Five Nights at Freddy's/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation: It's a mystery as to why player character Mike Schmidt returns to Freddy's after Night 1. Is he so pressed for money that he needs this job to get by? Is he being a noble soul by not letting someone else get stuck with this horrific job? Is he a colossal moron who doesn't understand the gravity of his situation? Or is he simply an adrenaline junkie who loves the challenge of surviving the killer animatronic onslaught?
  • Are the guys in charge of the Pizzeria incompetent buffoons, or corrupt, absolutely evil bastards?
• Anticlimax Boss: Golden Freddy seems absolutely terrifying if you don't know how to properly handle him, as he seemingly appears out of nowhere and crashes your game with you powerless to stop him. However, once you know that looking at a certain poster triggers his attack and that looking back at the cameras will make him go away, it's hard to be afraid of the Eldritch Abomination bear when you know how to easily dispose of him.
• Breather Level: Should you put the animatronic's A.I. settings low on Night 7, that night will be a walk in the park.
• Broken Base: Thanks to the massive exposure that this game gets, everything about it will come under fire. Is the plot incredibly stupid and nonsensical, believable and serviceable, or is it even worth arguing about at all? Is this game genuinely terrifying and suspenseful, or too reliant on cheap scares? Is the gameplay thrilling and exciting, or incredibly dull?
  • People also tend to get stupid about Bonnie's gender. He was assumed to be female thanks to his name being a girl's name, but others thought he was a male since he was built to be large, muscular and wears a bow tie. Scott eventually confirmed that Bonnie is indeed a male, but you'll still see people arguing about such an inane issue even to this day.
• Complete Monster: Not any of the animatronics themselves, but William Afton, head of the company that created all the animatronics (deliberately programming a murderous instinct in them) who fully embraced his psychopathic desire to take lives by becoming the killer from the Missing Children Incident, luring five kids backstage while dressed as one of the restaurant's beloved characters and mercilessly slaughtering them. There's absolutely nothing redeemable about a serial child murderer. Especially when we see him in action in the third game as Springtrap, showing that he doesn't even limit his victims to just children.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Foxy. You have to monitor his location at Pirate's Cove at regular intervals, which will put you at risk of having Bonnie, Chica or Freddy (on the later nights) sneaking in and attacking. If you don't watch him enough, then he will charge straight for your office and kill you. If you see him on the camera, you have exactly one second to shut the door in his face, and at least half of that second is spent putting down the tablet. What truly puts him in this category though is that even if you successfully lock him out, Foxy will still penalize you by banging on the door, which will drain your power by relatively big chunks.
  • The titular Freddy Fazbear himself is even worse than Foxy. Whenever he comes out to play, his A.I. revolves around exploiting whatever strategies you used the nights before he's active and is thus impossible to truly be predictable. It's hard to spot him on camera since he blends in with the dark rooms so well, with the only time he's regularly noticeable being when he's near your office and about to kill you. It should also be noted that he's not like Bonnie or Chica where he hangs around your office allowing you to shut him out, you need to put up the door up before he gets close because he will sneak in and murder you regardless if you put up the tablet or not. And in case if you had any bright ideas, do not waste your time by locking both doors because somehow, he gets in anyway.
• Draco in Leather Pants: All of the animatronics fall victim to this. Despite the fact that they're merciless killing machines possessed by vengeful children who will slaughter you without a second thought, you get lots of people who make fan fics and fan art portraying them as misunderstood characters who want to be friends with Mike Schmidt. Yes, they are undoubtedly tragic characters, but they are hardly innocent angels either.
  • Foxy gets this the most, thanks to the fact that he doesn't actually get in your face and scream for his jumpscare since he just leans into the room. Fans have interpreted him as actually being benevolent and trying to save you from being killed by Freddy, Bonnie and Chica... despite the fact that you still get a Game Over screen whenever he attacks.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Foxy has completely surpassed every animatronic, even Freddy in regards to the amount of fans he possesses. A lot of it comes from his interesting, unique behavior where he has to be observed constantly on threat of a bum rush right to your office unlike the others who creep and lurk around the Pizzeria. It also helps that he's a fox as well, and those tend to be popular animals, especially among furries. And thanks to him and his part of the restaurant being labeled as "Out of order", a lot of speculation and thought goes into his past and why he's been left this way.
  • Bizarrely enough, the googly-eyed cupcake in your office gets a lot of love from the fans due to how adorable it looks. Even stranger, the fan gets tons of fan attention as well despite being, you know, a fan.
• Epileptic Trees: Since the backstory leaves a lot of information up to the player's interpretation, there are tons upon tons of theories being cooked up by the game's large fanbase in regards to just about anything, no matter how mundane or slight.
• Fanon: Since Foxy isn't shown on stage with Freddy, Bonnie and Chica, fans have cooked up two popular theories as to what his role among the restaurant's characters is: he's either an antagonist who regularly bullies Freddy's posse so he can run off with their pizza, or a lovable storyteller who entertains children who visit Pirate's Cove with exciting tales about his seafaring adventures.
  • Speaking of Foxy, he was designated by the fans as being the culprit for the Bite of '87 thanks to his area being condemned, his loose jaw, and incredibly sharp teeth. At least until the second game came out, where it was revealed that he couldn't have been responsible for the bite as he would have been locked up whenever it happened. Instead, the blame has shifted to his female Toy Animatronic counterpart "Mangle".
  • Since the kitchen's camera feed is permanently down, there's no telling what Chica is eating in there. However, most fans assume that she's likely chowing down on something innocent such as leftover pizza.
• Genius Bonus: Those who are well-versed in music would recognize the music box tune that Freddy plays when he's about to kill you is from Carmen, a song about a man who loves his incredibly dangerous job where he combats creatures that want to kill him. It's fitting, considering Mike's job as the night watch in a place packed to the gills with killer animatronics.
• Goddamned Bats: Bonnie and Chica are this to Foxy and Freddy's Demonic Spiders. Bonnie isn't as difficult to deal with as Freddy, but he's still annoyingly persistent and aggressive, and will get the jump on you more than once thanks to how pushy he is. Chica while less aggressive is more likely to hang around outside of your right door longer than she needs to, which wastes precious power whenever you shut the door on her. They both especially become this on later nights thanks to them hanging around your doors for much longer than usual when you shut them.
• Hell Is That Noise: The animatronic's ear-piercing scream whenever they catch you. Dear god, that is a sound that will haunt your nightmares for weeks. Even worse, if you're able to listen to the full scream (it gets cut off at around the beginning), you'll realize that it sounds like a child's scream.
  • Golden Freddy's is even worse: his is the same scream made demonically low-pitched to the point to where it sounds like a roar.
  • If Bonnie or Chica gets into your office while you're occupied with the cameras, they'll make their presence known with an unsettling groaning noise.
  • Whenever Freddy is out and about, he'll belt out a disturbing deep laugh as he moves around the restaurant. Even worse is if you set his difficulty to 20, he'll stay on the move constantly which means that the pizzeria will be flooded with his horrible, horrible laughter.
  • After Night 4 where you hear the recorded message of the animatronics murdering Phone Guy, you wouldn't expect yet another phone call, right? Cue the phone ringing on Night 5, and horrific demon voices speaking to you through the telephone.
• Hype Backlash: Thanks to Youtubers like Pewdiepie and Markiplier helping the game receive a big popularity boost, people have gotten sick and tired of the game and its fans being everywhere. The incredibly odd behavior of a large portion of the fanbase probably doesn't help in the slightest.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Since he was absent from any and all promotional materials before the game's release, Foxy was a surprise for those who expected to only have to deal with Freddy and his bandmates. However, thanks to the fact that the game has received wide mainstream exposure and the power of his fanbase, Foxy's existence is pretty much common knowledge.
  • Golden Freddy doesn't have it quite as bad as Foxy, but you'll be hard pressed to see anyone who's still surprised by his presence in the game.
• Memetic Mutation: "Are you ready for Freddy?" and similar phrases regarding the game have become popular on 4chan and other such sites.
• Memetic Sex God: Yes, even this game isn't immune to having these. Every animatronic is considered this to some extent by some fans, to the point to where a surprisingly huge amount of porn for the game has been put out on the internet.
• Most Wonderful Sound: There is no better feeling than hearing the chimes signaling the transition from 5 to 6, signaling the end of the night. Even moreso if you know that an animatronic is juuuust about to kill you.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • Most of the fanbase's horny artists and twelve-year old roleplayers can really, really take off the game's edge for some.
  • While seeing Foxy tearing down the hallway will definitely make your heart stop as it means that you have barely a second to shut your door, his actual kill-screen is probably the least scary out of the animatronics. Mainly because unlike the others who get in your face while they scream at the top of their robotic, non-existent lungs, Foxy just kind of leans into the room and drops his jaw. Thanks to this, he comes off as goofy rather than threatening.
• Paranoia Fuel: There's not a feeling worse than scrolling through your cameras and not being able to find an animatronic. They could be in the kitchen which has no functioning camera, or they could be hanging around your office ready to slip in. In a worst case scenario though, they are in your office and will scream like a banshee whenever you look away from your monitor.
• Ron the Death Eater: A lot of fans have theorized that Mike Schmidt himself is the murderer who was behind the Missing Children Incident, and is taking up the night watch basically to rub it in to the ghosts of the children that he killed that he got away with his crimes. The second game makes this a bit more unlikely since it's a prequel, and the murders happened before Mike was ever at or near the Pizzeria. He's not completely ruled out mind you, but he's still less likely to be the killer.
  • This goes double for Phone Guy, even moreso thanks to a game over mini-game in the sequel that features one of the purple men (Likely avatars for the murderer) holding what appears to be a phone. Thankfully, the third game finally stomped out this theory as Phone Guy was killed before the murderer came back to the restaurant and died a gory death.
  • Jeremy Fitzgerald, on the other hand, has evidence stacked against him that he might be the murderer, if he wasn't taken out by the Bite of '87 that is.
• Self Fanservice: Lots of fanartists like to portray the animatronics as either non-scary, cuter animatronics than they are in the game or flat out sexy anthropomorphic animals. A bit odd that these are interpretations of bloodthirsty killer animatronics, but you know what they say about Rule 34...
• That One Level: Night 4 marks the game's true difficulty spike. Freddy truly becomes a threatening force from here on out as he seems to have analyzed your strategies and will counter them to the best of his ability with unpredictable movement patterns. The other animatronics don't let up either and have become a lot more threatening as well: they'll often start moving right when the night begins, and are generally more aggressive and persistent than usual.
• Ugly Cute: Thanks to his goofy looking face complete with half opened/closed eyes and his slack jaw, Foxy can be surprisingly adorable even when he kills you. The other animatronics can qualify to an extent, though not quite as much as the beloved pirate fox.
• Uncanny Valley: Thanks to the CG used for the animatronics, Freddy and friends look genuinely unnerving even when they aren't trying to kill you. Adults in-universe certainly share this opinion on them, but children still adore them despite their inherit scariness.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Bonnie and Chica caused a lot of this at the start, and still do to newcomers. While Chica's name is very indicative that she's a woman, there's nothing all that feminine about her appearance-wise (Unlike her very, very feminine looking Toy Animatronic counterpart in the sequel). Bonnie on the other hand has a name that is always used for girls, but is very bulky and almost muscular looking. Bonnie has been confirmed to be a male, but that still doesn't stop people from raising a stink over the issue.
  • Going off of a species spin on the trope, Chica has also been confused by many players for a duck instead of a baby chick. Like with her gender, her toy counterpart has features that make her species less ambiguous such as a more angular beak.
• The Woobie:
  • Poor, poor Mike Schmidt. The dude is stuck with a job where the slightest slip-up will grant him a truly horrifying death at the hands of the animatronics he's tasked with protecting that gets him a piss-poor paycheck at the end of the week. It's quite obvious that the job is wearing away at his sanity since he will start having terrifying hallucinations more often as the nights go by, and can survive a night while being right at death's doorstep if Freddy comes in while the power goes out. You can almost consider him getting fired as an act of cruel mercy: the fact that he sticks with the job after Night 1 implies that he NEEDS the money, but he no longer has to worry about getting slaughtered by scary animatronics.
  • This goes double for Phone Guy. Unlike Mike who at least gets his warnings about the animatronics in advance, he had to learn how to deal with them all by himself, and dies at the hands of the animatronics during his last night on the job. Even worse, the poor guy knows he's screwed, and he's trying to convince himself that his impending death won't be as painful as he thinks before he gets cut off.