TMC
04-09-2017, 03:21 AM
TO RECAP
The format of How I Met Your Mother is that Ted, in the year 2030, has sat his two kids, Penny and Luke, down to tell them the story of how he met their mother. The story starts in September 2005 and spans to May 26, 2013, the day that Barney and Robin get married, with a bit of a quick follow-up as to what happened to the gang in the years after the wedding and what led to Ted telling his kids this story.
THE THEORY
The theory in itself is that Ted doesn’t actually have kids, and that he’s telling this story to himself. The crux of the theory boils down to basic math and time.
In the Pilot episode we see Ted’s kids, Penny and Luke, sitting on the couch listening to their dad. In the following episodes Penny and Luke are wearing different clothes, but that’s the only thing that’s changed about them. From episode 102 onwards they’re always seen on the same couch, in the same position, wearing the same clothes, and being the same age. So from episode 102 until the end, it’s safe to assume that the telling of the story takes place over the course of one day.
Let’s also say that Ted isn’t a monster and he doesn’t keep his kids hostage for 24 straight hours. I’d say that the largest feasible amount of time would be an entire waking day, or 16 hours -- which lines up, given the fact that in the shot of 2030 Ted in episode 924, it’s dark outside behind him, which means he would have talked throughout the day and into the night. But it can’t be too late, because that night Ted goes to the restaurant to get the blue French horn, so the restaurant has to be open by the time he gets there.
Okay, so 16 hours. Let’s put a pin in that and look at the structure of the episodes.
Each episode is basically an anecdote in Ted’s life, and it can be assumed that each anecdote is told in the way that the audience sees it. Some of them only last a few hours (almost all of season 9, for instance) and some of them are stretched out over days. But they’re anecdotes nonetheless -- little stories in Ted’s life that made him into the person he is in 2030.
And each one is very, very detailed, with a carefully crafted narrative structure.
Take episode 413, Three Days of Snow, for instance (the one where Lily goes to the airport to surprise Marshall with beer and he surprises her by bringing in a band). Ted in 2030, telling this story to his kids, would have told it as it was told to us, the audience: with the implication that everything happened on the same day. But he would have revealed the twist close to the end: that it all took place over three separate days. This takes careful planning, and would require a lot of words to get all the details down, in the order that he told them.
Or consider the stories-within-stories that are commonplace in episodes of How I Met Your Mother. For example in episode 914, Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra, Ted in 2030 tells about how Marshall in 2013 is going to slap Barney, but then switches to Marshall a few weeks earlier telling the story about how he had, years earlier, gone to get special slap training. Imagine the phrasing and careful consideration of wording Ted would have to make to be certain these stories made sense to his kids!
These are complicated stories. There’s a lot of exposition in the show, and a lot of recaps at the beginnings of episodes (anecdotes) to make sure that everyone’s on the same track for what Ted’s about to say. And for good reason! The kids would need constant reminders about which part of what story Ted is telling, and who just did what, etc. We, the audience, are able to visually see everything that Ted is telling his kids, but his kids just have to use their imagination. Ted has to verbally describe every significant detail of what’s going on, everything that people are wearing when it’s important, every minor character and what they look like.
It’s no wonder that there are parts of Ted’s stories that he either confuses the details about (e.g., the plot hole about whether or not Marshall was in fights when he was younger) or just flat-out admits he forgets (e.g., the woman whose name he forgot, Blah Blah). Ted’s got an amazing memory to be able to so accurately detail 8 years’ worth of anecdotes, especially when that span of 8 years ended 17 years before the story got told.
So all that to say: these are incredibly complex stories, and they would take a lot of words to tell to that degree of accuracy. Ted’s known for telling the same stories over and over (as evidenced in episode 919, when Tracy informs Ted that he’s told her all of his stories, and more than once) so he’s got his rhythm down. But it’s still a whole lot of story for each of those anecdotes.
Now let’s take a look at the math.
There are 208 episodes in How I Met Your Mother, which essentially amount to 208 anecdotes (episodes 901-922 all take place on one weekend, but each thing that happens in each episode is so complex that it’s worthy of being called an anecdote.) If we exclude the first episode (because of the kids wearing different clothing) we get 207 anecdotes told in, as mentioned before, a 16-hour period. That gives Ted 16*60 = 960 minutes to tell 8 years’ worth of anecdotes, and if we break it down further, we get each anecdote taking 960/207 = 4.64 minutes, or 4 minutes and 38 seconds on average to tell.
Less than five minutes per anecdote! And that’s not including things like taking breaks, going to the bathroom, eating meals, the kids asking questions for clarification, etc.
This is an unfeasible amount of time in which to tell over 200 complex individual stories. To say that you told 208 anecdotes in a row, detailing the events of 5 friends and countless other people over 8 years, and you did it all using up less than 5 minutes per anecdote, is ridiculous. You could say that you ran an entire marathon in less than half an hour too, but that doesn’t mean it actually happened.
SO WHAT DID HAPPEN?
I think that the events of (most of) the show do happen: Ted lives a very full and very romantically painful life over the course of 8 years, and his friendship with the gang essentially ends at the end of episode 922: when Robin and Barney get married.
Ted meets Tracy at the train station, asks her out at the bar after making yet another snap decision that alters his life dramatically (deciding not to move to Chicago), and they go on their first date as described on May 29th, 2013.
They’re together for two years before he proposes at the Farhampton Inn lighthouse. They try for kids but it doesn’t happen and Tracy never gets pregnant. They keep postponing the wedding, not because Tracy won’t fit in her dress, but because Ted’s overambitious wedding plans will literally bankrupt them if they go through with it. Tracy just wants to get married but Ted won’t relent because, to him, if it’s not perfect then it’s not worth it. And then, 5 years later, he gives yet another grand romantic gesture and tells Tracy he wants to marry her that week, and they finally do get married in 2020.
They’re married for four years, still trying for children but not getting anywhere with it. Tracy becomes sick and dies in 2024, leaving Ted alone, with friends who have essentially drifted away, living in a house he so painstakingly renovated for the wife he doesn’t have anymore and the family he never got.
Ted’s lonely. He hardly sees Lily and Marshall anymore, Barney’s gone back to his old ways, and all Ted has is Robin. They see each other every now and again, her coming over for dinners and such, and over the next 6 years Ted begins to develop feelings for Robin again, although he tries to deny it, and he starts to imagine what his life would be like if things had gone differently with Tracy -- if they’d actually had kids like they’d planned.
He imagines how he would bring a newly-born Penny to see the Star Wars trilogy with Barney and Marshall in The Apartment (episode 720). He knows that if he had left Penny with Lily and Marshall at Christmas time, how they would get back at him for taking Marvin to see Santa for the first time by doing the same with her (episode 809). And he imagines how Penny would be such a smart and perfect daughter, who would be so interested in the GNB building, just like he would want her to (episode 924).
But his memories of his kids are not as detailed as his actual memories, and they’re so few and far between, because they don’t actually exist. Ted lives in the past, constantly telling and re-telling the stories of what happened in those prime years of his life. The bits that include his children are merely pangs in his heart when he thinks of how his children would have been, and how much he wanted them, but never got to have them.
And then, one day in 2030, Ted decides that it’s time for another big romantic gesture. When the theoretical Penny and Luke would be 15 and 13, Ted imagines how they would sit obediently for an entire day, and would listen with rapt attention as he told them the story of his old life, and of what he eventually lost. And in his mind they wouldn’t interrupt, and they would be so interested and respectful -- just like how he always imagined his perfect family would be.
That’s how his entire 8 years’ worth of stories could be told over the course of one sitting: because Ted didn’t have to actually tell it to real people. He didn’t go into so much detail, and he didn’t have to worry about his kids complaining or needing a break. So much of it was in his imagination already that he probably skimmed over great amounts of detail. All the complex twists and turns that would take forever to explain would happen in a flash to him.
So Ted recounts everything that happened to him from 2005-2013, and even though he won’t admit it to himself, what he’s really doing is reconciling with the fact that he’s in love with Robin again, and that he wants to be with her. And of course his kids would be smart and would figure it out before he did, and of course they would give him their blessing no questions asked, and tell him to just go ahead and get her.
And so that’s what he does. He leaves his house and gets the blue French horn and surprises Robin and they end up together, just like he always wanted.
The format of How I Met Your Mother is that Ted, in the year 2030, has sat his two kids, Penny and Luke, down to tell them the story of how he met their mother. The story starts in September 2005 and spans to May 26, 2013, the day that Barney and Robin get married, with a bit of a quick follow-up as to what happened to the gang in the years after the wedding and what led to Ted telling his kids this story.
THE THEORY
The theory in itself is that Ted doesn’t actually have kids, and that he’s telling this story to himself. The crux of the theory boils down to basic math and time.
In the Pilot episode we see Ted’s kids, Penny and Luke, sitting on the couch listening to their dad. In the following episodes Penny and Luke are wearing different clothes, but that’s the only thing that’s changed about them. From episode 102 onwards they’re always seen on the same couch, in the same position, wearing the same clothes, and being the same age. So from episode 102 until the end, it’s safe to assume that the telling of the story takes place over the course of one day.
Let’s also say that Ted isn’t a monster and he doesn’t keep his kids hostage for 24 straight hours. I’d say that the largest feasible amount of time would be an entire waking day, or 16 hours -- which lines up, given the fact that in the shot of 2030 Ted in episode 924, it’s dark outside behind him, which means he would have talked throughout the day and into the night. But it can’t be too late, because that night Ted goes to the restaurant to get the blue French horn, so the restaurant has to be open by the time he gets there.
Okay, so 16 hours. Let’s put a pin in that and look at the structure of the episodes.
Each episode is basically an anecdote in Ted’s life, and it can be assumed that each anecdote is told in the way that the audience sees it. Some of them only last a few hours (almost all of season 9, for instance) and some of them are stretched out over days. But they’re anecdotes nonetheless -- little stories in Ted’s life that made him into the person he is in 2030.
And each one is very, very detailed, with a carefully crafted narrative structure.
Take episode 413, Three Days of Snow, for instance (the one where Lily goes to the airport to surprise Marshall with beer and he surprises her by bringing in a band). Ted in 2030, telling this story to his kids, would have told it as it was told to us, the audience: with the implication that everything happened on the same day. But he would have revealed the twist close to the end: that it all took place over three separate days. This takes careful planning, and would require a lot of words to get all the details down, in the order that he told them.
Or consider the stories-within-stories that are commonplace in episodes of How I Met Your Mother. For example in episode 914, Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra, Ted in 2030 tells about how Marshall in 2013 is going to slap Barney, but then switches to Marshall a few weeks earlier telling the story about how he had, years earlier, gone to get special slap training. Imagine the phrasing and careful consideration of wording Ted would have to make to be certain these stories made sense to his kids!
These are complicated stories. There’s a lot of exposition in the show, and a lot of recaps at the beginnings of episodes (anecdotes) to make sure that everyone’s on the same track for what Ted’s about to say. And for good reason! The kids would need constant reminders about which part of what story Ted is telling, and who just did what, etc. We, the audience, are able to visually see everything that Ted is telling his kids, but his kids just have to use their imagination. Ted has to verbally describe every significant detail of what’s going on, everything that people are wearing when it’s important, every minor character and what they look like.
It’s no wonder that there are parts of Ted’s stories that he either confuses the details about (e.g., the plot hole about whether or not Marshall was in fights when he was younger) or just flat-out admits he forgets (e.g., the woman whose name he forgot, Blah Blah). Ted’s got an amazing memory to be able to so accurately detail 8 years’ worth of anecdotes, especially when that span of 8 years ended 17 years before the story got told.
So all that to say: these are incredibly complex stories, and they would take a lot of words to tell to that degree of accuracy. Ted’s known for telling the same stories over and over (as evidenced in episode 919, when Tracy informs Ted that he’s told her all of his stories, and more than once) so he’s got his rhythm down. But it’s still a whole lot of story for each of those anecdotes.
Now let’s take a look at the math.
There are 208 episodes in How I Met Your Mother, which essentially amount to 208 anecdotes (episodes 901-922 all take place on one weekend, but each thing that happens in each episode is so complex that it’s worthy of being called an anecdote.) If we exclude the first episode (because of the kids wearing different clothing) we get 207 anecdotes told in, as mentioned before, a 16-hour period. That gives Ted 16*60 = 960 minutes to tell 8 years’ worth of anecdotes, and if we break it down further, we get each anecdote taking 960/207 = 4.64 minutes, or 4 minutes and 38 seconds on average to tell.
Less than five minutes per anecdote! And that’s not including things like taking breaks, going to the bathroom, eating meals, the kids asking questions for clarification, etc.
This is an unfeasible amount of time in which to tell over 200 complex individual stories. To say that you told 208 anecdotes in a row, detailing the events of 5 friends and countless other people over 8 years, and you did it all using up less than 5 minutes per anecdote, is ridiculous. You could say that you ran an entire marathon in less than half an hour too, but that doesn’t mean it actually happened.
SO WHAT DID HAPPEN?
I think that the events of (most of) the show do happen: Ted lives a very full and very romantically painful life over the course of 8 years, and his friendship with the gang essentially ends at the end of episode 922: when Robin and Barney get married.
Ted meets Tracy at the train station, asks her out at the bar after making yet another snap decision that alters his life dramatically (deciding not to move to Chicago), and they go on their first date as described on May 29th, 2013.
They’re together for two years before he proposes at the Farhampton Inn lighthouse. They try for kids but it doesn’t happen and Tracy never gets pregnant. They keep postponing the wedding, not because Tracy won’t fit in her dress, but because Ted’s overambitious wedding plans will literally bankrupt them if they go through with it. Tracy just wants to get married but Ted won’t relent because, to him, if it’s not perfect then it’s not worth it. And then, 5 years later, he gives yet another grand romantic gesture and tells Tracy he wants to marry her that week, and they finally do get married in 2020.
They’re married for four years, still trying for children but not getting anywhere with it. Tracy becomes sick and dies in 2024, leaving Ted alone, with friends who have essentially drifted away, living in a house he so painstakingly renovated for the wife he doesn’t have anymore and the family he never got.
Ted’s lonely. He hardly sees Lily and Marshall anymore, Barney’s gone back to his old ways, and all Ted has is Robin. They see each other every now and again, her coming over for dinners and such, and over the next 6 years Ted begins to develop feelings for Robin again, although he tries to deny it, and he starts to imagine what his life would be like if things had gone differently with Tracy -- if they’d actually had kids like they’d planned.
He imagines how he would bring a newly-born Penny to see the Star Wars trilogy with Barney and Marshall in The Apartment (episode 720). He knows that if he had left Penny with Lily and Marshall at Christmas time, how they would get back at him for taking Marvin to see Santa for the first time by doing the same with her (episode 809). And he imagines how Penny would be such a smart and perfect daughter, who would be so interested in the GNB building, just like he would want her to (episode 924).
But his memories of his kids are not as detailed as his actual memories, and they’re so few and far between, because they don’t actually exist. Ted lives in the past, constantly telling and re-telling the stories of what happened in those prime years of his life. The bits that include his children are merely pangs in his heart when he thinks of how his children would have been, and how much he wanted them, but never got to have them.
And then, one day in 2030, Ted decides that it’s time for another big romantic gesture. When the theoretical Penny and Luke would be 15 and 13, Ted imagines how they would sit obediently for an entire day, and would listen with rapt attention as he told them the story of his old life, and of what he eventually lost. And in his mind they wouldn’t interrupt, and they would be so interested and respectful -- just like how he always imagined his perfect family would be.
That’s how his entire 8 years’ worth of stories could be told over the course of one sitting: because Ted didn’t have to actually tell it to real people. He didn’t go into so much detail, and he didn’t have to worry about his kids complaining or needing a break. So much of it was in his imagination already that he probably skimmed over great amounts of detail. All the complex twists and turns that would take forever to explain would happen in a flash to him.
So Ted recounts everything that happened to him from 2005-2013, and even though he won’t admit it to himself, what he’s really doing is reconciling with the fact that he’s in love with Robin again, and that he wants to be with her. And of course his kids would be smart and would figure it out before he did, and of course they would give him their blessing no questions asked, and tell him to just go ahead and get her.
And so that’s what he does. He leaves his house and gets the blue French horn and surprises Robin and they end up together, just like he always wanted.