"We’re so similar..." "We both like scotch,
we’re both awesome." Robin Scherbatsky
and Barney Stinson. Why couldn’t these unconventional
lovebirds make it work? "The emotional stuff,
it’s not your thing, I thought I’d
save you the trouble." "Maybe I don’t want to
be saved the trouble. Maybe I want the trouble." How I Met Your Mother emphasized
that these characters are two peas in a pod-
they like all the same things, put friendship first,
and are total commitment phobes. "Why are you so afraid
of giving this a chance?" "Because I am scared of
how much I like you." If anyone can make these two
romance-skeptics want to settle down, it’s each other. "He looks nice in his suit." "She can handle her scotch." "He's my boyfriend." "And she's my girlfriend." And the show builds to
the climax of their wedding, setting the entire final season during
the weekend of their nuptials. "Our wedding is going
to be legend-ary." But after all that, the
Robin and Barney romance culminates in a marriage that (we abruptly learn
in the second-to-last episode) lasts only a few years. "It was great....It was great." "It WAS great." "It was great." "It was great. It was GREAT." As jolting and unsatisfying
as this was for fans who’d invested in the couple, in truth,
something always felt a little off about the idea of Robin and
Barney getting hitched. "I’m wondering if this whole
getting married thing is something I can go through with." And not just because the show creators
had decided long ago that Robin and Ted were endgame. If we consider Barney and Robin’s
romantic pasts, it becomes pretty clear that neither of them is
really suited to a hyper-traditional
monogamous relationship. "I don't want to
get married right now, maybe ever." "Marriage is stupid." Much of Robin and Barney’s
marital unhappiness appears to be the product of trying to
force themselves into rigid cultural boxes
that don’t fit them. Here’s our Take on why
Robin and Barney were never meant to end up married to each other, or for that fact,
to anyone. "You're watching
The Take. Thanks for watching and
be sure to share and subscribe." To make sense of
Robin and Barney as a couple, let’s consider both as individuals,
starting with 'The Barnacle' himself. "Oh yeah, you just know
she likes it dirty." If you’ve watched even a few seconds
of the early seasons of How I Met Your Mother,
you would have rightly deduced that "get married" was the last thing
on Barney’s to-do list, somewhere below "stop wearing suits"
and "stop doing magic tricks." "I know what you want... Magic!" While Ted seems to have come out of
the womb longing to settle down, Barney feels like
a biological bachelor. "Barney Stinson AL-ways gets the yes." And he’s drawn to Robin precisely
because she affirms many of the same values he holds. "We both think the marriage
and commitment thing’s a drag. We both want
something casual and fun. And we clearly
get along really well." Barney isn’t looking for a wife, he’s
looking for a wingman (or wingwoman) that he’s also really attracted to. "Best wingman ever." This is actually part of
the foundation of what’s healthy about their relationship. Whereas Ted’s romantic ambitions
for Robin involve turning her into
something she’s not, Barney likes her
for who she already is. "You're the most awesome person
I have ever known... Well, second most awesome." Still, this mindset
doesn’t always add up to a functional relationship pattern
by conventional standards. "How could you be in love and still
be sleeping with anything that moves?" "I'm sorry I don’t follow you." No matter how accepting Robin is
of Barney’s love of women, at times it gets close
to crossing a line. "You haven’t been acting like
a guy who’s about to get married, and I know it’s okay because
Robin’s so cool, but I’m telling you, she’s not as cool
as you think she is." Meanwhile, Barney’s other relationships
in the show shine light on deep-seated issues that keep him
from ever going the distance. "I’m on board with
the whole prenup thing." "That’s great,
it’s here to protect you too, sweetie, from becoming unappealing to me." The over-the-top pre-nup he tries to
impose on Quinn before their wedding reveals his obsession with
control and inability to trust. "Barney, do you trust me?" "No." With Norah, he has trouble
being honest about who he really is, then cheats on her with Robin. "I cheated on you." And in addition to his problems
with control and infidelity, Barney struggles with the very idea
of being a conventional partner. "I found out I’ll never trust
someone enough to get married. My single life is, and always will be
legen - wait for it!" The whole reason that Robin
seems to be the exception, disproving Barney’s apparent
inability to be a boyfriend or husband, is that she breaks from many
typical relationship expectations. "To my femininity." "Nah...you're more of a bro. You're a dude. You're a man." While Ted criticizes Robin
for making men feel like she doesn’t need them,
Barney thinks this is awesome. "You were the least needy woman
I’ve ever met, that’s awesome." And unlike previous partners
who wanted Barney to give up his bachelor ways,
Robin eventually insists he keep his fortress of solitude
just the way it is. "If I ask you to change
too many things about yourself, you’re not going to be
the man I fell in love with." So ultimately, Barney and Robin fit
precisely because both have a non-traditional style-
and in their best moments, they work together to find
their own way of being together, which doesn’t have to adhere
to other people’s rules. "Robin, thanks to you
I can walk up to any girl and say whatever creepy, disgusting thing
I want and totally get away with it." In the end, though,
they’re not able to win this battle against monogamous norms. Their first break-up comes about
because Barney and Robin feel unable to be who they really are in the
context of a traditional relationship. "Two awesomes cancel each other out. I’m tired of being canceled out." And in the brief glimpse we get of
their marital collapse, we see their partnership unraveling
because they’ve again lost the ability to confidently do things their own way. Barney objects to Robin’s constant
traveling and work. "This is so not great! I’m sorry that I have to work while I’m here,
it’s called being on assignment." but he’s long known that
independence and career ambition are two of her defining traits. So it’s not so much that
Barney can’t accept these things about Robin as a person;
it’s that his new role as her husband casts her qualities in a new light,
making him feel insecure and invalidated if she prioritizes her professional
goals over time with him. "Well what about me? There’s no WiFi in this hotel. How am I supposed to run a business,
Robin, with no WiFi!" In the end, Barney essentially confirms
that his problem wasn’t with Robin but with lifetime commitment,
when he says he doesn’t see their divorce as some sign
that he needs to change. "I know there was a time when
it seemed like I was capable of going the distance, but, if it
wasn’t going to happen with Robin, then it’s just not
going to happen with anyone." Now let’s look at Robin’s
relationship history. Robin rejecting Ted’s declaration
of love on their first date is basically the inciting incident
that gets the ball rolling on the whole series. "I think I’m in love with you." "What?!" "What?!" "What?!" Her initial reluctance to date
this guy who’s so obviously eager for a serious relationship is
based on a clear understanding of her priorities:
to focus on her journalism career, "I'm a journalist. My career could take me
anywhere and I hope it does." protect her freedom to travel,
and be open to future professional opportunities. "Look Ted, I don't know where
I'm going to be in five years and I don't want to know. I want my life to be an adventure." When Robin does finally give Ted
the old college try, she once again has to pull away
when it becomes impossible to ignore that she and Ted want
wildly different things out of life. "I don’t wanna have KIDS in Argentina." "And I don’t wanna have kids in ARGENTINA." In all of Robin’s other relationships,
too, we see that things end badly for her whenever
she tries to change herself to fit a traditional
relationship model. After she decides to turn down
a dream job to put her love for her co-anchor Don first,
she gets burned when he takes that same offer. "Can you imagine what it’s like
to have the phone ring and it’s your dream job
on the other end?" "Yes." When she accepts Kevin’s
marriage proposal, he later takes it back after
finding out that she can’t have (and doesn’t want) kids. "So, he unproposed." Time and time again,
Robin tries to become a more conventional girlfriend or
wife, only to end up hurt or rejected. And in part,
these relationships unravel because she can’t keep convincingly
playing the part of the supportive, self-sacrificing girlfriend or wife,
which isn’t who she is. "Oh Lily, you know,
I’m not into all that coupley stuff." One way or another, her desire for
independence and her resistance to being vulnerable
inevitably resurface. "Robin, I don’t get the sense
you like being with me." "I like being with you." "Not as much as you like
being alone." After her marriage to Barney ends,
she gets to do exactly what she’s always wanted to do:
travel the world as a famous TV news reporter. "Greece, Morocco, Moscow, yeah,
Worldwide News keeps me pretty busy." It makes sense that,
when forced to choose between saving her marriage and
living her dreams, she chooses the latter. "Is this just not working anymore?" And it should be viewed as
a happy ending that this character, who let herself be talked out of
what she knows she wants too many times,
decided to be true to herself. "And pretty famous,
you’re everywhere." "I am not everywhere... Okay I’m some places." Instead, leading up to its ending,
the show seems to imply that Robin is being selfish
by pursuing her career and that this focus
is making her unhappy. "A genuine Scherbatzsky sighting
out in nature. At this point,
that’s like seeing sasquatch." "No, sasquatch is a warm
and affectionate creature. Robin is more like the Yeti,
cold and aloof." And this brings us to the other
major obstacle to Barney’s and Robin’s romantic happiness:
of course, the specter of Ted. This ex who makes it clear
that he’s never stopped loving her haunts all of her relationships, and even causes problems on the days
before her wedding with Barney. "It’s ridiculous that you won’t admit
holding Robin’s hand was weird." "It wasn’t weird!" "Yes it was." Arguably, to Robin,
Ted the over-the-top romantic represents the idea of
settling down and having that fairytale love in general. It’s a goal that she’s decided
she doesn’t want or need. "I’ve never wanted kids,
and never, in a million years, will I ever want kids." Yet just as she can’t ever quite
reject Ted conclusively, for good, she can’t totally kick the idea
that maybe this conventional prize is something she should want. "If I was gonna have someone's
babies, I'd have your babies." Thus, Robin’s final reunion
with Ted can be read in one of two opposite ways: In the first, Robin was meant to be
with Ted all along; it’s just taken her this long
to get over her many relationship hang-ups and admit
that she’s always really loved him. "This is a story about how
you’re totally in love with Aunt Robin." The second reading of this resolution,
however, is that Robin is, once and for all,
truly surrendering. After a lot of resistance,
she finally gives into the damaging myth that
monogamous commitment represents the only socially accepted,
"happy ending" for a woman- even though all of the evidence
we’ve seen throughout the series suggests that this
doesn’t satisfy her. "No guy’s gonna say
‘Who’s your Daddy?’ to Robin Szcherbatsky,
you’re your own Daddy." So you could argue that Barney and
Robin’s not ending up together ultimately can be explained by
them buying into Ted’s idea about what a relationship should look like,
instead of their own. "My God. You just did it again. You just Mosby'd me." "I did not." "You did. You little minx." "Okay, you're right. I did just Mosby you." And looking at our two portraits
of Robin and Barney together, we can conclude that the end
of their marriage shouldn’t be viewed as some massive failure,
but rather, two people realizing that marriage wasn’t serving
their individual goals and desires. "This isn’t a failed marriage,
it’s a very successful marriage that happened to
only last three years." "Either we all get out of here
or no one does." "But I-" "Don't be a hero Scherbatsky!" What’s most striking about
Robin’s and Barney’s coupling is that these two
have a ton in common. "I’m such a mess. Why do you even like me?" "'Cause you’re almost
as messed up as I am." They both appreciate
finely aged whiskeys and cigars imported from Cuba, "I’ll have a Johnny Walker Blue,
neat, and a Montecristo, number two." they both have pretty
significant daddy issues, "Father issues, hot." neither of them
dreams of having kids, "I think I want to have zero kids." "Congratulations!" "Congratulations, because
the blood test came back and I'm not the father? Happy not-a-father's day!" and of course, they both
share Canadian ancestry. "Which makes you-" "Don't say it." "One-quarter Canadian." Most of the time
these shared affinities add up to an amazing friendship
that’s complemented by mutual attraction. Both: "We have to have sex right now." "Aw." A natural comparison to Robin and
Barney are Rachel and Joey from Friends. "I think I’m falling in love with you." Much like Robin and Barney,
Rachel and Joey are very similar in temperament, considered
the two "hot" ones in their group, and neither tends to overthink things
like the neurotic Ross, who would correspond to Ted
in this triangle. "But I don't want to be single, okay? I just want to be married again." ""I'm done being single,
I'm not good at it" Ross has been in love with Rachel
since he was a teenager, so, like Ted, he often seems to be
in love with a certain idea of this girl,
while Joey (like Barney) develops feelings that are based on
actual friendship and enjoying the person
she truly is, right now. "I wanted her to be the mother
of my children and spend eternity in her arms." "See, *I* want to have sex with her,
at least one more time!" But both of these romances were
ultimately doomed by the problem of the neurotic professor
who apparently had "dibs" on ending up with the girl. "I'm not saying I wasn't
a little surprised to see you guys kissing, I mean...
at first I was like AAAAAGHHHH..." "Robin Mosby." "Robin Stinson." "Ted Scherbatzky. I'll take her name. "I don't care." Friends never even really gave
the Rachel-Joey relationship much chance to develop. "What's the matter?" "I'm sorry, I-I-I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that." And in the end, Rachel and Joey
consoled themselves with the idea that their friendship was too strong
to give way to romance. "How come Monica and
Chandler could do it?" "I guess they weren't
as good friends as we are." Robin’s and Barney’s attraction
got the opportunity to be explored in much more depth, but the suggestion
that these two are, in essence, great friends also
applies to this couple. "Ted can't be pregnant...
you need to have sex to get pregnant." "What up! Freeze frame high five!" Thus, when revisiting
the supposed "failure" of Robin and Barney’s marriage,
it’s worth considering that not every couple that loves
each other needs to be married or even be monogamous. "I feel the same way,
I suck at relationships." Perhaps Barney and Robin would have
done better to end up as some version of "friends with benefits." "We should figure out what this is." "Yes we should, or-or..." The pressure to first define
their relationship is external- in the form of Lily literally
locking them in a bedroom and forcing them to choose a label. "Let us out!" "No! Sit down,
define the relationship, write the definition
on a piece of paper." And this reflects the show’s
deeply ingrained faith in the laws of monogamy,
which are upheld by Ted Mosby and his long-term couple pals
Lily and Marshall. "Marshall and I have been together
fifteen years and the only debate we've had over Tommy Boy is whether
its awesome or super awesome. That's love bitch!" Ted’s, Lily’s and Marshall’s idea
of a relationship requires Robin and Barney to sacrifice things
which, to quote Barney, are awesome about themselves. "I wanted to go to a concert,
he wanted to go to a party. Obviously, we couldn’t do
what just one of us wanted, so we stayed in..." And that makes them feel like
less-good versions of themselves. "Why do that fat guy
and old ladykeep star- oh my God, that’s us." If Robin was able to
confidently pursue her career without feeling like this
was in direct contradiction to her role as a "wife",
then maybe she wouldn’t have grown to resent Barney. And if Barney were able to
occasionally indulge his desire for the bachelor lifestyle
to gather more content for his lifestyle blog,
then he might not have felt so threatened by his wife
traveling around the world and leaving him in
a hotel room without WiFi. "Robin Scherbatsky, World Wide News
anywhere but New York apparently... but it's great! I mean it makes things
super difficult for us, but it’s great." Both of their relationship issues
were accelerated by the pressure of fitting into a marital mold
that neither of them really wanted. "Or, maybe he bailed on the wedding." "Oh c’mon, don’t even think like that." "Well he’s terrified of commitment,
but ironically loves being tied down." It’s worth noting that the show’s
official alternate ending, which was actually included on the DVD,
implies that after Robin achieves the professional success
she always dreamt of, she and Barney eventually
get back together. "Things fall apart,
things get put back together." And widespread fan outrage over
the last-minute Ted and Robin reunion suggests that
this alternate conclusion would have felt
more satisfying to many. It offers us a world where Tracy,
the woman who shares Ted’s vision of a happy family,
is truly framed as the love of his life, and there’s space
for Robin and Barney to each do what they need to do
separately, while finding their way back to each other
in their own unconventional fashion. So if you thought that
Barney and Robin got a raw deal in the finale,
consider wiping your memory of the original version and
making the alternate version of the ending
the one true ending in your mind. "This woman has a hold on my heart
that I could not break if I wanted to." If you're new here,
be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified
about all of our new videos. [Music]
