History Headscratchers / HowIMetYourMother

* Given Barney's RootingForTheEmpire tendencies, aren't styling and naming his apartment after the Fortress of Solitude, complete with a giant floating Jor-El head, as well as favorably comparing himself and Mitch to Batman and Superman, respectively, be extremely out of character?[[/folder]]

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*** It's a case of being DanBrowned. Ted didn't make up a rule based on a verse of the Bible and then proceed to get it 100% wrong. And really, remembering one line like that is a bit different from remembering a full verse. That would be like expecting someone to be able to quote a full scene from a movie just because he remembered a particularly memorable quote.

* On season 3, "The Chain of Screaming", Marshall says that it's great to fantasize about telling his boss off and then quit, but nobody ever does it. Barney then says "Gary Blaumen did it. A guy I used to work with. The guy is a legend now." Then he tells about how Blaumen was getting screamed at and then he screamed back at his boss, attempted to pee on the table, and quit. He ends the story with all the horrible things that happened to him afterwards, and finishes by saying that he died. After that Blauman continued to show up on the show, and [[spoiler: on season 9 there is a whole episode about him showing up at Barney & Robin's wedding]]. Does anyone have an explanation? The [[TaranKillam actor that plays Blaumen]] is Creator/CobieSmulders' real life husband, so that is probably one of the reasons he keeps coming back, but that still doesn’t explain it.

*** Second to this. Barney doesn't lie to his friends, remember. "Please" is an ExactWord description, and so that doesn't count as lie.

* How many full drinks have the gang left on the table in MacLaren's Pub? Every time they sit down with a full drink, they leave before it's finished. EVERY EPISODE! Bar drinks aren't cheap. They must have wasted a fair bit of disposable income over the years. just sayin'.

*** This really doesn't fly. Manhattan apartments are ridiculously expensive, even ones in less than desireable neighborhoods. Also take into account the amount of time they spend at McLarens. A single beer in a Manhattan bar can cost $8. Unless Ted, Robin, & Barney are always picking up the tab, there's no way two people with that kind of debt could afford to go out in Manhattan as much as they do.

** ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'' probably gets extra ratings from the fact that so many channels are running it nowadays (Note: I have no idea if you can measure a show's ratings through multiple channels). The only channel I know of in England that airs How I Met Your Mother is E4. The other reason it's probably still on the air is because it's ''popular'' through JasonSegal, Creator/NeilPatrickHarris and [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Cobie Smoulers]] all being hot property. Other then that? *Shrugs*.

** "Salads" containing things like mayonnaise, Cool Whip, marshmallows, and jello are a Minnesota stereotype, you can hear Garrison Keillor make jokes about them and other Minnesota stereotypes on the St. Paul based APrarieHomeCompanion.

** After all, Barney's determined and Ted and Marshall are going to be at MacLaren's all the time... it's likely they just eventually warmed up to him. Ish. He's still the TokenEvilTeammate but he's fun and going to be there anyway. Not like Ted and Marshall would consider going to another bar to avoid him.

This sort of bothers me that since the finale took place 16 years in the future and today, we have social media where we can communicate people anywhere and get and share information and news. In the episode "Glitter", Robin mentions seeing Lily's baby post on Facebook. There's also Barney, twitting about how boring Ted's Robin 101 class is. And there's Marshall, e-mailing his annoying photo montages to everyone. There's even a Season 6 episode where Ted contacts Marshall who uses a StarWars-esque hologram when he's in Hong Kong after he met Wendy the waitress (But yeah, that's in the distant future when Ted is middle age). And given that Robin is a journalist and travels around the world, I'm pretty sure that she uses social media to share the news wherever she is since it's part of the job. But not contacting her friends? Or even her friends contacting or e-mailing her or using Skype?

** I suppose. I see no reason why he couldn't change tailors. Besides, if you had the opportunity to have Tim Gunn as your personal tailor, would you say no?

** As a Russian I've noticed that Barney's tailor speaking Russian (with Ukranian / Jewish accent) even though characters speaking about Ukranian.

* In Rebound Bro, Barney gets Robin to help him in making sure that Randy won't make any mistakes in talking to girls after a few huge mistakes. Robin says that she only helped him because he said he had a tape of their night together from 2 episodes ego and follows it up by saying that she thinks he's bluffing about having the tape, to which Barney responds by saying that by her coming down here when its so late shows that she thinks he does have a tape. How could he have the tape though? They were at Robin's apartment when it happened and I highly doubt that Barney has any secret cameras over there. If Robin isn't sure of the tape's existence then we could rule out the two of them making the decision to tape themselves. Lastly Barney planning it in advance before he came over to Robin's place doesn't make sense as it his highly implied that neither of the 2 were planning to have sex, it just happened because they were having fun watching the video and were close proximity and then presumably saw how attractive the other was. Is it just because of who Barney is, that Robin thinks it could have happened?[[/folder]]

* On Dowisetrepla Ted says that buying the apartment was "Marshall's biggest mistake". How? Sure, it has the smell problem, but that's pretty much it. The thing with the crooked floor was fixed thanks to Lily's paintings and the vets, and considering the fact that Marshall has started a website for selling Lily's paintings, all of her debts are probably gone. She is capable of selling a painting for 500$, and considering her paintings' affect vets are probably buying a lot of them(and we know she still sells them because on Blitzgiving Zoey says she's bought them). That means most of their debts are also gone, and that leaves them with nothing but a smelly apartment. When they sell the apartment they don't even have to try – a guy just asks to buy it and they agree. They get a free house from Lily's grandparents (unless it wasn't free and I just misunderstood), and then they sell it too. That leaves them with money from selling an apartment AND a house in the suburbs (which could not have been cheap), and now they live in their old apartment which they only pay rent for. Marshall has probably saved a lot of money from working at GNB, and Lily's work for the Captain seems to be pretty high paying. So why on earth was it "Marshall biggest mistake"?

** Lily does make decent money selling her paintings, however her credit card debt is quite large. Marshall spent three years at Columbia Law financed by student loans - meaning he easily owes $150,000 in student loans. Lily's credit card debt is still the biggest factor in the high interest rate when they purchase the apartment. Even taking into account that lenders are more likely to forgive installment accounts than revolving accounts, if Lily's debt was even in the same league as Marshall's student loans, it would have taken a whole lot of $500 paintings to pay that off. She also has a full-time job for nine months of the year, so it may have taken several summers of painting full time to pay that off.

** Robin's offhanded comment on how she "should've" married Ted is not a major point. Seeing her ex husband again and him having resorted back to his UpToEleven womanizing ways would definitely have had an emotional effect on her. Being stressed, it's safe to say that Robin was looking for excuses to leave, or that the thought had surfaced in the back of her head and she was just blurting out everything in her mind without thinking. I don't think anyone should believe that Robin spent the rest of her life up to the last scene in the finale mourning the fact that she chose Barney over Ted.

*** The Threesome episode starts with Sagat saying this is a story he'll never tell his kids. Don't remember Lily's kinks, but if it's not a voiceover it probably isn't told to the kids.
*** [[StreetFighter Sagat?]]

* The last line of the episode "Robots Vs. Wrestlers" (well, other the TheStinger) was "To this day, come hell or high water, we all get together and watch Robots vs. Wrestlers." However, in "The Time Travelers," it's only Barney and Ted debating on going to RvW ([[spoiler: And Barney wasn't even there. The ending was ambiguous as to whether or not Ted went, but it seems like it's definitely a mild InSeriesContinuityError]]).

* Butterflies don't come from cocoons? I have university education and I think that. In fact everyone thinks that. Because they do...

*** Oh please, they're the same thing. Who gives a shit about nitpicky little differences like whether or not it's made of silk?
*** To the above poster: whether or not you 'give a shit' is not at issue. Personally, I think it's a fun fact and dismissing it like that is rude and ignorant, not to mention CompletelyMissingThePoint of what this page is for. What ''is'' at issue, though, is the actual Headscratcher: would Ted, known for being a [[ProudToBeAGeek proud geek]] with an EncyclopaedicKnowledge who can be an InsufferableGenius (a "Ted" if you will), know the truth, and care about it? I believe he would. And to the ''above'' above troper: you are incorrect, there ''is'' a species of butterfly that comes from a cocoon called the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parnassius Parnassius Butterfly]]. [[ViewersAreGeniuses Ted being who he is most likely knows this, and is referring to this particular type of butterfly in his speech]].

** How do we know that she did move, anyway? From what I can remember, all we saw was her going to Tony's apartment. It's entirely possible that she and Lucy still live in New Jersey but come out to visit Tony on weekends and such.

I saw somewhere that if the show had ended on season 3, Stella would have been The Mother. Doesn't this mean that her daughter should have been there with Ted's kids when he's telling the story?

** You're forgetting that Lucy was already seven or eight years old when Stella met Ted. She'd be grown up by the time Ted's telling the story to the kids.

*** Being English is probably the reason

*** As for Marshall not doing any lawsuits against people, this troper always saw it as Marshall being an ExtremeDoormat and still new to the game. Even if the people might deserve a lawsuit, he might think it's too mean to go through the effort.

*** Honestly, it's kind of common for this troper to refer to her dorm as "home" even if she doesn't live there full time. Her still living in NJ at the time is entirely plausible.

** Yeah, I actually liked that it showed that Barney was still close to the rest of the gang after he and Ted temporarily stopped being friends.

*** All true. Barney grows a lot over the course of the show, but his plan to get Robin to marry him is straight out of season 1. If your big idea to romance someone involves lying to her for months, pretending to not be interested in her anymore, emotionally tormenting her by pretending to date the one person she absolutely cannot stand, and then proposing to her after luring her there on the assumption that she'll go so completely insane with jealousy over the guy who has already claimed to not be interested in her anymore, and believing that she'll ignore the hell you just put her through and agree to marry you, ''you have issues.'' Only compounded by how unhappy they were shown to be throughout the show whenever they were involved - they have conflicting personalities and both of them are too stubborn to give an inch, which was explicitly shown as a dealbreaker back when it was Robin and Ted going over the same ground. They had to skip a hefty part of the relationship and jump straight to the marriage to make it work, because it had already been shown how toxic their relationship was. It really didn't surprise this troper when the finale casually announced their divorce, especially when they spent half of the last season hinting pretty heavily how their relationship wasn't sustainable. Really, "The Robin" being another play made perfect sense, since it seems like half of Barney's plays involve targeting an emotionally vulnerable woman (either already vulnerable or made so) for a short-term relationship.

*** This troper always chalked stuff like that up [[ValuesDissonance to the show aging]]. It's kind of like how when Superbad came out, the movie was a masterpiece, but in 2020, it's a comedy film about a high school senior trying to date rape his crush.

So I understand that the intended message behind that episode was that little lies to make someone happy can be a good thing, but on a story level I don't see why they didn't actually try to do the Weekend at Barney's wedding photos when Barney was passed out. Not actually pulling off the "convincing everyone he's awake" thing, since that's obviously not gonna work. But at least they'd get some funny, memorable photos out of it rather than not having any wedding photos at all. The lie could have been that they really did fool the guests and Robin's dad into thinking Barney was conscious, rather than that they had to cancel the photos entirely.

* I actually took it to mean that they did do "Weekend At Barney's" and the only lie was that it convinced anyone.
** No, Robin said after Barney left the room that they had to cancel the photographer, I think. But I could be wrong; it wouldn't make a lot of sense then, because what's the point to lying to Barney about the photos when he'll find out as soon as he asks to see them that there aren't any photos at all? I'll have to watch the ep again to find out, I suppose.

** True, and consider that the reproductive endocrinologist (the Barney doppelganger) said Lily was extremely fertile and Marshall's sperm count and motility were off the charts. I take that to mean the reason they didn't get pregnant quickly is luck of the draw, like flipping a coin and having it come up heads five times in a row.

Alright, I guess I'll be the one to say it: in what conceivable reality was that a sensible way to end the series? You could say it's depressing that the mother dies, sure, but it's not even handled in an appropriate way. In the end, Tracy was nothing but a throwaway red herring who served no purpose other than to birth Ted's children that he would then attempt to raise with Robin. And the whole series' framing device is changed in a weird way too. What was originally Ted simply telling his kids about the adventures with his friends that led up to getting together with the woman of his dreams (and not Robin, who was just someone he impulsively went after, thus displaying his primary character flaw) turns into "Hey kids, is it okay if I try to hook up with Robin for the umpteenth time?" He spent the series developing as a character, learning to let Robin go, only for that to all be thrown away. Barney suffers the same fate: for about half the series at this point he has been developing as a character to get to where he could eventually settle down with someone and stop "playing" women, and then 19 minutes into the finale that gets thrown out the window too. And then they picked up the shattered pieces to assemble that plot about Barney now being a father, which could've been satisfying if it were built up to in any logical way, but it wasn't.
So essentially, the series ends with Ted and Barney saying "character development be damned" and fully embracing their flaws, and meanwhile the point to the series of Ted meeting the mother is downplayed to the point where Tracy doesn't even have a reason to exist aside from having a functioning female reproductive system. Maybe this complaint doesn't belong in Headscratchers, but I feel this whole thing is confusing enough that it could almost be called a plot hole.

* I'm too tired to turn this into the essay it probably deserves but it was an incredibly fitting ending for the show. The episode, sadly, felt rushed and disjointed in several places so I certainly wouldn't call it the best in craftsmanship (especially after Psych just pulled off a masterful finale) but I still say it worked. The show has always been about a place where idealism crashes head-on into realism. Time and time again we see that idealism crushed, albeit in a generally light-hearted manner. The way it's contrasted with Ted's idealism about The Mother makes it easy to believe that the idealism eventually will win out and that each time it doesn't is because that's not The Destiny but it really makes perfect sense that one more time realism kicks in. We've repeatedly heard about The Mother as being nigh perfect, an unattainable standard that really only makes sense as someone fondly remembering someone they've lost. Ted and Robin never lost their chemistry and by reaching an age where kids and careers are already had the only real conflict that kept them apart is removed. Barney and Robin never really worked and even when they finally got some chemistry and clicked there were so many things wrong in the relationship that were easy to paint over with idealism and a wedding. The ending doesn't show any character development being reversed at all; it shows how the character development realistically played out when not putting on a facade for others. Barney tried but couldn't handle the commitment until he was bound by the deepest feeling he had: the sense of abandonment that he didn't want his own kid to deal with. Ted loved and lost and knew that didn't meant he couldn't love again. It was a rather realistic and grounded ending to a show that started fairly realistic and grounded and grew increasingly less so season-by-season but structurally and narratively it works. Unfortunately, the fact the ending feels so rushed means it loses a fair bit of the emotional resonance that would really make a lot if it stick.
** So it's fitting that the story of How I Met Your Mother ends with the mother suddenly stated to have died, with no respect paid to the character whatsoever even after they'd gotten us to care about her, and the whole framing device was focused on Robin, whom it was suddenly always about? The narrative sets up Ted's relationship with the mother as though it's the series' ultimate goal, but it turns out to be just one last hurdle that is pushed aside in two seconds so that he and Robin can miraculously be together. That is not how character development naturally plays out, he was literally reverted back to his season 1 self. I could believe you about the thing with Barney becoming a father, but that was set up so quickly and clumsily that any sense it could make falls apart. Barney's character development led him toward embracing honesty, and then after three quick years he decides to go right back to the way he was, again, in season 1. He goes from a gentleman right back to a slimy womanizing creep. Sure, the kid seems to change him back again, but that is so quick and unsatisfying that you wonder what the point was of having him revert in the first place.
*** First, a tip: If you start a response to someone with whom you disagree with a question beginning with "So [...]", odds are that question is going to be a mischaracterization of what they said. Second, I specifically mentioned the rushed and disjointed feeling as one of the episode's major missteps so harping on the pacing is not a productive part of this conversation. Structurally and narratively it works and is fitting despite the pacing. That is, the death of the Mother works but the execution falls flat because of the rush. Barney's character development works with his overall arc but the pacing leaves something to be desired. Third, Ted still wanting Robin is no more reverting back to his season 1 self any more than the fact that I still enjoy chocolate chip cookies means I'm the same as when I was five. He is still a changed person, he has still grown, but he also realizes that he still wants Robin and that the only things that they're in a place where the only things that were a real problem in their relationship (Robin not wanting to raise kids and Robin wanting to focus on her career and travel the world) are no longer factors. Finally, the characterization of Ted's relationship with the Mother as the "ultimate goal" is a lot of what I meant when I said the ending was fitting. Throughout the series, time and time again Ted (or someone, but often Ted) gives an impassioned and idealistic speech about destiny or the universe only for realism to crash through. The ending is just one final note in the same theme. There's no Destiny guiding him to spend the rest of his life with the perfect woman but rather he just stumbled from relationship to relationship with half of the women in New York until he found one that worked and then she died before they could spend a lifetime together. Six years after her death he's idealized her, forgotten her faults, and emphasized the things he loved about her. If you've come away from HIMYM expecting the idealism without the realism the ending might be especially jarring but if you expect both it fits right in, at least conceptually.
*** The chocolate chip cookie analogy fits better here if you also add that when you were five you ate way too many chocolate chip cookies and you had just spent the last several years struggling to reduce how many sweets you eat because they're giving you health problems, and then years after finally kicking the habit you go right back to eating how many you ate at age 5. Still not a perfect analogy, but Ted's obsession with Robin was clearly presented as a flaw and something that is causing him harm in the show. Right up until the ''very'' end (I apologize if these complaints still sound like issues with the pacing; it's just so bad that it's hard not to), Ted chasing after her hadn't been a healthy thing since season 1. The ending was written back then, at a time when it might've made some sense, but not now. In that time, Robin has made it clear she didn't love Ted. It's not just because they want different things out of life, either. That's just the kicker. In addition to that they're also fundamentally different people. Robin isn't so lovey-dovey like Ted, Ted doesn't approve of her gun enthusiasm, etc. Also, it's weird that he's telling his kids the story of their mother that they lost just as a way of testing the waters for Robin to become their stepmother. I mean, the kids seemed to have moved on from losing their mother, but that isn't exactly something you can just casually bounce back from in six years even if they do appear like they have. It's disrespectful to the mother to act like Robin is her "replacement," and to claim you're telling the story of how you met her but then focus on another woman instead. Also, up until now I've been thinking the death of the mother could've worked and that they just royally messed up the execution, but I'm starting to believe that the mother dying practically makes the whole show a ShaggyDogStory. Every time Ted is humiliated, had his heart broken, or somehow expresses his desire to find the right woman, we have emotionally become more a part of that goal. For almost all the fans, I'm sure that is to some extent what kept them watching. And then it leads to nothing except her dying. The same goes for Robin and Barney's wedding being so important only for them to split up yet again immediately. Sure, these things portray realistic situations, but what you call "realism breaking through" I call an ending in which nothing the characters do or fight for matters and all the audience takes away from it is depression. And yet at the same time, it comes across as unrealistically optimistic that Ted and Robin's "love" could endure as long as it did. It's only a fitting ending if you happened to believe that Ted and Robin belonged together, while the majority of the series has been sending us the message that they don't. Maybe the death itself still could've worked if done properly, but problems with pacing are still legitimate narrative problems that it does suffer from (especially if you consider that the pacing didn't allow for any emotion or importance being given to Tracy's death), regardless if you were pleased with the actual story or not.

** Ted was a progressive dude, even saying he'd take Robin's last name (though he said it while drunk). It's not hard to imagine that he wore an engagement ring. This troper's father wore an engagement ring in the mid 80's and so did this troper's husband did in the late 2010's.

** 3. He has no way of verifying the right person answers his message. He could get his hopes up time and again only to be let down by someone playing a prank, etc[[/folder]]

** Erm...forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't Marshall an ''environmental'' lawyer? As in, specilizing in cases that sepcifically affect the environment, rather than people? If he specialized in environmental law, he might not have the knowledge or legal leg to stand on when it comes to non-environmental issues--it's kind of like asking why the cast chiropractor doesn't do anything about everybody getting the flu or having bad eyesight. Wrong area of expertise.

* Why didn't Ted use newspaper advertisements to find the slutty pumpkin? [[/folder]]