Forum Thread

A part of the animatronics' systems allegedly malfunctioning is a part of the Human spirits battling the Robot programming. The way Phone Guy phrases it in FNaF 1, robots wouldn't act out random programs like they do in one, even if they do think you're a naked endoskeleton. They wouldn't purposefully seek you out and jumpscare you, they would sit and run on stage, and if they did wander a bit, and found you, they wouldn't try to grab the night-guard's attention at all, they would just grab you. Freddy actually seems to play with you. Laughing, taunting you. Why would any of the animatronics ever need inside the kitchen either? Why would they bang around in cupboards? They are absolutely the children, maybe still not understanding, trying to act like children and eat or play. Bonnie seems to be the youngest, first awake and most curious, and Foxy probably wants attention, like a kid who was grounded and isolated from his friends.
And to extend this, can I just say something about the Marionette? (This one's long, I apologize)
I've played a lot of table-top RPGs in recent times, and Blood Magic is a popular element.
In one particular gaming series, Shadowrun (and its sister series Earthdawn), Blood Magic is an especially important magical element. Usually it stops players from doing things like cutting open their fallen allies’ bodies or fallen enemy’s bodies for augmentations or for magical components and or enchanted gear. Basically, most RPGs with this element have a sort of counter. Certain actions give a bigger stain, lead to more corruption (because it’s technically Necromancy), and make you more visible on the astral plane. Spirits, Gods, Demons, Dragons, the whole nine yards of big bad bullies of magic can see EVERYTHING you have ever done to anyone in this stain. It is described as a deep darkness around the aura of the person's soul, and if enough of this corruption is within the soul, it can begin to show outwardly as well. Some types of spirits are more attracted to this, mainly angels and demons.
Six kids, possibly more, murdered, in cold blood, promptly stuffed into suits. Children at an age where innocence is entirely intact. And then, don't the news articles say that someone was convicted? He's also at fault for sending an innocent man to jail, and in 2 we hear about him messing with the machines and causing more suffering through the bite of '87. I wouldn't be surprised if a spiritual entity took up a position where it could watch him, we think we know he was an employee. The prize corner would be an ideal spot if this spirit was good or bad, Good because it could watch over more of the kids (cause let's face it, there are pity prizes there for the kids who were bad at the ring toss), and ensure that their attention was held elsewhere and couldn't be taken away, and for a bad spirit so that it could watch the Purple Man's actions with only part of the group of kids. I think this is why we sometimes see Golden Freddy as Purple, it’s not just the representation of Purple Man, but showing that the stain stayed behind in this suit.

I think, with the FNaF 3 minigames (for the good ending), the spirit within the Marionette is proven to be good. The first child murdered was probably not the Marionette, and I think that child haunted the Purple Man himself, sticking to him with the stain. The Marionette’s possessor entered just before the murder of the next five, possibly trying to prevent it, and coming in too late. The spirit that is the Marionette tried to save their youth by putting them in a source of their happy memories while they were stuck in limbo, before they began to understand what had happened so that they would still feel safe in the presence of the animatronics.
The first child murdered might have gotten confused when he followed the purple man back into the restaurant. If the establishment is built over the first one, a part of the stain from his own death would be there, and he might have gotten lost, haunting BB, thus why he acts different, and why he may not be able to attack you. The spirit is still weak, since it hasn’t had a very long time to learn what he can do yet, so he just messes with you (explained more bellow). After the murders, this child may have mistaken the darkness around the Golden Freddy suit for the Purple Man's since he was both in it and did a terrible thing inside similar to his first deed, effectively "staining" the suit and letting the first child possess it, which is why Golden Freddy is so rare, and usually appears night 6, after the incident as we learned from Phone Guy. By now the first child has had plenty of time to understand that they are in fact, dead, and are probably none too happy about having their lives taken away. But with little they can do about it, they effectively sit and simmer in the corruption of the suit.

Fast forward to a while after the events of FNaF2. Almost all of the old suits (Excepting Spring Trap, because he was a dangerous animatronic to move, and/or too heavy) were pulled out of storage and polished up, getting rid of (temporarily) the element of the Marionette's control over the children's emotions and temper, and exposing them to the child who has been left alone to simmer in the suit. The company, still covering up the deaths, are quick to take out the old endoskeletons and replace them with newer, lighter models, with updated technology and without the attachment to the criminal database, at the request of a certain employee (Not really proven, but hey, it's possible, right? Phone Guy's been there forever). The first few weeks seem fine, with the animatronics wandering around normally, and it seems like everything is normal. The children, who have been speaking to the other child haunting the building, begin to get restless. Freddy, who isn't necessarily the oldest, but the first of the five secondary murders to come to terms with death, has been keeping an eye on the others in place of the Marionette, who is either at a separate location, or in one of the sealed back rooms. The cut scenes we see in between nights in FNaF 2 is Freddy choosing a side, between the Golden Freddy's plans for revenge against the company, and the Marionette trying to help them pass on. Eventually, he gives in to Golden Freddy, and they go attack the Phone Guy, who was probably on second shift (There is no way a kid's place closes at midnight; second shift is usually 3pm to 11pm).

Note how I said Golden Freddy's revenge against the company? The spirits of the children had probably already killed the Purple Man before they were taken from storage. In the minigames, no matter what happens, Spring Trap is created. But if you manage to go through all the work, and the Marionette succeeds in its quest to calm the children, you set them free, Golden Freddy stops there, FNaF 1 happens, but in a very boring, toned down way, and poor Mr. Whoever of Freddy's Fright is forced into a suit on Halloween to scream "BOO!" for eight hours a day, and Spring Trap is a grotesque reminder of the truth.
As we know, this isn't true. Golden Freddy, the first child to suffer, isn't going to let the soul of the person who made him suffer rest, ever. He wants Spring Trap to suffer just as much as he did. He wants the Purple Man to suffer just as much as he did.
I think the hallucinations in FNaF 3 are because of Golden Freddy . Look at the spite and absolute hate that are in his expression as he watches you from the stained suit in corner of your office. If Freddy's Fright burns, like Mike or Jeremy (us) wants it to, if it all ends, then the Purple Man will get off free in this child's opinion. To this child, you are helping Spring Trap, you are on his side, you are trying to end his pain, and he won't understand it any other way.
Balloon Boy and the other hallucinations are maybe representative of what the Golden Freddy child has lost. Balloon boy represents the loss of hope, and the disaster itself. Think about it, he mocks you like Freddy does and when you think he's gone he comes back and takes your only defense against the biggest threats in FNaF2 (poetic irony that he's your only defense against Spring Trap in 3). Maybe BB's voice is the first child's voice, an EMP caught by the cameras and left to urban legend like the rest of the franchise. It’s the voice of the child who originally damned the Purple Man, maybe that's why he's so attracted to it, he knows that if he can find the kid and either get him to let him die, or make the Golden Freddy kid pass on.
This is where people were helping me fill in holes:
I’ll explain the puppet a little better first. I think that the Golden Freddy in FNaF 3 is trying to stop you at all costs, of course, and assuming that each animatronic hallucination is a representation of something from the child, to him the Marionette would be on par with Purple Guy, using the same logic as him disliking you as a staff member, which is why the Marionette's hallucination has his eyes. I think as of FNaF 2, the Marionette may be still getting a grasp on the situation. In the games I used for reference, which have a lot in common with other ideas on visions of the future, all the puppet/Marionette would have had to go on is a very vague picture of the events, possibly with very little color. If we use the picture of the staff member we have from the kid's uniforms, we know that the uniform is a purpley-mauve, and the Marionette had a few candidates to choose from. I think that FNaF 2 is the Marionette trying to make sense of what's going on, he's still half in between the astral plane and being physical (not the actual animatronic, the spirit in it mind you) so that he can still predict things going on. The mass murder seems to happen during FNaF 2 (before night 5 I believe, if I'm remembering right), so the children aren't in the suits yet, so maybe FNaF 2 is when the Marionette tries to eliminate employees or figure out who is the most likely to be Purple Guy, as he would probably assume that the Purple Guy would be rather cocky around the animatronics and know how to work them all, which is why he doesn't simply murder you outright and waits for the music box to stop, meaning you left your post and are going to try something. I don't think the mask hallucination that floats in front of your face is real, but I do think that there is some epic show-down between the Marionette and the Golden Freddy we don't see, because as 8bit posted in a vid, when you see him before the hallucination he looks perfectly fine, but I don't think he's looking at the gifts. I think the Marionette is trying to find the child, and he seems to be looking right into the Cam 7 room.
Next up is how the kid stuck with Purple Guy. If we are still using the RPG example, there are cases of (in the games I mention anyway) spirits that haven't moved on because there's no closure, or the environment doesn't allow for it. I say that he stuck with the Purple Man because I don't think he would have known where else to go. He seemed like he was a bullied child, being left out of the party in the Give Cake minigame, and judging by the clear shock on his face, and the amount of time it took for the event to happen, the Purple Man was probably a friend of some sort. Maybe family, but I doubt at this moment in time he would have been an employee, as the kid probably hadn't been inside the restaurant to know them.

With BB, if the murders happened during FNaF 2, and not before, then maybe it's proof that the child and the Purple Man have been/are in the building. Who knows how many people have died, since we assume that the training tapes were before 2, meaning that an incident happened in the backrooms (something about a sister location, that we know isn't this one because Phone Guy is currently working at our restaurant) and there would be that stain of death over the building, which could confuse the child. The child would mess with you from there, because he may assume the same as the Marionette does, and may think you are the Purple Man, since he'd still be a fairly young and weak spirit, and because he is such a weak spirit he may not have the power yet to completely attack you outright, only force you to lose to the Marionette. Sitting in the Golden Freddy costume for decades would have given him a lot more control over what was going on.

I think that if we believe that the good ending never should have happened, then the Marionette wouldn't have been able to free the GF child, which we see in the Marionette's minigame if we haven't gone through all of the trouble with convincing the other kids to help before they leave. I
As for the animatronic's mechanisms, I didn't mention it a lot. I think during the day that the mechanisms do over-ride the children for the most part. Why they didn't work properly day 6 as the phone-guy said, I think that may have been part of the bite of '87, them either trying to get help or lashing out in confusion. The Marionette may have explained to them or they may have found out for themselves that it was easier to move at night because the animatronics didn't have functions and were left running. After they learned that, being kids and all, they may have worn themselves down at night and become practically nocturnal. They may not have "slept" per say, but they may have thought they were if they hadn't come to terms with everything yet, making them inactive and safe at day.
If Freddy was the first to come to terms with what was going on, that could explain the "don't touch Freddy" rule. After the move may have been when he had become aware now that I think about it. The kid, possibly more of a teen or adult by now, would have been disoriented and confused, his body different, location different, and in this he may have lashed out instinctually.

And as for the “missing child” that someone pointed out to me, maybe one of them possessed Spring Trap first, before moving on with the others (excluding GF). Purple Man seemed to slip into it quickly, so it must have been already locked open for a person, and Phone Guy mentions someone moved it. Maybe the reason why we only see five kids in the minigame is because #6 is the suit itself. The spring locks, which were allegedly so sensitive the small amount of moisture from simply breathing on them was enough to make them snap, so how did they stay open in the rotting building? It isn't until after the Purple Man begins taunting the children that the locks let loose.

I honestly think Phone Dude is the blue-jean green-shirt kid, and he burned the building down after Mangle started putting itself back together. No random person would have the Mangle, and he obviously has the money to buy him, having land for a haunted house (which usually take up entire mall lots that are about 3 1/2 acres), and running a salvage crew. Maybe he didn't actually believe in all the rumors of the incidents and saw it as a way to get money until Mangle started piecing together night 2, and he didn't want Spring Trap to get out. If we assume Mangle held a special place to him, he may have meant to keep it instead of put it where people could steal it. He probably never saw Spring Trap in person, because unless laws change DRAMATICALLY in the next couple years, a dead body is a big enough health risk (not to mention murder charges on the establishment) to permanently shut it down. Maybe he looked at the pictures closer after Mangle and discovered the body, didn't tell you anything ‘cause he didn't want you to tell anyone. Thus why you didn't get paid, thus why we never hear from him again. Cause why would he tell anyone that Mangle was "alive"? They'd think he was trying to market his haunted house.