User blog:Starscream1998/A rant about canon because I feel like it.

Let me get this out of the way first, I do not hate FNAF nor am I hating on Scott Cawthon. The man is an inspiration to me and I appreciate the FNAF games and books for what they are in and of themselves. Having said that you're asking a bit too much of me if you think I'm going to buy this 'fluid storytelling' or 'ambiguous lore' excuse as a get out of jail card for bad writing. To me FNAF's golden age was during the days of the first 3 games and this is because the story was streamlined, simple yet interesting. This enigmatic child killer known as the Purple Guy, the Puppet and the other spirits and their quest for vengeance and so many other cool tidbits that just drew you in. If FNAF had ended with FNAF 3 I would've been satisfied, screw the sequel hook and any supposed unsolved mysteries that ending was majestic.

However this is where the pure unashamed praise stops and the ranting begins. FNAF 4: The Final Chapter is NOT how you do a final chapter of anything. As we know now the game's plot was basically this Bite of 83 and the Afton family but neither of those things were clearly communicated or established. The Bite itself is just an expy of the Bite of 87 minus the build-up and the idea that the child possessed anyone was stupid. He wasn't a murder victim, his brother killed him in a stupid prank and apologized so his reasons for joining the quest to stop Afton were non-existent. The box was left locked because apparently we couldn't figure out this game's plot without an unplanned game revealing to us revelations that feel like dirty retcons and not cleverly hidden secrets. I refuse to believe there was only one retcon because as the lore stands in 2018 it seems too disjointed. FNAF 4 as a finale should've brought closure but instead it proposed more questions than it gave answers if it gave any answers at all. A bad final chapter with an uninteresting premise and convoluted execution so much so that it later became the not-so-final chapter years later.

But then we had FNAF World and this was a ray of sunshine for me in the wake of a thunderstorm. I loved this game, I loved it's clever satire, good use of humor, the lighthearted adventure and the very meta and surreal feel it had. This game deserved to be canon way more than FNAF 4 ever did. I haven't a bad thing to say about this 4th wall breaking look into what I feel is Scott's own private mindscape but like all good things it abruptly came to an end.

But it didn't hurt too much because then we had The Silver Eyes. Now aside from John being a boring and terrible love interest this book was greatness, finally I had an actual coherent plotline to follow within the FNAF franchise. But alas the return of the praises were short lived.

If you thought my feelings on FNAF 4 were distasteful wait 'til you hear what I have to say about Sister Location. This game was beautiful from a gameplay perspective but lore-wise felt like an unholy birth between the novel and the games. Conflicting canonicity aside it once again did a FNAF 4 raising more questions and giving unsatisfactory answers. Oh so the nightmares were real...not only is that supremely uncool to think about but nowhere is that suggested in FNAF 4 i.e. the game that we supposedly could've solved. I won't dwell too long on this one because I want to get more into why I turned to fanon and basically told canon both in FNAF and as a general concept regarding stories to take a hike.

The Twisted Ones was up next and this book was just as awesome as the previous one except it somehow gave birth to a character nearly as annoying as John in the form of Arty.

Then we got The Freddy Files and that logbook which were nice but I really didn't care for them. You shouldn't have to rely on books to have people understand the story in your games. A good story is self-contained and books should be there to enrich the lore not explain it.

FNAF 6 or FFPS I actually don't have nearly as much contempt for as a story than I did SL and 4 because while it felt like mediocre rehash of the superior FNAF 3 ending (c'mon now the fire was clearly a rip-off) it felt like course correction. I still have a lot of complaints about the lore from the SAVEHIM retcon, Henry's existence in the games feeling like an asspull and The Puppet somehow coming back but this game was nowhere near as bad as I've already said.

It was this continuous frustration with the dipping quality in the storytelling that completely turned me off from my previous stance of defending canon and I caved into that fanon goodness. Now I can express my own creative directions for the series freely without feeling hindered by canon. For example I even made 'fix-it fic idea' threads for both the games https://freddy-fazbears-pizza.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:2469354 and books https://freddy-fazbears-pizza.wikia.com/d/p/3100000000000000452/r/3311565419839586318

I have to say I've never felt so free, now I can love FNAF again in my own way. I still love Scott's work but here on this Wiki it feels waaaay more satisfying to just give myself the story I crave to see than wait several eons for it. Thanks for reading my rant if you made it all the way down here, just felt like blowing off steam in a Wiki that welcomes canonically disloyal thoughts ;)