My first full theory (what inspired the video)

Hello. Hello, hello. 

In Secret of the Mimic, we are given tons of lore that most don’t know what to do with. There are so many aspects to touch on, but I have four that I want to press on. 

First is the detail that Fazbear’s springlocks suits are significantly more prone to accidents than those tested at Murray’s Costume Manor. Most people are stuck on the who? Did Edwin or Henry create the springlocks? I’m not here to try and answer that. I want to focus on the purple guy in all this.  

From what we know about William Afton, I thought the springlock failures could be the result of this man trying to prove that he can engineer with the big boys, like Henry and Edwin. I think the springlock suits from MCM arrive perfectly safe. It’s afterwards that Afton tinkers with them. Takes them apart and puts them back together again. He fails multiple times and is either spurred on by the accidents in a sadistic way or an egotistical way. Afton either loves watching the carnage, or since he wears the suits too, he may rationalize the maimings. Saying things like “They weren’t wearing it correctly.” 

This led me to think that the fire at Fall Fest—and Fiona’s subsequent death—were connected to Afton’s tampering with the suits. In SotM, we hear Fiona say that she’s going to Fall Fest because she feels like if she doesn’t go, something might happen (paraphrasing here). We don’t know if Fiona was onto Afton or not, but what is hypothetically possible is that Fiona discovers Afton’s misdeeds. We don’t know the cause of the fire, so everything is entirely speculative. It could’ve been completely accidental, but her death in this franchise makes me think there is more here for us to find. 

Let’s say Fiona discovers Afton in the act. She confronts him, and there is a struggle. Either way, she dies this night. The question is: does the fire kill her or William? The fire could be a way to burn away any evidence of William’s first murder—a murder out of fear of being caught or simply an accident in a struggle. Either way, Fiona’s death is the start of Edwin’s downfall. 

The next detail is the most obvious: the FNAF 4 bedroom. In the secret ending to SotM, we crawl through the Murray’s house’s vents and find David’s bedroom. While it is slightly different from the FNAF 4 layout, the parallels are close enough to ask the question, is M2 David Afton? My personal opinion is yes, but this doesn’t super affect the rest of this theory. 

We are told in SotM that William Afton owns the land that covers the factory and the Murray house. Because David’s bedroom is so much like FNAF 4, the easy assumption is that William Afton moves his family into the Murray house after Arnold GTFOs. Who exactly encompasses the family at this? Well, we can definitively say that Michael and Elizabeth move into this house. Whether there is a Mrs Afton is still debatable. Either way, I think it’s safe to assume that William finds M2 in David’s room, the tunnels that lead to the factory, and my next point in this theory, the basement. 

See, the White Tiger mascot in the basement is one of the most supernatural elements to an otherwise science fiction game. With the Mimic following you around and trying to kill you, the White Tiger is a ghostly being that seemingly has no explanation. However, in my travels through YouTube, I found a theory from WitheredCircle called, The Detail That Solves Secret of the Mimic (and Breaks Everything). The detail I hung onto throughout that 18 minute 32 second video was the comparison of the White Tiger to the Spring Bonnie suit from Into the Pit. He says that the White Tiger is an agony being that roams the factory. Tell me, if you owned this factory and wanted to use it and have people in it, would you want employees complaining about a ghost in a white tiger costume? I wouldn’t. And I don’t think Afton did either. 

Follow me on this. Afton has suddenly found the jackpot of technological advancement—specifically, F10-N4. M1 has everything, where or not M2 is there or not, we have the first to use. Whether or not M1 knows about the White Tiger isn’t the issue here, it’s whether she can create the blueprints we see Afton Robotics has in Sister Location. I say this because of the design of Dollie. Specifically the face plates being similar. 

For so long we’ve asked how Afton, the “business man,” could make blueprints and animatronics like the Funtimes. Well, I think if you are using the tech that a smarter man left behind, you can do anything. I think Afton used Edwin’s leftovers from the factory to make the Funtime animatronics. The question is why?

What purpose do the animatronics have? Well, we see in the blueprints various chambers for small children to be captured and killed in for their remnant. Yet, if this is the proper series of events, then why does Afton need remnant? Well, I don’t think he does, yet. What he does know is there is something he can’t explain. And it’s that White Tiger. 

Afton talks mostly about Baby whenever he’s asked about the animatronics. I think this is because she was the first to be built with the sole purpose of capturing the agony being in the basement. We don’t know if he’s successful, but considering the rest of the franchise is devoid of a white tiger, I want to say that he is. Baby does as she’s designed, but maybe a bit too well. 

TDreads’ schedule theory brought up the idea that the animatronics need to be shocked to interact with the remnant somehow. The immediate question is then, how did Afton discover this? Well, I think it was the hard way. While we know agony and remnant work differently, we don’t know what it really does to an animatronic when contained. The most we know is the animatronics start “acting funny.”

My theory is that Circus Baby debuted the day after Afton captured the agony infused White Tiger. Elizabeth Afton, excited and wanting to play with the animatronic “built for her,” got too close and Baby malfunctioned. Elizabeth Afton is the first to die, and is the first person to introduce remnant to William. 

The change is Baby’s eye color is noticeable. We’ve been asking for years when Afton discovered remnant. Some said it was the puppet acting strangely or even the animatronics for the MCI. But if it’s Elizabeth, that makes more things make sense. 

John FuhNaff’s Ultimate Midnight Motorist Theory talked about the linear connection between Fruity Maze, Charlie’s Death, and Later that Night. I loved it and it made complete sense, except for the question: why? Why is Susie first? What’s the motive?

I think Elizabeth’s death introduced Afton to remnant but that doesn’t mean he understood how it worked. One thing he does know is Elizabeth died inside the suit. Why is this important? Well, it all comes back to FNAF 1 where the newspaper clippings make it clear that the MCI are in the suits. 

Susie is first because Afton wasn’t confident enough to lead a kid to the back room casually. He killed her dog and used it as a distraction. We don’t know how the other kids are killed, not because it doesn’t matter, it’s because they are “normal” to how we think about Afton’s method—luring children to the back room and killing them. Susie is shown off in Fruity Maze because she didn’t have the same pattern as the others. 

How does Susie connect to Charlie, though? Well, first and foremost, I think the Security Puppet was created as a direct response to the MCI. It’s in Henry Emily’s character, as far as we know, to actually care about his kid in particular. I think several factors are ambiguous as to why Afton is drunk the night he kills Charlie. The most likely scenario is his experiments have failed. He stuffed the five kids into the five animatronics and nothing happened. He goes to Jr’s and drinks for hours. He’s kicked out and that just makes him more pissed off. Maybe he goes to the Freddy’s location to see if perhaps something has worked, but that’s when he sees Charlie. Out in the rain and locked out. 

We know he kills her outside in the alley. We see the Puppet collapse next to her. We don’t know how the Puppet is found or repaired by presumably Henry, but we can assume that Charlie, inside the Puppet, is left inside the pizzeria after closing. “The others are like animals, but I am very aware,” she says in UCN. I think she knew who killed her and how she possessed the puppet. It’s like we see in the FNAF 2 minigame, give gifts, give life. It’s only after Charlie possesses the puppet that the MCI possesses the core five animatronics. 

As TDread’s theory suggests, many other kids are killed in Afton’s career. Many that go unseen and unheard of again, very similar to the DCI. A side tangent though, I’m a DCI is MCI fan where the DCI is in fact the MCI. I think this because Scott said he liked to explain things from the first game in the second game, and since we heard of the MCI it makes sense that in the next game we saw the MCI. Either way, the main deaths considered so far has been Elizabeth, the MCI, and Charlie. The next death that needs highlighting is the Crying Child. 

On the one hand, he could be a normal, human child who “saw something” which I think was Elizabeth’s death. If he’s M2, then great job Edwin for adding tear ducts. I want to start with my reasoning for the CC’s bite being in 1985 (or 7) as we know the MCI is dated 1985 in everything Scott has released. Firstly, the TV that gives us 1983 was shocking when people found it, and it made everyone question the timeline as it was back then. I’ll admit that even I held the long belief that it was put there to tell us the year this game took place. However, I now think that wasn’t the intention at all. I grew up with reruns on TV all the time. They never played the date they originally aired afterwards, but I think this history shouldn’t be ignored. I’m not going to try and argue that this game and the bite are in ‘87, but I will argue that given the history of TV show reruns and the fact that we get old cartoons and posters from Steel Wool with dates in them, how is this eight-bit minigame any different? Justice for my guy Foxy, but The Week Before does all but confirm the bite of ‘87 happened with Foxy, not Fredbear. I’d give this incident probably ‘86 if you had to push for me a definitive year. It’s enough buffer between Elizabeth’s death to Charlie’s while having the MCI be in 1985. 

As an aside, let’s talk about Midnight Motorist. Flipside’s video “Secret of the Mimic Solves Midnight Motorist” asserts that the White Tiger is responsible for the footprints outside CC’s bedroom. He also connects MOON.EXE with the CC escaping out the bedroom window. While we can agree the events of MOON.EXE are teaching the Mimic how to be David Murray, the link between a child escaping their bedroom in the middle of night with a locked door is substantial. Plus, if “that place” is MCM, then it’s possible the two Davids were friends. While Flipside doesn’t link M2 to the CC, I actually think this could be another step forward in confirming this theory. My biggest hang up with this theory is Flipside’s assertion that CC saw David Murray’s dead body. But then, why would he follow him? I think it’s more likely that David M either reaches out to the Endoskeleton who used to take care of him or to the kid with the same name living in his bedroom. 

Specifically, when it comes to “Later That Night,” my question becomes did CC go to MCM like William assumed. Or did the White Tiger take him to Charlie’s murder site like many believe. And Charlie’s body is what he saw. I think this is still plausible because she is killed outside of Freddy’s and that’s where most of the “remember what you saw” language is used. It’s not necessarily that he knows or thinks his father is a murderer, but it’s because not even the security puppet could save someone in trouble. Especially because we know the Aftons and the Emilys are close, it’s not crazy to think CC and Charlie were friends, given they seem to be around the same age. It also gives another reason for CC to be crying because he just lost a friend. 

What happens to CC? Well, we hear a pretty nice crunch. This could be skull, this could be metal. If it is metal then it might be an explanation for why there is no blood in the eight-bit minigame. But what about the hospital equiment and the flatline, well, I think that goes back to the note we find in SotM. M1 or 2 still has the behavior of Fiona and writes a note that seems to be a call back to the book’s interpretation of what happened to Fiona. She dies in childbirth and wakes up as the Mimic. I think a partnership between F10-N4 and Afton can explain how M2 is given the memories of being a child who sees medical IVs and hears a flatline. FNAF 4 could be the reprogramming of M2 by Afton. And the line “I will put you back together” is a lot more literal in this context. “I gotta fix your robotic head and put the programming back into the endoskeleton. 

But here’s the twist. 

We talked about, at the top of this theory, that Afton is the guy who screws up springlocks at Fall Fest. What if when he puts David back together, he messes up again and M2 is as violent as ever? I believe F10-N4’s change to MXES is a direct result of Afton's program issues, necessitating a stronger M2 containment than a David profile. Which could explain why the MXES looks like the rabbit typically associated with Afton. The Mimic ends up contained in the basement, which Cassie eventually is led to bust open. 

Maybe he’s being tortured to check the doors of his bedroom for nightmare animatronics. Perhaps he’s the base exoskeleton that holds Enard together long enough for the Funtimes to escape. We don’t know what he’s doing down there while Fazbear rebuilds above him. 

I do think that this series of events, based on the information given to us in SotM, might be the most linear timeline we’ve ever gotten. Elizabeth dies first, followed by Susie and the other kids, then Charlie, and finally David. Baby isn’t one of the gravestones at the end of Princess Quest in Help Wanted 2, but the rest of the gravestones support this order of events—whether David is a Mimic or not. Plus this order of events could explain why Bonnie-Bro Jeremy would know this order because it would have been all over the news. Elizabeth wasn’t killed at a Freddy’s or could’ve even been covered up. 

We know the MCI was reported on multiple times and kids even had rumors about what happened to them. While we never see anything about Charlie’s death being reported on, it’s unlikely to have gone unnoticed. David Afton was obviously killed by the bullies themselves. 

Overall, I know there are many things about SOTM to talk about and Game Theory hosted a live stream to talk all about it. And I was there seeding questions into the chat for them to talk about pertaining to this theory. The fact that they only took two questions from chat spurred me to make this video even though I am not a YouTuber, I hate my voice, and used a slide show because video editing? I hardly know ‘er. I don’t know if anyone will even find this because of the vastness of the internet but I wanted to put this out for people to hopefully not right off everything we’ve been told before for this new story.