Authorial intent is the act of, rather than looking at the story itself, you focus on the author. Why did they write this, why did they act this way. That’s what I want to focus on, Scott Cawthon after the release of FNAF 4, and what that means for the story. Scott was, for lack of a better word, frustrated after FNAF 4. Think about the box, how he never gave us a concrete answer to what it was because no one got the complete story of the game. He gave MatPat the hint “why is little toy Chica missing her beak?” Well, I have an answer to both of those, CC doesn’t matter! He’s not Golden Freddy, Cassidy is! And he’s definitely not the Puppet, that title is Charlie’s. So in the grant scheme of things, who is he? Well, he’s the brother that Michael accidentally murdered. That’s why Scott was so frustrated. He didn’t mean to tell us about CC, but rather about Michael. It was Michael’s backstory. This was Scott trying to tell us “this is the boy you play as in the rest of the series, and this is why he spends over five nights at Freddy’s”. But, due to the lack of information at the time, no one understood. So he introduced William Afton as the Purple Guy in the books, then again in the games, and made his daughter the antag, as well as making another antag a representation of his wife. This game was supposed to make you connect the Afton’s to the protag of the series, make you realize that the protag is an Afton. But no one got it. So Scott threw his hands up and said “fine! I’ll just tell you!” And gave us the cutscenes after the SL custom nights, which gave us more information about Michael than anything. Michael turning purple isn’t actually him turning into a rotten corpse (how could he get a job as a corpse? Even if Fazbear Entertainment is garbage, he’s a corpse! That’s wayyyyy past the line) but rather to connect him to William, to the Afton’s. He even shares the same VA as William! Scott basically threw in our faces that Michael was an Afton, and the kids in FNAF 4 were Aftons as well (think about the empty girl’s room, which SL gives us an answer to), therefore Michael = Foxybro = MC. Then he finally closes it off with FNAF 6 (ah satiating FNAF 6 ending, I miss you), giving us Henry’s line about his “brave volunteer” wanting to die in the fire. And I think that’s what finally put the FNAF fandom in agreement about Michael (at least, the FNAF fandom can’t agree on much, so Scott still needed more confirmation in Fazbear’s Frights since MatPat thought Michael was CC as a robot). I mentioned earlier the line “why is little toy Chica missing her beak?” She’s missing her beak because the cutscenes aren’t even from CC’s POV, they’re from Michael’s, how he remembers his little brother, and how he remembers himself. CC is, frankly, a little bit too much of a crybaby to be realistic. And yes, this is a game, so I might be looking to far into it, but CC never stops crying, even when the Fredbear plush tries to comfort him. And about the Fredbear plush, I don’t think it’s William talking to him or a spirit, I think Michael saw CC with the plushie all the time, and interpreted it as an object of comfort for him, that’s why it’s literally everywhere, Michael remembers CC bringing it with him everywhere. And how does Michael look back at himself? With nothing but hatred. He sees himself as the older brother who lives for nothing but torment (we don’t get any scenes of Michael being nice until CC is dying). And he’s afraid of his younger self (think about how many YouTubers jumped at the Foxybro jumpscares). And the gameplay? That’s William punishing Michael, and that’s why we see it in SL. So why is little toy Chica missing her beak? Because Michael Afton has already been Fritz Smith, and the image of Toy Chica without her beak is burned into his mind. I believe almost to complete certainty that the first concept of the box was something connecting FoxyBro to the FNAF protags.