FNaF's cartoonish anticapitalist theming became most interesting in 3. The employees are made to wear "springlock suits", costumes obviously made with no regard for the comfort or safety of the wearer. When dressing and undressing (or when bleeding out), employees must go to the "safe room", which is always off-camera. Furthermore, as we learned in FNaF1, Fazbear Entertainment does not report deaths; only "missing persons", within 90 days. These are the factors which align to create the opportunity for the missing children incident. Whether these policies were intentionally put in place by Afton, who we now know to be a co-owner, is left in the air.
Capturing Desire
"All that's left is family."
What does Afton want? What does he desire? The obvious answer is control. Look at his behavior. The children are killed, their bodies stuffed, their spirits bound. The mind-body coupling is destroyed, and the mind is recoupled to a more suggestable vessel. In the process, the mind is broken, or reconfigured. Remember the drawing: Perception, and by extension, desire, is channelled toward Afton's own means. All things must be de- and re-constructed as a part of his creation, to "become more". ("Becoming more" is the defining feature of capital.)
Afton's fixation with crafting a perfect family places him cleanly in the role of the Oedipal father. Mommy <- Daddy x- Me ; objet a <- other x- desire ; happiest day <- Afton x- children. The children are cut off from liberation by the intervention of the big-A Afton, trapped in a nostalgic fantasy. Readers of Anti-Oedipus recognize this model as an instantiation of the despotic code, appropriated by the capitalist machine in order to channel desire. Afton's unemotional gaze sees all things, people, even spirits, as objects to be used, interchangeably, in terms of their ability to further his own means.
This is all particularly interesting with regard for Afton's obsession with BV, who can be likened to the Lacanian Real, the unspeakable traumatic unconscious underlying reality. He is, in a similar sense, the Deleuzoguattarian schizophrenic subject (in space moreso than time), a body without organs. After his death, he has no concrete form, he isn't bounded to any particular territory which can be simply reconfigured. How, then, can Afton appropriate him? A challenge, it would seem, one that he takes up diligently, as is seen in his private room.
"We are still your friends. Do you still believe that?"
The fluid must be discretized, coarse-grained, 'chunked up' into "pieces", in accordance with Ashby's law of requisite variety. The flows, be they divergent, are nonetheless eventually, after careful study, captured, territorialized by Afton's creation. This is ultimately achieved through BV's attachment to merchandise, branded characters posing as his "friends". He is finally tugged along and integrated via the fantasy of being cared for, and then used as a tool for further integration.
Becoming More
Clearly, for much of the fanbase, it is easier to imagine the end of FNaF then the end of William Afton. This is not entirely wrong: though the Afton reproduced is no longer the Afton observed, it is still a direct continuation of his role. He's dead in a lake; nonetheless, he comes back. This can be understood as a shedding of the human, the liberated capitalism prophesied by Nick Land. For semantic convenience, I will refer to this new Afton by its more common name: "The Mimic".Like Afton, Fazbear Entertainment was dead. Then, its corpse was dug up, stitched back together, and reanimated. "No longer a corporate entity" my ass. They are the embodiment of all things hauntological. Despite the ever increasing breadth of tragedy, the apparent impossibility of reclaiming their family-friendly image, the scale of the company is only accelerating. The building that burned down is replaced by a yet bigger building.
"[...] there is no distinction to be made between the destruction of capitalism and its intensification. The auto-destruction of capitalism is what capitalism is. [...] Capital revolutionizes itself more thoroughly than any extrinsic 'revolution' possibly could." (Nick Land)
What is this revolution, exactly?
Mimic-as-capitalism is an even easier sell. Its creation and corruption is a product of Edwin's business, which has taken over his time and energy, leaving him unable to show love to his son. Its continued application is a product of Fazbear Entertainment's careless expansion. It has no concrete structure - easily taking on whatever form necessary to lure in new prey, claiming all identities as its own. It is mass-produced. It "infects" all that it touches. It observes, learns, reproduces, and controls. To quote Land again, "Capitalism is artificial intelligence."
Gone is Afton's jealousy, cowardice, and inhibition. Afton patiently pulled his strings, waiting for the circumstances to align, and then carefully lured children out of view before taking their life. The Mimic simply kills. Easy peasy, got it. Not that it doesn't ever make use of elaborate luring tactics, but it does so impatiently.
It will be interesting to see where this will take us.