Each Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights and Tales From The Pizzaplex book has a Central Theme that recurs throughout the stories they feature.
- Into The Pit: Being careful what you wish for. The protagonist of each story strongly wishes for something they don't have: Oswald wants something new to do and time away from his father, Sarah wants conventionally good looks, and Millie simply wants to be alone. All three of them have their wishes granted — only to get more than they bargained for: Oswald's father is temporarily replaced with the monstrous Spring Bonnie, Sarah's beauty comes at the price of her body being torn apart and replaced with scrap metal, and Millie is shut away from the rest of the world inside of Funtime Freddy, with no one around to help her.
- Fetch: Loss of control. All three protagonists of the book stumble upon a piece of Fazbear Entertainment technology that quickly goes out of control to their detriment: Greg is completely unable to stop Fetch from lethally misinterpreting his desires and killing Kimberly as a result, Alec loses control of himself when Lonely Freddy swaps bodies with him, and the Plushtrap Chaser goes haywire and becomes aggressive against Oscar and his friends.
- 1:35 AM: Loneliness. All three protagonists have been left isolated in life for one reason or another — with Delilah having been divorced, Stanley having been dumped, and Devon having a strained relationship with his parents — and are miserable for it. Their respective stories take turns for the worse in part because of their isolated natures: Delilah's loneliness enables her to easily be tormented by Ella, Stanley's reluctance to listen to his family's recommendations to go to a doctor lead to his condition growing worse, and Devon's jealousy over Kelsey interacting with his crush compels him to prank Kelsey at the abandoned Freddy's. Ultimately, all three are left to die alone by the end of each story.
- Poor Communication Kills seems to be a secondary theme. Both Delilah and Stanley cannot or would not explain what's wrong with them even to the remaining closest people in their lives, and Devon just generally isn't good at communicating clearly.
- Step Closer: Isolation. Each of the protagonists has in some sense been cut off from people who were once important to them: Pete is dealing with his parents' divorce and his dad's sudden absence from his life; Kasey has spent a good portion of her life living on the streets after her mom kicked her out; and not only are Susie and Samantha also dealing with their parents' divorce, but Samantha and her mom also have to deal with Susie's own death. The stories explore different ways in which these losses are dealt with, and ultimately lead to very different outcomes for the protagonists.
- Being cursed could also qualify as a theme for Step Closer, as the protagonists also get cursed in some form. Pete is in constant danger of having his eyes and arm getting hit by sharp objects ever since he heard Foxy's song about being a pirate; Kasey sees Ballora everytime she puts on the glasses, no matter where she goes; and Susie is being hunted by Chica, who shows up every night at midnight to snatch her soul away, and once all of the leaves on a tree fall off, her soul will have to leave the house for good.
- Bunny Call: Rage and its effects on judgment. Bob, frustrated with years of having his introverted family dragging him to things he doesn't enjoy, signs his family up for the titular Bunny Call service as a bit of payback. Matt, angry at a string of failed relationships that he refuses to realize he caused himself, takes his aggression out on the Springtrap character in the new game he is creating. And in "The Man in Room 1280", not only is it implied that the titular man has survived all these years out of sheer furious will to live, but his presence has become such an uncomfortable sore spot for the nurses that they try (unsuccessfully) to murder him in order to be rid of him once and for all. In each case, the character's rage ends up leading at least in part to the arrival of the story's villain.
- Blackbird: The consequences of past actions. Nole gets haunted by the Blackbird character that he and Sam created for the film after he confesses his darkest secret. Jake ends up succumbing to a tumor in his brain (which he's been fighting throughout the story) after being told by his friend Margie that "Simon" won't be visiting (Evan, Jake's father, is serving in the military and is overseas during the events of the story, only being able to communicate with his son through a walky-talky doll created by Margie called Simon. He dies from a bomb, leaving Simon voiceless), and Toby's anger over not being able to win the Hide-And-Seek arcade game at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria causes him to smash the game, which leads to Shadow Bonnie (the character the player has to find in the game) manifesting as Toby's shadow, fueled by his anger.
- The Cliffs: Regret. Tyler disappears, causing Robert to blame himself, thinking it happened due to his being careless. For the entire story, he is tormented by his failure to be a good father. Reed, while trying to teach Julius a lesson, is haunted by guilt and regret as he soon realizes what exactly he's done to Julius. This ends up mangling him up a little, too. Chris spends the entire story looking down on his "dull" but kindly family and friends. During his last moments, he also regrets this and begs his clone to love and appreciate them for him.
- Gumdrop Angel: Bad luck. Each of the main characters have been suffering from a lifetime of unfortunate circumstances. The characters’ frustration over the lumps that life has given them leads them to ill-thought out decisions that end in their demise; Angel steals and eats her stepsister’s gummy treat out of jealousy, and it turns her into a candy statue that gets eaten. Sergio takes advice from a toy named “Lucky Boy”, but ends up losing his job, all his money, and even mutilating his face on the toy’s twisted advice. Hudson tries to face his fears by getting a closeup of the animatronics at Freddy’s, but is chased down by them when they come to life and ends up being cremated alive in the oven.
- The Puppet Carver: Dishonesty. Jack takes advantage of everyone he can and doesn't tell his wife about his financial instability. His encounter with the Puppet Carver and the pink blob creature/Faz-Goo? cause him to rethink his life and change all his relationships for the better, although the final scene implies that Grand Theft Me may be at play. Colton thinks that the Ticket Pulverizer is rigged to favor smaller children, and hides out in/breaks into Freddy's to tamper with it, which results in him being trapped inside the machine and crushed by the people who use it the next day. Payton is easily convinced by her friend Marley to bend rules, which results in Marley's disappearance and seeming death at the Pizza Kit factory. Payton opts to lie about when and where Marley disappeared so as to not implicate herself, but goes on to become paranoid that a pizza she ate contained Marley's remains and hallucinates an undead Marley forcing itself out of her body and stalking her, causing her to retreat to her house's roof from where she falls and breaks her neck.
- Friendly Face: Hasty decisions having horrible consequences. Edward's desperation to get some semblance of Faraday back causes him to not check whether the hair he is sending to Fazbear Entertainment is actually cat hair; this results in the resultant Friendly Face being a grotesque combination of a cat's body and Jack's face, which horrifies and torments him. Mott, seeing an opportunity to get rid of the Sea Bonnies that have been tormenting him, flushes them down the toilet at the first chance he gets; however, this just gives them the opportunity to infest his body. Jessica and Brittany, driven by an Irrational Hatred of Cindy and Mindy, impulsively decide to lock them inside the Rosie animatronic; however, a glitch in their programming leads to them both being springlocked inside, still conscious but unable to make themselves known.
- Prankster: Confronting tormentors. Jeremiah secretly resents Parker for constantly making him the butt of his jokes and pranks, and thinks that he is trying to win over Hope, who Jeremiah is in love with. His experience with the mysterious voice and body parts in the office lead him to resolve to prove himself to Hope and overcome Parker, although it's unclear if anything comes of it. Joel hits a child while speeding down a back road and abandons them to their death, but is unable to stop thinking about them until an unseen entity forces him to return to the scene of the accident, where he transforms into a Kids at Play sign. Aimee goes back to her hometown to find out what happened to her childhood friend, Mary Jo, by confronting the man hanging around Freddy's the day she disappeared and he was arrested. Although he tells her he had nothing to do with Mary Jo's disappearance, she doesn't believe him and after escaping him, she goes to the restaurant where Freddy's used to be and finds Mary Jo's long-dead body still in the Hiding Maze, where she becomes trapped herself.
- Felix the Shark: Haunting events from the past. Dirk becomes obsessed with finding Felix after a cherished childhood memory involving him resurfaces, and succeeds...only to find that Felix is now monstrous and aggressive. He's chased around Felix's tank, unable to escape. Stevie's fatal accident at Sideshow's nearly two decades ago results in him haunting Mandy once she finds the hidden image in a game's files. Although he turns out to be Good All Along, it brings Mandy several moments of terror. The murders at Freddy's 30 years ago lead to Timmy being corrupted by a haunted Freddy Fazbear mask, seemingly possessed by one of the murdered children before Mike saves the day.
- From the new series, Lally's Game has secrets that are better off hidden: Jessica has been leading a double life, sacrificing bits of her heart pendant and therefore herself in order to heal children at a local hospital. Selena's curiosity over Cade's trunk leads her to accidentally release Lally, a dangerous child animatronic. (Interestingly, Lally's titular Game is a version of hide-n-seek, adding another layer to the secrecy theming). Maya cannot resist exploring the Pizzaplex's off-limits AR unit but in doing so triggers the cancerpocalypse/gets herself stuck in the AR system.
- Happs: The dangers of impulsively chasing your desires. Steve wants a better life for himself, a lucrative career and a family, but only ends up living a dangerous lie. Aiden and Jace want to explore the out-of-bounds areas of the Freddy Fortress tube maze, which results in Jace's death and Aiden being trapped by Happs. Complicated childhood circumstances cause Billy to want to become an animatronic, but he ruins his life by isolating himself and replacing his limbs with robotic parts, then ends up dying in a junkyard, forgotten by everyone.
- Somniphobia: Fears and phobias. Sam has become afraid of just about everything since his father died, causing himself to getting lost in the safe, perfect world of the Dream Sphere. Luca has an irrational fear of the Springtrap costume in the Pizzaplax's roleplaying area, which is proven right by it being a real, and as usual faulty, springlock suit. Meanwhile, Pizzaplex technician Grady attempts to face down his cleithrophobia (fear of being trapped in small spaces; easily confused with but not the same as claustrophobia) by testing out a new attraction, only to get stuck and killed when Ballora rips him apart in an attempt at helping him.
- Submechanophobia: "Gut feelings" that something is wrong. Caden suspects that the aquatic animatronics in Freddy's Fantasy Water Park have gained minds of their own, Robbie senses that a malicious force has taken over the Fazbear Fan Club, and Abe can't shake the feeling that his cutting-edge holographic home assistants are hiding something from him. Unsurprisingly, they're all correct.
- The Bobbiedots Conclusion: Risky shortcuts. Executives at Fazbear Entertainment outsource their storytelling to artificial intelligence and aren't Genre Savvy enough to realize that's a bad idea (with the exception of one Edwin Murray). Tony tries to discover the secrets of the mysterious high-scoring player at the Fazcade, but finds himself wrapped in a much larger conspiracy with no way out. And Abe takes shortcuts in his investigation of what's causing his Bobbiedots to malfunction.
- Nexie: Keeping secrets. Astrid decides not to tell anyone the strange things her defective Buddytronic doll is asking her to do. Kara convinces a Pizzaplex employee to let her spend a few more minutes at a VR attraction- but someone else wants to keep her there even longer. And Edwin Murray, working as an engineer for Fazbear Entertainment decades ago, designs a mysterious custom project that surprises anyone who comes across it.
- Tiger Rock: Things that are stuck in your head. Kai senses that the tiger animatronic at the Pizzaplex VR booth has stayed with him...or perhaps he's stayed with it. Kane gets the intrusive thoughts of a familiar, angry gator animatronic after playing a brand-new Pizzaplex game. And Danny comes up with an idea to bond with his crush over her love of tattoos, but goes about it in the worst way possible...
- B7-2: The blurring of the line between what's real and what isn't. After Billy's attempts to become an animatronic lead to his death, he wakes up in the hospital, but not all is as it seems. Travis thinks something eerily familiar is haunting him, and Rory's relentless nightmares make it difficult to tell what's what. It's worth noting that this is a recurring theme throughout the entire TFTPP series, with many characters getting trapped or lost in simulations.
