagers left, Afton somehow escapes his bonds and put his Spring Bonnie costume back on.

He hid in an office and watches as the teenagers are cornered and attacked by Chica, narrowly escaping. He is then attacked by Bonnie from the other side but managed to escape. As Clay broke into the restaurant to free the teenagers, Afton grabbed Charlie wearing the Spring Bonnie suit, insisting that she will stay with him, and if they attempt to save her, he will kill her. Charlie instead triggers the springlocks, causing Afton to release his grip as he began dying. The others watched as he convulsed on the floor, writhing silently in agony as the animatronics dragged him away into the pizzeria.

The Twisted Ones[]

When they return to the ruins of Freddy Fazbear's, Charlie and Jessica find Afton inside of the Spring Bonnie costume, stuffed inside of a small closet, by the animatronics after dragging him off a year ago. Disgusted and convinced he was dead, they leave. Later, the wolf animatronic and Twisted Freddy surrounded Charlie, John, Jessica, and Clay Burke. Charlie asked the animatronics "What do you want from me?", and William, still inside the rabbit costume, replies that he was the one who brought them there.

Refusing to be called Dave, or William Afton, he chose to be called Springtrap, due to becoming "one with his creation." He shows off his power with his Twisted animatronics, declaring that he alone can control them. Moving closer to Charlie, he started gently stroking her cheek, saying he won't hurt her friends, but he needs something from her. Charlie is revolted and Mr. Burke shoots at Springtrap with his gun, missing but nevertheless making him recoil. Springtrap forgets his promise and immediately attacks her with the disturbing agility of a man on full health.

Charlie tries to lead Twisted Bonnie and Twisted Wolf into an artificial river, but they find out that they are waterproof and Springtrap laughed at her. Clay lit Twisted Bonnie and the Wolf on fire, and Springtrap ran through the artificial caves with Charlie and Freddy chasing after him while being disoriented by all of the illusions of Balloon Boys within the cave. When Charlie found Springtrap, she attacked him, beating his head against a rock. She realized that a mushroom was stuck in the ground by a sharp spike nearby. She tore it out of the ground and concealed the sharp edge.

She looks back up to see Springtrap lunge at her. She dodges and shoves the spike into his chest. He stops and tries to fight her off as she dug it further into his chest while asking why he took Sammy instead of her, to which Springtrap replies that he took her and not Sammy. As the tunnel is collapsing, Springtrap escaped through a small hidden trapdoor with the spike still in his chest.

It is revealed that the control that allows the Twisted animatronics to alter how they are perceived, a small, coin-sized illusion disc, was created by Afton Robotics.

The Fourth Closet[]

At some point after his escape, William removed the outer shell of the Spring Bonnie suit and renounced the Springtrap identity. While he was able to remove most of the costume, he couldn't remove the animatronic parts lodged into his body. The damage the springlock failure at the end of The Silver Eyes did to his body combined with the procedure to get the suit off of him resulted in him being in a constant state of pain, needing to rely on a wheelchair and a crutch to move around and his daughter Elizabeth to do his dirty work.

After Elizabeth captured and tied up Jessica while she was trying to spy on them at the newly opened Circus Baby's Pizza, William decided to reveal himself, first as an illusion of Springtrap, before collapsing and showing his real face as the severely injured William Afton. Believing that Jessica has no power of what happens and that he is in the supreme position, William explains partly what he's been up to, creating the Funtime animatronics. Well aware of the supernatural attributes of the animatronics and the fact that his broken body won't last for very long, he had Elizabeth kidnap children so he could recreate the Fazbear murders in a controlled environment, figure out how possession works and unlock the secrets of immortality.

To speed up the process, William captures the original animatronics and fuses their endoskeletons together, rendering them unable to move and ready to be used for experimentation, involving melting down the endoskeletons to see if they would bring life to the Funtimes. One of these experiments involved heating up and injecting a glowing liquid from the endoskeletons into his new Funtime animatronics, which animated them and gave him full control over them. Another involved Elizabeth surgically removing organs from his body and smashing them into the endoskeletons, hoping for some kind of change.

While Jessica, Carlton, and Marla were able to rescue most of the kidnapped children, one boy was captured by Funtime Foxy/Mangle and brought to William. Running out of time and low on options, William injected a glowing liquid from the endoskeleton into Carlton, who stayed behind to save the boy and put an end to Afton. Unaware that the injection didn't kill Carlton and instead enabled him to talk to the souls of Afton's victims, which are revealed to be still inside of the amalgamated endoskeletons, a disappointed William turned to the cornered kid, whom he then intends to use as his next test subject.

Carlton succeeds in convincing the spirits of the children that the yellow Bonnie they thought was their friend is actually their murderer. They promptly took control of the Funtime animatronics and attacked Afton, but when he managed to fend them off and prepared to kill the boy, they used the fused endoskeleton to grab William. Unable to escape, the endoskeletons dragged him into a nearby furnace along with them, finally killing William for good and avenging his victims. With Afton dead and the animatronics destroyed, the souls of the children can finally fade away.

List of Victims[]

Before the Events of the Books[]

• Charlotte Emily - Sammy's twin sister. Charlotte was killed at Fredbear's Family Diner by William Afton while she and Sammy were hiding in one of the closets playing with costumes.
• The Missing Children
  • Michael Brooks - Lured to the backroom of the pizzeria.
  • Susie - Lured away by William in the Spring Bonnie suit with the promise of showing her where her dog is.
  • Fritz - Lured away by William in the Spring Bonnie suit.
  • Cassidy - Lured away by William in the Spring Bonnie suit.
  • Unnamed Boy - Lured away by William in the Spring Bonnie suit. The graphic novel version of The Fourth Closet potrays the boy as being named Gabriel.

The Silver Eyes[]

• Officer Dunn - Stabbed to death when he was trying to find Carlton.

The Twisted Ones[]

• Tracy Horton - Springlocked by a twisted animatronic, before her body was left to die in a field.
• Many others killed by the twisted animatronics.

Trivia[]

• It is unknown why William worked as a security guard at the mall.
  • Although the mall did need a security guard, William didn't receive the job for that intended purpose, but to likely be with the children he killed who are haunting the animatronics, as he could study them so that he may replicate what happened to their souls with himself and therefore never die.
  • It is also not confirmed that William ever received a job as a security guard for the mall, as he could've simply stole someone else's uniform/killed an actual security guard and took their clothes.
• In the graphic novel, William's design takes many elements from his main series counterpart, specifically his appearance from the SAVETHEM minigame. These similarities include:
  • His large and constant smile.
  • His tendencies to hide in the shadows.
  • His dead pale eyes that are different from other characters.
  • His tall and skinny frame and long neck.
  • His security guard facade.
  • The name tag that he wears somewhat resembles the security badge he wore in Five Nights at Freddy's 2.
• In the books, William's family is much smaller and isn't as expanded upon, as his only child was his daughter, Elizabeth Afton, whereas in the games, William had two additional children alongside Elizabeth, that being his sons Michael Afton and presumably the Crying Child.
  • Furthermore, in the novels, William is shown to be abusive to Elizabeth (as shown in The Fourth Closet) unlike his game counterpart, who was implied to have seemingly cared about Elizabeth.

Gallery[]

The Silver Eyes: The Graphic Novel[]

The Twisted Ones: The Graphic Novel[]

The Fourth Closet: The Graphic Novel[]

References[]