How I Met Your Mother/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Barney a selfish and contemptible Jerkass who deserves what happens to him (i.e. being temporarily abandoned by Ted for sleeping with Robin, and getting banned from laser tag for assaulting children)? Or are his actions justified based on his crappy childhood and rejections, among other issues that make him fragile?
    • His shrink thinks so, calling him "A narcissist with severe attachment disorder"
    • When Future!Ted revealed all the amazing things Robin did over the years to his children, was it to feel the void of not having kids or did she really want to do them?
  • Arc Fatigue: It has been six seasons and there have been extremely few hints at who the mother might be. Five years of explaining and we only know these details:
    • She is not Robin.
    • She is not Tracy, the stripper he met Thanksgiving 2005 (if she exists; Future Ted was trying to fool his kids into thinking their mom was a stripper).
    • She owned a certain yellow umbrella.
    • When Ted first met her, he didn't wait three days to call her, which The Three Days Rule said he should have.
    • He had his last cigarette two weeks into dating her.
    • She was in the first class Ted taught, which implies she's an Economics major.
    • Assuming she didn't have a fake ID, she was at least 21 in Season 3 (she was in the same club as Ted and Barney on St. Patrick's Day).
    • She was Cindy's roommate at the time of "Girls vs. Suits."
    • She is Caucasian
    • She plays bass and has legs. At least at the time of "Girls vs. Suits".
    • Ted met the kids' mother the day of a wedding in which he was the best man. But not at Marshall's, though he has agreed to be the best man at his friend Punchy's wedding and to be Robin's at hers.
      • Apparently it's Barney's wedding.
    • The Barney-Robin Romance arc was starting to become this by season 7, fortunately it actually seems to be moving forward now.
    • So was Ted-Robin, but lasted one and a bit episodes so far.
  • Award Snub: As of 2010, Neil Patrick Harris has been nominated for four Emmys for HIMYM, but has lost all four times (to Jeremy Piven, Jon Cryer and Eric Stonestreet). However, Harris won two Emmys in 2010 for guest starring on Glee and hosting the 2009 Tonys.
  • Awesome Ego: Barney.
  • Base Breaker: From the evidence on message boards, it seems that if you watch the show, you either love Lily and think she's a hilarious and endearing character and wonderful wife, or think she's a mean, shallow, selfish bitch who doesn't deserve Marshall. The latter is probably a vocal minority, but the split is quite noticeable.
    • Stella. She became The Scrappy after "Shelter Island." About half the fanbase thinks "As Fast As She Can" redeemed her; the other half thinks it made her even WORSE.
    • Ted has a split similar to Lily's, but there's a notable trend for his haters to be extreme Barney fans. Given the fact that Ted and Lily are far less willing than Robin and Marshall to ignore Barney's bad behavior, it's hard to stop certain suspicions from emerging...
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Barney and Robin's dance in the seventh season premiere. Very sudden, very elaborate and the rest of the reception joins in, and then completely ignored the second the song ends.
  • Crazy Awesome: Barney, apparently. During a joyful "you said I was crazy!" speech, he mentions that even his psychiatrist thinks he's crazy, then names the diagnosis: "narcissist with severe attachment disorder".
  • Creator's Pet: Don towards the end of season 5.
    • Zoey in season six. Even Marshall's brother and mom get seriously invested in the idea of Ted and Zoey dating, though that is somewhat justified in they had never met her and just know her as "the girl Ted likes."
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • The episode when Ted Mosby flies his mom and dad in. It's mentioned that they don't really talk about their problems. Barney sees Mr. Mosby making out with another woman in the bar, and tells Ted. When Ted confronts him, Ted's parents reveal they've been divorced for nine months (and separated for two years) and simply chose not to tell Ted. During the credits, Ted asks how Grandma is; she hasn't been returning his calls. His parents look uncomfortable.
    • Anything involving Barney and the women he sleeps with.
    • In Sorry, Bro when Lily finds out Ted is getting back together (again) with the pretentious, cheating beeyotch he dated in college: "Ted, honey, go outside and bite the curb, I'll be out in a minute..." Hahaha, oh, Lily- wait...
    • "Bang, bang, bangity-bang, I said a bang-bang bangity bang!"
      • "A bang bang bang"
  • Crowning Music of Awesome:
    • When A.C. Newman's "Prophets" plays at the very end of The Leap as each character takes a leap of faith into a new year, it is so awesome that it almost makes you want to jump off a New York City rooftop yourself. But don't.
    • Also in the episode The Leap, the music playing during the fight with the goat is the song "Murder Train" from the Sandcastles in the Sand episode (played by Robin's ex's band). They get a lot of mileage out of that song, it's also in the reveal of Marshall's fight club with his brothers, the big fight Robin and Barney have in season 5, and pretty much any other time they need a metal track.
    • Vampire Weekend's "Oxford Comma," playing during a hilarious sequence which switches from Ted not realizing he's in the wrong class and Barney and Robin denying they're boyfriend and girlfriend.
    • A certain scene concerning Ted's career was appropriately accompanied by The Decemberists' "Here I Dreamt I was an Architect"
    • Parodied in The Limo where Barney's mix tape is "all rise" in order to "get psyched". As it keeps being restarted we only ever hear the first track, Bon Jovi's You Give Love A Bad Name, although the full track list is available on his blog. The song is then used as a straight example near the end of the episode.
    • 'Girls vs. Suits'. Seriously.
    • "You Just Got Slapped".
    • "A-Bang, Bang, Bangity-Bang, A-Bang Bang Bangity Bang!"
    • Also the music backing Barney doing anything awesome suit related, the most notable being his first suit up.
    • Ted's Super Date song, which he demonstrates to Barney in a highly elaborate fantasy sequence

Barney: Strip Club?

Ted: *cough* Strip club!

    • "Barney Stinson: That Guy's Awesome"
    • Marshall VS The Machine
    • When Ted and Victoria get together at the end of "Drum Roll Please and Pavement's "Spit on a Stranger" plays.
    • We're also a band!"
    • Deee-Lite's "Groove Is in the Heart" during the bizarre Barney/Robin dance scene.
  • Darker and Edgier/Hotter and Sexier: MTV's I just want my pants!, premiering 2012, involves a group of single people in New York who like to drink together, have personal issues, and the main character is looking for one special woman. Unlike this show, however, most of the cast is a bunch of shallow, sex-obsessed, yet still somehow sympathetic 20-somethings with bad jobs, and the special woman is special because she took the protagonist's pants after they had freaky sex, and then gave him a number that turned out to be a Thai restauraunt.
    • This show itself is arguably a slightly D&E and H&E version of Friends.
  • Designated Protagonist Syndrome: Ted is seen by certain fans as rather dull in comparison to his more interesting friends. This isn't helped by the fact writers have had his character constantly going through the same motions of falling for a hot girl, making an overblown romantic speech and then predictably breaking up with her, for the last six seasons.
  • Designated Villain: Barney in "The Goat". Put aside The Bro Code, Barney did absolutely nothing wrong, because Robin has been single for a year after she broke up with Ted; she is fully aware of her action with Barney, but nevertheless we're forced to believe that Ted is right for cutting his friendship with Barney and Barney's guilty for giving comfort to Robin when she needs it. It also didn't help that Robin's explanation to Ted made it sounds like Barney is taking advantage of her fragile condition to have sex with her, Marshall and Lily are not helping either with neither of them even bothering to doubt Ted's rash decision despite Barney being basically the reason that they're back together in the first place.
    • Ted explains, "I'm not mad at Barney. I've just outgrown him as a friend." It still just seems like he's angry at Barney, but at least he has a way to justify it otherwise.
    • On the other hand, this is probably the very first time Barney has ever had sex with a girl in a non-exploitative fashion, and he already has a long-running habit of lying to and manipulating Ted while openly disregarding his feelings and desires, so while we know that Barney was just comforting Robin, it's not unreasonable of Ted to suspect he was taking advantage of Robin, especially given the way she explained the incident, or for Robin to wonder the same thing, although Ted did overreact quite a lot. Basically, Barney did nothing wrong in the incident with Robin, but Karma's a bitch.
    • Ted also noted that he had seen Barney do a lot of horrible things in the years that he knew him. For a friend like Robin, who's a relatively good person, Ted was able to forgive her once she came open with the truth and apologized. For Barney, the fact that he couldn't obey his own rules, which he held so highly, was the last straw for Ted.
    • He's obviously still mad at Barney.He tells Barney when ditching him that "I always though I was the limit" referring to the people who Barney hurts. It shows that not only is Barney's immaturity not the reason but that he thinks that he is the one being hurt by Barney and not Robin. Ted also seems to not care about the Bro Code and sees it as juvenile so I doubt this is motivation. Even if we are going to take this into account , why is Ted not mad at Robin? She did have sex with one his best friends.
    • When people break up, there's usually some lingering feelings for each other, and thus some lingering jealousy when the ex dates someone else. Now, someone has no right to tell their ex not to date again, but they do have the right to expect their friends not to make the situation worse for them.
  • Drinking Game: In the DVD commentary for the pilot, Neil Patrick Harris suggests one where viewers drink every time his character drinks following a punch line. Show creator Craig Thomas follows by suggesting a drink every time a characters says "awesome," but joked that it may actually cause alcohol poisoning.
  • Ear Worm:
    • The opening theme.
    • "Come on Jessica, come on Tori, let's go to the mall, you won't be sor-ey..."
    • "Two beavers are better than one..."
    • "Nothing suits me like... a... suuuuuuit!"
    • "And I will walk five hundred miles and I will walk five hundred more!"
    • "Barney Stinson, he's so awesome, AWESOOOMMMEEE!!!"
    • In-universe: A-bang bang bangity bang a-bang bang bangity bang.
    • "You just got slaaaapped...across the face my friend!"
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Barney, Ranjit, Wendy, Victoria, Tony.
    • Nora for being the most decent girl Barney has met, seeing through his tricks, and being British.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Barney/Robin. To a lesser extent, Ted/Victoria. One of the main reasons for their popularity (especially Barney and Robin's) is the fact that they're Birds of a Feather.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Do not mention "The Rough Patch" around Barney/Robin fans.
  • Fetish Retardant: Post break-up with Don Robin. As Barney puts it "you're giving me a de-rection". It should not be possible to uglify Cobie Smulders that much.
  • Growing the Beard: Generally considered to be "Slap Bet," although other popular choices are "Drumroll, Please" and "The Pinneaple Incident", the latter of which was the first episode in the series to use Anachronic Order.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • A season 1 episode has Barney courting a bridesmaid, his excuse for never seeing her again being that in the morning he's shipping out with the Peace Corps for two years. We find out mere episodes later that his Start of Darkness was getting stood up by his girlfriend the day they were supposed to ship out with the Peace Corps together for two years.
    • Immediately before his first date with Stella, Ted acknowledges—for probability's sake—that the relationship will probably end on a bad note.
    • Several times during the first few season, Robin talks about she doesn't want kids. In season seven, we learn she can't have kids.
      • Later, in a season three episode, we learned that 'Aunt' Robin appeared prominently in the pictures drawn by Ted's kids.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Not that watching a gay man play straight is hilarious, but much like his role in the Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle series, the extreme degree to which Neil Patrick Harris's character womanizes was cast in a humorous, ironic light after the actor announced his homosexuality.
    • Pre-infamous-Jason Segel-nudity-in-Forgetting Sarah Marshall:

Barney: [after being slapped in the face by Marshall] Ow. Your hand is monstrous.
Marshall: Well, what did you expect, you've seen my penis.

    • Barney's insisting that no one should have children until they're at least 45. He was already expecting twins at the age of 37 when that episode aired.

Lily: No, friends make each other feel good. They build each other up and support them. That's what being a good friend is about.
Barney : Yeah, if you're a SMURF.

    • Neil Patrick Harris goes onto making the newest Smurf movie only 5 years after.
    • Barney's habit of mocking Canada just gets even more hilarious after the revelation that he's one-quarter Canadian.
  • Ho Yay: "Three Day Rule" is packed with this. There was the fantasy of Marshall and Barney cuddling together in cheerleadering outfits, Marshall and Barney on the brink of sexting Ted while pretending to be a girl he likes, and later competing over who Ted would rather sleep with. Not to mention the Ho Yay generator Stan, who has such a good grasp of romantic language that Barney and Marshall nearly fall for him.

Barney: Why do we keep trying to have sex with Ted?//
Marshall: I don't know, it's weird.

    • The first episode has Marshall (fake)-proposing to Ted. And it also has Barney kissing Marshall.
    • It's also canon that Lily has sexual dreams about Robin and they kissed after Lily laments never having a "lesbian experience".
    • Lily full stop with Robin. The last episode (The Broath) has Lily mention that she tried (and is upset that Barney refused) to get them to have a threesome with Robin. When Barney says Lily and Robin have to kiss Lily is all for it, then gets carried away and ravishes her.
    • "Rebound Bro" has Barney and Ted acting as if they've broken up as a couple.
    • Barney in "Unfinished" in season 6 tries to seduce Ted into taking an architect job at Goliath using his techniques to pick up women. Which would lead to this gem (and gets lampshaded by Lily later)

Ted: Barney wants me to take the job so bad he's putting the moves on me?
Marshall: I hope that's his end game — actually, I don't. I like you two together!

    • In the episode "Slap Bet," after Barney tells Marshall that his hand is 'monstrous,' Marshall replies "What did you expect? You've seen my penis."
    • This extension of a scene in Season 3's "Third Wheel". (@ 3:26)
    • Barney's Relationship Advice speech to Marshall in "Bagpipes" starts with Barney talking over Marshall's shoulder, and ends with Barney's tongue practically in Marshall's ear while Marshall's eyes are almost completely glazed over. With a running theme in the episode about how hypnotically powerful this speech is to Marshall.
    • Ted and Barney's fantasy Super Date, complete with a musical number in "Of Course" has both of them so flustered by the end of it that they both shake it off by going to a strip club.
    • In "The Mermaid Theory", when pirate!Marshall starts to see cabinboy!Barney as a mermaid:

Marshall: Dude... We need to find land...

    • Marshall even has this with a random male at the collage he went to with Lilly and Ted: "Sweet and Cute but Just enough of a Jerk so you want to change him"
    • Marshall and Brad, when Brad was dumped by his bride.
    • In "The perfect week", Ted slaps Barney's ass reassuringly before he goes to pick up a girl.
  • Idiot Ball: Robin needs to shave her legs, so after the guy invites her back to his place, she ducks into the restaurant bathroom where there is guaranteed to be no shaving cream rather than go back to his place where there is guaranteed to be shaving cream. It doesn't help that from what we can see, her legs don't actually seem that hairy.
    • Marshall quitting his job without having another job. He's 30-ish with a mortgage and law school debt.
    • Twice.
    • Lampshaded in the show how everyone pretty much grabbed the Idiot Ball when Marshall and Lily bought the apartment, despite massive credit card debt. They never even checked out the apartment fully to realize it was near a sewage plant and had a crooked floor.
  • Informed Wrongness: Ted is treated as an ignorant jerk for still seeing Heather as an irresponsible teenager. This is despite the fact that she really does have a very long history of being irresponsible. And the way she decides to prove Ted wrong is to have Barney and herself undressed in his office, get caught by Lily, and then accuse Ted of being a jerk for making the obvious assumption that they had sex. Yeah, way to prove you're a smart, mature adult Heather.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Barney.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Barney's shipped with everyone, and that includes several characters from other fandoms.
  • Magic Realism: Telepathic conversations, a burger so good that other burgers will forever after taste like feet, a long list of improbable coincidences etc. etc.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • Barney, especially in the episode "The Playbook". "The Scuba Diver" is one mean Batman Gambit.
    • Also Lily to a lesser extent.
  • Memetic Mutation: Like so many shows, HIMYM fans have their very own private jokes.
    • [salutes] Private Jokes. Yes, I know you don't salute privates.
    • Mosbius Designs has failed....(Classic Schmosby)
    • "NOBODY ASKED YOU PATRICE!!!"
    • Legend...wait for it...dairy
    • Basically anything Barney has ever said.
    • "I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR!" Particularly famous as a very common reaction gif on various comms and discussion boards.
    • Barney's catchphrase of "True Story".
  • Misaimed Fandom:
    • Barney roots for the bad guys in several films, like this quote about The Terminator.

"Who among us didn't shed a tear when he didn't get to kill those people?"

    • The series' actual fanbase, who take The Bro Code seriously and quote it regularly. The IRL book version of The Bro Code appears in the humor section of the bookstore for a reason.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Zoey actually keeping the recording of Ted praising the Arcadian and using it against Ted.
    • Tony writing (and probably therefore, Stella condoning) "The Wedding Bride".
  • One True Threesome: Barney/Robin/Ted.

Victoria: Who's Barney's ex?
Ted: Robin.
Victoria: Your Robin?
Ted: Mine and Barney's Robin.
Victoria: Aaaaand we have weird.

    • Also, Marshall/Lily/Ted:

Marshall: Deep in the Amazon rainforest, there is a tree that only grows around the body of an existing tree. It cannot survive without this tree; it's supported by this tree. Lily, we are that tree...we grew around Ted and without him we're slowly dying!

    • One might even speculate that part of the reason Ted's romances keep failing is because he's entangled in two One True Threesome's and can't focus on a person from outside of his group. He even explicitly declares that he will never get serious with a woman who doesn't like his friends.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Ted and the gang constantly refer to Barney as disgusting and despicable for his womanizing.Yet Ted has done things just as bad as Barney on a lower.He has tried to hooku up with two married women tried to cheat on Victoria with Robin ,as had casual sex and as tried to ride the "Tricycle".
    • Also applies to Lily as she is deceitful and manipulative yet again nobody calls her on it.
    • Ted actually does call her on this during one episode over her obvious attempts to break him up with Karen. Of course, it kind of falls flat considering that he ends up breaking up with Karen anyway. One wonders if she planned it that way.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: "As Fast As She Can" redeemed Stella in the eyes of some.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Zoey. "Oh no, I'm married to Kyle McLachlan and don't like boats." Ted even shills her at the end of "Natural History"!
    • Also Don, though he fortunately ended up a Scrapped Scrappy. A sleazy idiot with a cavalry's worth of informed ability.
    • Stella became this after "Shelter Island".
    • Quinn, naturally to Barney/Robin shippers
      • Or Nora supporters.
  • Serious Business: "The Stinson Missile Crisis" and other episodes have noted the ridiculous lengths Barney goes through to get laid.
  • Shipping Bed Death: Barney and Robin.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: The fandom frequently pairs Carl with Wendy, despite zero canon evidence of them being interested in each other.
    • And that she ends up marrying some other guy.
  • Ship Tease: They sure do have fun teasing Barney/Lily like crazy... of course, it will never happen.
    • They also did one with Barney and Robin... in the episode they actually hooked up. The tease allowed the actual hookup to be a surprise.
  • Squick:
    • Marshall trying to produce a sperm sample in the bathroom, while his mother stands outside and tells him about a new bikini she bought and how good she looks in it.
    • Robin's favorite sex act "The Old King Clancy".
      • Though the above is not described, Urban Dictionary does have a definition...
  • Stock Footage Failure: A brief Establishing Shot in "Baby Talk" ostensibly shows Marshall's old high school in Minnesota, but the flag flying outside is clearly Quebec's.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • At the end of the first season, Lily breaks off her engagement with Marshall and leaves for San Francisco, leaving him crushed and sitting outside the apartment in the rain holding the engagement ring.
    • The ending of "Benefits", when Barney blurts out to Robin that he's in love with her...and she assumes he's making fun of Ted's overly-emotional nature. She then goes on to say (regarding her and Ted) that dating friends never works out. Barney looks completely heartbroken.
    • The ending of "Cleaning House", which uses a montage set to "Stand By Me" to show that Loretta was actually a wonderful mother.
    • In "Bad News": The death of Marshal's dad. It happens off-camera, but Lily having to deliver the news to Marshall is heartbreaking.
      • Even more so in the following episode: when Marshall thinks the last call his dad ever made to him was a pocket dial. Marshall's rant to his friends, his wife - even God - about how unfair his dad's death is...it's got this dead-inside troper tearing up. Jason Segel DESERVES an Emmy nomination; he can really act.
      • This troper teared up the moment you see Marshall's dad's phone ringing on his work bench, with him no-where in sight. You just know that if he isn't there to answer Marshall's call, then something has happened to him.
    • Barney and his dad, Jerry's talk in "Legendaddy"

Barney: You're lame. Okay? You're just some lame suburban dad!"
Jerry: Why does it make you so mad?
Barney: Because if you're gonna be some lame suburban dad, why couldn't you have been that for me?

    • Later in the same episode

Barney: A kid needs a hoop...

    • The last scene in A Change Of Heart, where we see Barney enter the restaurant and meet Nora's parents, then it cuts back to him standing outside the restaurant, revealing it to be his imagination. The look on his face as he decides not to go in is heart-wrenching... Wow, Season 6 is pretty sad.
    • The ending of Tick, Tick, Tick... poor Barney, he did the right thing, and ended up alone...excuse me, I need a tissue.
      • Especially the scene where Ted walks into his apartment and sees Barney removing rose petals from Robin's bed and blowing out candles. It was the most vulnerable, romantic thing he's ever done, and his heart was yet again broken for the umpteenth time. One wonders how he'll pull himself back after this...
      • To make matters worse, poor Nora gets caught up in all of this despite doing nothing wrong. After taking a huge chance on Barney, she has to find out that he cheated right after he meets her parents.
    • Symphony of Illumination. The episode starts with Robin talking to her kids about how she met their father. Robin learns she isn't pregnant with Barney's children, then learns she can't have children at all. At the end, you learn the two kids she was talking to were imaginary. Good lord this show.
  • Tethercat Principle: In Karma, Patrice is still sitting there, excitedly waiting for Robin to arrive...
  • Uncanny Valley: In the season six episode "Baby Talk" Marshall imagines his daughter marrying Barney who appears to have maintained his good looks by a permanent botox. His face appears to be made of plastic, and it does not move at all. Take a look.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Ted has shown some Jerkass tendencies in certain episodes that make it hard to root for him at times.
    • All the characters except Marshall are this once in a while, but Barney is a straighter example: usually, he's a despicable (though entertaining) dick who the viewers are never sorry to see get royally screwed over due to his own arrogance or stupidity, which makes the rare times where he is legitimately sympathetic all the more poignant.
  • The Untwist: The reveal of Robin as the bride at Barney's future wedding at the end of Season 7 came as an utter shock to about 2% of viewers. At most.
  • Warped Aesop: Lily, after Marshall's co-worker Jenkins drunkenly kisses Marshall, her immediate reaction is to go to Lily, take full responsibility for what happened, and apologize like a reasonable adult. Lily's reaction is to beat the crap out of Jenkins while Barney takes pictures. The only moral here? The Aldrin-Ericksons are nuts.
  • The Woobie:
    • Barney, surprisingly. Most of the time he comes off like he has no doubts or problems, but not only is he an actual person, he's a pretty frail one. Especially when it comes to Robin or his father.
    • From a fifth season episode, one of Ted's students. Poor Cook Pu. You can't not feel sorry for her by the end.
    • Marshall can fall into this category at times as well.
      • You can't say that. His dad's dead.
    • Honey. "You want to wrap her in a blanket and protect her from the wolves".
    • Robin is being heavily woobified in season seven. Especially as of "Symphony of Illumination".
    • The Captain. He gives off a creepy vibe without intending to, and is genuinely devastated when Zoey divorces him, even as he admits they didn't have anything in common.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/How_I_Met_Your_Mother/YMMV?oldid=1930319"