Many fans cried fowl at this ending. They felt that as an
audience they where cheated because Ted wasn’t happy. I am here to state that I
believe that this belief is wrong. The audience were not cheated, they are just
not used to such literary devices in sitcom television; two devices
specifically being the use of an unreliable narrator and the use of the
Macguffin. The story was framed by Future Ted in such a way to show how Robin
was important to him and in a way his children. The end goal of the story was
the Mother, but she was ultimately used to move the story along. The true
message of the story was, even though Ted loved Tracy McConnell, He was ready
to move on and Robin was the perfect woman to move on to.
Before I delve into the narration and the use of the
Macguffin further, let us look at one more factor that should be taken into
account in the overall character arc of Ted and Tracy. In the 200th
episode, “How Your Mother Met Me,” it was revealed that Tracy had a boyfriend,
Max, that died. It was shown that she never got over it, even breaking up with
her boyfriend because she didn’t feel that Max approved of her moving on. She
was plagued by a previous and out of reach love, just like Ted. Both character
had a love that they could not acquire be for death or other life events. Both characters at one point even acknowledged
that their previous love hang up was the love of their life. I am not
suggesting that Ted and Tracy where not in love, but I am saying that neither
of them where the other’s first choice in love. They were both the other’s
second chance, their other person. It is tragic, but this character arc is why
Ted needs to go after Robin. In a cosmic sense, Tracy did get to be with her
true love again and in the end so did Ted.
With that tangent aside, people are still upset that the
show is called “How I Met Your Mother” when it wasn’t really about the mother
in the end. Well, that is what happens when you incorporate a Macguffin, a plot
device used to move the story along. This really should not have been an issue
that it wasn’t about the mother. Just look at the title of the show. It is all
about the events that led up to that initial meeting, which all begun with
meeting Robin. It is because Ted met Robin that Barney met Robin and they got
married leading to that meeting at the train station. The mother was an
endpoint to Ted’s Story, not the actual journey of the story.
When we the audience see that journey to the mother, what
we are seeing is not the actual events, but the events as told by Future Ted.
He changes the story and recalls it in such a way to paint an emphasis on
Robin. We know that Ted is capable of changing events, we have seen it
predominately when he changes weed references to sandwiches. We also know that
his ability to retell the story has been effected by the amount of time that has
passed, as seen with him telling the story of the goat a year before the story
actually took place. So when Ted is telling this story, his state of mind is
not on the Mother, but on him wishing to move on. He wants to pursue Robin and
it is possible that he puts Robin on a pedestal during this retelling is
because he wants his kids to be okay with him moving on. So he tells the story
with Robin in a bright light on her, making her the overall star of the story
and not the mother.
So before getting mad at the final of How I Met your
Mother for not being a satisfying ending, look at it through these eyes. By the
way of character development, the mother and Ted where each other’s second
choice in love, those characters never thought of each other as the first
choice in life partner, but as a backup do the a previous love that has moved
on either through death or by a new marriage. When Ted does retell the story to
his kids, his goal is not the actual meeting, but how Robin was a girl that
meant something to him and that he is ready to move on. This story is made to
give that message to the kids and was not meant to be an ending that was happy,
but one of acceptance over a previous loss.
