no one can stop me; here’s a robin scherbatsky theory that’s not “the robin theory”
if you follow the himym tag here, you’ve seen it in every language:
“𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓻𝓸𝓫𝓲𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓸𝓻𝔂: aesthetic post about how women are complicated” that i never finish reading because i’m lazy
then again, i doubt enough people follow the himym tag to know what i’m talking about. well, it lead you here if you do, so i wanted to talk about robin a bit differently. there’s stuff about her character arc that always drew me in, even if it may very well have been unintentional. (spoilers ig)
Robin is often looked at as your typical will-they-won’t-they female love interest: a woman who is focused on her career often to an unhealthy extent. However, I thought there was something to speak to about how her childhood affected this aspect of her personality.
Robin’s father raised her to be a boy. In her household, femininity was a death sentence. Hell, she spent her 14h birthday fighting off wolves. There’s nothing wrong with nontraditional gender expression, but the common understanding of the advocacy on the subject is that everyone always have a choice. Robin was never granted that choice, because toxic masculinity made her father uncomfortable with raising a girl.
Which brings me back to my opener: career-orientedness is a traditionally masculine trait. For Robin, who was never given a choice towards how she chose to express herself, it may very well have seemed the natural route. Robin does not want to focus on the traditionally “girly” romance the same way Ted and Marshall do, yet Ted and Marshall simultaneously have huge career aspirations. They are able to balance these goals because they, particularly Marshall, are comfortable enough with both of their traditionally masculine and feminine sides. Ted is a hopeless romantic and also a devoted architect, while Marshall is passionate and outspoken about the environment while putting Lily above all else.
Fortunately, as the show progresses, Robin’s priorities begin to shift. Sure, she still focuses on her career as a news anchor, and continues to push Ted away in part because of it, but her attitude changes. Some may think this is symbolized in season five by her relationship with Don: when she’s offered a job in Chicago, he ends up taking it, because she puts her relationship first. However, this decision is a low point for Robin, and ends in heart break. Here, instead of communicating with Don in order to balance her relationship and her career, she immediately chooses her relationship. Rather than learn the lesson from her poorly timed relationship with Ted, Robin flips to the other extreme, and loses Don. This turns out fine for her because Don’s own decision suggests and inconsiderate nature, but does not imply that she has truly learned her lesson.
On the other hand, in season nine, after Robin’s marriage to Barney, the two decide to travel together for her work. Robin allows herself to fall in love with Barney, and although the two do not “settle down” in the traditional sense, it is definitely not the masculine-like “casual” relationship she and Barney would have looked for in seasons one and two. Unfortunately, their relationship falls apart for this very reason, but it ends in a somewhat-amicable divorce. This was a decision I agreed with, mainly because it seemed to me like Robin’s internal conflict around her gender roles clashed with Barney’s own.
@jmagnabo92 (who I hope doesn’t mind me mentioning them) made what I consider a fantastic point about Robin’s timeline after breaking up with Barney. While she pursues her career, she avoids Ted until the time is exactly right. Robin has made the rational decision to focus on one thing she loves--her career--to protect the other: Ted. Thus, her character arc is completed when her and Ted’s implied relationship comes full circle. Robin has managed to find extreme career success, and later, romantic success. She does not have to be traditionally feminine, and act as a mother, but she also does not have to play to the extreme, and can be in a relationship with a man she loves.
I do not know whether any of this was intentional, but I think Robin, as a character, is a perfect lesson about how forcing oneself to conform to one gender role or another hurts oneself and those around them. Robin hurt herself by denying herself romance, she hurt Barney by never being able to settle down, and got hurt by Don when she misunderstood her own priorities. Of course, she never had a responsibility to be the perfect woman for Ted or Barney, but she stuck around and continued to be friends with both despite her failed relationships. Her maturity in this sense is directly correlated with her maturity in her understanding of her gender.
tl;dr robin’s dad SUUUUCKS but we all kno barney likes girls w daddy issues. its ok now tho shes all better
Ok, this is a theory that came up to me yesterday about the HIMYM's finale. It's probably not true, but I think it would at least make the finale more bearable.
So, you know how the ending was an awful lot like the first episode? They said it was on purpose.
So my theory is that Ted was actually telling the story of how he met the mother to remind himself of all the details. Since her death, he's been slipping, and as he got older the more details he began to forget and it scared him. He felt memories was all he had left of her and he thought he was now losing them too. He was losing it. After all the time he spent without her, all the time he spent with her, all he wanted was to go back to being with her. And he got this crazy idea that like fate brought them together before, fate would bring them together again if he just lived it all over again, right from the start. So he tells the story to himself more than to his children, and once he gets an "approval" he goes to Robin's with the blue french horn, ready to start his journey back to the mother.
Basically, Ted loses it trying to remember everything that lead him to meet the mother, and 6 years after her death he's crazy and desperate enough to try and meet her again the same way.
In the episode of How I Met Your Mother called Vesuvius, Ted and Tracy were at the farhampton inn in 2024. In 2030, Penny says, “mom’s been gone for six years”. Ted started crying after Tracy says, “what mother misses her daughter’s wedding?”, because she is sick and she doesn’t have much time left, therefore, she will miss her daughter's wedding.
Mind blown.
(This is just a theory. It might not be true so yeah)
I'm calling it - we started with Robin's story because the mother is dead and Ted's about to take Robin as his second wife.
That said, I'm curious if Robin and Barney will be on and off again because I remember Robin being pregnant in flashbacks with Lily. Or who the father might be.
Theory: Ted and the Mother lost their first daughter
We all remember that Ted used to say that he'd name his children Luke and Leia. The boy received the Star Wars name, but the girl was called Penny. In Vesuvius, we saw Ted crying when the Mother was saying that a mother wouldn't miss her daughter's wedding. People assumed that it was a hint that Mrs. Mosby (Ted's mom or the Mother) was going to die. But there's another explanation:
The first time the Mother got pregnant, she was waiting a girl that would be called Leia, probably. However, Ted's first daughter died when she was still a baby. Penny could be a child they adopted after their loss.
That's why we haven't seen Ted talking about his daughter's birth, that's why the daughter who's listening to the story is not called Leia and that's why Ted cried in Vesuvius, because his first daughter died and, therefore, would never get married. This theory also explains the confusion many people have pointed out about when Ted's daughter was born (comparing her age in Trilogy Time, the Mother's pregnancy in the Lighthouse and the baby in Unpaused).
now I'm really afraid that the last words of the show will be lily telling marshall to finally pay up and him saying "not yet" again and then it ENDS. this is what keeps me up at night
has no one thought that maybe the mother's mother missed their wedding? that could've devastated the mother, and through that, upset ted. it doesn't necessarily mean that the mother is going to die
