Frailty

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Tales from the Pizzaplex #1

By: Scott Cawthon, Kelly Parra, & Andrea Waggener

*This post contains spoilers for Frailty & other stories from Five Nights at Freddy’s Tales from the Pizzaplex

Overview:

On a dark and stormy night an EMT is trying to save a driver who was in a car accident. The EMT believes him to be gone but afternoon seeing a strange figure hovering over the boy comes back to life.

A little bit later, Jessica is working her cleaning shift at the children’s hospital. Quickly it is determined that Jessica is fourteen, keeps to herself and is the figure that secretly brought the boy back to life.

Jessica uses a locket that was once heart shaped to help others. By shaving some of the locket off she is able to cure those who are sick. The locket was once heavy but now dwindles.

The next day in school, Jessica is asked to be science partners with a new boy named Robert. Robert isn’t aware of Jessica’s loner persona and seems to genuinely want to get to know her. Jessica keeps Robert at arms length.

Her background slowly comes into focus and we learn that she is staying in an old crypt. There is no evidence that she has any family.

At her next shift at the hospital, Nurse Macy stops Jessica to make a point about all the patients that are improving and that Jessica is beginning to not look so well. She also notices that her necklace has gotten smaller. That same day a new patient named April, who is about her age briefly chats with her.

Robert shows Jessica parts he salvaged from the junk yard to build a robot for class. Jessica has hesitation touching anything from the junk yard but wills herself to do so and nothing immediately comes of it. It is implied that this has something to do with the fact that metal objects seem to appear on the floor when Jessica is around.

Nurse Macy continues to be suspicious as one young patient talks about the angel that made him better. She also follows trails of metal objects scattered around the hospital and hopes to find the culprit.

Jessica has a moment of struggle when Robert asks her to go to the Prom with him. She goes to the hospital Chapel for guidance and speaks to the Priest. Jessica insinuates that she is paying for something she did in the past and doesn’t know if she deserves to have anything good in her life or to ask for anything. The Priest tells Jessica that she can’t expect to help others if she doesn’t help herself.

On the advice if the Priest, April and Nurse Macy, Jessica decides to go to the prom. By making this decision Jessica cannot heal April. She tells the reader that her choice to have some normal life prevents her from helping.

The day of Prom, April takes a turn for the worse. Jessica questions her decision and is wracked with guilt for her life seeming to move forward. Small signs start to appear that for the first time in a long time, Jessica may want a life for herself.

However, her decision quickly sours when at Prom, Robert attempts to kiss her and when he pulls back oil is covering his face. Other students begin to stop and stare at her as she runs away to the hospital.

Bursting through the door with metal parts scattering behind her, Jessica locks herself in April’s room and scraps her locket. Nurse Macy and others attempt to get through the door but once they do all that is left is a pile of metal objects.

Repenting for Past Mistakes

There is a heavy theme of repenting and paying for your sins. Jessica lives her life in an almost religious way. She only has the bare minimum and does not allow herself to have any sort of selfish pleasure. She doesn’t even allow herself casual human interactions.

We are never told what the reason is for her repenting. My take from the book is that she has always been a mechanical girl. She was somehow created with the Five Nights at Freddy’s magic with a part of her able to heal humans. That part is a heart necklace or her actual heart. By shaving off pieces of it she is slowly killing herself.

Why does she feel the need to do this? I’m not sure. We know that the robots created in this universe tend to be nefarious so possibly this is a robot who questions their own reality and wants to help humans after making them suffer for so long. It is also possible that Jessica knows she will never be a real human and chooses to sacrifice herself. She seems to believe in religion so maybe this is the only way she sees herself getting into heaven?

The other option is that she is cursed. Something awful happened in her past that was her fault causing her to lose her entire family. The only way to repent and save her soul is to heal others and live a pious life. The second she becomes slightly selfish she begins to backslide and must make the ultimate sacrifice to get back all of her progress.

She is clearly reaching for something and her dying for April hopefully got her to that goal.

---

Overall,

I wish there was less ambiguity with Jessica’s background. I enjoy trying to figure out the twists and turns but I needed just a little more.

I really like what the writers have done with this series and I think the underlying theme are complex and emotional. However, because other titles have been so much more heartbreaking and twisted, Frailty seems tame in comparison.

I have had genuine dread after reading certain titles like 1:35 AM and I just didn’t get that feeling with this title.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars