i know this piece was mostly inspired by your own experiences while playing through, but the composition in this piece is so intriguing to me that i came up with an analysis and my own interpretation for it, based on SOTM’s story. (spoilers for its lore though, read this after finishing the game, in case you mind it…)
SORRY FOR THE LONG ASF ANALYSIS ON IT, I JUST LOVED THIS ART SO MUCH!!
in the image, arnold holds a star orphan close to him, as if he was hugging it. its specifically the one that most resembles a baby, for it has a pacifier. it glows brightly, trying to disrupt the darkness in the room and of this situation that arnold finds himself in, completely tired and almost giving up his hope, as seen by the tear in his hopeless expression. its as if the star orphan wanted to comfort arnold's mind and keep him awake with all this light, to give him strength to keep up and confront tiger, despite arnold feeling tired and sad.
there are scrapped voicelines of arnold’s introduction in which he mentions his family, his parents died and he only had his wife and a kid, but she left arnold. he mentions he hasn't seen his child in a long time in the dialogue, either due to fazbear entertainment overworking him to death or due to his wife not allowing him to see his kid. arnold is a neglectful father to his kid, due to circumstances out of his control, but still neglectful.
anyway, i like to interpret that the star orphan could be a stand-in for arnold’s child, who he misses and hopes to meet again. this desire gives him strength to overall keep going, despite his life being a complete mess and him feeling abandoned by everyone else. thinking about the only person that still loves and cares about him comforts his mind, for this child is his dearest. but arnold cannot face tiger, because tiger frightens him and could kill him.
its implied that tiger is a paranormal entity, either an agony creature, made straight out of m2’s intense suffering due to edwin’s abuse and neglect or david murray’s spirit, edwin’s son himself.
either way, white tiger is the embodiment of the pain a neglected child goes through, so tiger is not only a physical threat to arnold, but also a psychological one, because he ultimately represents what arnold imagines his child must be feeling without him. tiger is a reminder of arnold’s complete failure as a parent and how he is as well failling with the only one that he still loved, thats why he is so afraid of this creature to a point of getting consumed by a complete sadness and hopelessness, just by staying behold its presence, no matter how much he tries to look away from it.
but the star orphan keeps shining bright, smiling even, it looks directly to the viewer, which by the painting’s perspective is in the forward direction. the star shine symbolizes hope for arnold. he can't give in right now, not now that he has come so far, his kid is waiting for him and needs him. maybe if he survives this hell of a nightmare, he will be able to see his dear kid again, or at least thats what he and the star expect.
additional things considering this interpretation:
its really cute how arnold, a man that has been completely abandoned (or at least he was supposed to, given the scrapped voicelines) is bonding with a star ORPHAN, an abandoned child, to find comfort from a spirit that also represents an abandoned kid.
arnold dies if he keeps starring directly at tiger for too long. white tiger acts a lot like golden freddy, who has been show to kill by messing with people's mind. under this interpretation that tiger could represent arnold's worry of failling his kid, if arnold stares too long at it, he may start to overthink and feel immense guilty over it, realizing he is a complete failure of a man that his child doesnt deserve as a father and could never feel proud of, thus falling completely into desperation and depression and killing himself or dying by white tiger's secret fabulous powers.
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