- Jossed. It's Tracy.
- Confirmed. All of Season 9 is within Robin and Barney's wedding weekend, using flash-forwards and flashbacks to reveal things about the Mother while still keeping the wedding weekend as the present.
- This seems unlikely. Why would Future Ted still refer to her as "your Aunt Robin" when he's talking to his kids?
- Not to mention the times when Future Ted mentions how much he loves the Mother: why would he talk like that about her, if she was only the surrogate mother?
- This scenario could end up with Barney and the surrogate mother falling for each other. This actually makes sense. Barney has shown an almost unhealthy obsession with Ted throughout the series. Who better for him to end up with than a woman that is basically Ted's distaff counterpart?
- (Hopefully) Averted. from what we've seen, Barney and Robin get married and Ted and the Mother are extremely happy together.
- And halfway confirmed in the finale: after spending six years getting over the mother's death, Ted asks Robin out in the exact same way as he asked her out the very first time.
- As in Robin has not one, but two dopplegängers? Cool WMG, but it was jossed.
- Which is even better when you think of their daughter's name.
- She is into coins and collects them, so she could indeed have a 1939 penny and if she lost it on the tube, she could have told Ted a story about "how I lost a sweet old penny".
- The mother is said to be a bass player. Zooey can play a guitar.
- Jossed. The Mother is played by Broadway actress Cristin Milioti.
- The deal they made no longer matters, as episode "Trilogy Time" revealed that Ted's daughter is born by 2015.
- In the episode "Disaster averted", Robin is wearing a yellow coat, also visible behind various characters in screenshots. Significant?
- While the "I met your mother at Barney's wedding" thing might be explained away as "seeing a heretofore unknown facet of Robin's personality," the information from "Girls vs. Suits" (i.e., being Cindy's roommate, having weird and whimsical musical/artistic tastes) clashes pretty strongly with what we know of Robin. Unless Word of God declares that a red herring of some sort, this theory seems pretty unlikely.
- Actually plenty of the hints have been Red Herrings over the course of the series (Cindy's Roomate is Cindy's Lesbian lover for example). So we can't really rely on the "hints" anymore so one can't be too certain over who is going to be the Mother of Ted's children.
- Um....Cindy's roommate was not Cindy's lesbian lover. Where the hell did you get that from? Ted just thought she was the roommate for a minute. She was the Mother. Unequivocally, absolutely, undeniably the mother. The ankle that Ted glimpsed was the Mother's. The items scattered around the apartment were the Mother's. The hobbies and descriptions Cindy gave were of the Mother. The umbrella Ted left was the Mother's, and the Mother got it back. The room he was standing in was the Mother's. This is all stuff that Future Ted explicitly told his kids. Yeah, lots of red herrings...but they're all explained away as teases or insinuations. Future Ted never outright lies. And Cindy's roommate was the Mother. That is one single fact that we absolutely know with total certainty.
- While the "I met your mother at Barney's wedding" thing might be explained away as "seeing a heretofore unknown facet of Robin's personality," the information from "Girls vs. Suits" (i.e., being Cindy's roommate, having weird and whimsical musical/artistic tastes) clashes pretty strongly with what we know of Robin. Unless Word of God declares that a red herring of some sort, this theory seems pretty unlikely.
- She can't be: in the 12th episode of season 3, "No Tomorrow", Future Ted says the mother was at the Saint Patrick's day party he went to; she was even the one who left the yellow umbrella he uses at the end of the episode. Robin was with Marshall and Lily at their new apartment while the party was going on, so it couldn't have been her.
- Not to mention it's been revealed that Robin can't have children.
- And Robin will ultimately be married to Barney.
- Something from The Bro Code here: Article 19 mentions that a bro is not allowed to sleep with another bro's sister. Amendment 3 throws article 19 out the window, if the sister is a 9 or higher. Carly Whittaker is either really hot or not the mother.
- This may be the most likely, as she is the only college student who could be at a wedding Ted will be at (that we know of).
- In episode 8x13, it's revealed that the mother is actually the basist of the band playing at Barney and Robin's wedding.
- Yes, this makes a lot of sense. Ted meets the mother at Barney and Robin's wedding. He's been friends with both of them for years, met many of their relations and most of their other friends. So the mother either has to be working there or someone from their past who he's never met. Barney's sister fits this description perfectly, as well as being a college student like the mother.
- Jossed as of episode 8x14. Ted has a one night stand with Barney's sister.
- As i say to many of the WMGs, Ted didn't have his last cigarette two weeks into dating Victoria, this is a joss on many theories.
- Damn! Did he say last cigarette two weeks into dating their mother, or after he met their mother? If it's dating, you can justify/handwave it as "after they started dating AGAIN"...
- Aaaaaaand they're at least teasing it again in the seventh season.
- Umm... no, they are not. It's explicitly stated that Ted meets the Mother on Barney's wedding. Also, even though March 17, 2008 ("No Tomorrow"; the mother is at the St. Patrick's Day party) is a couple of days more than 2 years after "Cupcakes" (March 6-ish, 2006; Victoria's departure), it's unlikely that Victoria's scholarship started at exactly the day she arrived to Germany. It will rather be a lesson about bad timing.
- When people say, "Two years" they rarely mean, "exactly two years" or exactly 730 days. That's usually just a round estimate, maybe a little more or little less than two years, quite a bit more than a year and a half and quite a bit less than two and a half years. The exact date she left and the exact date of St. Patrick's Day isn't enough to rule it out.
- Umm... no, they are not. It's explicitly stated that Ted meets the Mother on Barney's wedding. Also, even though March 17, 2008 ("No Tomorrow"; the mother is at the St. Patrick's Day party) is a couple of days more than 2 years after "Cupcakes" (March 6-ish, 2006; Victoria's departure), it's unlikely that Victoria's scholarship started at exactly the day she arrived to Germany. It will rather be a lesson about bad timing.
- Klaus doesn't exist. Victoria only claimed to be getting married because she didn't want to get involved with Ted while he's still in this "weird" everyday relationship with his ex-lover Robin and her other ex-lover Barney. When Ted noticed she wasn't wearing a ring, she made up the story of finding the ring in her boyfriend's sock drawer. When Ted asked her her fiance's name, she asked, "Whose name?" which is often an indication that a character is lying. She then said, "Klaus" either because 1) there was actually a Klaus in her class and his name was the first name that occured to her, 2) there never was a Kalus. She'd made him up while communicating with Ted in their failed long-distance relationship to get him jealous because she was justifiably worried about his close proximity to Robin, or 3) Ted's remembering wrongly that there was a Klaus in her class, and Victoria just rolled with it. Even if Klaus does exist, we have no evidence he's actually proposed to Victoria yet. In any case, Victoria's brief return isn't the definite Jossed Ship Sinking it looks like at first glance. Klaus didn't appear in that episode, and everything we know of him is from just one person, Victoria.
- This is seemingly Jossed in the Season 7 finale (although Klaus still didn't actually appear...)
- One final theory on how the "Klaus doesn't exist" idea could still be true. The wedding Victoria ditched to be with Ted isn't her own wedding, but the wedding of Cindy, the Mother's former roommate (and Victoria's if she's the mother). As to why she'd keep lying about this, she might've initially lied about getting married because she didn't want to get involved with Ted while he was still rooming with Robin, but after leaving Ted she realizes she still loves him, but feels she's now stuck with the lie, especially when Ted calls her on the day she's wearing a wedding dress.
- ... why would she be wearing a wedding dress then?
- Jossed for good in the Season 8 premiere.
- This is seemingly Jossed in the Season 7 finale (although Klaus still didn't actually appear...)
- With Klaus out of the way (this is the same troper who made the "Klaus doesn't exist" theory above), here's how the Mother could still turn out to be Victoria. It would be perfectly natural for Vicotria to be at Barney's (and Robin's?) wedding, since she makes outstanding wedding cakes. It's possible she and Ted will agree that the time they truly "met" would be when Ted's finally free of his "weird" Barney/Robin entanglement (that Future!Ted affirms Victoria's right about) and he's ready to be fully committed to her. While this could theoretically apply to any of Ted's ex-girlfriends, Victoria's the only one quirky enough (with her "One Night Only" "Drumroll" when she and Ted first literally met) for it to be perfectly in-character for her to agree (or even come up with) the idea that this will be the time they "met".
- Modified as of the Season 7 finale, where Ted and Victoria ride off together. Viewers have often debated whether the Mother should only be seen in the final episode or if we should have a full season devoted to her relationship with Ted. With Vicotria as Ted's girlfriend at the start of Season 8, it's possible to have both, with fans arguing whether she'll be the Mother. I can even imagine Ted and Victoria breaking up at some point in Season 8, only to get back together at Robin and Barney's wedding. Her presence there might even be deliberately arranged by Robin/Barney/both to try to get them back together. In that case, Ted and Victoria could decide they truly "met" when they got together and stayed together.
- It can't be Victoria, as the mother is a college student who started college when Victoria was in Germany.
- You are incorrect. Victoria went to Germany for two years. She left in late Season 1, March, 2006. Ted mistakenly went to the Economics classroom in the Fifth Season Premiere, September, 2009, three and a half years later. It's at least possible for Victoria to have gone to Germany, stayed there for the full two years, then for whatever reason, taken an Economics class a year and half after she got back.
- Wouldn't Ted have recognized her if she was in that class?
- The classroom was a big, crowded auditorium. Victoria could've seen Ted before he could've seen her and done something like scrunch down behind her laptop to keep from being seen.
- Seemingly Jossed by the seventh season finale. Ted and Victoria ran away ran away together, but since they got together well before Barney's wedding, it really can't be Victoria.
- Of note is that this is still "the day of a wedding," but it's not Barney's, obviously.
- You are incorrect. Victoria went to Germany for two years. She left in late Season 1, March, 2006. Ted mistakenly went to the Economics classroom in the Fifth Season Premiere, September, 2009, three and a half years later. It's at least possible for Victoria to have gone to Germany, stayed there for the full two years, then for whatever reason, taken an Economics class a year and half after she got back.
- As I write this, it's now nearly 2 weeks since Ted and Victoria have broken up...and I still haven't fully given up hope that Victoria will turn out to be the Mother. What really Josses a potential Mother forever isn't the breakup. It's the confirmation from Future!Ted that no, she isn't the Mother. That's the only Jossing that matters. With that in mind, let's look at the other three main candidates and compare how they were Jossed:
- Robin:
- Jossed In: The Pilot.
- What Josses It: "And that's how I met your Aunt Robin." Future!Ted's kids are shocked and disgusted. They know who their Aunt Robin is and they know she's definitely not their Mother.
- Stella:
- Jossed In: Shelter Island.
- What Josses It: More than anything else, it's Future Ted's Imagine Spot of what might've happened if he'd simply obeyed Stella and talked to Tony while she talked to Robin: Tony and Robin back out, Ted and Stella get married, and Future Ted concludes, "And thats how I met your mother,"...to a couple of blonde kids. That may be Artistic License – Biology, but the point is Future Ted clearly believes that if he'd married Stella, their kids would be blonde. His kids aren't blonde, therefore Stella's not the Mother.
- Zoey:
- Jossed In: Garbage Island.
- What Josses It: In 2021, Ted runs into Wendy the waitress for the first time in 10 years. She asks if he's still with Zoey. He laughs and says, no that didn't end well, but he's now married to a wonderful woman and has 2 kids. It doesn't get any more clearly Jossed than that.
- Victoria has nothing like any of the above. As you can see, this kind of Jossing is very simple and uncomplicated. It'd be very easy for the writers to wrap up at the end of The Autumn of Break Ups, with some reveal of what happened to Victoria afterwards, or even for Future!Ted to say, "I never saw her again." Instead, what we get from Future!Ted is some confirmed unfinished business: Robin will later find out that Ted broke up with Victoria over her.
- The closest F!T Jossing Victoria's ever gotten was in Farhampton where F!T confirms that Klaus is right about Big German Word I Have No Interest In Looking Up (BGWIHNIILU). So many people seem to take BGWIHNIILU to mean "Love at First Sight". But that's not what Klaus says of it. According to him, BGWIHNIILU isn't something that can gradually develop over time. It's something that comes over you all at once, and if it ever happens to you, you'll know. None of that automatically means it happens the first time you see your BGWIHNIILU. Ironically, during the BGWIHNIILU montage of Klaus' gushing, we see Marshall & Lily and Robin & Barney, 2 couples that we've seen had their share of doubts and breakups in their relationships to each other.
- One thing that's been fairly consistent about Victoria in her returns in these latest 2 seasons is that she brings up the idea that Ted's Robin fixation is unhealthy and is stunting any chance he has with any other woman. In both seasons, it's outright stated that Victoria really does have a point. Even here, Lily points out that this is still the same year Ted confessed to Robin he still loved her. Perhaps her wedding to Barney will finally free Ted of Robin once and for all, and it will be meeting Victoria again after that at the Farhampton station where BGWIHNIILU can occur all at once.
- I will not hold on to Victoria as the Mother no matter what. All I need to give up on it is the kind of simple, clear, unequivical F!T Jossing that Robin, Stella, and Zoey all had, and I will let go. That, or the Mother is finally revealed and it isn't Victoria. Whichever comes first.
- Jossed in the Season 8 Finale in the latter way, we see the Mother and it isn't Victoria. Except Ted hasn't met her yet, Future!Ted hasn't identified her as the Mother, and in the closing credits, she's billed not as "The Mother", but as "Girl with the Yellow Umbrella". This lack of evidence is nothing more than the feeble straws of hope that a dedicated Ted/Victoria or Ted/Anybody-Else shipper can clutch at. I for one will not grasp at these straws unless some specific evidence turns up that indicates this grirl with the yellow umbrella is not the Mother, and as of the Season 8 Finale, there is no such evidence.
- And those feeble straws caught fire, sank without a trace, and disintegrated in the Season 9 premiere as Lily meets the girl with the Yellow Umbrella and Future!Ted says, "And that's how Lily met your mother." IOW, Jossed.
- Robin:
- For what it's worth, according to Word of God, Victoria would've been written in as the Mother if the show had been cancelled after the first or second series.
Though, of course, the genes are the loophole to this theory - Ted could very easily be married to a blonde en still get infinity brunette children. But, seeing as how this show likes to play with very subtle hints, this seems as good as any.
- That or a little thing called Hair Dye
- And if Barney gets married, Ted would be best man, and the sister would most likely be at the wedding.... Two plus two.
- In the season six finale "Challenge Accepted" it's revealed that Barney is the one getting married in "Big Days".
- It seems like a Red Herring which might actually mean that it isn't and viewing it as a Red Herring is the actual Red Herring part of it. Yeah.
- Interestingly, it would literally make Barney "Uncle Barney" to the kids, and Robin "Aunt Robin" if she's who Barney marries. Marshall and Lily would still be faux-family, of course.
- If the season finale of Season 7 ("The Magician's Code") is anything to go by, we may be seeing Jerome and his family again. Put two and two together...
- Jossed as of 8x14.
- Though Ted does sleep with her.
- And she will come to their wedding, and meet Ted. While Ted goes off on tangents constantly, the overall story arc has always stuck to the concept that everything was significant: Ted dating Robin leads to their breakup, which leads to him getting the tattoo, which leads to him meeting Stella, which leads to him getting the job at the university, which presumably leads to him meeting the mother.
- But now, Robin and Barney's relationship is the A-plot of most episodes. This only makes sense if the story of how Barney and Robin got together, and grew to want a conventional relationship, is related to how Ted meets the mother.
- If not completely Jossed, extremely unlikely as of The Rough Patch.
- Though we still never know as they're starting to get ship teased again.
- If either of them knew a girl well-suited for Ted, wouldn't they have arranged an introduction years ago (if only to avert the endless cycle of drama resulting from Ted's active attempts to find love)?
- Not necessarily. Remember "The Scuba Diver"? Lily had a woman "on hold" for Ted for years because she didn't think he was "ready" yet. To be honest, her explanation did seem utterly forced but... well, it's not without precedent. Plus, it could be someone that is currently in a relationship, thus they wouldn't set her up with Ted.
- Probably true, as of the seventh season finale. Robin is marrying Barney at the wedding Ted meets the Mother. It hardly makes sense for them to have a stranger at their wedding, so...
- But on the other hand the 1st really serious girl Ted dated was Victoria, who was basicaly a stranger at a wedding.
- Wedding crashes.
- Extended family who are as good as strangers
- She's in the band. I kid you not.
- Semi-confirmed. Barney met the mother beforehand, and will probably recognize her because she's the one that told him to go after Robin with all he had.
- Ted meets the kids' mother and conceives them.
- Impossible. Get out.
- I think you mean "inconceivable"...
- Impossible. Get out.
- The show is his explaining to his children how he invented, or encountered the person who invented, the technology for male pregnancy.
- And that person would be Barney.
- If this is the correct theory, it has to be Barney. But Barney should be the "mother" because Ted can't meet himself.
- "Kids the thing you have to know about Uncle Barney..."
- Is that he's actually your mother?
- And thus the children were given massive complexes.
- And that person would be Barney.
- So, everything up to that point will have effectively been a "Shaggy Dog" Story? Yes!
- Except from when you tell about how you meet your significant other, you tell about the first time you meet, your first date, et cetera. Ted just has a huge amount of backstory.
- More or less confirmed. Word of God tells us that the mother will be part of the final arc of the last season.
- Semi-jossed and semi-confirmed. Ted does end up with the Mother (obviously) but she dies six years before he tells the story. The very last scene of the show basically shows Ted and Robin ending up together, so technically both the first girl (Robin) and the last girl (The Mother) win at different points.
- It was revealed that it was Britney Spears.
- So, Britney Spears is Ted's future wife.
- Except at the end of the episode Jillian called "that Ted guy" cute, so she obviously met him, however briefly.
- This actually might work (at least from the standpoint of matchmaking). Jillian, when not woo-ing it up, was smart and loved her chosen field (much like Ted), and her woo-translation seems to echo Ted's own concerns and long-term desires. Also, "brief introduction while at least one of us was plastered" does not necessarily equate to "meeting." If they do get introduced at Barney's wedding, which would be years and years after a brief encounter during one drunken night in a long string of drunken nights, it would be a de facto "first meeting."
- Except at the end of the episode Jillian called "that Ted guy" cute, so she obviously met him, however briefly.
- Jillian is a teacher at Lily's school. In The Leap we find out the Mother was in the class Ted's shown lecturing at. Therefore, Jillian can't be the Mother.
- Not Jossed. People go back to school all the time.
- But it's unlikely that a 2nd grade teacher would have the time to go back to school, unless she was taking the classes during the night.
- Plus, why would a second grade teacher need to take classes on economics?
- Two possible answers? Jillian wants to own and operate her own childcare centre (it's not unheard of for educators to aspire to this) and is back in school to build up her financial know-how, or changes careers (it's not unheard of for teachers to switch careers when they lose their passion for teaching) without Lily telling any of the other characters.
- If Jillian did go to college, why would she live in student accommodation? She would already have a house and money saved up.
- The mother doesn't necessarily live in student accommodation, she just happens to have a roommate.
- Not Jossed. People go back to school all the time.
- Jossed because she will be in his class the next season, and it is explicitly told that without him lecturing this class he wouldn't have met her.
- The reason he wouldn't meet her without lecturing his class is because she was in the Econ class he walked into on his first day.
- That josses a detail, not the theory.
- Except the show's title is "How I MET Your Mother", not "A Bunch of Random Stories Connected by MacLaren's Bar, Oh By the Way Your Mom Worked there All Along." Perhaps she could become a waitress there at some point, but Ted would not have told such a long story to his kids otherwise. Plus it's been stated that Robin was instrumental in meeting the mother, and Ted and co. have been going there since before they met her, and the producers set up each season so that idea of Robin being essential to meeting the mother could still stand up if the show got pulled suddenly. Future Ted just tends to ramble on and get distracted by unrelated stories.
- Completely Jossed as of "Garbage Island".
However, we know that Tony makes The Wedding Bride, which is released in May 2010. You know, around the time the season finales happen. At the end of "As Fast As She Can", Future Ted promises to tell the story of that movie. It could be concluded that Ted meets the mother at a showing of the movie, or while renting the DVD.
- I had interpreted that little aside as meaning that the movie would actually be based in some way on Ted's life. Probably even based on the relationship between Tony and Stella, the title coming from Stella leaving Ted at the altar.
- Jossed. That meeting led to her husband getting him thinking about a teaching job, and he's stated that the mother was in that class.
- However, in S7 Ep!& No Pressure, the movie theatre is billing The Wedding Bride III. Ted mentions the movie they wanted to see was sold out. Again, though, this is only the first time Ted professed his love for her, but in the grand scheme of things this would play a part in the Mother becoming the Mother.
- In "Girls vs. Suits" the mother gets her umbrella back, albeit due to Ted leaving it at her roommate's place. And we see her foot too.
- Jossed as of the last episode of Season 8. A woman who is clearly the Mother (with the umbrella Ted left at back her place in hand) asks for a ticket to Farhampton. She's played by Cristin Milioti.
- She has multiple speaking appearances in Season 9, meeting every member of the main cast before Ted and having fairly lengthy, deep conversations with them.
- Obviously there are a whole host of ways this could be wrong, from Ted not actually narrating the dialogue word-for-word to the kids being too shocked by the stripper thing to point out that the name is wrong. But it still bears mentioning.
- Or perhaps the kids thought Tracy may have been a stage name.
- She had given Ted a fake name, then (after he did nothing but tell her his name, which set up for the joke in his next line) immediately game him another name in a Stage Whisper. There's no reason to believe she told him her real name right there in the main area of the strip club.
- Confirmed in the series finale.
- She's got legs too.
- Her face on the photos was blurred because Ted has no idea what she looked like. You can't remember the face of someone you've never seen. If you want a Doylist reason for the blurring, it's probably not the same person in all the photos.
- While I agree with the second poster in regards to that, I do think it's a possibility. Especially since in the season 8 premiere, while Ted is waiting at the train stop he's reading Love in the Time of Cholera, his favorite book. Which is also the Milkwoman's favorite book. Potential ice-breaker?
- Jossed. The Mother can't be the woman who was Ted's Match from Love Solutions. The Match was said to be 28 years old in 2005 while the Mother is 21 in that year. Moreover, at that time, she was mourning her late boyfriend and wasn't dating, let alone signed up in match-making company.
- Does seem very likely, but if they do it right it could work. One of the reasons Girls vs Suits is one of my favourite episodes (Aside from the song) is Ted finally tells us what made him fall in love with the mother, such as painting transformers and singing show tunes to muffins. If they focus on that rather than making her a Relationship Sue, we'll be good.
- She seems to be avoiding the Mary Sue fate as well. She gets reasonable backstory in "Bass Player Wanted", and appears to have Marshall's problem of being so nice that she avoids all confrontation, although that may be an Informed Flaw.
- The guess is about an Audience Reaction, so it cannot be confirmed or jossed. However, the word in the fandom has it that Cristin Milioti nailed the character and that she was one of the best things in season 9.
- Considering it, it's funny that Ted is an architect and the Father from Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening also calls himself The Architect.
- The story begins there because that's the night he decided he was ready to get married. It just happens to coincide with the night he met Robin.
- Or it could be both.
- Sort of confirmed. The mother is the bassist for the band at Robin and Barney's wedding.
- This is the going theory so far: sharp-eyed viewers have noted that her outfit matches the one worn by the woman in line with the yellow umbrella.
- Word of God: a Red Herring.
- When did Bays & Thomas say that?
- Ted states that he never met the mother that night because she probably would've hated him. Therefore, Word of God.
- ... how is that Word of God?
- At the end of 'No Pressure' a bunch of girls with yellow umbrella's walk past Ted - the first one that passes him is wearing the same hat as The Mother was at the beginning of the episode and while it's too blurry to tell for sure from what I can see she looks a lot like the girl that Ted bumped into...
- When did Bays & Thomas say that?
- Seeing as Ted will meet the mother at Barney's wedding, and it's very strongly hinted that his wedding is in season 7 (possibly, even probably, the finale), they're probably going to give the mother some development and some sort of romance arc with Ted during season 8. However, this still doesn't leave a whole lot of time for them before mid-2013 (the latest estimate for the daughter's conception if we lowball her age) which would take place around the end of season 8. It would be unsatisfying for Ted and the Mother to rush through engagement, wedding, and kids that fast for no reason (especially given what happened with Stella), so the best way to forcibly shorten the pre-kids story enough to make the daughter's age plausible would be for Ted to knock her up before they get married...though perhaps not before they get engaged. And Barney's wedding can't take place before June 2012, because Lily's not pregnant in the flashforward to his wedding, and since she conceived at the end of August, her due date is in late May-to-June.
- "Trilogy Time" reveals that Ted's daughter is an infant in 2015. Assuming that the dates in universe roughly match the dates IRL, Trilogy Time happens every three years around April. Therefore, she would have been born around February or March 2015, meaning she was conceived in either May or June 2014. If Barney's wedding takes place in 2013 (in May, around the time of the season finale, at the latest), there is still enough time for Ted to date the mother for about a year, marry her and get her pregnant soon after. Or get her pregnant and then marry her, but definitely not during their first date.
- Jossed. In a flashforward/back Ted tells the waitress from Mc Claren's that it ended pretty badly between them. Now we've just gotta watch and find out how.
- Jossed. Nora and Ted met at Mc Claren's, not the wedding.
- Nora marries Barney: He has not lost interest in her, and there's no way Ted wouldn't be his best man.
- Except that Barney sleeps with Robin, figures out that she's his soulmate and breaks up with Nora. And we still don't know who the bride is.
- Nora marries Barney: He has not lost interest in her, and there's no way Ted wouldn't be his best man.
- They're both in college, and... that's pretty much it. Barney really is Uncle Barney, it's not just an honorary title like with the others, and after the wedding they really are bros.
- And Barney would hold it over Marshall's head forever as a reason why he's Ted's real best friend.
- Jossed in Season 8 "Ring Up!" where Ted dated this slightly younger than 21 year old who had a fetish for older men. He doesn't get much connection from her except for being a R2-D2 fan. Then, Barney find out that he's dating his half-sister, Carly. Amusingly, he tries to force them into marrying each other just to get over his detox on one-night stands.
- This is based on my theory that there is also one more Robin Sparkle's song to come:
- In the song "Let's Go to the Mall" the opening lyrics are, "Come on Jessica, come on Tori... Let's go to the mall, etc." We've already met Jessica Glitter back in "Glitter" so it would make sense that at some point we will meet Tori.
- Makes sense. Plus, if Robin was the singer and Jessica was the keyboardist, surely Tori would be a guitarist/bassist... like the mother.
- In the song "Let's Go to the Mall" the opening lyrics are, "Come on Jessica, come on Tori... Let's go to the mall, etc." We've already met Jessica Glitter back in "Glitter" so it would make sense that at some point we will meet Tori.
- Ted will meet her at Robin's wedding, which will be to ugly-shirt guy that was introduced in the Season 6 episode, "Hopeless." As we know, Ted will be the best man, and it would make sense for Robin to introduce him to significant people from her past.
- Or, alternately, her recollection will be even more long-winded. The last words of the series will be "how I met your father."
- Alternately, it's Sarah Michelle Gellar.
- That sounds like a certain other romantic comedy....
- goes to clubs - The yellow umbrella was found at a club
- did not meet Ted at that time - therefore she is a candidate for Mother-hood
- is Barney's cousin - therefore would probably be invited to the wedding
- would make the "Okay Awesome" story *so* much funnier
- I doubt they do that, but that would be pretty cool if they did.
- Ted has at least seen Quinn, if not met her, at the Lusty Leopard where she works. She could still be the bride, but Future Ted doesn't refer to her as "Aunt Quinn" in the voiceover. Doesn't discredit that theory though, considering the sentence her name was mentioned ("Barney met a girl called Quinn" would be valid even if she were Aunt Quinn).
- Jossed. Ted meets Quinn properly (as in, actually talks to her etc.) at a dinner held by her and Barney.
- Ted: Stella became one when she left Ted at the alter. And Zoe is a Relationship Sue with jerkass moment with her even betraying Ted on tearing down a building. And this happen when they d became a couple.
- Robin: Don is another Relationship Sue with all the gang saying how perfect he is for Robin. Even though the first time he showed up he was a jerk.
- Barney: While Nora gets spared this hate, mostly, Quinn is this to most fans as she is introduced late to the seven season and having Barney instantly falling for her, while it took him multiple episodes for him to fall in love with Robin and Nora.
- I'm not sure I agree... While Don and Zoe definitely count, Stella only became a Scrappy after they broke up. While they were together she was pretty well-received. Plus you're overlooking Robin herself, as well as Victoria. And Kevin was quite well-received as well. And I think you're playing Quinn's scrappiness up...
- Playing up Quinn's scrappiness would be tough to do.
- I'm not sure I agree... While Don and Zoe definitely count, Stella only became a Scrappy after they broke up. While they were together she was pretty well-received. Plus you're overlooking Robin herself, as well as Victoria. And Kevin was quite well-received as well. And I think you're playing Quinn's scrappiness up...
- Absolutely not. That would be beyond creepy.
- Ted is making up the entire plot as an entertaining story for his kids, all about a mother that they don't have. Yeah, it's an Ass Pull of a twist ending, but with the amount of buildup to this reveal, there's no way they can come close to living up to the hype by playing it straight. Given how little is known about the situation with Future Ted as he tells the story, something like this is quite possible. It may not pan out like that, but I'm banking on some form of twist finale.
- That is why Ted refers to her as "Aunt Robin".
- She has been shown to play bass guitar and is carrying a guitar case at the end of Season 8, episode 1.
- Confirmed. In Season 8, episode 13 'Band or DJ?' future Ted says that the mother was in fact the bass guitarist at Barney and Robin's wedding. They were hired at the last minute to replace the band that had cancelled when Ted ran into Cindy on the subway.
- It's been 7 seasons. Definitely, Maybe told the story in an hour and a half.
- Because it would be a retroactively-hilarious development for one of Ted's random would-be hookups to actually be The One, instead of Victoria (who in that episode was built up as the only real potential "Miss Right" of the series). (One has to feel sorry for Victoria, since she's been dangled as a romantic false lead twice in this series and, presumably, for a final time come Season 8's premiere.)
- Officially jossed.
- She isn't.
- Probably Jossed, Seth Green played an old college acquaintance of Marshall and Lily in "The Final Page".
- Also in the 'Time Travelers', when Ted talks to the mother at her apartment in his 'if I only knew I would have...' scenario he's practically in tears.
- Moreover, notice how she's never seen in flash-forward scenes. In fact, the only time she's ever mentioned in 2020 is when an inquiry is made into her whereabouts at the class reunion in “How I Met Everyone Else.”
- Wouldn't that make the kids look like complete jerkasses for complaining about being sat down to hear the story?
- Possibly a bit of fridge brilliance: if she had died recently, it could be possible the kids are simply using sarcasm as a way to deal with their grief, and don't want to talk about their dead mother just yet.
- Also, were this to happen the fans would riot. But hints are being dropped that this may be the case. Big hints.
- Cast reactions to the final episode indicate this might be the case. Plus the episode "Vesuvius" ends with Ted tearing up when the mother mentions "what kind of mother would miss her daughter's wedding" indicating that she might have a terminal illness and not make her daughter's wedding.
- I currently lean on the side of "She's Still Alive", and here's why. They filmed the final scene that involves Future!Ted and his kids 7 years ago. No matter how careful you are it's pretty damn hard to keep a secret that big for 7 years. Plus, although a lot of their continuity is pre-planned, it clearly wasn't all invented right away. Some of is invented as they go along. And since there was no foreshadowing at all for another 4-6 seasons, so I really doubt that 7 years ago they'd already decided for sure she'd be dead before knowing basically anything else about that time frame.
- Another theory about the framing device for "Vesuvius" is that the Mother is already dead by that point and Ted is talking to a figment of his imagination. This theory is supported by the fact that Ted looks much older during those scenes, but the Mother still looks young.
- BZZT! Wrong! The concierge talks to both Ted and the Mother when he comes by the table at the start of the episode.
- Female vanity? However, Ted's speech in "Time Travelers" says he'll love her after he's gone—which adds the implication he's the dead one. However, it's possible either his or the Mother's mother didn't go to their wedding or died before it. Hoping that's true, because wouldn't it be a slap in the face to end a comedy series with a tragedy?
- Confirmed in the series finale; at the time Ted's telling the story, the mother's been dead for six years due to an undisclosed illness.
- Alternatively, her name will be Natalie, after Padme's actress.
- It can't be a Natalie. Ted already dated a girl with that name.
- Jossed. Her name is Tracy.
We all know that Barney can pull off a Batman Gambit, and that he pays more attention to what his friends say that what it could seem. It's possible that he knew that Cindy's roommate had a ton in common with Ted. He set it up so the mother's band would be free that exact weekend, and somehow got the band that was hired to cancel. What does that have to do with those horrible plays? Barney couldn't risk Ted having a date at the wedding.
- 1) Barney has mentioned that he wants kids. Robin can't have kids, and doesn't want kids. This contradiction already ended the relationship between Kevin and her, and it'll probably lead to Barney and her breaking up too. Though most likely there are other reasons for the breakup as well, such as Barney's inability to stop lusting after other women, as seen in the final few episodes of season 8.
- 2) In all of the flashforwards where we see future Robin, she either doesn't have a wedding ring, or her ring finger is obscured, so we don't see whether it has a ring. The latter applies to the flashforwards in the 8th season episode "Bad Crazy", even though by this point Barney has already proposed to Robin. Now, why would they do that, unless it'd be a spoiler for Robin not to wear a ring? This implies Robin and Barney will eventually divorce, or they won't get married in the first place.
- 3) Even though Ted supposedly got over pining after Robin after season 7, the final couple of episodes of season 8 reveal that there still is something between them. Would the writers really want to do another "Ted still loves Robin, but eventually gets over it, and gives his blessing to Barney and Robin" plot development during season 9, even though they did the same thing during season 7 and early season 8? No, the hints in the last two episodes point to a future development where Robin and Ted actually get back together.
- 4) The scene in "The Time Travelers" where Future Ted imagines traveling back to 2013 and meeting The Mother clearly hints that The Mother is dead by the time Future Ted is telling the story. Why else would Future Ted get all teary-eyed, wishing he'd have 45 more days or even 45 more seconds with The Mother?
- 5) How I Met Your Mother is not the sort of show that would end on a sad note. If The Mother will die, Ted will mourn for her, but he will ultimately find a new love. It seems extremely unlikely that, after The Mother, the show would introduce a second new love interest for Ted during season 9. So Ted's new love would have to be someone we already know, and Robin is obviously the most likely candidate.
- 6) It's now revealed that The Mother is a totally incidental character, and doesn't really have anything to do with Robin. So why does Future Ted start the incredibly long story he's telling to kids from the point where he first met Robin, even though the story is supposed to be about The Mother? Because he also wants to explain to the kids why he, after The Mother has died, would get back together with Aunt Robin, and to explain that he needs to recount their history together.
- 7) Ted's favourite book ever is Love in the Time of Cholera. Now, what is the plot of that book? It's about a man and a woman who fall in love when they're young, but end up in relationships with other people, until they finally get back together when they're old. Maybe choosing this as Ted's favourite book is the writers' way of hinting how the stories of Ted and Robin will ultimately end?
This theory was originally written after season 8, so here's a few updates to it, made after the 9th season episode "Vesuvius".
- A lot of things in "Vesuvius" hint that the Mother has terminal illness in 2024, most notably the fact that Ted starts crying after she says, "What kind of mother would miss her daughter's wedding?". The reason Ted starts to cry is because he knows the mother won't live long, and thus won't see the wedding of her daughter (who's only 9 or 10 at this point).
- Some people have suggested that the reason Ted starts crying is because his own mother died before his wedding. However, the comment that makes him cry is "her daughter's wedding", not "her son's" or "her child's". Also, since we know that Ted proposes the Mother in 2015, it seems they've been married for almost 10 years now, meaning Ted's mother would've died before that, so it's a bit odd if something that happened so long ago makes Ted cry now.
- Also, when the Mother makes this remark and Ted gets watery-eyed, she doesn't immediately apologise and backtrack like you would if you'd upset someone you love. Instead, she starts to tear up too (unlikely unless she and Ted's mother were super close) and changes the subject to a happier one.
- However, there's also the theory that his mother died before Heather's wedding, which could've been recent.
- Another theory is that the Mother is seriously ill in 2024, and Ted thinks she might die, but in the end she doesn't. However, this doesn't jibe with Ted's ominous monologue in "The Time Travelers". It's the 2030 Ted who gives the monologue, and even if the Mother was ill in 2024, she should've gotten over the illness by 2030, so why is Ted still speaking as if she's dead? The monologue makes much more sense if the Mother died in 2024, or soon afterwards.
- Some people have suggested that the reason Ted starts crying is because his own mother died before his wedding. However, the comment that makes him cry is "her daughter's wedding", not "her son's" or "her child's". Also, since we know that Ted proposes the Mother in 2015, it seems they've been married for almost 10 years now, meaning Ted's mother would've died before that, so it's a bit odd if something that happened so long ago makes Ted cry now.
- In "Vesuvius", the Mother says they shouldn't get stuck in spinning old yarns and revisiting in the past, but instead focus on what's important now. Her worry is understandable if she knows she's about to die: she doesn't want Ted to get stuck with her memory, she wants him to keep on going forward even after she's dead.
- However, getting stuck in memories is exactly what happens Ted. We know that by 2030 he's telling endless stories to his kids about the past, when he was still a happy man. The reason the kids are willing to just sit on the sofa and listen to these stories is because they feel sorry for their dad. They know that the only thing that still brings him joy is revisiting the better days of his past.
- Or this could be the last story Ted tells his kids, which is why it's so detailed- it encompasses all his other stories. He took the Mother's words to heart, and is telling the most important story to his kids now, as closure before he starts "moving forward".
- By 2030 Robin and Barney have been divorced. Robin comes to realize how sad Ted's life has become, and she tries to pull him out of his memories, so he can yet again start living in the present, just like the Mother wanted. Robin eventually succeeds in this, and during that process the love between him and Ted is rekindled. Finding Robin for the second time helps Ted to finally get over the death of the mother, just like finding Ted helped the Mother get over the boyfriend of hers who had died years earlier.
- It breaks my heart to say this, but...Confirmed.
- Alternatively we wont learn her name until Ted meets her
- What with the kids being Luke and Leia you know Ted would love it. Bonus points if she starts calling him 'Anakin'
- The last episode of the season is called "Daisy." Also, she looks like a Daisy.
- It would be a great call back to the first episode where Ted pulls a big lavish party to try and impress Robin, and Marshall calls him " The Great Gatsby." Why? What girl did Gatsby hopelessly pine after and go to great lengths to woo? Daisy.
- If not yet Jossed, extremely unlikely as of the episode "Daisy." Daisy is the name of Marshall and Lily's daughter
- The episode after "Daisy" is called "Gary Blauman." Though I can't say she looks like a Gary Blauman.
- Robin had already known the mother, as well as her phone number, before Barney met her. While providing Barney with challenges, Robin called the mother and told her to go to the store Barney went in hopes of Barney not fulfilling a challenge. Her cheering up after Barney tells the story means that her plan for Barney to fail a challenge led to him deciding to marry her.
- La Vie en Rose. The life of Rose. Ergo, her name is Rose.
- "La vie en rose" means "life in pink" ("rose" being the French word for pink). The song is about seeing life "in rosy hues" when you're in love, it's not about any person named Rose. "The Life of Rose" would translate to "La vie de Rose".
- How do you explain then that she was able to start a degree in Economics at Columbia at age 24-25? Getting a student loan at that age, for that career while having an artistic background, can't be easy.
- Not really that hard. The ability to get student loans has nothing to do with your background(in that sense) Also once you reach a certain age you are considered an indepdendent student and they do not consider your parents finances in determining how much you are elgibible for meaning you can potentially borrow more money. So her age and previous education background shouldn't have been a hindrance to federal loans anyway. Of course Columbia is an expensive school and there are limits to how much you can borrow so maybe she made up the difference with scholarships or a work study.
- Or perhaps Barney at some unknown point.
Or...
A. The Mother dies and Barney and Robin's Marriage doesn't last.This is going by the theory that the Mother is dead when Future!Ted tells his kids about the story about their mother. But Ted is not alone in which he and Robin got back together and stayed that way this time as Robin is their step-mom. You might be asking "Then why does Ted keep referring to Robin as their Aunt"? Simple Ted and Robin got back together recently at this point but the kids are not quite comfortable with the idea of referring Robin as their mother yet. Besides it would explain why Ted's severely "off and on" relationship with Robin became such a recurring plot point despite on how the story is supposed to be about how he finds their mother.
B. The Mother dies but Barney and Robin do stay Married.The Mother died recently but Ted is a widower and a single dad and like other widowers plans to stay single. Ted will openly claim that he is perfectly fine with staying single (but is secretly quite depressed about it and how all of his relationships ended over the years.)
C. The Mother lives but Barney and Robin's marriage doesn't last.Conversely the Mother does live and everything stays fine between her and Ted. However Barney and Robin's marriage ends and sadly this time they decided to stay away from each other. The show will then end with Robin and/or Barney being incredibly depressed about their severe relationship issues over the course of the series.
- A is the right answer as the mother has been dead for a few years in the Future!Ted timeline and Barney and Robin divorce after 3 years of marriage. Instead of being uncomfortable about the idea, his kids encourage him to go after Robin, which he does.
- Alternatively, Ted's kids could be his version of the Front Porch Test or imagining his 20-years-in-the-Future self telling him what to do ( yes, The Time Travellers was an Imagine Spot, but that doesn't mean that Barney doesn't really do that)). The whole show is Ted imagining himself telling this story to his future kids to decide what he should do. This is either happening at the train station, on his first date with the Mother or at some unspecified later point. Parts of the story that Ted couldn't know at the time would either be him filling in the blanks or another Imagine Spot that happens later on and not all of the episodes are part of the same one - some are a different story altogether. The two endings? Ted is imagining two possible endings, we only get to see one of them on the show. If the Imagine Spot happens after the first date, then maybe Tracy mentioned something to Ted about an illness that seems to run in her family.
- Same troper here, I've now realised that my idea only makes sense in the last case: the Imagine Spot is happening some time after Ted's first date with Tracy and is his way of coming to terms with the fact that the love of his life may have inherited a terminal illness. The official ending is how Ted imagines himself telling the story if Tracy does get sick and the alternate ending is if she does not. If he knows about Max then the part of the Imagine Spot where he ends up asking Robin out is Ted wondering if he'll ever be able to get over Tracy the way she got over Max. Barney and Robin's divorce is because Ted is also worried that his friends' relationship will not work out. A lot of the episodes that seem to have nothing to do with Ted meeting Tracy could actually actually be him processing his fears of his best friends splitting up and the love of his life dying.
- It explains why the characters don't look as old as they should in "flashbacks" from the 2020s, but another option makes more sense: The series takes place after Ted learns that Tracy is sick. The official ending is what he would do if she dies, and the alternate ending is what he would do if she doesn't. That means that the kids are real, but much younger than Ted imagines them, Barney and Robin really are divorced, Barney's daughter is real, and only the ending of the last episode is imaginary.
- Same troper here, I've now realised that my idea only makes sense in the last case: the Imagine Spot is happening some time after Ted's first date with Tracy and is his way of coming to terms with the fact that the love of his life may have inherited a terminal illness. The official ending is how Ted imagines himself telling the story if Tracy does get sick and the alternate ending is if she does not. If he knows about Max then the part of the Imagine Spot where he ends up asking Robin out is Ted wondering if he'll ever be able to get over Tracy the way she got over Max. Barney and Robin's divorce is because Ted is also worried that his friends' relationship will not work out. A lot of the episodes that seem to have nothing to do with Ted meeting Tracy could actually actually be him processing his fears of his best friends splitting up and the love of his life dying.
- In the last episode, Ted could be doing what Marshall would: imagine his wife dead so he can imagine himself with another woman. Anyway, this whole thing probably happens after Penny is born, as Ted knows her name isn't Leia, or at least after Ted knows the Mother and knows she wants to name her first daughter Penny.
- Barney, Robin, Lily, and Marshall will all be there and reveal that Ted made up a lot of the story to be dramatic. There was no GNB, Marshall went back to the same company he originally worked for with Arthur as his boss. The company is either Altrucell or was bought by Altrucell. Barney didn`t sleep with over 200 women and always kinda wanted to get married but didn't think it would happen so he hid behind his womanising personality. Ted didn't have a crush on Robin when he first met her and they did not live together for more than a year (are we really supposed to believe that they couldn't live together peacefully while they were dating, but after the breakup they lived together for years?). Future Ted doesn't want to talk about her moving out because it was too painful. Lily and Marshall broke up for a longer time than depicted and it was much more traumatic (notice how they frequently ignore that it happened and say they`ve been together since first week of college) and they were trying to have a baby since the beginning of season 4 but kept having fertility problems. The story of how Ted met the mother is actually very simplistic and would've happened with or without the yellow umbrella or her being in the economics class he stumbled into. We all know Ted wouldn`t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
- Barney's appearance in How I Met Your Father has him admit to being a womaniser outside of Ted's narrartion.
- Even Ted wouldn't be insensitive enough to actually give his kids Star Wars character names for their first names. Much like Lily and Marshall, he and the Mother will give them Luke and Leia as middle names. The daughter's name will be Cynthia, after Cindy, because of the important role she played in getting Ted and the Mother together, and because Ted wouldn't name the kids after his friends, and neither would the Mother.
- Semi-Jossed. The son's name is Luke, the daughter's name is Penny.
He then fills in their memory so that they have more than just the basic programming of human behaviour. He has to input the data the old fashioned way so that they will "learn" from it the same way as a human child would. They will pick up behavioral patterns based on their "father" and his friends. He lives with Robin, Marshal and Lily as well as the woman who built his kids. She is now a close friend, having joined the group the same way as Robin did. Barney still has an anti-relationship apartment somewhere else but close-by.
The story of how Ted met their mother is really the story of how he met and got to know the woman who would build them, so we have at least two decades left to go.
- Well, the mother does like to paint robots playing volleyball... oh my God...
- Ted doesn't even say that he's married to their Mom. Could be that Robin is their step-mom and they just call her 'Aunt' Robin because she's so uncomfortable with the idea of having kids.
- He does mention their wedding at one point.
- It is also stated that Robin eventually made her peace with children. As well, the kids seemed shocked and appalled that Ted and Robin had ever been a couple.
- They call him "Dad" in the second season opening when they complain that it feels like he's been telling the story for a year and ask him to skip ahead. Given modern (and postmodern) family dynamics, though, that doesn't discredit this theory at all.
- In a surprise twist, Ted isn't the children's biological father; he adopted them from a woman he meets very briefly.
- Alternately, Ted and their mother were never even involved. He just babysits because he is the only person in the group who has no life (aside from Barney, who dies, see below), and the Honorary Uncle titles were from their mother's friendship with the group.
- Alternately, they're Lily's and Marshall's kids, who's parents died in a car crash between the end of the series and the "present" in the framing sequence. "Met" is a metaphor for "came to know and understand", and How I Met Your Parents would give away that he's not their dad. Ted and Robin take care of the kids, with the occasional help of Barney, who settles down somewhat (but not entirely).
- They couldn't be Lily and Marshall's kids. Ted told the kids how Marshall opened Lily's letter that was supposed to be opened after her death "last year," as in a year before Ted tells the kids the story, so why couldn't he just call them "your mom and dad"? They would know who their parents were in that case...
- But even then it's a dead end for this theory because Lily turns out to be just fine, not dead.
- They are called aunt Lily and uncle Marshall many times in the stories, so Jossed.
- Not necessarily. Looking at the simple structure of the title only tells how Ted met the mother of the kids. That would like me saying to you, "Did I tell you how I met your mother?" This is not "How I met your mother, fell in love with her, married her and had you two little bastards." Which leads me to...
- They call Future Ted "dad" at least once. Like in the second episode, where Ted tells Robin he loves her, and his daughter goes "oh, Dad..."
- And in the Perfect Week episode, he asks them in the end if he's a "bad Dad", so Ted's definitely the father. We have proof!
- As mentioned earlier, this is a story about how Ted met the mother of the two kids in the opening scene. This is not "How I Met My Wife." This leads to several possible scenarios:
- (The Most Obvious) Ted's wife is the mother of the children
- Ted and his wife are unable to have children and this is how they met the biological mother of the kids
- Ted's kids are not biologically his, but this is how he met their mother, which could be
- His current wife
- His ex-wife
- The woman they view as a mother figure
- This seems Jossed as of "Girls vs. Suits." Future Ted says Cindy's roommate was both the kids' mother and the woman he married.
- The man telling the story to the children is obviously not Ted - their voices are completely different. But he's representing himself as Ted in the story and pretending to be the children's biological father. The easiest explanation is that Ted died when the children were very young, long enough ago that they have no real memory of him. Their mother married the story-telling man soon afterwards and convinced them that he was their father, either to spare them trauma or for some more sinister purpose. Robin, Marshall, and Lily are in on the deception too, as the children have met them without the secret being revealed.
- In the fifth episode of season 3, we see Ted alive and well during the mid 2020s, when the children would have been about ten; and the photo in the den which is described in the 3rd episode of season 2 has the Ted we know and love. If Story-Telling Man isn't Ted, then they should have noticed. (Oh my gosh, "5th episode of season 3"? I feel like such a nerd for saying that...!)
- This theory has been Jossed. Word of God says they'll never pull something like that and the person telling the story in 2030 really is Ted.
- "Ted Mosby...architect." Hey, there's precedent
- Oh, Ted is not dead but he is dying, which is one of the reason why he's telling the story to his kids, he what's not only to spend some time with them, but also to tell them the story of he met their their mother before he goes.
- Ted never fully got over his feelings that he and Robin were soulmates, and as time passed he purposefully sabotaged every relationship he was in (cheating on Victoria, inviting Stella's ex to their wedding, etc.) because he knew he was meant to be with Robin. As the years went on he developed severe emotional problems because of this and became a reclusive architect designing grand tributes to Robin secretly in his buildings. Finally as he succumbs to his long untreated mental illness(es), he creates what he believes him and Robin's children would look like, and as a coping mechanism meticulously explains everything he could have, or should have, done to keep Robin instead of pushing her away from him. The series will end with his children revealing to him that they are figments of his imagination and that he has to face reality, and the camera pans to see Future Ted putting a shotgun in his mouth and then whispering "reality..." before a cut to black and the end credits roll.
- Wouldn't that make Robin the (imaginary) Mother, which we already know isn't so (as she's 'Aunt Robin')?
- Along with dead Barney, the two most probable theories yet.
- Heck, this explains why they got those good jobs - they went to law school with President Eriksen!
- Wasn't one of them also Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
- That would also explain how Marshall gets access to Time Travel!
- Wait, wouldn't that make the pineapple a first attempt at making sure the time machine works?like "let's send something inanimate first"
- Future Marshall DID have a snazzy office...
- ...oh god.
- They did go to Columbia Law School after all.
- That would explain how he eventually managed to save the planet (as Ted mentions in season 7)
- His womanizing also suggests that he's unlikely to hit a ripe old age.
- One of Barney's most important character traits is that he always wears a suit. The Livejournal link talks about this suggesting mourning colors and the formality of a funeral, but there's a simpler link. If a man Barney's age died, how would the corpse be dressed in the coffin? Just like Barney is now - in a suit.
- But from Barney's point of view, suits resemble joy and awesomeness, not death. This is why he never wears his suit in funerals. And anyway, he wants to be buried naked.
- Barney is so cool that he is probably Too Cool to Live.
- It's still possible, but Ted recently gave a date for when Barney finally quit smoking that was well outside the likely running time of the show. So he may die, but not in the present.
- When I saw that episode, I thought immediately of this theory - what if the date given for Barney's last cigarette is the date of his death?
- I'm sure I'm not the only one who imagined Barney with a cigarette in his mouth and a blindfold on with his back against a wall. Pretty sad, but almost plausible.
- Especially suspicious is that Barney's life after the series is almost never mentioned. Future ted talks about Robin, Marshall and Lily all the time, but Barney is barely ever mentioned. Chances are the Barney is naught but a distant memory, for one reason or another.
- Still, Barney is always referred to as "Uncle Barney" when Future Ted is talking to his kids, implying that Barney was at least alive until some point after the kids were born and were old enough to remember him. If the kids never knew him, why would they call him "Uncle"? And Ted would just refer to him as "my friend Barney" or some such thing, as he does for the other people in his life that his kids presumably never meet.
- Not necessarily. The reason he's Uncle Barney isn't because he's close to the children, but because he is Ted's brother. As long as Ted considers Barney his brother, he's their uncle. I still no longer think this WMG is true, but for other reasons.
- After recently watching season six's 'Subway Wars' again, I've found at one point Future Ted says "To this day Barney denies this is what happened ... " (It's paraphrased, but he definitely says "to this day".) I think it would therefore be fair to say Barney is alive by 2030, because if the writers had been foreshadowing his death all this time, they would have had the line differently, like "Barney always denied this is how it happened, but ... " for example.
- Also, "Tick, Tick, Tick" has Barney and Robin both swearing "to this day" about the song on the boat.
- More than that, Barney seems to be very sure of who might cause his death. While his job is unclear, he seems to be very positive that he only has it because he knows a lot of dirt on the company. When asked if he was worried about being fired, he said "The things I know about this company, I can never be fired. I might find myself ashore with no fingerprints or teeth, but I can never be fired."
- It would also explain why Barney's character is so absurdly larger than life. Marshall, Lily, and Robin have all been around to roll their eyes and correct Ted when he gets a little too carried away recounting their exploits. Essentially it would add an extra level of Unreliable Narrator.
- Unlikely, since Ted talks about Barney as if they still talk on ocassion. In Subway Wars, he says "To this day your uncle Barney won't admit it..." and in Tick, Tick, Tick... he says "To this day Robin and Barney both swear this is the song they danced to on that night." They also meet up at least twice a year for Thanksgiving and Robots vs. Wrestlers, so Ted and Barney are presumably still quite close.
- This is how I see the whole series ending. He does get married, but his wife dies prematurely, and he stands there relaying the story of how they met in the way he'd planned to tell their kids. Then Robin comes up, tells him he's been here for hours, and they walk off.
- Pretty much confirmed.
- Very, very plausible.
- Jossed as of Say Cheese. Future Ted says the kids have seen Lily's photo albums.
- Jossed two seasons earlier, with Season 3's Little Boys. We are shown pictures the children drew of themselves with Aunt Robin, something they couldn't have pulled off nearly as well if they were blind.
- ... surprisingly Jossed by "Symphony of Illumination."
- Double Jossed by "Unpause."
- The room the story is being told in is revealed to be the living room of the house Ted bought in Season 5 and restored sometime in the future.
- With the recent Season 9 Promo, with the kids all grown up talking about how they missed out on their lives, and with Ted's comment about Garrison and Cootes saving the world not being entirely accurate (Marshall was okay with going to Italy with Lily because the firm was doing poorly), it's possible that Ted knows it's After the End and is trying to shield his kids from the reality that they can't leave their home again.
Conclusion? The Ted who is narrating had quite a few drinks before starting this story, which is why he's having trouble keeping track of the details, and also why he keeps forgetting that some of this material is not stuff a parent would usually tell their kids. When the kids protest that they've heard this story before, they're telling truth, as this is not an entirely uncommon occurrence in the Mosby household. The mother is not around because Ted is an alcoholic. Ted retained custody of the kids only because he has access to very good legal representation.
- Or because he's not an alcoholic. He just gets kinda drunk at least once a week.
It's not a term of endearment. Ted, try as he might, is still longing for Robin when her now college agesister Katie enrolls in (his class). One night she and Robin are at the bar, Ted comes in while Robin's in the bathroom and strikes up a conversation, and...well...the rest (as they say) is history.
- By extension, this means (at least) one of the other Honorary Uncle titles could be legit.
Ted is just imagining what his kids will be like and the story he will tell them. This opens up the possibility that anyone he said was not the mother could actually be the mother, even Robin; he just thought that they weren't at the time of the Imagine Spot.
- Continuing with this theory, there could not even be a mother: Ted never ends up getting married and having kids.
- Jossed: It's actually Robin. Though, Barney did ask Quinn to marry him.
- The bride needed Ted, i think it's a very big hint that Robin is the bride, why would Nora wants to see Ted before her wedding? After all they (so far) barely ever talked with each other, heck did they ever talk with each other? So unless Nora and Ted formed a friendship with each other before the wedding, i think Robin has the bigger chance to be Barney's bride.
- And Robin also asked Ted to be her best man if she ever got married. So Ted's probably pulling double duty.
- If it's not Robin, I think it's Victoria. Why else would they bring her back?
- To provide closure for her character?
- Jossed: It is Robin.
- Ted's nervousness at the wedding is also good support for this; if one of his best friends is marrying his ex-girlfriend, he'd be rightly nervous. If Barney is just marrying Nora or some other girl, it seems more far-fetched. Future Ted hasn't yet said Nora's name, however, so it's unclear whether she's "Aunt Nora" or "that girl Nora".
- Confirmed at the end of season 7.
- Nailed it!
My theory is that Barney will have the jitters before the wedding and will have nightmares about growing old and fat so she does not love him anymore and to never be able feel the same kind of love that they had when they were dating and thus will never be able to properly marry Robin. But at the last minute, Ted will have a flash of inspiration and will say something like this:Ted: " Yeah, it would be impossible to conquer the same girl every day. I mean, imagine inventing a new play every day for the rest of your life, conquering the same person over and over again even if she gets old and fat... No one would ever be able to do that."And Barney would say: "Challenge accepted"
- Officially jossed.
- Or Lily. Or even a random woman who gave her eggs to the fertility clinic. But this theory is partly Jossed because Barney is against long-term relationships in general, he's also extremely happy when Marshall is single again, and is devastated when his brother gets into a long-term relationship and even married.
- Barney happy when Marshall is single again? Do you even watch the show? Barney is the frickin' president of the Marshall/Lily fanclub.
- First episode of Season Three? Barney is amazingly pumped when he thinks all three of them are single simultaneously. He spends the next two episodes taking Marshall out to bars to hook up with other chicks - who weren't Lily. Admittedly, he hooked up with them himself instead (why is this even a spoiler?), but he did try. Kinda. He even forgot Lily's name for a bit! Pretty sure Barney, while he may ship 'em later, is perfectly capable of getting excited about acquiring a newly-unattached wingman.
- I can't remember what episode it was in, but it was revealed that Barney paid for Lily's ticket back to New York, and hooked up with Marshall's dates to keep him single. Taking Marshall out was just to keep him busy. And also so Barney could get laid.
- Barney happy when Marshall is single again? Do you even watch the show? Barney is the frickin' president of the Marshall/Lily fanclub.
- And yet, it is rumored that Barney and Robin will hook up this season. The only question is, for how long?
- They have.
- And it was short.
- Barney and Ted eventually get together, get married/civil partnership'd, and decide to have kids. When they finally meet the perfect surrogate who has all the traits Ted wants his children to have and will play the right music for the fetus... it's Cindy's roommate!
- Ted is definitely married as of the year 2021 — in "How I Met Everyone Else", he wonders where his wife has got to, and in "Garbage Island" he tells Wendy he's married to a "wonderful woman" and has two kids.
- Or at least, the writers planned it this way before the audience hated him. When Future!Ted originally mentions Don, it was that "ironically," after choosing to forgo dating for her career, that was the day she met him, and he says his first name with no other explanation, as if the kids should know already.
- If Robin does end up with Don, why doesn't he refer to him as "Uncle Don", like he does with Lily, Marshall, Barney and Robin?
- Wow, serious Fridge Brilliance. The irony in their meeting at their time isn't because she wound up with Don, but because in the end she was faced with the same choice, and chose dating... and he chose the opposite.
- Almost certainly true. It's hinted at with Barney's reaction to Robin in that episode. The writers realised how terrible a mistake they made tossing the relationship aside and are giving it another shot.
- Perhaps further support for this, or at least part of it: Barney imagines himself as Best Man at Ted's wedding. Maybe this is a reverse-hint, of sorts.
- Another popular guess is Cindy and the blonde, since why else would the mother (Cindy's roommate) be at the wedding? Furthermore, Ted is nervous about his speech because he doesn't know the couple that well, but Cindy insisted he be the best men because Ted played a vital role in her deciding she's a lesbian and leading her to find her future wife.
- And now, in episode 6.12 ("False Positive"), Robin asked Ted to be her Best Man if she ever gets married.
- My personal theory is that it's Barney's wedding. The woman who calls for the best man never says a name, and Ted and Marshall get up at the same time. And it would be just like Barney to ask them both to be his best man. Alternatively, if it turns out that this is Robin and Barney's wedding, then Ted is Robin's "best man" (as per "False Positive") and Marshall is Barney's.
- This doesn't really prove anything, but in the latest episode ("The Exploding Meatball Sub") it shows a flashforward to 2021 at the very end. Neither Barney nor Robin are wearing wedding rings. However they could just not be wearing them at the time or not like wearing them...
- Also, that particular flashfoward could be a product of Barney's imagination—everybody looks pretty much the same (unlike Ted/Marshall/Lily's "real" flashfowards), and it seems unlikely that Barney could feign illness for that long that much in the future. He's grown up a little.
- The Barney's wedding part has been verified. Now we just need to know if it's to either Nora or Robin. Since Ted is Best Man to Barney, this favors Nora as the one Barney marries. Which could be a Red Herring.
- Doubtful, since she's never referred to as "Aunt Nora" in the voiceover. And they've broken up now.
- In the Exploding meatball sub, ten years later, neither is wearing a wedding ring.
- It is possible the writers did that because that was before it was revealed whose wedding it was and they didn't want to give anything away. It's possible though, as NPH hides his hand in 2015 so we can't see if Barney is still married or not. Considering the fact that the wedding is important in the show's story, however, and that Barney and Robin are still on talking terms in 2030 (it would be even harder for them to remain friends if they split up this time round), well, those are good arguments for them still being married. I also can't imagine why the writers would go to such lengths to make both reveals so big and important if they're only going to divorce the characters later.
- Confirmed. The two divorce after three years of marriage.
- Barney's drunk kiss with Robin wasn't planned, but after she turned him down, he told her they were never going to get together out of respect. When she started acting weird around him, he realized what was going on and started the fake relationship with Patrice. Other steps were played by ear with the security cameras and whatever Patrice found out. Once he decided to propose to Robin, he wrote everything down like he planned it the whole time.
- The way that Barney and Quinn broke up made me think that he was intentionally sabotaging his relationship with Quinn. I think that after he saw Robin was sad about Barney supposedly throwing away all the mementos from their relationship, Barney realized that Robin really was still in love with him deep down. The only thing was that her pride wouldn't let her admit it. So Barney basically made the most hateful, sexist Pre-Nup possible in order to drive Quinn away. Sure, Robin was dating Nick at the time, but he knew that it wouldn't last. He needed to find the right time to intervene.
- Robin and Barney already tried this relationship once and it was destructive and did not work. It was also revealed that Barney wants kids and Robin doesn't want kids and she also can't have any. So they'll either realize they aren't compatible and not even make it down the aisle, or the two of them will mutually break up on good terms.
- Jossed. Episode 15, Season 9. If you take a closer look at Barney's left hand while he's fixing his tie in front of the mirror just after his boss (who turns out to be the guy who stole his ex, Shannon) is arrested by the FBI, you'll be able to see that he is wearing a ring. This scene happens 2 months or so after his wedding, so yeah, Barney and Robin do get married. Unless Barney gets a girlfriend, proposes and plans a wedding in that short time, which is highly unlikely.
- That series will end with her getting pregnant and Barney showing up.
- When Barney did his "Perfect Week" he was bragging to his friends about it every step of the way. But his friends didn't know about his alleged perfect month until it was already over and he subsequently found out that #31 was pregnant. It's possible that after his failed marriage to Robin he decided he was done with relationships, but he still wanted to be a dad so he hired a surrogate to bear his child and just told his friends that it was a random girl he knocked up.
- Figures - especially if he's aware of how Lily, Marshall and Ted over-reacted to Robin's lie about not making the Canadian pole-vaulting team in "Symphony of Illusion". Furthermore, news of him hiring a surrogate would obviously upset Robin, and may cause interference from Lily due to her control-freakery, or even resentment because he hadn't asked her to be the surrogate.
- He actually came from a family of wizards who run a subway shop in New York and he went forward in time and cast a spell to a lonely architect and his daughter to think that they're their son and brother respectively for reasons unknown.
- Additionally, "Neil Patrick Harris", as seen in the film was in fact Barney using their similar appearance in one of his schemes. This would cover the fact that Neil Patrick Harris is gay and the man Harold and Kumar met clearly wasn't.
- Even more additionally, this can explain some of Barney's characterization in the show. After getting his heart broken by Shannon, he has some crazy adventures (as per above) and some time later meets Ted. This also could explain some of his success with women: they play along with his schemes because he looks exactly like NPH and they dig that. Because every person Barney meets comments on the resemblance, it becomes so obvious and non-noteworthy to the gang (and their children) that Ted never mentions it-story. (And then they found a doctor who also looked like him, I guess.)
- Additionally, "Neil Patrick Harris", as seen in the film was in fact Barney using their similar appearance in one of his schemes. This would cover the fact that Neil Patrick Harris is gay and the man Harold and Kumar met clearly wasn't.
- Robin's player is the Real man. She views the game as a straightforward attempt to amass as much money and status as possible and is confused whenever role-playing and character development/relationships. As a result her character has a poorly developed bakstory.
- Ted's player is the Thespian. He's determined to roleplay a lovesick romantic but his poor character optimization and unwillingness to think strategically doom him to failure.
- Marshall's player is the Loony. He ignored the game's romantice premise in order to focus on roleplaying a lawyer leading to many career oriented subplots. He also randomly introduces odd quirks such as singing everything and his love of girly drinks just for lulz.
- Lily's player is the brain. Determined to advanced the plot and skilled at manipulating the other players to keep them on the rails.
- Barney's player is the Munchkin. His character is optimized for getting laid as much as possible. He took the flaws: parental abandonment, fear of commitment, compulsively wears suits, unable to drive and does not know how to use screwdrivers in order to get money, corporate connections and a super-high seduction skill. He also designed his apartment to give himself as many circumstance bonuses as possible. The laser tag obsession is how he justifies it to the DM when he reflexively puts points into his combat skills. Barney's butt monkey status is the DM getting revenge.
- Marshall = Chandler
- Lily = Monica
- Barney = Joey
- Robin = Pheobe
- Ted = Ross
- The show is about finding Rachel.
- Except that Barney is not stupid... and in what universe is Robin anything like Phoebe?
- They're both the wacky chick (fulfilling similar roles in the group dynamic), and both have UST with their universe's Handsome Lech (although in HIMYM, it just becomes ST).
- It's a very, VERY alternate universe.
- Robin is much more like Rachel, and based on all the quirks Ted describes about the mother in "Girls vs. Suits", she'll probably be the Phoebe herself. Still kind of works, since Joey-Rachel and Ross-Phoebe were couplings that Friends experimented with.
- I would gush if Ted met a "Phoebe" :D
- The HIMYM versions are either the darker/lighter sides of the Friends versions. Marshall is how Chandler would have been if he'd had a happy, normal family (idealistic rather than cynical and commitment-phobic). Lily is Monica if her mother hadn't criticized her so much (more relaxed, quirky and less uptight). Barney is Joey with a broken heart, screwed up parents and more brains. Robin is how Rachel would have been if she had been toughened up rather than spoilt (more career-driven and independent). And Ted is Ross who is still looking.
- How about an Alternate Universe of Coupling?
- Marshall = Steve
- Lily = Susan
- Barney = Patrick
- Ted = Jeff
- Robin = Sally
- Ted's various girlfriends collectively = Jane
- I'd rather say Robin is Jane.
- Not much point when Coupling is basically an alternate-universe Friends
- Coupling is Friends if the four of the friends are retarded or insane.
- No, it's Friends for a British audience (all of the characters hang out in pubs and wine bars rather than a coffee-house, and the sexual references are more explicit).
- Except that Barney is not stupid... and in what universe is Robin anything like Phoebe?
- Ted = J.D.
- Marshall = Turk
- Lily = Carla
- Robin = Kim
- Barney = The Todd
- Perhaps the mother will be Elliot?
- But, I thought that Elliot left Ted at the altar.
- Ted = Danny Tanner (naturally). Not only because of the dopy dad jokes, or the tendency to tell long winded stories, but because he's a widower.
- Marshall = Joey Gladstone
- Barney = Jesse Katsopolis. Only he didn't have a father in this universe.
- Robin = Becky Donaldson. She even has the career in broadcast journalism. Plus Becky was originally supposed to be a love interest for Danny)
- Lily = Patty Fogerty. Joey's college girlfriend from the episode "Blast from the Past" who broke up with him to, yes, find herself. Danny even says how she did a Mexican hat dance on his heart. Only in the HIMYM universe she came back. Go watch the episode and tell me you can't picture Danny calling Patty a "Grinch".
- Dude, Barney was a hippie, and Billy's a Deadpan Snarker. Huge difference.
- But not mutually exclusive...
- Billy's not a nice person. He mocks people's e-mails, is an aspiring super-villain, a stalker, and ponders mass poisoning simply because he got his heartstrings a little bruised. He already had one foot in the soulless bastard door when Act I started.
- Disillusionment? Er, no, Barney's awesome
- Plus, the MegaCorp that Barney works at is the perfect front for a legion-of-doom type organization
- Also what is Barney's actual profession? I makes sense.
- After his Heroic BSoD in Doctor Horrible, Billy accepted Bad Horse's offer to head up the Evil League of Evil's New York office (operating in the guise of a midlevel executive at the League's front company, Goliath Bank). Changing his name for security reasons, and desperate to fill the void left by the death of the only woman he ever loved, he begins a meaningless string of hookups, booty calls, and one-night stands. Meanwhile, Moist, with his share of the take from the bank heist, gets hormone therapy to treat his excessive sweating, earns a Master's in Engineering from M.I.T., and takes a position at Cal Tech, all under his real name of Howard Wolowitz.
- Alternately, Barney is a more successful Billy in an alternate universe.
- This makes a creepy amount of sense. Due to Penny's death in Dr Horrible, Billy lost his faith in meaningful relationships, and became the ladies man we all know and love today. His character arc was from tragic Anti-Villain to really being evil and enjoying it. All-out evil wouldn't show up in his civilian identity, however, but the reckless and carefree attitude one might expect is there. However, his relationship with Robin also suggests a glimmer of the mindset he had back when he loved Penny, and it could be that his character is continuing to move forward and he may become optimistic like he was as Billy once again. This isn't just a simply WMG, it could be a full-on plotline and character arc.
- Actually explained quite nicely in this fanfic
- And, much like how he suggested giving Marvin the middle name "Waitforit" Barney suggested that Ted and the Mother name their daughter "Penny" after her.
- His father in the show is to be played by John Lithgow
- Though, depending on how long the show runs, they will have been born after the show ended.
- If the mother is planning on having Ted know about and be involved with his child (even willing to marry him because of it) then why would she wait until it's already born to tell him about it? Wouldn't it make more sense to contact him while still pregnant?
- Barney is a magician
- Marshall is the biggest believer there is
- Some of their employees are pretty weird
- Barney is super secretive about his job and is afraid he'll end up being murdered because of it
- If Barney is to be believed, then it isn't uncommon for armed and dangerous ninjas to show up at the office
- They sure do some shady business around there...
- Their security isn't that great - see "armed ninjas"
- The company has been established as EVIL!
- The Sasquatch at Barneys job in the first season wasn't Marshall, it was a real Sasquatch
- Wolfram & Hart has offices in many dimensions and realities
- And it would be cool
Also, it would explain the ridiculous number of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel alumni on the show: because of the events of Not Fade Away, the Senior Partners had enough of Team Angel, and so they sent an entire army to take them out and suck Los Angeles, along with Team Angel, into a hell dimension. To make sure the Scoobie Gang would stay out of it, they sent the rest of the characters in the Buffyverse into an alternate reality, erased their memories, and gave them completely different pasts, which is why Andrew is an employee at a coffee place and Willow is Lily.
Additionally, the Mayor is Ted's mom's boyfriend because, in this dimension, he never heard of demons and never died.
- Because the Senior Partners were worried that the now memory-altered Scoobie Gang would run into their counterparts in the Motherverse reality, they killed those counterparts. However, they didn't need to kill Team Angel's counterparts because they are still in the Buffyverse trapped in the hell dimension that is now LA. This is why Sandy and Penelope weren't killed; the original Wesley and the original Fred's body didn't cross over to the Motherverse.
- Alternatively, they did not kill off the Scooby Gang counterparts. We know that Lily/Willow has a doppleganger, who is a stripper. Who's to say that the rest of the Scooby Gang doesn't have dopplegangers too, just ones that we don't meet?
- Maybe Barney's job is to make sure that Lily doesn't remember that she is Willow.
- Alternately, rather than Felicia Day and Simon Helberg, in this universe Penny and Moist were played by Codex and Howard Wolowitz. Possibly the greatest crossover ever?
- And considering Castle is such a huge fan of "That Joss Whedon Show" and has Hollywood connections due to the movie deal for the Nikki Heat books, he and Barney put in a call to get Joss to direct.
- In the far distant future of the Firefly verse, those seeking to complete Companion Training must travel back in time to Earth-That-Was, in order to study the art of seduction from the master of the craft: the Great Barney Stinson. So, why all the Swarley business? It's part of Barney's plan. He enlisted Inara in a plan to help bring Marshall and Lily back together. First knowing that she was working as a barista he urged Ted and Marshall to go to that shop and paid Inara to develop a crush on Marshall and even go so far as to come up with an embarrassing new nick-name for him. Then he would plant the seeds of doubt that Inara was actually crazy. Finally he would inform Robin who would tell Lily of the new crush thereby getting them back together. Why would Inara help? She is a bit of a romantic and values true love. For example, she'd never come between Wash and Zoe, but if something drove them apart she'd be quick to help get them back together. And the mess in the apartment...the goram Reavers showed up.
- Future!Marshall was wearing a bowtie. Gee, who do we know that travels in time while wearing a bowtie?
- Alternately, assuming that the "Marshall becomes President" theory is true, and knowing he's a fan of Quantum Leap, perhaps he ordered the construction of a working time machine after a long marathon and volunteered himself to be the first person to take a leap.
- Clearly a long, drawn out narrative recounting every incident of your life is In the Blood.
- Maybe Barney's cousin Leslie is actually Leslie Winkle?
- They spend a lot of time acquiring banks, and theoretically, have a lot of bankers/financiers working with them
- They're evil
- They regularly get attacked by ninjas
- They have destabilized at least one nation
- They regularly do business with countries the U.S. considers threats (North Korea and China, at least.)
- He has a dark past, but has an overly perfect looking family with a son and a daughter, and even an estranged much older sibling from an earlier relationship.
- Alternatively, he reads Harry Potter. Hogwards' motto "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus" also translates "The sleeping dragon must never be poked".
- Titillandus has connotations of "tickle" far more than "poke", and is typically translated that way. There are also unrelated, nitpicky problems with the translation you chose. As for the original WMG, "don't poke the dragon!" or "don't poke a sleeping dragon!" has been around in certain wide-ranging, fantasy-fan circles for years before A Game of Thrones was released, possibly as long as or longer than First Edition D&D has been around. That doesn't mean he didn't get it from A Songof Ice And Fire, and I'm pretty sure he does read the Harry Potter books, but my memory can't supply specific examples.
- He mentions Joffrey in the Season 9 premier, so it's very possible.
- Very likely. He probably underwent it a few more times like the one girl in the movie, that's why he lets her go and after a while keeps pining for her.
- Future!Ted:: Kids, at the start of 2012, your aunt Robin joined SHIELD...
- Alternately she needs to get close to Barney because he is Dr. Horrible. Further Marshall is really Vector and Lily is Dark Willow, and they have formed an alliance and she needs to take them down.
- The reason Robin didn't hang out much with the gang is because she's busy working with SHIELD and helping Fury's fight against HYDRA after SHIELD dissolved during the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It could also explain why she's traveling a lot.
- Being older, Barney is less obnoxious than Jay - or rather, he's learned to become obnoxious in a more charming way. He's also a much more convincing liar - so much so that, in addition to successfully lying to his friends about his sexual conquests, he has learned to use his ability to lie to get women to sleep with him.
- Jay, meanwhile, clearly has some knowledge of the Bro Code ... however, being younger and more immature than Cousin Barney, he's much less successful in terms of bragging/lying about his sexual prowess to his friends. Also, he has yet to learn to ultilise his lying in order to pick up women. And, of course, he has yet to suit up!
- By this logic, Ted is not so much an Unreliable Narrator as a gullible one - he's fallen for so many of Barney's lies that he presents them as the truth because that's what he actually believes. This is in stark contrast to Will, who doesn't believe most of what Jay says but is friends with him nevertheless.
- [[spoiler: Jossed.
- Jossed.
- "Eventually, we all become our own doppelgangers...."
- Semi-confirmed. The fertility doctor Marshall and Lily see is the fifth doppelganger.
- Jossed.
- Confrm'd[[supersecretspoiler: Sort of. He was a cab driver doppelganger by accident and a knife-juggling doppelganger by intent. Lily was convinced that a non-doppelganger hot dog salesman was the fifth doppelganger.]]
- This would probably be for the best, seeing as it would be very unrealistic for all the group's quests and traditions and such to end conveniently right before or when he meets the Mother.
- Jossed. They now have seen the fifth doppelganger. It was the fertility doctor.
- Jossed
- YES.
- Or lose her points, depending on who she's a doppelganger of.
- Except we used to see him at work, we just didn't know what he actually did. And he hasn't said that since his company was bought out by GNB.
- No, we saw him in an office. We never saw that office being used, since we never saw him do anything. For all we know, he was just a good enough prostitute to be able to request an office and a parking space for him to play out his fantasy of being a high-flying executive.
- Or he could be a private prostitute for GNB employees.
- Autistic? He's been mentioned as having ADD, but that's it.
- I don't know, he was able to memorize the names of ALL of Ted's students....
- Autistic? He's been mentioned as having ADD, but that's it.
- I don't know about the rest, but "evading taxes" makes sense. There's those shadowy deals he seems to make with North Koreans, and in one episode Barney tells Lily about a secret locked case in his apartment. If he ever dies, she's to take it and burn the contents. Hmm...
- Throughout the run of the show, we're shown that Barney's a MUCH less evil guy than he builds himself up as. His job is likely something very beneficial, likely involving ethics or something similar, but for the sake of his "bad boy" image, he refuses to disclose the details to make himself seem more of an "evil exec".
- Because him giving up on romatic relationships and his father just isn't enough.
- Barney said something to the effect of "They actually expect me to work"
- This makes the most sense.
- This is supported by the fact that Barney is frequently seen Chewing the Scenery and Milking the Giant Cow
Additionally, they make a working time machine in the future, which Marshall tests out/uses.
- Considering all the Actor Allusion in this series, you knew this had to come up sooner or later.
- Actually explained quite nicely in this fanfic
All that stuff he has? He borrowed it from different people and never returned it, just like he does with Ted's stuff.
- Did he borrow a 50-foot TV shipped from Japan?
- Yes, probably.
- He stole what he couldn't borrow. We have seen that he has only little respect for other people's property.
- He's got "a guy" for everything, and it's implied that his guys get him stuff a lot cheaper than it would cost legally. I bet a lot of his toys "fell off a truck".
- But his college hippie flashbacks seem to point to him going to a normal city college.
- Those were all post-college. What better way to throw people off than come back from college seeming like a hippie, hm?
- Jossed, the fifth AND sixth slaps happened
- lets say the last slap
- Jossed. The last slap is used literally right before Barney and Robin get married in order to calm Barney down when he has one final panic attack.
- It's not Barney's call what counts as a slap, it's Lily's. If Marshall didn't slap him in the face as hard as he could, it's not one of "the slaps."
- If this happens I hope it's an in the future gag.
- Maybe 'Teenage Pop Star' is Future Ted's Euphemism for 'Teenage Porn Star', similar to how 'sandwich' is his word for marijuana.
- A sudden, sharp shock to the face could perhaps send him into ventricular fibrillation. A sudden, sharp shock such as the final sla- No. It's too depressing. Barney will live forever, and if he doesn't, it will have nothing to do with Marshall.
- Because honestly, if the last words of the show aren't "AND THAT'S FIVE!", I'll eat my hat.
- The fifth slap happened in season 7 but Barney agreed to three more slaps in exchange for not wearing the ducky tie. Slaps 5 and 6 happened one after another but Marshall now has slaps 7 and 8 still available
- How about "AND THAT'S EIGHT" instead
- Jossed: The last slap is in the second to last episode (or thrid-to-last since the finale is an hour.)
- Unless season 8 is the last season
- It turns out it isn't.
- In a flashforward set in a casino where Marshall goes into Beercules-mode again, Barney is seen wearing the ducky tie again. Therefore, we know that sometime in the future, Barney will have to wear the ducky tie again...and it's unlikely he would accept wearing the ducky tie as part of a completely new bet, since it bit him in the ass the last time.
- Jossed.. Barny agrees to wear the Ducky tie again to get Marshal to turn off his phone, relax and "So drunk (they) need subtitles".
- Over the course of years, more slaps will be added as Marshall earns more. Since 83 is Barney's favorite number, it will ironically be the total number of slaps.
- Eventually, Barney will employ a great usage of Insane Troll Logic to get back at Marshall (and Lily, since she is a biased Slap Bet commissioner). Lily is forced to accept Barney's logic and will have to give out a bigger punishment to Marshall.
- Barney will freak out on his wedding day, and Marshall will slap him back into the right mindset.
- I really like this one. Marshall still has two slaps left so one of them can be used in the wedding episode and the last one in the series finale.
- Confirmed. On "The End of the Aisle" that's exactly what he does. And that's all of them!
- I really like this one. Marshall still has two slaps left so one of them can be used in the wedding episode and the last one in the series finale.
- Or rather, he'll just lightly tap him on the cheek and count it as a slap. As a gift.
- To the Mother. As a gift to welcome her into the "family".
- More like one of the most Broken Base finales of all time.
A. Ted giving Robin the locket would be the catalyst of a series of events that lead into Robin leaving Barney (either preventing the wedding or it happens shortly afterwards).
or
B. Ted does give Robin the Locket but it does not change the fact that she and Barney are going to be married and Ted will be accused of trying to sabotage the wedding in which his friendship with Barney will either end or be severely strained. So in other words even if the wedding does go through this WMG can still come into play here.
The fact that Marshall did take up the job as a Judge will also most likely cause a considerable strain in his marriage with Lily (but fortunately they most likely won't divorce). But the good news is that the strain in their relationships will not necessarily be flat out permanent as they will be in friendlier terms in the future.
- I agree. Also, Lily and Marshall accuse Ted of invading their personal space in college, when really both of their first times (the real one and their first one as a married couple) were them deliberately ignoring that Ted was there, and Ted didn't enjoy being there. At first I was angry that they'd seemingly forgotten this detail, but it makes sense if you think about how Robin was the one who was narrating; she probably didn't know the details, and seeing as she sees Ted as being rather nosy, this was probably her assumption when she'd heard about Lily and Marshall's college experiences.
- The episode actually seems to be a story within a story: what Kevin thinks happened based on what Robin, whom he didn't know before, tells him, or even what Ted thinks Kevin thought.
Now, let's look at two little things shown to us in The first season:
- In machmaker, Ted finds out that his 9.6 match has been already set up with a 8.5 match. He says "she can do 11,45% better", and even proudly proclaims "That's right: I did the math". Ted, Ted, Ted... The other match is (1.1/9.6)*100% = 11,458333% worse than you, but you are (1.1/8.5)*100% = 12.941176% better than him. Writers Cannot Do Math, or clue?
- When Ted is dating Victoria, He is waiting for a phonecall at 11 pm. While there is a six-hour time difference between Germany and New York, Germany is six hours ahead - It's 5 AM there, not 5 pm. This mistake leads indirectly to their break-up - if Ted had known this, he would perhaps have been more patient. Hollywood Science, Writers Cannot Do Math, or clue?
Now, let's put them together... Ted has made two mistakes using numbers. Twice has the mistake been so subtle, that the mistake has yet to appear on any tv goofs site (save for the time zone, which gets mentioned at tvtropes in Hollywood Science). Twice has it been roughly the same mistake - he has the correct numbers but mixes something up - in both mistakes he calculates the wrong way around.
The theory is thus: Towards (or even in) the last episode, Ted wil make some vital number-based mistake that will prove vital to him meeting his future wife.
- Both of those instances of Ted being bad with numbers took place in the same season (Season 1). If this flaw of Ted's were to become a major plot point, more hints would have been dropped, spread out over all eight seasons. Also, Ted is an ARCHITECT. Architects have to have advanced mathematical abilities in order to design and have their buildings made.
- Lily really was a grinch, Hammond deserved to be fired, and his stepdad was singing a song at the reception about how he gets a massive boner when he fondles Ted's mom, so it's quite understandable that Ted didn't want to give a toast.
- All of which we hear from Ted's perspective. Why wouldn't he change the details to make himself look better?
- His story also contains tangential, all-too-convenient explanations of why there's a "Ted Mosby is a jerk" website, and why there are pornographic films about Ted Mosby — both stories relying on two different people appropriating the identity of "Ted Mosby, Architect" for their own unsavoury purposes. What are the odds of that?
- Alright, but in the case of the porn films, if he were the Ted Mosby in question, why would he draw attention to the films at all? Wouldn't it be smarter to play the odds that the kids would never stumble upon the films accidentally rather than giving them a reason to google it?
- Both of those incidents - the "Ted Mosby is a jerk" website and the "Ted Mosby, Architect" porno movies - are the responsibility of Barney. He appropriated Ted's identity in order to have sex with a woman (and his jerkass behaviour while pretending to be Ted caused her to set up the website), and he was the one who came up with the idea to shoot a porno movie in Ted's apartment.
- Lily was a "grinch," and many people would have called her the same. It is surprising that Barney, at least, if not also Robin, called him out on it. Lily didn't just break off the wedding, but also cut off all communication with everyone - Marshall, Ted, Robin, and Barney. Not only was Ted friends with Lily as long as Marshall, Lily entrusted him with the secret of the try-out with the promise that she wasn't going to go.
- I think you may be onto something here.
- Wait, how does sleeping with random people make someone a Jerk?
- Don't forget the way he presents a win-win compromise to Zoey, and then immediately trashes the plan the moment he learns that she's married. Dick move, dude.
- At least twice he has dumped a woman with words to the effect of "Yeah, you gots to go."
- I also don't buy Ted's explanation of why he married the Mother so long after their daughter was born.
- Lily really was a grinch, Hammond deserved to be fired, and his stepdad was singing a song at the reception about how he gets a massive boner when he fondles Ted's mom, so it's quite understandable that Ted didn't want to give a toast.
Of course he could've being telling the sister the truth and lying to Robin and his kids.
- Except Barney is in a (healthy) relationship with Robin, and both men haven't expressed any interest in dating Ted's students yet.
- More importantly, The Mother isn't in his class. She's in the Econ class he wandered into on his first day.
- Single target bisexual? Her interest in men appears to be limited to Marshall, and her interest in women appears to be limited to Robin. Stripper-Lily is neither here nor there, since sexual attraction to one's self (which it essentially is) doesn't figure into the Kinsey scale.
- Quick correction there - in "Old King Clancy," Lily says that if she could have sex with a celebrity, it'd be Hugh Jackman, so apparently she finds men other than Marshall attractive.
- On the other hand, Hugh Jackman.
- Lily once mentioned that she had a secret crush on Mila Kunis.
- Mila Kunis? Even the Girls Want Her.
- It would make sense, especially if the Buffy/Angel theory is right.
- Single target bisexual? Her interest in men appears to be limited to Marshall, and her interest in women appears to be limited to Robin. Stripper-Lily is neither here nor there, since sexual attraction to one's self (which it essentially is) doesn't figure into the Kinsey scale.
- "Girls vs. Suits" more or less confirms this; Lily admits she was thinking of the hot new bartender (Stacy Kiebler) while having sex with Marshall.
- I fully support this being what happens.
- Addendum: the actual courting will be a theatrical film.
- So much support for this.
- Ted changes the physical characteristics of Stuart's wife (originally blond, tall, and somewhat plumper; later short, brunette, and petite)
- Ted changes the explanation for why Lily painted a nude portrait of Marshall, and forgets that everyone in the group would have already known the story. The original explanation was that she needed to draw a nude portrait for class, and Marshall didn't want her seeing any other man naked. When it came up again in S 4 E 16 "Sorry, Bro", the rest of the group didn't know why Lily drew Marshall nude (despite being told in S 2 E 13 "Columns"), and Lily gave the explanation that "he ate my bowl of fruit".
- This was the explanation for why she needed to do a nude painting at all. Maybe there was a list of assignments and she just chose the first one she saw, which was 'nude painting', after Marshall ate here original subject.
- There is literally no time between the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3 (the former ending on "it's going to be legen-", the latter starting on "dary, legendary"). How is it, then, that Barney could "already have a girl from work lined up" for Ted?"
- Because IT HAPPENS THAT FAST.
- Keep in mind, Barney would never intentionally set Ted up in a legitimate relationship. To Barney, having a "girl lined up" means "I just this second thought of a totally hot chick that
youI could bang."
- Marshall changes from having never gotten in a fight before, and not really knowing how (S1E3 "Sweet Taste of Liberty", S 1 E 18 "Nothing Good Happens After 2 A.M") to being a skilled/crazy fighter with a background of violent fights with his older brothers (S 4 E 10 "The Fight").
- He could have just never fought another person before - most people don't really count sibling fights as 'real' fights.
- This last one is arguable, but Barney's reason for sleeping with so many women is also changed over the course of the series. Originally, it comes as a result of losing his girlfriend to a guy in a suit, and becoming cynical and disenchanted (S 1 E 15 "Game Night"). This later becomes because in middle school, a bully claimed to have slept with 100 women, which inspired Barney to sleep with 200 (S 4 E 22 "Right Place, Right Time")
- He started his mission of sleeping with 200 women, met the girl of his dreams, lost her to a guy in a suit and decides to continue his plan.
- Really? It is still possible that the story really is that convoluted. Don't forget, it's been established that Robin is essential to meeting the mother, which is why it's gone on for so long- Ted has to start from when he met her and go through each individual segment for it to make sense. Also, you seem to be forgetting a very important detail of Ted telling the story to his kids: he told his parents that, when he had kids, he was going to tell them the full story, bar nothing. He's living up to that promise, but he's just getting distracted sometimes with certain side-anecdotes and forgetting details. And some of those inconsistencies can still make sense: Stuart's wife could've had the same name of another of Ted's friends, and he confused the two temporarily after years without contact, we know Marshall is adverse to physical violence so very plausibly could hide that part of his past, and so on and so forth. Plus, is it really plausible that someone who is as big of a romantic as Ted, whose entire motive is finding his own true love story, would actually forget how it turned out?
- And it seems that this is well and truly disproved as of "Girls vs. Suits."
- Stuart's wife is played by Virgina Williams in "Intervention" as well as "The Wedding" and "Drumroll Please". She just changed her hair.
- No - if half of what he says is true, he's enough of a jerkass to have done that.
- Half-Jossed. Cindy won't date Ted because Ted isn't a woman. That doesn't mean she won't let her roommate date him though.
I dunno, just with how Continuity Crazy the writers are, it seems like something they'd do. It'd be a great way to tie the series together as well, meaning that every single step had a purpose, even some of the non sequitur episodes/moments.
- Possibly in the form of a more convoluted version of "Right Place Right Time" (season 4) combined with a Clip Show.
- He makes up stories about how he has a huge one in order to impress women because he's convinced that his is too small.
- I have visual proof that if he thinks that he's very much mistaken. Er, I mean, I was taking screencaps and posted a picspam of season 5 episode twentyone, someone on my livejournal told me to take a closer look at Barney's trousers in this◊ screencap
- Of course Barney would own Bigger Is Better in Bed
- I have visual proof that if he thinks that he's very much mistaken. Er, I mean, I was taking screencaps and posted a picspam of season 5 episode twentyone, someone on my livejournal told me to take a closer look at Barney's trousers in this◊ screencap
- Kind of doubtful. As of "Girls Vs. Suits", there aren't that many episodes left and that sounds like it would just take too long.
- ...and Ted is just naively blind to it because he believes in their love so deeply. In "Zoo or False", Lily mentions that Marshall has a habit of accidentally injuring her, but Ted was only present for one of the incidents she describes. In all the others, she and Marshall are alone. Marshall and Lily seem perfect for each other... impossibly perfect. Is it really so much of a stretch that sweet, sensitive, put-upon Marshall has a secret temper?
- Well, that would make the fact he (very badly) didn't want her to get a gun much, much darker.
- That's a bit of a contradiction. Marshall didn't want the gun around because he's perfectly aware that he's clumsy and might accidentally hurt Lily, which disproves the original WMG (because he literally is hurting Lily accidentally).
- Well, that would make the fact he (very badly) didn't want her to get a gun much, much darker.
- They were briefly having unprotected sex and Lily didn't get pregnant. Now, that's not proof of anything, but normally when characters are making plans/speculations from the future, Future!Ted comments or at least hints about what will happen. Future!Ted has NEVER mentioned Lily and Marshall's future children or commented on whether Lily will ever have any, and one would think from their relationship that children would be a foregone conclusion. Maybe they don't ever have kids at all.
- There is a mention of it, in fact. In the smoking episode, future Ted mentions that Marshall had his last cigarette when his son was born.
- He didn't say it was with Lily but...
- Jossed Lily was confirmed to be pregnant with Marshall's child in the finale of season six.
- And no, no Convenient Miscarriage. Lily is shown to be 5-6 months pregnant on Barney's wedding.
- Lily isn't pregnant at Barney's wedding because the wedding takes place a year or so after their son is born.
- She actually is, but not 5-6 months. And not with their first child anyway.
- Many of the characters act wildly OOC and some of the stories are just ridiculous. This season was also the one that most heavily called the truth of the events into question, and was widely disliked by fans. The writers will probably take the opportunity to "smooth out" a few of the more despised details and get the show back on track by Future!Ted elaborating or admitting that he was exaggerating.
- Alternatively, season five was All Just a Dream and season six will start with Future!Ted explaining why it was so important to tell his kids about some dream he had.
- Not likely, though it's probably interesting to note creators and showrunners Carter Bays and Craig Thomas were missing most of the season to work on a Fox pilot that didn't get picked up.
- Major Knowns!
Last Cigarette Ever provides a clear example of this: present!Marshall jumps back and beats the crap out of past!Marshall. Note that prior to this episode, none of the five smoked. It's precisely because present!Marshall did this that they all started smoking in the first place — past!Marshall did so as rebellion against the random guy from the future. In addition, Marshall and Lily's love-at-first-sight bit was strengthened by past!Marshall's receiving that photograph.
The contradiction between The Fight and Sweet Taste of Liberty is resolved exactly the same way. Sweet Taste of Liberty is told before Marshall beats up his past!self, and thus he'd never been in a fight before. The Fight is told afterward — present!Marshall's actions spurred past!Marshall's brothers into fighting.
- But did he actually do it? I always thought he just wanted to beat his younger self up and imagined himself doing it, but he never did it... Sure, time travel exists in the HIMYM universe (Future!Marshall was there at the end of The Window), but did he actually use time travel on this specific event?
- On another note, Barney has mentioned having a younger sister at one point, so it's quite possible that she might be Ted's future wife. If the wedding where Ted meets the mother is indeed Barney's wedding, then it's quite possible that Barney's sister will be there.
- That sounds plausible considering Ted was probably angry at Don for breaking Robin's heart: he was the one who had to deal with her dealing with the break-up.
- Hey Beautiful will be playing when ted meets the mother (over a stereo or radio). To foreshadow this, there will be snippets of the song audible throughout the series where he meets the mother, signifying she is somewhere in the scene.
- Jossed. The incident did happen and Jerry is indeed Barney's Father
- I hope this is true, because that movie made me want to slap Stella and Tony.
- This seems pretty plausible (after all, how many romantic comedies give nuance and complexity to the antagonist?). It still doesn't excuse them not giving Ted some kind of heads-up, though.
- This has long been my pet theory. Neither Stella nor Tony seemed to hold anything against Ted - in fact, they appeared to feel kind of guilty about how things worked out for him, to the point that Tony got him his teaching post to make amends. So it makes no sense for Tony to have written the movie as it is filmed. Probably he wrote a realistic, complex romantic comedy about a woman who reconnects with her ex-husband (and the father of her child) right when she's due to get married to a really nice guy, and ends up having to break his heart. But after shopping it around for a while, the one studio that agreed to produce it said he would have to make the fiance unlikeable, in order to make the ending straight-up happy. Tony didn't want to upset Ted, so he changed the character's name to "Jed" (as opposed to Stella and Tony, who are named directly after their real-life counterparts), and made him over-the-top evil and unlike Ted in every, figuring Ted could never think such an outlandish character was seriously meant to be him. Unfortunately, Ted took it personally anyway.
- This is my understanding of how making a movie works. Screenwriter writes screenplay, shops it around, maybe sells it. At that point, unless he's really good and well known and has a really good agent, he loses all control of it. The producers shop it around to directors, and maybe get someone to rewrite it. A director is eventually signed on, who makes any changes he wants, and probably will get someone to rewrite it. It can get rewritten two or three times at any point in this process. It will also get rewrites as production happens to accommodate schedule snafus, product placement, actors, things like that. In other words, the movie that gets made may look nothing like the original vision. See the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie and The Puppet Masters.
- If that is true, I hope it doesn't make it to air. It just seems wrong to mix what is one of the shows sillier aspects (and I want to make it clear that I think the silliness is good on this show) with their most serious story to date.
- A less negative WMG is she just got transferred to another city. Alternately, Ted isn't the kind of guy that hangs around with his kid sister. Alternately, Unreliable Narrator — she doesn't factor into any of the plots so she doesn't appear. Alternately Alternately Alternately, they couldn't get the actress back/didn't want to hire a new regular/semi-regular.
- That would fit the Uncle Marshall and Aunt Lily thing. Now we just have to find a way to get Robin and Barney related to Ted...
- "Uncle" and "aunt" are often honorary titles. Whether or not the WMG is true (I personally doubt it, just because it'd be really contrived, what with them living in completely different places and all), there's no reason for any of the characters to end up being related to Ted.
- Robin and Barney wouldn't be that hard though—they marry each other and one of the unJossed and rather believable WMGs is that the Mother is Barney's half-sister.
- Which has been Joss'd. Oh well.
- Nope, but Marshall's mom and Lily's dad do! Family with benefits. Squick.
- Not to be a nitpicker, but their level of disagreement is pretty much par the course, even unusually mild, for most expecting couples. If there's one thing all parents can tell you, there is absolutely no way to draw up a good plan for raising kids and then stick to it.
- I wish them luck with that. Days of Our Lives has been running for 47 years now.
- That got Jossed a while back. Barney's dad is being played by John Lithgow. Sorry, but good guess anyway.
- What would you do if you had to choose Between your suits and a pot of gold?
- Barneys suit collection is worth more
- What would you say if you gave your suits away in return you’d never grow old?
- Barney doesn't have any problem with aging and figures it'll improve his dating.
- What would you pick one million chicks or a single three-piece suit?
- Barney loves the hunt, the rewards not as sweet without the hunt
- Alternatively, Barney's exact line, "it's moot", implies as such because with his suits, Barney can already get one million chicks.
- Barney loves the hunt, the rewards not as sweet without the hunt
- What if world peace were within your reach?
- GNB makes most of it's profit on war and world peace would result in Barney out of the job
- Ted already dated Cutthroat Bitch and is currently in a relationship with Cameron, so going for Thirteen doesn't seem like a stretch.
In "How Lily Stole Christmas" (2x11), Barney gets very sick and passes out at Ted, Lily, and Marshall's apartment. He's then seen being mothered by Robin and he's wearing sweatpants and a Cornell Big Red Bear t-shirt, specifically one with the huggy bear◊. You think it's Barney's? Heh. Please. He doesn't own a t-shirt. Sweats? Never. And anyway he's in Ted's bed. So is it Robin's or Ted's?
In the very next episode, "First Time in New York", we see Ted wearing the t-shirt in a flashback while killing a spider. Bam! Ted earned an advanced degree in architecture from Cornell University! My alma mater, bitch! And it's a master's degree, because their Ph.D. program is in the history of architecture and urban development or in historic preservation planning, both of which are totally Ted's thing because he's a giant architecture\history nerd. But the fact is that Ted's a practicing architect (and at one point a professor of architecture) both of which are compatible with a master's degree. Also, Ted's given charge of building a frickin' skyscraper at the age of 28, which suggests several years of professional development.
- I second that thought. Despite being at the same party, Ted and her never interact. She's obviously hot too, which I recall Ted's description of the Slutty Pumpkin to be. I think it's kinda [[Jossed]] though, as the actual Slutty Pumpkin is played by an entirely different actress (I admit it's a long time since I've watched the first of the two Slutty Pumpkin episodes)
- Ted meets the mother at Barney's wedding, which takes place in a church.
- And she's The Mother thus causing another series where it's her fault Alyson Hannigan becomes unemployed.
- One problem with this, Victoria and Klaus left each other. Also, Ted had known Barney for years when he met Robin. Remember the goatee?
- And since Marshall's brother is named Marvin Eriksen Jr after their father, Marvin Eriksen Sr, the baby will be called Marvin Eriksen Sr Jr!
- The baby is officially named Marvin Waitforit Eriksen.
- This one's looking pretty good. In Season 7's "Karma", Ted gives up the apartment for Lily and Marshall; close enough, being a grand gesture that solved the problem of them being unhappy living in the suburbs. Season 8's "The Final Page" has Ted encouraging Robin to go after Barney, leading to them getting engaged.
- Sorta. She's not pregnant, but it's revealed that she can't have kids, ever. And she's pretty upset about it.
- More like "has very, very mixed feelings about it". She doesn't change her mind about not wanting to have kids, but she's upset that it's stopped being her choice to not have kids. The show very wisely allows this to be a complex issue for her.
- This seems less a WMG and more a statement of fact....
- Ted: And that, kids, is how I met your mother.(pause)Luke: Dad? Can we go?Ted: (sighs) Yeah.(Luke and Leia quickly run off to the kitchen)Leia: Oh my God, I thought he'd never stop!Luke: It's a good story, but he could've skipped ahead a little bit.The Mother: (walks in) Has Ted finally ended the story?Leia: Yes, finally.Luke: He went overboard on the backstory.The Mother: Well, backstory makes any story more interesting. My story of how I met your father has a lot of backstory.Luke/Leia: (exchange Oh, Crap! looks)The Mother: Let's see... I think it started with meeting my friend Beck...Luke/Leia: (try to make a run for it)The Mother: No, no, sit down, this is a good story!Luke/Leia: (sit down, looking like they're about to cry)The Mother: Now, it all started in the summer of 1998.Ted: (standing in the doorway, watching) Aaaaand that's why I love her.(cut to credits)
- Shit, naw! That's how I'M going out!
- Actually Zoey bought many of her paintings before knowing she was friends with Ted, and possibly before knowing Ted as well, so it's possible that she was a controversial artist rather than a flat-out bad one.
- Alternatively the rest like there burgers raw.
- Word of God reveals that Robin will receive a new love interest around the same time Barney's engaged to Quinn. Supposedly, this is her secret crush that was introduced in Season 6. These two relationships (Robin with her new interest, Barney with Quinn) will lead up to Barney and Robin's fateful wedding day. Supposedly, we would end up seeing a role reversal this time around. With Becki Newton set to appear in another Bays and Thomas production, we would probably see her for the first few episodes before she breaks the Barnicle's heart.
- Another W.O.G. is that the first episode will focus on Ted apparently returning to Victoria's wedding to drop off a note to Klaus, Victoria's fiancee. This would apparently kick off Ted's final story arc with Victoria.
- Bays and Thomas said that this season would have Ted close several doors and issues on his life before meeting The Mother. With his relationship with Robin fixed, there is still Victoria to think about. Also, remember that Ted would also end up having another snag in his relationship with Barney, probably on the lead-up to him becoming Barney's best man. This would also mean that we would end up bringing back some of the other major story arcs Ted's involved in:
- Stella: At the end of Season 5, we see Ted watch The Wedding Bride, a fictional portrayal of his relationship with Stella, except he's the bad guy and Tony is the sympathetic good guy. Obviously, there is still a part of him that still kinda hates Tony and Stella for how he was untruthfully portrayed in the movie. Plus, remember that we saw the third Wedding Bride movie during on of Ted's dates with The Mother, so expect that to be a factor,
- The new GNB tower and Zoey: So far, the construction on the new GNB tower is still not yet done. This would probably be the perfect opportunity for Zoey to re-enter the picture. Seeing as the two ended on bad terms when the Arcadian was demolished to make way for the GNB HQ, we would get to say Ted and Zoey return to their warring ways.
- The season (but not the series) will end with Barney and Robin's wedding day. The dramatic reveal will be The Mother's identity, whoever she is.
- Season 9 will focus on Ted's romance with the Mother. There are two possible endings for said season:
- The series will end with Ted's wedding. This is arguably the best way to end, after a decade of HIMYM.
- The series will stretch out to Ted's family life and end around season 10.
- I think you're right about the content, but I suspect a smaller time-scale (i.e., Barney and Robin's wedding taking place around mid-season, along with the The Mother's reveal, and the series ending with Season 8's finale — presumably Ted/The Mother's engagement or wedding).
- The most awesome thing to happen to Ted is meeting the mother, and every episode is supposedly part of the story of how he ended up meeting the mother, making each episode, no matter what it is about, a moment of awesome on some level.
- Unlikely. While Lily might sabotage Ted's relationships, she does honestly want him to be happy and gives him a lot of breathing room. I doubt she would immediately sabotage Ted's relationship with a girl that not only had she never met, but knew literally NOTHING about.
- Nope. Jeb's singular goal in the movie is to continue obsessing over the woman he lost and attempt to make all marriage illegal so that he can ruin her life. Then he'll chocolate cake...Jeb: Where's my chocolate cake!?
- The second episode will focus on Barney getting a pre-nup for Quinn to sign, which causes trouble for the couples. This may end up being the moment when Barney and Quinn part ways.
- Dingdingding!
- Marshall will deliver the seventh (and possibly eighth) slap on either the second to the last episode or the series finale.
- Victoria would end up reuniting with Klaus by being pressured on by Ted.
- Many significant characters from previous seasons (Stella, Zoey, Tony) may return. Brad has been confirmed to return the series.
- The Mother is Barney's half-sister, Carly. (Jossed)
- ...will have Barney and Robin, Ted and The Mother, and Lily and Marshall all sitting together on a front porch. In reference to Lily's front porch test from season 4. Bonus points if they're all elderly in this scene.
- Damn it Patrice!
- Isn't Ted Robin's best man?
- Wait, has Ted met Patrice?
- Choosing a donor that looks like the "non-parent" is actually common practice.
- The donor could have been the cousin or brother of the "non-parent".
- Guys, guys. They have /lightsabers/ and /holographic cell phones/ in the future of HIMYM. Do you /really/ think they can't do female/female conception? Hell, I think they're on the cusp IRL.
- Wehll, the future has turned into the present, and they are still cusping it.
- Alternate option: the daughter could potentially be both of theirs biologically if one of them is trans. (Of course, given the show's... not-great attitude towards trans people, this is unlikely, but still.)
- Maybe it was laced with stronger spices.
- Very possible, but there is another possibility: Ted is actually the one who hated Patrice, and he projects it on Robin. After all, Robin did let Patrice be her bridesmaid.
- Think about it! Future!Ted has a boy and a girl. Just like he's always [[Pun wanTED]].
- Dammit, you stole my theory!
- With a number of recurring characters being at the forefront this sort of makes sence
- They will have a normal kid as the ring bearer, but he will be dressed up in a bear suit and it will be a-WAIT FOR IT-dorable.
- Jossed. Sadly.
- I doubt we'll even be seeing Jeanette again, but even if we do, the show seldom ever gives characters their due karma.
- Semi Confirmed/Mostly Jossed- she was arrested for mailing jars of urine to Val Khilmer (not the star) she narrowly avoided prison time. Happily Married to Kevin
- He faked it so he could reveal to his closest friends the truth about what he really does and how much they mean to him. He's just to proud to say spit it out.
- Because why not?
- Because he'd be 7?
- You don't know that. Maybe it's in the future.
- And among his group of close friends will be at least one of Ted's kids as well as Barney's daughter.
- Because he'd be 7?
- My idea is that Robin Charles Scherbatsky II was, in fact, born a boy. But at about age fourteen, he realized he was a girl in a boy's body; his father was EXTREMELY transphobic about it, which is why he sent Robin to live with his mother. Luckily, she was more accepting about it, and Robin was able to get on hormones, get gender reassignment surgery, etc. to become a woman. Present Robin just told her friends the story about her father not accepting she was a female because, seriously, have you heard the transphobic jokes they make sometimes? She probably thought they'd reject her, plus her story makes her more sympathetic and makes her dad look like an even bigger jerk.
- Jossed. Robin is surprised to find out she can't have children in Symphony of Illumination, surely someone who was born male would know that they can't get pregnant, as they would have no uterus, unless they where about as clueless as Mrs Garrison or had blocked out a lot of memories.
- Came here to write this exact theory, but with the addendum that Ted never knew Robin was a trans woman, so all the info about what happened with Robin "finding out" she couldn't have kids was secondhand; Robin always knew, but she made up the whole story of finding it out so she could explain it to the gang. Obviously, this would never come out in the show, since the show is from Ted's POV.
- In this case, why would she tell Barney she was pregnant?
- She could have had a uterus surgically implanted sometime before she met Ted and the gang, but it may have led to complications that left her infertile.
- I think that's the right idea, but they might not be old friends at all, it's just that Bilson and the other office guys' personalities rubbed off on Gary. It happened to Marshall in Life Among The Gorillas after only a short time.
- Ted decides to move to Chicago to work with Hammond Druthers, and refers to Chicago as a "Cleveland-y New York", to get away from Barney and Robin. He doesn't go.
- Or Ted doesn't remember the first boyfriend's name, so he calls him "Tom" as well, perhaps hoping that the kids won't realize it's a different person.
Over and over again we are shown that Ted is so idealistic he doesn't let a petty thing like reality get in the way of his dreams (even non-romance related ones like designing His Skyscraper, even if it sacrifices a beloved one already in existence), and his list of qualities for The Perfect Woman is not one that exists in any one single female that he could ever meet in his lifetime, or potentially ever. Robin came the closest, but because she was a real person with real problems (that couldn't be fixed with The Ted Touch) the relationship couldn't last—but he kept fixating on her. (Proof: he tries to win her back with The Blue French Horn, twice if you count the original ending. A cynic would not read that as a romantic gesture, it would be signs pointing to "this man cannot let go of the past, ever".)
If we really want to get Poison Oak Epileptic Trees with this, then this is how you can read the original ending: The Mother was Robin's Replacement Goldfish, but since Ted never stopped pining for Robin, he used his friendship with Barney to sabotage Barney's marriage, and killed the Mother with slow-acting poison that made it look like she was sick, and finally locks his kids in the house and tells them a string of increasingly rambling, bizarre stories until they're so broken down that they agree that Robin is totally The One for him...
(In "Spoiler Alert", it's said that there's a blinder on people to others' bad habits - i.e., they don't notice their foibles because they're driving the "I wanna have sex with them" truck. In the group, Ted points out a bad hobby of Lily's to Marshall, who obviously wants to have sex with her; we hear the shattering glass, just as we did when Ted learned about Cathy; Ted was able to notice Lily's chewing because he doesn't want to have sex with her. The same thing happens with Robin over Ted when Lily points out his foibles. But we also hear it happen with Robin over Lily, when the comment from Ted shatters glass in Robin's head, and with Barney and Marshall over Ted, when Robin points out the same. Then we hear the glass shatter for Barney (definitely wants Robin), Lily (also wants Robin), and Marshall (could potentially want Robin) when Ted points out her "literally" hobby. Robin noticed Marshall's foible of singing all the time because she doesn't want to sleep with him, and the glass shatters for Lily…and Barney. Then when Barney's foibles are pointed out by Marshall, glass shatters for Lily and Robin.So by that logic, here's the sexual politics of the group: Ted doesn't want Lily, Barney or Marshall because the glass didn't shatter for him over them, but we do know he wants Robin, so of course the glass shatters for him there. Robin hears the glass shatter for everyone except for Marshall, so she's attracted to Lily, Barney and Ted. Lily hears the glass shatter for Marshall, Robin and Barney, so clearly she's attracted to all three of them, but not to Ted. Marshall hears the glass shatter for Lily, Ted, and Robin, so he's attracted to all three of them in some way, but not to Barney. And Barney hears the glass shatter for Ted, Marshall and Robin, meaning he's attracted to all of them; we don't see his reaction to Lily's chewing, but he's never pointed it out before.
- Actually, based on the fact that Ted points out Robin's foible and no other fault of hers is pointed out, Ted never has a "glass shatter" moment beyond the Girl of the Week. Ted's status as an Unreliable Narrator has been suggested frequently, so he may have simply omitted his reactions.
- Worth noting, this creates only two mutual attractions: Lily and Marshall, who are married, and Robin and Barney, who marry later on.
- It explains why Barney was against Ted's and Robin's relationship, while supporting Marshall's and Lily's: It's not that he didn't believe in love - he just didn't believe in Ted's and Robin's love. It also explains why Ted told the kids that Barney makes up "historical" events, and always thinks the bad guy in movies is the good guy: Barney may have already told the kids his own side of the story and Ted wants to discredit him as a narrator.
- 1. In “Arrivederci, Fiero” it was established that Barney couldn’t drive. However, just one episode later in “Moving Day” when Barney was left alone with a truck he somehow managed to move it all the way behind the bar. The only logical conclusion is that he must have super strength which he used to push it.
- 2. In “The Fight” Marshall apparently beat up Doug, the rather large bartender singlehandedly. He claimed he could do it since he’d fought with his brothers all the time. However, in the “Sweet Taste of Liberty” Marshall had admitted that he’d never been in a fight before. Barney was seen to run off just before the fight, but in fact it’s possible he just ran off and changed into his superhero costume (probably just an even better suit). He then came back and beat up Doug. Ted was unconscious and didn’t see what happened and Marshall decided to take the credit.
- 3. In “Lucky Penny” Barney was not only able to complete the New York City Marathon without training for it but to make good timing and not even get exhausted by it. Clearly, he must have been using superpowers. Then his body seized up, presumably as a result of turning his powers off too soon.
Being the cake maker, she goes to a lot of weddings. As such, she is constantly being propositioned. Tired of offers for one night stands, she began the Drumroll to weed out men who were just looking for sex. Ted is the first man to care enough to hunt her down afterwards and have a relationship instead of just looking for sex.
- Or that the pandemic never happened given that How I Met Your Father is set in the same universe as theirs.