Exploring the Crying Child's Identity in FNAF

The crying child's name has been found. That's right, we finally have an answer for a question that has stumped this community for a literal decade. And the craziest part of all of it, it was solved by a channel with only one video. Matt must be rolling in his retirement grave. We'll just see about that. Hello, Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's happy to let someone else solve FNAF for a change. Since the release of Security Breach, it feels like there's been a ma- massive new wave of FNAF theorizing on YouTube. We've seen the rise of people like Jon FNAF, Rytost, ID's Fantasy, and dozens more, all joining us in the good fight to try and solve the infuriating lore of this franchise. And just over a month ago, a new challenger, or should I say challengers, entered the ring. The channel Dual Process Theory. And they went big for their first outing, making the claim that they'd solved the entirety of FNAF in their very first video. And not only were they laying down a timeline for the whole series, they also claimed to have solved a particular mystery that has been bugging us theorists for a long time. What is the name of the crying child? After nearly 10 years, we still just call him the crying child, despite the fact that every other character in this franchise seems to get a name. Mike, Elizabeth, Charlie, even the missing children got names. So why is this kid's name left blank? Well, according to dual process theory, it's not that he doesn't have a name. It's that we just... missed it. We've had the name all along, we've just been giving it to someone else. They suggest that the crying child's name is Cassidy, the name we found all the way back in the word search of the survival logbook. The same name that For the longest time, we have given to the vengeful spirit from Ultimate Custom Night, the one Afton should not have killed. Not only that, but they claim that the child we thought was Cassidy doesn't even exist. For years we've assumed that there are seven dead kids, five missing children's incident victims including Cassidy, Charlotte Emily the puppet, and the nameless crying child. But instead, they claim that there have only ever been six, with the final missing kid and the bite victim being one in the same, Cassidy Afton. It's a b****. bold claim, but when you get into the meat of it, their argument is actually quite compelling. So I went back to the drawing board and started mapping out the pieces myself to see if I could come to that same conclusion. Is the crying child actually Cassidy? Ladies and gentlemen, it's-Hey Tom, whatcha doing? Oh, hey Matt, I'm kind of in the middle of solving FNAF. Yeah, okay. I'm sure you have a theory that changes everything. A clue that we missed? Kinda, yeah. Perfect. Well, before you fire up the old Golden Freddy thumbnail and then slap a dark truth on that, I've got another puzzle for you to solve. LORFY. It's the music-based mystery project that I've been working on. Basically, it's what you get if you have Lo-Fi Girl, but you mix in a murder mystery. Because who hasn't ever wondered that? I know! But the good news is you don't have to wonder anymore, because episode one is finally ready. On one level, you can just study and relax and sleep to the music that you're listening to. In fact, you've been listening to one of the tracks this whole time. And there's gonna be new music releasing every week on our Lorefy Spotify channel. But you know what? If you want to go a level deeper, hidden within some of that music and the videos that exist here on YouTube, there are clues pointing at the story of a missing kid. A missing kid named Gregory. gregory seriously matt yeah yeah hear me out hear me out yeah i got nothing i just wanted to meme on the name good news though my gregory not a robot yeah sure for now i assume you put a link in the description on your way in i did indeed sir and people should definitely click on it because like i said there's gonna be new secrets waiting to be discovered every week over on spotify and a new animation dropping roughly once a month month and a half here on youtube all as we help a new character taylor solve the deadly game that she accidentally finds herself trapped in Do I really have to solve this? I kind of got my hands full with all the FNAF stuff coming down the pipeline. I was actually just about to do a Morty on Dual Process Theories theory. Oh, I remember that one! It's a great video. But, uh, you do realize the M in Morty stands for MatPat, right? MatPat occasionally reviews theories, yo? Huh, didn't think about that. Say, Matt, I know you're kind of retired and everything, but seeing how Dual Process Theories video was a two-person effort and you're already here, how'd you like to tag-team this FNAF theory? I mean, it's a little- cramped in the recording closet with the two of us, but uh... Sure, why not. Awesome. And now I don't have to change the theme song. Hit it, Yossi! Leave your theories in the comments below. I'll pick my favorites in the next episode of Morty. First things first, it's probably a good idea that we recap the main evidence points dual process theory has for the crying child being Cassidy. Their video is nearly two hours long after all. Who has that much time? Well, except for you, considering you took over four hours to react to it. Look, I'm retired now. I've got nothing but time. But I think you're right. So let's quickly recap, starting with the first major point, how we got the name in the survival logbook. Now, this book has been a cornerstone of the FNAF franchise since its release. Inside, we have three separate people spe- ...taking to us. Michael Afton, who writes in red pen, a spirit that writes in faded text, and a third person that alters the text of the book. The faded text writes the words, My name, on a number of the pages. And on those pages, there's always some sort of weird number. Take all those numbers and turn them into coordinates for the word search, and BAM! You get the name. Cassidy. It sounds so simple now, but I remember ripping my hair out over this at the same time you were. But the key to the whole thing was one very important usage of my name. On one of the pages, the my name appears on a gravestone, just like the gravestone missing a name from FNAF 6's ending, which, it should be remembered, released around the same time as this book. So it seemed pretty darn obvious that these clues were revealing the name of that final character, the fifth missing child, which is why for the longest time we've been calling the fifth child Cassidy. And this is where dual process theory throws their first spanner into the works. You mean wrench? Look, you chose a British guy to take over, this is what you get. While yes, my name appeared on every page the clues were hiding, notice what's on the opposite page of the word search. A mirror. And under it, the spirit leaves a message. What do you see? Well, what's on the other page? The crying child using altered text in the word search. It's me, Cassidy. Gah, it's so good! It is pretty compelling. Especially because, in all honesty, the placement of that mirror always felt suspicious to me. So I really like them using it for their theory. But if Crying Child is Cassidy, then who else is speaking in the book? You need a second spirit to act as the faded text. Well, according to them, it's Charlie, the puppet, doing what she's been trying to do the entire series. Help the lost spirits find themselves. And again, I gotta say, I really like that. Narratively, that's... really satisfying because it brings together the three main characters from the franchise all in the same place. Mike with his red pen, crying child Cassidy as the altered text, and Charlie guiding the conversation as the ghostly faded text. It's cool and it feels complete, but is there actual evidence to support this or is it all hypothesis? And that's not all. Dual process theory weren't just satisfied with crying child having Cassidy's name, they went further to suggest that the crying child is Cassidy, as in Cassidy is an Afton, and the fifth missing child on the gravestone, and the spirit within Golden Freddy, the only spirit inside of Golden Freddy, as opposed to most of our theories where the crying child is one half of our best golden boy. They also have the evidence to back it up. The first point is that Golden Freddy doesn't speak in plurals. When you take a look at the one line we ever get from Golden Freddy, what do we see? It's me, me, singular, implying that there's only one spirit in there. Compare that to what we see in the books. Throughout the series, there have only been two instances of animatronics possessed by multiple people. The first is the Stitch Wraith from the Fazbear Frights epilogues. The second is Rosie Porkchop from the Fazbear Frights story Together Forever. And while the Stitch Wraith isn't able to speak until the second soul is gone, Rosie Porkchop speaks while still containing both spirits, and refers to itself as Ladies in Waiting. It's using plurals showing the two spirits. We're gonna come back to that point, right? Yeah, don't worry, we're gonna come back to all of this. Okay, great, cause I have thoughts on that one. The second point they bring up is everyone's favorite FNAF 3 classic, Happiest Day. This is the final mini-game where we see the puppet giving cake to the birthday child surrounded by their friends in animatronic masks. Once the puppet delivers the cake, the child stops crying, puts on their golden Freddy mask and all the children's spirits move on. Well, except for Charlie, because she's still gotta show up in FNAF 6. Yeah, because nothing can ever- just be as it seems with this franchise. But there is one thing that I think we can both agree is very straightforward. There are only six kids at this party. The five missing children and the puppet. If they're- were supposed to be two spirits inside Golden Freddy, why isn't there a seventh kid? Which ties in perfectly to point number three, the glowing eyes at the end of FNAF 3. This one's personal, so I'll take it. As a reminder, if you beat FNAF 3 without doing the Happiest Day minigame, you get the game's bad ending. This gives us a screen where our four main animatronics each have one glowing eye, symbolic of the fact that their spirits haven't been released yet. Seems pretty self-explanatory, right? But then look who we have in the back. Golden Freddy. With not just one glowing eye, but two. This was always the backbone to the whole two spirits debate. The idea that, unlike all the other animatronics who each had one kid's spirit inside of them, Golden Freddy was different. He had two. Both the innocent, crying child spirit and the vengeful spirit Cassidy, the fifth victim. It was a theory that was further supported by the books, specifically the Stitch Wraith Stingers, where we see an animatronic possessed by two spirits. A nice, wholesome kid named Jake and an evil, angry spirit named Andrew. One who dies in a hospital setting like The Crying Child, and one who dies by a brutal murder from Afton. I mean, the parallels are hard to deny. However, Duel Process challenges this by calling out the fact that if there were indeed two spirits in the body, why then do both eyes go out once you complete Happiest Day? Especially since we've believed that the Cassidy spirit lingers on to torture Afton in Ultimate Custom Night. Only one light should have gone out, to which I have one answer, retcon. But obviously, that's a bit of a cheap explanation if we can avoid it. Which brings us to Duel Process's... his last point. How can the crying child be the fifth missing kid when, very clearly, he He's not missing. Like, he's literally right here in front of a large room of people. Well, they make the assumption that this was all part of William's scheme. After the bite of 83, William pulls his child out of the hospital, and, while experimenting with harvesting remnants, has the bright idea to stuff his son into Golden Freddy. Whoops, bad idea, Will. It doesn't work, and the spring locks kill him, which is why we see Golden Freddy twitching in Ultimate Custom Night in the same way William does during the FNAF 3 teaser. This mistake devastates him and, in a drunken stupor, he lashes out at Henry's daughter, Charlie, killing her last. This then aligns with what we see from the gravestone puzzle in Help Wanted 2. To solve it, you have to light the gravestones marked by the six dead children in a specific order, presumably the order in which they died. Chica, the first, she has seen everything, followed by Foxy, Freddy, Bonnie, then Golden Freddy, and finally, the puppets. Later, when the police start to investigate the disappearances at the restaurant, William claims his child, also went missing to throw them off the scent that he may be the killer. Now, while I don't really love the logical jumps their explanation takes there, one thing I really do like about the crying child being the fifth missing victim, and therefore the only spirit inside Golden Freddy, is that it really does help clean up the numbers. For years, five was the magic number in FNAF when it came to dead kids. Then, around FNAF 3, it evolved into six with the inclusion of the puppet. And yet, FNAF 4 shows us what was presumably a seventh kid dying. in the form of the Crying Child. And while Help Wanda does eventually give us seven graves and a hidden out-of-bounds Easter egg, it always bugged me that there was never a gravestone for him in the FNAF 6 ending. I always just assumed that it was because he ended up being different. He wasn't a victim of Afton's, and thus he wasn't included in that final image. But if Crying Child is in fact the fifth kid, it helps explain why there was never an additional grave for him. Because he was always there to begin with. He was the one hidden behind the grass. They also don't mention this in their theory, but... But in FNAF 3, look at the spirit who gets Afton's springlocked. They have tears streaming down their face, just like the crying child. We never see the other spirit's faces. We're specifically being shown that this one has tears, revealing that this isn't a separate spirit from the crying child. They are one in the same. Scott even used the same model in FNAF World specifically for the crying child. To be fair, tears are everywhere in the series, though. I mean, the puppet is shown crying literally all the time. So... Are we done? Did they solve FNAF? Can I retire now too? No, you still have to solve Poppy. No. And Lorefy. Okay. And Banban. No! But secondly, while this theory is really satisfying from a narrative standpoint, it helps to simplify a lot of the confusing elements that have built up over the years, there are a few pieces of evidence that they didn't mention that might poke a few holes in their theory. Oh yeah? So Tom, what's this sound? It's a flatline. And when does a flatline happen? Well, a flatline is typically shorthand to show that someone has died, usually in a hospital. Exactly. And during FNAF 4, we see things like IV bags, pills, and flowers surrounding the bed. All things that you would see in a hospital. Crying Child was in the hospital for his injuries, and then we hear a flatline right after Afton says that he's gonna put his son back together. Afton leaves, represented by psychic friend Fredbear fading away, which then leaves Crying Child alone in the dark. He's lost. in the darkness. He's dead. He's alone. Everything about this cutscene seems to be suggesting that he died in this hospital. Could you potentially make the argument that William pulled his son off of life support in the hospital and brought him back to an underground bunker where he's gonna do experiments on him until he's able to bring him back to life, and that's why we hear a flatline here? Sure, you could make that argument, but it feels really overcomplicated just for the sake of your theory. And even still, if he did- do all of that, there's a room full of people that saw Afton's son get bit. They make it pretty darn hard for Afton to convince anyone that his son went missing as part of some random killer's murdering spree. There's also that whole speaking in plurals thing I know you had thoughts on. Yes, thank you. I brought up earlier the huge number of parallels between the two spirits inside the Stitch Wraith in the books and the two spirits that are potentially inside of Golden Freddy in the games. Now, say what you will about book-based evidence, but the epilogues at the end of these things... tend to be very important for storytelling. I mean, we saw that explicitly with the reveal of the Mimic. So to focus on this character of the Stitch Wraith, comprised of two spirits across 11 books? Yeah, that feels pretty darn important. And in the Stingers, each spirit inside the Stitch Wraith speaks in the first person. So it would then make sense for one spirit inside of Golden Freddy to say, It's me, singular. It's me, the crying child, your brother. But let's go a level deeper. In the Stingers, the Stitch Wraith is made up of a mix of parts. Andrew, the angry one, is established to not be able to see because his part forms the body. Jake, the nice one, can see because his spirit is trapped in the head part. As such, he reports what's happening in the world back to Andrew in the body. And what do we see happening in the logbook? Well, it's a similar sort of dynamic. One spirit asks, what do you see? And the other one responds, I can't see. It's a direct parallel. Even down to the Happiest Day minigame. There's a point in the Stingers when Jake is given the chance to move on and pass into the afterlife, but he chooses to linger back in. in order to help Andrew. Eventually, one of them moves on while the other is kept to Earth, held back by Afton. Sound familiar? It should. It once again parallels a lot of what we're seeing happen with Golden Freddy in the games. On top of that... Dual process theory reminded me of this moment in FNaF 4's minigames, where the crying child is locked in the back room with a Golden Freddy costume. They pointed out the tufts of hair coming out of the suit, explaining this to be an employee who bled out. However, in one of our old videos, you made the valuable point that this head is just sitting too low in the torso. When adults wear it, we see their heads fully out, even when they're sitting. This is something that is explicitly shown to us in places like the graphic novels, which tells us then that the person in the suit here, it's gotta be a child. Again, we see this in the books. In Fazbear Frights, we have scenes where kids reach into the Golden Freddy suit and see black curly hair sitting inside. This is a dead kid. A dead kid that we know was put inside of Golden Freddy. Presumably, this should be the fifth missing child. This is why Crying Child's Fredbear Plushie tells him, remember what you saw. He has literally seen the deaths of other kids. Huh. You ever thought that maybe that's the answer? What do you mean? Well, is it possible that this story is actually... Way simpler than we, the FNAF community, have made it out to be? I mean, look at the scene. Like, really look at the scene. It is pretty darn self-explanatory. A kid is locked in the storage closet and literal tufts of hair are sticking out of the suit. I remember when I first saw this scene. I overthought this thing to death. Assuming that it had to be more than just hair sticking out of the suit. Maybe they were wires or tufts of suit hair or something like that. Because this was 1983, and by all accounts, it was the first location. It was Fredbear's Family Diner. The big- beginning of the timeline. The missing children's incident didn't happen here. It was at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Clearly, these brown pixels had to represent something else. But in retrospect, the scene is pretty explicit. There's a kid dead in this suit. Done. Cut and dry. Remember what you saw? You saw a dead kid. We, as theorists, are so often desperate to search for narrative satisfaction. We bend over backwards to try and justify timelines where Afton is killing kids because of Elizabeth's death, or because he's trying to put his son back together and he wants to run experiments to harvest remnant from other kids. But- What if he's just a weird, sick dude who just started killing kids one day? No over-complicated backstory required. I didn't get to talk about this before leaving the channel, but in Help Wanted 2, if you light the final gravestones in a very specific order, you unlock a huge lore clue in the form of the Bonnie Mask. This is the moment that basically confirms that we're playing the game as Bonnie Bro. But the order of the gravestones? feels very intentional. They explicitly give us an order of events. Chica first, then Foxy, Freddy, Bonnie, Golden Freddy fifth, Puppet last. It was really confusing because Charlie dying last didn't make any sort of sense. What about this? A wound first inflicted on me. And yet this gravestone evidence is what the games are telling us. It's also kind of what we're seeing in FNAF 4. If that tuft of hair is to be believed, and really, why wouldn't we believe it? That gravestone timeline could probably be right. Afton was just... killing kids because he could. He was a deranged serial killer. Man, retirement really has taken a toll on you. But I also think I see where you're going with this. Crying Child witnesses the dead kids in the suits, and then gets bit by Fred Bear on the day of his party. Afton would be devastated by this, promising to put his son back together. He'd be furious at his business partner Henry, because it was his engineering that did this to his boy. Then, one night, an opportunity presented itself. Charlie was locked outside by some bullies, and so Afton, in a fit of rage, killed Charlie. Unlike all the other killings that were premeditated, this was a crime of passion, and so it broke from all of his usual methods. And that allows this new order of deaths that Steel Wool has given us to make way more sense. Chica was always the first, but not just of the MCI, of all the deaths. That's why Henry made Security Puppet in the first place, because there were a bunch of kids disappearing from the pizzeria, and Henry wanted to protect his daughter. Which brings us back to the beginning. Where did we land with the whole dual process theory? Did they solve FNAF? Is Cassidy the crying child? I think the answer is yes, but also no. There are two sides to this coin, right? Is crying child the fifth missing kid that we've called Cassidy for all these years? I'm just not sure. It would simplify a lot, especially the FNAF 3 minigames where there's only five kids. But then we see a kid already dead inside the Golden Freddy suit before crying child even died. And then there's the dozens of people that watch him die and flatline at the end of FNAF 4, which would make it hard for him to be considered missing, let alone considered one of the missing children specifically. It's true. As much as I like it from a narrative standpoint, there's just as much evidence against it as it is supporting it. Typical FNAF, you know? Well, not completely. Because there's the second side of this question. Sure, Crying Child might not be the fifth missing child, but based on what Dual Process Theory presented, I think they might be right that Crying Child's name... is Cassidy. William Afton, a deranged serial killer hiding in plain sight, until one day his son Michael decided to play a prank. A prank that would kill his youngest son, Cassidy Afton. It has a nice ring to it, I've got to admit. Maybe, and I definitely see it. It's just a frustrating catch-22, you know? We either get to have the crying child's name, and in the process, we lose the established fifth missing kid name, or Cassidy is the fifth missing kid, and crying child remains as nameless as he ever was. I mean, the answer's gotta be in here somewhere, surely. The altered text opposite the mirror returns the spirit's questions with, who are you? What's your name? And with Cassidy not being the fifth missing kid, that leaves the my name gravestone clue wide open. Honestly, my money's on the foxy grid. We never did solve it and there's ghostly text written at the start. Maybe we should take another look. Oh no no no no! There's no we here, my friend. I did my time with that foxy grid. This is all on you, man. Oh. Well then, I guess I better get started. Not like I had a billion other FNAF things to worry about. Regardless, I suppose I should thank you for helping me out with this episode, Matt. I know Lorefire's kept you pretty busy. Oh yeah. LORIFY. Nearly forgot that I was on here to promote that. Just got so caught up in the FNAF discussion. Anyway, I should probably get back to working on that. The team and I have worked really hard to make this project as great as it can be. And episode one just launched today here on YouTube. So if you're in need of some chill beats for studying, working, or sleeping, make sure you check out the LORIFY project over on Spotify. We've got new music releases dropping every week or so, with clues hidden inside. So make sure you follow us there to listen as soon as they drop. But if you want to level up your experience, you can always head on over to the YouTube channel and try to piece together the clues to help Taylor solve the mystery surrounding this definitely not a robot kid Gregory. We've got new animations coming each month that are full to the brim with that sweet, sweet LOOOOOR. You just couldn't help yourself, could you? Hey, I'm retired. I don't get to say it that much anymore. True. Do you know what else you don't get to say much anymore? But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.

Matt must be rolling in his retirement grave. We'll just see about that. Hello, Internet!

Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's happy to let someone else solve FNAF for a change. Since the release of Security Breach, it feels like there's been a ma- massive new wave of FNAF theorizing on YouTube. We've seen the rise of people like Jon FNAF, Rytost, ID's Fantasy, and dozens more, all joining us in the good fight to try and solve the infuriating lore of this franchise.

And just over a month ago, a new challenger, or should I say challengers, entered the ring. The channel Dual Process Theory. And they went big for their first outing, making the claim that they'd solved the entirety of FNAF in their very first video.

And not only were they laying down a timeline for the whole series, they also claimed to have solved a particular mystery that has been bugging us theorists for a long time. What is the name of the crying child? After nearly 10 years, we still just call him the crying child, despite the fact that every other character in this franchise seems to get a name. Mike, Elizabeth, Charlie, even the missing children got names. So why is this kid's name left blank?

Well, according to dual process theory, it's not that he doesn't have a name. It's that we just... missed it. We've had the name all along, we've just been giving it to someone else. They suggest that the crying child's name is Cassidy, the name we found all the way back in the word search of the survival logbook.

The same name that For the longest time, we have given to the vengeful spirit from Ultimate Custom Night, the one Afton should not have killed. Not only that, but they claim that the child we thought was Cassidy doesn't even exist. For years we've assumed that there are seven dead kids, five missing children's incident victims including Cassidy, Charlotte Emily the puppet, and the nameless crying child.

But instead, they claim that there have only ever been six, with the final missing kid and the bite victim being one in the same, Cassidy Afton. It's a b****. bold claim, but when you get into the meat of it, their argument is actually quite compelling.

So I went back to the drawing board and started mapping out the pieces myself to see if I could come to that same conclusion. Is the crying child actually Cassidy? Ladies and gentlemen, it's-Hey Tom, whatcha doing?

Oh, hey Matt, I'm kind of in the middle of solving FNAF. Yeah, okay. I'm sure you have a theory that changes everything. A clue that we missed?

Kinda, yeah. Perfect. Well, before you fire up the old Golden Freddy thumbnail and then slap a dark truth on that, I've got another puzzle for you to solve. LORFY. It's the music-based mystery project that I've been working on.

Basically, it's what you get if you have Lo-Fi Girl, but you mix in a murder mystery. Because who hasn't ever wondered that? I know! But the good news is you don't have to wonder anymore, because episode one is finally ready. On one level, you can just study and relax and sleep to the music that you're listening to.

In fact, you've been listening to one of the tracks this whole time. And there's gonna be new music releasing every week on our Lorefy Spotify channel. But you know what? If you want to go a level deeper, hidden within some of that music and the videos that exist here on YouTube, there are clues pointing at the story of a missing kid.

A missing kid named Gregory. gregory seriously matt yeah yeah hear me out hear me out yeah i got nothing i just wanted to meme on the name good news though my gregory not a robot yeah sure for now i assume you put a link in the description on your way in i did indeed sir and people should definitely click on it because like i said there's gonna be new secrets waiting to be discovered every week over on spotify and a new animation dropping roughly once a month month and a half here on youtube all as we help a new character taylor solve the deadly game that she accidentally finds herself trapped in Do I really have to solve this? I kind of got my hands full with all the FNAF stuff coming down the pipeline.

I was actually just about to do a Morty on Dual Process Theories theory. Oh, I remember that one! It's a great video.

But, uh, you do realize the M in Morty stands for MatPat, right? MatPat occasionally reviews theories, yo? Huh, didn't think about that. Say, Matt, I know you're kind of retired and everything, but seeing how Dual Process Theories video was a two-person effort and you're already here, how'd you like to tag-team this FNAF theory?

I mean, it's a little- cramped in the recording closet with the two of us, but uh... Sure, why not. Awesome. And now I don't have to change the theme song.

Hit it, Yossi! Leave your theories in the comments below. I'll pick my favorites in the next episode of Morty.

First things first, it's probably a good idea that we recap the main evidence points dual process theory has for the crying child being Cassidy. Their video is nearly two hours long after all. Who has that much time? Well, except for you, considering you took over four hours to react to it.

Look, I'm retired now. I've got nothing but time. But I think you're right. So let's quickly recap, starting with the first major point, how we got the name in the survival logbook.

Now, this book has been a cornerstone of the FNAF franchise since its release. Inside, we have three separate people spe- ...taking to us. Michael Afton, who writes in red pen, a spirit that writes in faded text, and a third person that alters the text of the book.

The faded text writes the words, My name, on a number of the pages. And on those pages, there's always some sort of weird number. Take all those numbers and turn them into coordinates for the word search, and BAM! You get the name.

Cassidy. It sounds so simple now, but I remember ripping my hair out over this at the same time you were. But the key to the whole thing was one very important usage of my name. On one of the pages, the my name appears on a gravestone, just like the gravestone missing a name from FNAF 6's ending, which, it should be remembered, released around the same time as this book.

So it seemed pretty darn obvious that these clues were revealing the name of that final character, the fifth missing child, which is why for the longest time we've been calling the fifth child Cassidy. And this is where dual process theory throws their first spanner into the works. You mean wrench?

Look, you chose a British guy to take over, this is what you get. While yes, my name appeared on every page the clues were hiding, notice what's on the opposite page of the word search. A mirror. And under it, the spirit leaves a message.

What do you see? Well, what's on the other page? The crying child using altered text in the word search. It's me, Cassidy.

Gah, it's so good! It is pretty compelling. Especially because, in all honesty, the placement of that mirror always felt suspicious to me. So I really like them using it for their theory.

But if Crying Child is Cassidy, then who else is speaking in the book? You need a second spirit to act as the faded text. Well, according to them, it's Charlie, the puppet, doing what she's been trying to do the entire series.

Help the lost spirits find themselves. And again, I gotta say, I really like that. Narratively, that's...

really satisfying because it brings together the three main characters from the franchise all in the same place. Mike with his red pen, crying child Cassidy as the altered text, and Charlie guiding the conversation as the ghostly faded text. It's cool and it feels complete, but is there actual evidence to support this or is it all hypothesis?

And that's not all. Dual process theory weren't just satisfied with crying child having Cassidy's name, they went further to suggest that the crying child is Cassidy, as in Cassidy is an Afton, and the fifth missing child on the gravestone, and the spirit within Golden Freddy, the only spirit inside of Golden Freddy, as opposed to most of our theories where the crying child is one half of our best golden boy. They also have the evidence to back it up. The first point is that Golden Freddy doesn't speak in plurals. When you take a look at the one line we ever get from Golden Freddy, what do we see?

It's me, me, singular, implying that there's only one spirit in there. Compare that to what we see in the books. Throughout the series, there have only been two instances of animatronics possessed by multiple people.

The first is the Stitch Wraith from the Fazbear Frights epilogues. The second is Rosie Porkchop from the Fazbear Frights story Together Forever. And while the Stitch Wraith isn't able to speak until the second soul is gone, Rosie Porkchop speaks while still containing both spirits, and refers to itself as Ladies in Waiting. It's using plurals showing the two spirits. We're gonna come back to that point, right?

Yeah, don't worry, we're gonna come back to all of this. Okay, great, cause I have thoughts on that one. The second point they bring up is everyone's favorite FNAF 3 classic, Happiest Day. This is the final mini-game where we see the puppet giving cake to the birthday child surrounded by their friends in animatronic masks. Once the puppet delivers the cake, the child stops crying, puts on their golden Freddy mask and all the children's spirits move on.

Well, except for Charlie, because she's still gotta show up in FNAF 6. Yeah, because nothing can ever- just be as it seems with this franchise. But there is one thing that I think we can both agree is very straightforward. There are only six kids at this party.

The five missing children and the puppet. If they're- were supposed to be two spirits inside Golden Freddy, why isn't there a seventh kid? Which ties in perfectly to point number three, the glowing eyes at the end of FNAF 3. This one's personal, so I'll take it. As a reminder, if you beat FNAF 3 without doing the Happiest Day minigame, you get the game's bad ending.

This gives us a screen where our four main animatronics each have one glowing eye, symbolic of the fact that their spirits haven't been released yet. Seems pretty self-explanatory, right? But then look who we have in the back.

Golden Freddy. With not just one glowing eye, but two. This was always the backbone to the whole two spirits debate.

The idea that, unlike all the other animatronics who each had one kid's spirit inside of them, Golden Freddy was different. He had two. Both the innocent, crying child spirit and the vengeful spirit Cassidy, the fifth victim.

It was a theory that was further supported by the books, specifically the Stitch Wraith Stingers, where we see an animatronic possessed by two spirits. A nice, wholesome kid named Jake and an evil, angry spirit named Andrew. One who dies in a hospital setting like The Crying Child, and one who dies by a brutal murder from Afton.

I mean, the parallels are hard to deny. However, Duel Process challenges this by calling out the fact that if there were indeed two spirits in the body, why then do both eyes go out once you complete Happiest Day? Especially since we've believed that the Cassidy spirit lingers on to torture Afton in Ultimate Custom Night. Only one light should have gone out, to which I have one answer, retcon.

But obviously, that's a bit of a cheap explanation if we can avoid it. Which brings us to Duel Process's... his last point.

How can the crying child be the fifth missing kid when, very clearly, he He's not missing. Like, he's literally right here in front of a large room of people. Well, they make the assumption that this was all part of William's scheme.

After the bite of 83, William pulls his child out of the hospital, and, while experimenting with harvesting remnants, has the bright idea to stuff his son into Golden Freddy. Whoops, bad idea, Will. It doesn't work, and the spring locks kill him, which is why we see Golden Freddy twitching in Ultimate Custom Night in the same way William does during the FNAF 3 teaser.

This mistake devastates him and, in a drunken stupor, he lashes out at Henry's daughter, Charlie, killing her last. This then aligns with what we see from the gravestone puzzle in Help Wanted 2. To solve it, you have to light the gravestones marked by the six dead children in a specific order, presumably the order in which they died. Chica, the first, she has seen everything, followed by Foxy, Freddy, Bonnie, then Golden Freddy, and finally, the puppets. Later, when the police start to investigate the disappearances at the restaurant, William claims his child, also went missing to throw them off the scent that he may be the killer. Now, while I don't really love the logical jumps their explanation takes there, one thing I really do like about the crying child being the fifth missing victim, and therefore the only spirit inside Golden Freddy, is that it really does help clean up the numbers.

For years, five was the magic number in FNAF when it came to dead kids. Then, around FNAF 3, it evolved into six with the inclusion of the puppet. And yet, FNAF 4 shows us what was presumably a seventh kid dying. in the form of the Crying Child.

And while Help Wanda does eventually give us seven graves and a hidden out-of-bounds Easter egg, it always bugged me that there was never a gravestone for him in the FNAF 6 ending. I always just assumed that it was because he ended up being different. He wasn't a victim of Afton's, and thus he wasn't included in that final image. But if Crying Child is in fact the fifth kid, it helps explain why there was never an additional grave for him.

Because he was always there to begin with. He was the one hidden behind the grass. They also don't mention this in their theory, but... But in FNAF 3, look at the spirit who gets Afton's springlocked.

They have tears streaming down their face, just like the crying child. We never see the other spirit's faces. We're specifically being shown that this one has tears, revealing that this isn't a separate spirit from the crying child.

They are one in the same. Scott even used the same model in FNAF World specifically for the crying child. To be fair, tears are everywhere in the series, though.

I mean, the puppet is shown crying literally all the time. So... Are we done?

Did they solve FNAF? Can I retire now too? No, you still have to solve Poppy.

No. And Lorefy. Okay. And Banban. No!

But secondly, while this theory is really satisfying from a narrative standpoint, it helps to simplify a lot of the confusing elements that have built up over the years, there are a few pieces of evidence that they didn't mention that might poke a few holes in their theory. Oh yeah? So Tom, what's this sound?

It's a flatline. And when does a flatline happen? Well, a flatline is typically shorthand to show that someone has died, usually in a hospital. Exactly.

And during FNAF 4, we see things like IV bags, pills, and flowers surrounding the bed. All things that you would see in a hospital. Crying Child was in the hospital for his injuries, and then we hear a flatline right after Afton says that he's gonna put his son back together. Afton leaves, represented by psychic friend Fredbear fading away, which then leaves Crying Child alone in the dark. He's lost.

in the darkness. He's dead. He's alone. Everything about this cutscene seems to be suggesting that he died in this hospital. Could you potentially make the argument that William pulled his son off of life support in the hospital and brought him back to an underground bunker where he's gonna do experiments on him until he's able to bring him back to life, and that's why we hear a flatline here?

Sure, you could make that argument, but it feels really overcomplicated just for the sake of your theory. And even still, if he did- do all of that, there's a room full of people that saw Afton's son get bit. They make it pretty darn hard for Afton to convince anyone that his son went missing as part of some random killer's murdering spree.

There's also that whole speaking in plurals thing I know you had thoughts on. Yes, thank you. I brought up earlier the huge number of parallels between the two spirits inside the Stitch Wraith in the books and the two spirits that are potentially inside of Golden Freddy in the games.

Now, say what you will about book-based evidence, but the epilogues at the end of these things... tend to be very important for storytelling. I mean, we saw that explicitly with the reveal of the Mimic. So to focus on this character of the Stitch Wraith, comprised of two spirits across 11 books?

Yeah, that feels pretty darn important. And in the Stingers, each spirit inside the Stitch Wraith speaks in the first person. So it would then make sense for one spirit inside of Golden Freddy to say, It's me, singular. It's me, the crying child, your brother.

But let's go a level deeper. In the Stingers, the Stitch Wraith is made up of a mix of parts. Andrew, the angry one, is established to not be able to see because his part forms the body.

Jake, the nice one, can see because his spirit is trapped in the head part. As such, he reports what's happening in the world back to Andrew in the body. And what do we see happening in the logbook?

Well, it's a similar sort of dynamic. One spirit asks, what do you see? And the other one responds, I can't see. It's a direct parallel.

Even down to the Happiest Day minigame. There's a point in the Stingers when Jake is given the chance to move on and pass into the afterlife, but he chooses to linger back in. in order to help Andrew. Eventually, one of them moves on while the other is kept to Earth, held back by Afton. Sound familiar?

It should. It once again parallels a lot of what we're seeing happen with Golden Freddy in the games. On top of that...

Dual process theory reminded me of this moment in FNaF 4's minigames, where the crying child is locked in the back room with a Golden Freddy costume. They pointed out the tufts of hair coming out of the suit, explaining this to be an employee who bled out. However, in one of our old videos, you made the valuable point that this head is just sitting too low in the torso.

When adults wear it, we see their heads fully out, even when they're sitting. This is something that is explicitly shown to us in places like the graphic novels, which tells us then that the person in the suit here, it's gotta be a child. Again, we see this in the books.

In Fazbear Frights, we have scenes where kids reach into the Golden Freddy suit and see black curly hair sitting inside. This is a dead kid. A dead kid that we know was put inside of Golden Freddy.

Presumably, this should be the fifth missing child. This is why Crying Child's Fredbear Plushie tells him, remember what you saw. He has literally seen the deaths of other kids.

Huh. You ever thought that maybe that's the answer? What do you mean? Well, is it possible that this story is actually... Way simpler than we, the FNAF community, have made it out to be?

I mean, look at the scene. Like, really look at the scene. It is pretty darn self-explanatory. A kid is locked in the storage closet and literal tufts of hair are sticking out of the suit.

I remember when I first saw this scene. I overthought this thing to death. Assuming that it had to be more than just hair sticking out of the suit. Maybe they were wires or tufts of suit hair or something like that.

Because this was 1983, and by all accounts, it was the first location. It was Fredbear's Family Diner. The big- beginning of the timeline. The missing children's incident didn't happen here. It was at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

Clearly, these brown pixels had to represent something else. But in retrospect, the scene is pretty explicit. There's a kid dead in this suit.

Done. Cut and dry. Remember what you saw?

You saw a dead kid. We, as theorists, are so often desperate to search for narrative satisfaction. We bend over backwards to try and justify timelines where Afton is killing kids because of Elizabeth's death, or because he's trying to put his son back together and he wants to run experiments to harvest remnant from other kids.

But- What if he's just a weird, sick dude who just started killing kids one day? No over-complicated backstory required. I didn't get to talk about this before leaving the channel, but in Help Wanted 2, if you light the final gravestones in a very specific order, you unlock a huge lore clue in the form of the Bonnie Mask.

This is the moment that basically confirms that we're playing the game as Bonnie Bro. But the order of the gravestones? feels very intentional.

They explicitly give us an order of events. Chica first, then Foxy, Freddy, Bonnie, Golden Freddy fifth, Puppet last. It was really confusing because Charlie dying last didn't make any sort of sense. What about this?

A wound first inflicted on me. And yet this gravestone evidence is what the games are telling us. It's also kind of what we're seeing in FNAF 4. If that tuft of hair is to be believed, and really, why wouldn't we believe it? That gravestone timeline could probably be right.

Afton was just... killing kids because he could. He was a deranged serial killer.

Man, retirement really has taken a toll on you. But I also think I see where you're going with this. Crying Child witnesses the dead kids in the suits, and then gets bit by Fred Bear on the day of his party. Afton would be devastated by this, promising to put his son back together. He'd be furious at his business partner Henry, because it was his engineering that did this to his boy.

Then, one night, an opportunity presented itself. Charlie was locked outside by some bullies, and so Afton, in a fit of rage, killed Charlie. Unlike all the other killings that were premeditated, this was a crime of passion, and so it broke from all of his usual methods.

And that allows this new order of deaths that Steel Wool has given us to make way more sense. Chica was always the first, but not just of the MCI, of all the deaths. That's why Henry made Security Puppet in the first place, because there were a bunch of kids disappearing from the pizzeria, and Henry wanted to protect his daughter.

Which brings us back to the beginning. Where did we land with the whole dual process theory? Did they solve FNAF?

Is Cassidy the crying child? I think the answer is yes, but also no. There are two sides to this coin, right? Is crying child the fifth missing kid that we've called Cassidy for all these years? I'm just not sure.

It would simplify a lot, especially the FNAF 3 minigames where there's only five kids. But then we see a kid already dead inside the Golden Freddy suit before crying child even died. And then there's the dozens of people that watch him die and flatline at the end of FNAF 4, which would make it hard for him to be considered missing, let alone considered one of the missing children specifically.

It's true. As much as I like it from a narrative standpoint, there's just as much evidence against it as it is supporting it. Typical FNAF, you know? Well, not completely.

Because there's the second side of this question. Sure, Crying Child might not be the fifth missing child, but based on what Dual Process Theory presented, I think they might be right that Crying Child's name... is Cassidy.

William Afton, a deranged serial killer hiding in plain sight, until one day his son Michael decided to play a prank. A prank that would kill his youngest son, Cassidy Afton. It has a nice ring to it, I've got to admit. Maybe, and I definitely see it. It's just a frustrating catch-22, you know?

We either get to have the crying child's name, and in the process, we lose the established fifth missing kid name, or Cassidy is the fifth missing kid, and crying child remains as nameless as he ever was. I mean, the answer's gotta be in here somewhere, surely. The altered text opposite the mirror returns the spirit's questions with, who are you? What's your name?

And with Cassidy not being the fifth missing kid, that leaves the my name gravestone clue wide open. Honestly, my money's on the foxy grid. We never did solve it and there's ghostly text written at the start.

Maybe we should take another look. Oh no no no no! There's no we here, my friend. I did my time with that foxy grid. This is all on you, man.

Oh. Well then, I guess I better get started. Not like I had a billion other FNAF things to worry about. Regardless, I suppose I should thank you for helping me out with this episode, Matt. I know Lorefire's kept you pretty busy.

Oh yeah. LORIFY. Nearly forgot that I was on here to promote that. Just got so caught up in the FNAF discussion.

Anyway, I should probably get back to working on that. The team and I have worked really hard to make this project as great as it can be. And episode one just launched today here on YouTube. So if you're in need of some chill beats for studying, working, or sleeping, make sure you check out the LORIFY project over on Spotify.

We've got new music releases dropping every week or so, with clues hidden inside. So make sure you follow us there to listen as soon as they drop. But if you want to level up your experience, you can always head on over to the YouTube channel and try to piece together the clues to help Taylor solve the mystery surrounding this definitely not a robot kid Gregory. We've got new animations coming each month that are full to the brim with that sweet, sweet LOOOOOR. You just couldn't help yourself, could you?

Hey, I'm retired. I don't get to say it that much anymore. True.

Do you know what else you don't get to say much anymore? But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.

Transcript for:Exploring the Crying Child's Identity in FNAF

Transcript for:
Exploring the Crying Child's Identity in FNAF