gregory isn't as bad as you think.
(MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SECURITY BREACH RUINS DLC!)
with the ending of the ruins, while most people have come to the conclusion that gregory wasn't the one to toss cassie down that elevator, some were simply convinced that despite not being the one to originally trick cassie into coming down to the ruins, he was still the one who cut the elevator line, potentially killing cassie. & i think part of that has to do with the misconceptions about gregory.
a lot of people out there just don't like gregory, & are convinced that he's an irredeemable little shit. this is mainly because of his behaviour in the first sb game. lots of people think he's the scum of the earth for destroying freddy's friends & using them for upgrades, & while i agree he shouldn't have done that, it's pretty easy to understand why gregory did that. you, my friend with mommy issues, might be overly emotionally attached to roxy because you've seen what roxy is actually like. but gregory most probably has never even been to the pizzaplex before.
oh, & don't forget that these animatronics can physically be restored even after 'dying'... a human child cannot. that's right, that's all that gregory is. a child. i, a 15 year old, would freak out quite badly in this situation, personally, so i'm quite impressed with how calm gregory managed to keep himself. but what he was showing on the outside doesn't change what he must've been feeling on the inside. fear. i mean, let's be real guys, gregory has to be no older than 11, though he does look as young as 9 [though judging by his snarky personality, plus his similar looks to c.c., i don't think he's younger than 9, thus placing him in the 9-11 age range].
this does somewhat factor into why some people don't like gregory: his personality. gregory is quite snarky, sarcastic & rough around the edges, but he's not the sociopath some people paint him out to be. god, guys, this kid is living out on the streets! bro is definitely an orphan! & speaking of gregory living out on the streets, we don't even know how long gregory has been fending for himself. while he probably hasn't been on the streets themselves for that long [he is pretty clean-looking, after all], gregory probably doesn't have any true family [at least, before he met gregory (& vanessa if we count the princess quest ending)], or anyone who truly cares for him at all [not counting cassie, who's probably his only real friend]. so is it a shocker that gregory is the way he is? he acts selfishly because no one else was around to be selfish & look after him on his behalf. & as hard as freddy tries, poor papa-bear doesn't do the best job of making sure gregory doesn't fucking die in the middle of the night, lol.
...oh, & also, coming back to the 'destroying animatronics' part, some people (well i only saw one person use this theory in their fnaf gacha vid... don't judge me for watching that stuff guys, 2023 fnaf gacha is actually good, & 10x as entertaining-) actually think that gregory might've arrived at the destroyed pizzaplex once he figured out what was going on, only to figure out that cassie had released the mimic, & then gregory, having to choose between saving his best friend & saving countless lives from the mimic, ended up dropping the elevator with cassie in it.
while this is a way more plausible & reasonable theory, i still don't think gregory was in the pizzaplex at all, because i simply don't think he could've gotten to the line the elevator was hanging by... at least, i don't think he could've gotten there in time. as far as we know, the elevator line would be practically inaccessible for a human with no tools. it's a lot more likely that the mimic cut gregory off in the middle of his sentence (this game in particular was basically set on tricking cassie & the player on who was the real gregory the entire time, so even at the end, it was likely that steel wool would try to do this again. an amazing literary technique, if you ask me!), especially since the files contain two voicelines overlapping for that particular moment.
besides, we've already established that gregory is a tad more self-centred compared to other kids. who's to say gregory wouldn't be more focussed on cassie than the mimic here? gregory didn't give a damn about the animatronics, & while they may be a special case (considering that the animatronics can actually be physically fixed & recovered, & that gregory thought the technicians would just shut down the pizzaplex for a while to fix said animatronics), i think it's fully possible that gregory would pick cassie over all these random strangers. other than freddy, cassie is probably the only person gregory has ever truly bonded/connected with. cassie is one of the most important people in gregory's life, & gregory. she's probably like a sister to him, so why would gregory pick multiple strangers over one of the few people he considers family?
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TL;DR (still kinda long, to be honest, but this part does flow well & is shorter, so stick around to read this because this is the part where the post actually makes sense!)
in conclusion, what i've been tryna say this whole time is that gregory isn't a sociopath, he's a homeless kid with no family, & it's funny (in an upsetting sort of way) how some of y'all are literally painting him as a bad person for destroying the animatronics when the real villain of fnaf is literally supposed to be william afton himself, & here y'all are, victim-blaming a fucking 9-11 year old who lives on the streets.
& yes, once again, i'm gonna repeat that while i do agree gregory should not have destroyed the animatronics (especially since they've legit been freddy's friends his entire life, rip dude), it's understandable why he did so. gregory wanted to upgrade freddy so the poor guy could actually have a better chance of surviving the night (remember that save points are probably not canon, so gregory is actually a kid who is only managing to survive the night thanks to pure luck. he can't take any risks here!).
he's also just a young boy, no older than my own little brother (who'd totally freak out & not handle the situation as well as gregory did), & while gregory may act like a little shit/brat, it isn't his fault as he probably didn't have many positive role models growing up & had to fend for himself (maybe on a more emotional/metaphorical level when he was younger, as he does not seem to have been homeless for a long time).
& once again, gregory is a self-centred child who'd definitely pick saving his best friend's life over dozens (& potentially even hundreds) of people. after all, he's a kid who probably cannot comprehend the consequences of doing this, he & cassie are like 9-11 & despite his experiences, gregory probably still can't fully comprehend the idea of death, being just a young boy. (cassie is a different case since she basically saw roxy die-)
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....another TL;DR because the TL;DR is hella long- (this time i'm putting it in dot-points for those of you who are mentally incapable of reading huge slabs of text. still kinda a lot to swallow but bare with me here guys-)
gregory is not a sociopath: he's just had a hard life (you can't tell me he hasn't, while we don't know what he's been through, bro's definitely been through a hard life if he's on the streets instead of in an orphanage-) & this affects his behaviour. his age & maturity (he acts a bit like an edgy 13 year old, in my opinion-) also factors into this behaviour.
gregory only destroyed the animatronics because they were literally gonna kill him. (he believed that the technicians would shut down the pizzaplex for a couple of weeks to fix the animatronics, once the employees found the animatronics)
however, just because he destroyed the animatronics does not mean gregory would kill cassie in cold blood like how some of y'all believe he did. cassie is gregory's best friend, while gregory was probably meeting monty, roxy & chica for the first time, & therefore didn't have any bond with them. plus, once again, cassie is alive, she cannot be 'brought back' the same way the animatronics can.
gregory's also established to be self-centred, & would definitely choose to save cassie, regardless of the consequences (since the mimic would definitely escape if gregory got cassie out of the ruined pizzaplex).
there are probably a few more things i could choose to say in gregory's defence, but this post is getting too long & confusing. until then, i recommend watching this video which was supposed to be related, except i forgot to write the material relating to it! (still a good, reliable & interesting video though-):
i now remember the material i was gonna type regarding this video! while there was something i was going to say in regards to the different possible endings (i forgor what it was now-), i do remember now that i was going to mention how some people believe gregory to be patient 48 (or whatever that number was, i forgor & i don't feel like cross-checking, so feel free to correct me!).
it's a well-known fact by now that patient 49 is most definitely being controlled/manipulated by glitchtrap. although people originally believed patient 48 to be vanessa/vanny, this is now proven to be false... or something like that, idk i don't keep that up-to-date with game theory's fnaf videos-
but anyways, most people these days actually believe gregory to be patient 49. part of this is to do with the fact that we don't know where gregory came from. while cassie talks about her dad all the time, gregory doesn't mention anything from the past, not even cassie. so for all we know, matpat's theory is correct & glammike, elizabeth!vanny/vanessa, & gregory = robot!c.c. are all canon-
but back on topic, because they believe that gregory is patient 49, many people believe that gregory would kill cassie in cold blood, or at least kill her in the name of saving people. but that's where you're wrong.
if you've watched the video above, you'd have probably heard how id fantasy (the creator, & a brilliant fnaf theorist if you ask me! she's right up there with matpat, tbh, imagine matpat but simplified & you'll get her videos!) theorised how gregory was most probably under glitchtrap's influence at one point or another (thus backing up the whole 'gregory is patient 48' theory).
however, something that most people forget is that anyone under glitchtrap's influence is forced to stay there if they want to live. vanessa did not want to be vanny, but she would've suffered a fate worse than death if she refused. after all, as we can see in the 'no' ending of fnaf: help wanted, the main character is just trapped in the game forever, even if they did 'win' against glitchtrap. once you pick the game up, there's simply no escape. i, too, would give up & let glitchtrap win the same way vanessa did, if i found out what the alternative is, & that there was literally no way to come out alive.
while, i, too, am not quite sure how gregory got his hands on the game or got under glitchtrap's influence, if we were to go with the 'gregory is patient 48' theory, i hope this explains the piled allegations against him. though frankly, i believe the 'elizabeth is patient 48 theory' way more.
