The groomer allegory in the FNAF 2 movie
Obviously CW for discussions of child abuse, and movie spoilers I guess. It feels somehow very silly and also very appropriate to put this warning on a blogpost talking about Five Nights at Freddyâs
To preface:
- I was a huge fan of FNAF when I was young, my interest waned after the 2nd game and has been on and off since then.
- I am completely biased towards these movies. I donât consume them objectively as horror movies but rather indulgently as self-insert fan fiction (Abby MOVE OVER. Itâs my turn to hug the animatronics)
I already had my suspicions in the first movie, the way Vanessa Afton continuously beats around the bush about her relation to William Afton, the fact that it takes so much for her to turn on her dad despite him being a comically evil villain. I jokingly thought âwow, I canât believe the FNAF movie has an allegory for grooming in itâ.
Then I watched the second movie and my thoughts were basically confirmed.
The dream sequence, where William comments on how she was his favourite, was what solidified the idea in my head. Until a certain age praise from your parents is everything in the world, and children will do anything for their parents. It's an easy manipulation tactic to make you feel special, like they respect you, that's why you both get to share something no one else has. The small detail is that itâs not just about making you feel special, itâs about making the relationship feel special too.
You do what he tells you to do, horrible things even, but moreso you donât stop him because youâre afraid to lose what left you have with him.
Vanessaâs attachment to her family probably doesnât make sense if you donât take this perspective, because only a child who canât connect the hurt they feel to the one that loves them would stick around for as long as she did. Itâs her dad, after all, and sheâll always be his child.
The âhaunted by their past abuserâ trope is as cliche as it is real. Itâs ironic that the adult main character is the better representation of a victim of child abuse than the murdered children. I like it actually, that it takes effort for her to leave him, that she isnât instantly cured of his influence even after killing him herself.
It feels corny to say but that last scene where Mike tells her to stay away kind of got me. The first person you trust hurts you in ways you canât understand, and while youâre stuck undoing all of that and struggling to make sense of it, you unintentionally turn others away too.
To be clear, Iâm not saying Vanessa is well written. William Aftonâs character is too dramatic to have any subtlety, and any nuance in their relationship is mostly my hallucination. It probably wouldn't have fit anyway in the 2 movies that are already heavy with exposition. Iâm not saying the shoe fits. But like, the shoe isnât not there.
I already have baseline appreciation for the writers and directors for coming up with a narrative based off a game that mainly consists of sitting at a desk and jumpscares. I think it wouldâve been really easy also to overcompensate for the docile tragic figure Vanessa is in the game and make her this girlboss strong female that helps Mike. Iâm glad that she not only gets to be a main character but a somewhat compelling one as well.
Urrrrh other thoughts about FNAF 2⌠I do think itâs Actually better than the first. I liked the way they included the resource management aspect of the game by giving Mike an actual task to complete so he canât just have the mask on all the time, in the first movie it definitely just felt like he was spending Five Nights at Freddyâs. Idk Iâm just geeked out over this movie lol, this must be what the sonic movies were like for sonic fans.