Springtrap

Springtrap (born William Afton), colloquially known as the "Purple Guy", is a fictional character and the overarching antagonist of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. Introduced as a minor character in Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the character's role was significantly expanded in Five Nights at Freddy's 3 and subsequent installments, in which his children Elizabeth "Circus Baby", Vanessa "Vanny", and Michael respectively appear as antagonists and protagonists. A genius roboticist and businessman, William causes the death of several children over the course of the series while wearing a bunny rabbit mascot costume, binding their souls to animatronics in a quest for immortality. In Five Nights at Freddy's 3, William dies after being crushed inside an animatronic-costume, before possessing the suit as the undead cyborg Springtrap, returning in the sequels Sister Location, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, Help Wanted, and Security Breach, exploring William's relationship with Elizabeth and his eventual aim to bring about a society of A.I. as Glitchtrap/Burntrap.

PJ Heywood voices the character in the video game series, while Matthew Lillard portrays the character in the films Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) and Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025).

Development

Springtrap first appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 2 as a purple figure appearing in backstory minigames, causing him to be dubbed "Purple Guy", also appearing in Five Nights at Freddy's 3 as the main antagonist in the form of an undead corpse called Springtrap. He would later appear in Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, and Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach. In Ultimate Custom Night, Afton serves as the protagonist, with the player experiencing his never-ending nightmares as a malevolent entity keeps him alive to torment him for his crimes.

Fictional character biography

William Afton was a British businessman with ties to the robotics and restaurant industries. He founded Afton Robotics, providing animatronic robots for a pizza restaurant called Circus Baby's Pizza World. His daughter, Elizabeth Afton, would ignore his warnings and got too close to the titular Circus Baby animatronic, which killed her. Elizabeth would go on to possess Circus Baby.

William would later team up with Henry Emily in order to create Fredbear's Family Diner, and he [...] Henry's daughter Charlie. His youngest son would also die to an animatronic, Fredbear. Afton and Henry also founded Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, and in 1985 Afton [...] five children while dressed in a mechanical "springlock" suit of a yellow rabbit. He would then stuff their corpses into the restaurant's animatronic entertainers: Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie, Chica, and Golden Freddy.

After witnessing the spirits of the children he [...] possess the animatronic robots within the restaurant, he donned the yellow rabbit suit in an attempt to scare them away, but was killed due to the suit's faulty mechanics crushing him to death. Thirty years later, Afton returned as an undead corpse called Springtrap. The suit and his body were almost entirely destroyed in a fire, and his remains became a disfigured form called Scraptrap. After being once again burned by a fire engineered by his son Michael as well as Henry, his soul would then possess a microchip and begin to haunt an in-universe virtual reality video game as Glitchtrap, with his body surviving destruction once again and becoming Burntrap.

Afton is incapable of dying due to being eternally tormented by the spirit of Cassidy, one of the children he killed. She keeps Afton alive in order to [...] him with a recurring cycle in which he is continuously destroyed by his own creations.

In other media

Springtrap/William Afton appears as the main sntagonist of the feature film Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) and a minor character in its sequel Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025), portrayed by Matthew Lillard.

In the first film, William Afton is working as a job search helper under the name "Steve Raglan", who on his daughter Vanessa's advice, has taken to luring ‘undesirable’ young men to take off-the-books employment as security guards at the abandoned Freddy's restaurant for Afton to hunt as Springtrap, accompanied by his animatronics, possessed by the spirits of children Afton had killed as Springtrap in his youth. After regretting serving her father, Vanessa shoots him and leaves the Springtrap suit to kill him.

In the second film, the opening scene shows in 1982, Springtrap killed Vanessa's best friend Charlotte after she saved a younger child he planned on killing, Vanessa justifying the kills due to how the children's ghosts always remained behind due to something Afton was doing with them. In the present, regrets causing her fsther's death, Vanessa confronts her memory of him in her dreams, before dealing with her brother Michael seeking to continue their father's legacy while partnered with Charlotte's ghost, seeking to [...] all parents via her remotely-controlled animatronics. At the film's conclusion, after the ghosts of the children at Freddy's leave for the afterlife, Afton's spirit awakens in the Springtrap suit his corpse is locked in, just as it is being moved for use in a horror attraction.

Lillard will reprise the role in a third film, adapting the third game.

Reception

William Afton's role in the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise has been compared to that of Jigsaw in the Saw franchise; Slash Film described them each as the "puppet master behind all of the carnage" in their franchises. Afton has been described as "the only character throughout the series that doesn’t have any redeeming qualities" by Pocket Tactics.

Afton's character has received criticism, being described by Comic Book Resources as "roastable" due to his constant failures to achieve his goals and being defeated by "unremarkable" enemies. His return in Security Breach as Burntrap was described as "unnecessary" and "a slap in the face to Michael Afton’s character development" by The Slate, stating that his character should have ended in Pizzeria Simulator.

Screen Rant called the designs of Springtrap and Glitchtrap "terrifying", praising them for their fear factor, and the Gamer called Springtrap one of the best villains in horror games.