I have had this post premise rejected so many times that, if you’re reading this, know that you are witness to a modern-day miracle. The powers-that-be don’t want you to consider this possibility; in fact, I think it’s a conspiracy on the grandest of scales to keep this from you. But I will not be silenced!
Either that, or in my own twisted way, I just find the notion rather amusing. We all know how strange it is that Bob Saget’s voice plays the future incarnation of Ted. Yes, if you imagine their faces side-by-side, you can kinda see where the creators were coming from on that one. But, beyond that? What possible reason is there for such a strange combination?
Strap yourselves in, folks. You remember when Barney played “Ted Mosby, Architect?” Well, here’s a doozy for you: I contend that this show is the story of how Barney Stinson, lifelong lothario, met those kids’ mother.
Still breathing?
Think about it for a second. We have no reason to assume that this is, in fact, Ted’s story. Yes, every time Saget says, “Back when I was…” we cut to a tale about Ted, but what does that necessarily mean? We got the same thing in the “Ted Mosby, Architect” tale, and we all know how that turned out (awesome note, Barney!). So, what’s to say that the same thing isn’t going on week after week?
Have we actually learned anything yet? Do we know the first thing about said mother? I mean something concrete, not like the yellow umbrella. No. So, their mother could be anyone. In fact, we all spend time trying to fit a round peg into a square hole, because the daughter has light hair, and Ted doesn’t. So we hypothesize that Stella’s DNA must make up the daughter’s other half. Based on anything? Not from the story.
And so, while we’re questioning things, who says Bob Saget isn’t really playing an older version of Barney instead of Ted? It’s not like we ever see a face. And I wouldn’t say that Saget sounds more like Josh Radnor than Neil Patrick Harris.
So now we have the light hair. Next? Saget’s son has dark hair. Okay … who has Barney met, with dark hair, since the show began? Robin! And, who is Barney in love with, radically altering his womanizing ways to try and be with? Robin! Could this not be a tale of how the kids’ mother and father met and fell in love, instead of simply how they met? Maybe the lady with the yellow umbrella somehow drives Barney and Robin to finally get together. Or, maybe she really is the mother, not Robin. But that doesn’t negate the possibility that Barney’s the dad.
Yes, Saget refers to them as Uncle Barney and Aunt Robin, but in “Ted Mosby, Architect,” we heard Ted tell a story that really wasn’t about him at all. Is it such a leap to imagine that happening again?
Look, all I ask is that you think on the possibility … it’s certainly better than debating who the mom might be from now until the show reveals her. In the meantime, I’ll be watching How I Met Your Mother from an entirely new perspective. It’ll be legen … wait for it … until the season 5 premiere on Monday night, September 21.
Don’t miss How I Met Your Mother, your other returning favorites, or all that’s new this season. Check out CliqueClack’s guide to the 2009-2010 fall season for all the info.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Sep 11, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT
Gotta say, I never thought about that possibility. But didn’t Saget’s voice say that he met the mother in the class that Ted is teaching? It still could be Barney in that scenario, but it wouldn’t be with Robin (unless she goes back to school and for some reason tries to become an architect)
*POST AUTHOR*
I can’t remember if he said he met her in the class, or because of (meaning, if you’re arguing Barney and Robin, that something happened in class that led to something, that led to something, etc.)
The crux of my supposition, however, is that Barney is the father; I kind of just got lost on that Robin thought when I started discussing hair color – when I supplied Barney as the source of the light hair, I realized I was missing the source of the dark, and Robin came to mind. I’m okay letting go of that secondary theory, however.
You 100% positive Saget’s voice never said, “Uncle Barney” or referred to him otherwise?
….. dary
No, I think his point was that, even in the Ted Mosby … Architect episode the reference was still there (as Uncle Barney). So, you can’t necessarily take Bob Saget at his word.
*POST AUTHOR*
Especially, for those of you who watch Entourage, when his word includes asking for permission to have sex on someone else’s office couch, for the purposes of his memoir.
*POST AUTHOR*
I’m 100% positive that he HAS said “Uncle Barney,” as I said above. What I’m arguing is that, much like in the “Ted Mosby, Architect” episode, as long as we’re presuming the story to be Ted’s, we’ll be hearing it from his voice, and seeing it from his perspective. But as soon as they flipped the switch and Robin discovered that she’d been chasing Barney all night, we saw the exact story with Barney in Ted’s place. Meaning, when Saget says “Uncle Barney,” it’s because the show is saying this is Ted’s story. As soon as we learn it’s Barney’s? It’ll be “Uncle Ted.” … Did that make any sense?
*POST AUTHOR*
Incidentally, for anyone who does watch this and Entourage, imagining Saget as Entourage Saget, and not Full House Saget, supports the Barney instead of Ted theory pretty solidly. :-)
But how do you explain the Halloween episode where he tells the kids why AUNT Robin likes to dress up so much and why she didn’t before. So I think that discounts the theory of Robin as the mother but not someone else being barney’s wife
are you stoned??? :)
No. No no no no no. Nuh uh.
Umm, in the very first episode (S0101), at the end of the episode, Old Ted says, “and that’s how I met your Aunt Robin”
so at least Robin isn’t the mother.
I remember that, because for at least the first half of the season, I assumed that the mother was Robin’s sister. I don’t think she even has a sister…
It’s an interesting theory, but you’re asking us to accept not only an unreliable narrator, but an inconsistently unreliable one that can change naming conventions and viewpoints from episode to episode unpredictably. If we go that far, then absolutely anything is possible because we can’t know which parts of the stories are true one week and lies the next. Robin might as well be the one talking to the kids and always referring to herself in the third person. Or Ranjit could be the dad.
When I read the post title, I was sure the OP was going to bring Fringe into this.
*POST AUTHOR*
Ranjit!
Yes and no; were Barney to be revealed as the dad, it would merely require a single shift, from Ted to Barney, as the entire story in the show is that of Ted … it wouldn’t supplant Barney in Ted’s role, and vice versa; Barney’s story, as it exists, would merely become the central one, as opposed to Ted’s.
I’m not saying that Barney was standing there and ran into the lady with the yellow umbrella, or whatever it was that happened. I’m saying that, as Bob Saget says, she’s an important person in the story of “how I met your mother.” Ted ran into her, but she plays a role in Barney’s life trajectory.
I didn’t mean to suggest, by using “Ted Mosby, Architect” as an example, that Ted is Barney, and vice versa, just that we’ve previously seen how a different perspective will completely alter the story. Same with the episode where Ted goes to the party with Barney and, after hearing just how drunk he was the next morning, we see a totally altered experience.
To (try and) put it simply, we think Saget is Ted, so he is the lead character, and every thing around him is defined by its relationship to him (Uncle Barney, Aunt Robin). Were we to discover that Barney was the lead, as he is, Ted’s story would still exist, but it would hypothetically be Radnor being nominated as supporting actor (not likely).
Yes/No?
I think you broke my brain.
So the only change is that Ted is not related to the two kids, right? I kind of like that, since the son stars on a Disney show I watch, but that also means I’ve suffered through years of Ted’s douchiness and self-absorption for even less reason. Also Stella. Ew.
Of course, if that opened up the door to Barney and Robin monopolizing the screen time, I’d be open to anything.
*POST AUTHOR*
Confusion leads to submission, which leads to acceptance, which leads me to be able to say, “See? Ryan agrees with me!” :-)
But yes, that is correct; just that Ted is not the father.
*POST AUTHOR*
Okay, I will admit that suggesting that Robin is the mother was just stream of consciousness, as I wrote above, which occurred to me as I was writing about the hair color issue. It was not as well thought out as Barney as the father, a supposition that I stand firmly by! :-)
Anyone else thinking this is what happens when you’re in between Lost seasons?
*POST AUTHOR*
This is the REAL conspiracy, my friend. :-)
I can’t wait to see how HIMYM handles the Barney/Robin relationship.
It could either be great or ruin the Barney character. They handled it well last season so praying that it won’t change the character that much. I love this show and I have high hopes for this season.
https://www.joeonthetube.com
*POST AUTHOR*
I think they are, and will be, fantastic together, no matter what type of relationship they have. In thinking about it now, it dawns on me that the Robin character may have been constructed as such a “guy” just for this very pairing. Barney would be slaughtered if he was with someone who called for him to clean up his act, but Robin’s just as disgusting as he is in many ways. All good, of course!