How I Met Your Mother's Ending Works

SPOILER ALERT YOU FOOL WHY ARE YOU EVEN READING THIS FLEE FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE

I'm seeing a lot of Twitter and blog disgust for the finale to How I Met Your Mother, so I just wanted to get my thoughts about it down before they got all scattered.

Contention: As a series How I Met Your Mother is structurally and narratively sound, and ends the way it needed to end.

First, let's go back to the beginning. How I Met Your Mother (hereforth HIMYM) is a romantic comedy. That's a love story where the main couple gets together at the end of it. And the very first episode established Ted and Robin as the main couple. So, much like on Friends with Ross and Rachel, they were going to get together at the end, Mother or no Mother.

"But aren't Ted and the Mother the main couple?" you ask. No, because narratively that sucks. You're asking the audience to root for two characters to get together where one of them hasn't appeared on the show until the final act. Name me a romantic comedy where that works!

No, it's Ted and Robin, and the point of the show is to get the two of them to a place where they work together. At the start of the series Ted's need is for a grand love story and a stable, loving family, while Robin's need is for a successful career. They might love each other, but the two of them can't meet each other's needs, so the relationship can't work.

HIMYM spends a lot of time getting Ted and The Mother together - of course! - but The Mother is a quirky, enjoyable, and ultimately two-dimensional character. She's Ted's ideal woman, and that's about it. Her purpose in the story is not to be the romantic lead, but to fulfill the needs Ted has that Robin can't meet.

Of course to get Ted and Robin together, that means the Mother has to go. And because Ted's the ultimate romantic, that means she has to die. Which is very Woman in Refrigerators, but a divorce doesn't fit Ted's character and it doesn't meet his needs. The great love stories don't end in divorce. And once Ted's lived the great love story, there's nothing holding him apart from Robin.

As to Robin: the show makes us think that her and Barney work together, but they don't meet each other's needs either. Barney might play the man of the world, but he's a lifetime New Yorker whose needs all come down to his issues with his father. He didn't have a father growing up, so he spends the show consciously wanting a father and unconsciously wanting to be a father, usually expressing that need by appointing himself Ted's mentor. Robin is attractive to Barney as a female "bro", but she doesn't meet his needs.

And Barney certainly doesn't meet Robin's needs. Primarily that's success in her career, but she also has a need for a stable family - something she didn't have growing up. But she can't admit that need to herself, and for most of the show uses The Gang to meet it. It's not until Robin becomes successful and the Gang falls apart that she can admit what she actually wants, and it's at that point that Ted becomes a valid romantic partner for her.

So Ted and Robin get together the only way they could: at 40, when they're both unattached, after they've both met the needs that kept them apart.

Does that make for a good finale? I liked it, for what it's worth. It didn't "wow" me, but it had solid moments and I thought it worked for the show. It certainly topped Seinfeld, and I liked it a lot more than I liked Friends at the end. And if Ted, Robin and Barney didn't work for you, Marshall and Lily remained a solid traditional love story from start to finish.

Overall I think the show's going to be memorable for its humor, its insane timeline and structure, and a hell of a lot of touching moments. And the finale isn't going to ruin that. If you liked it, fine; if you didn't, give it a while and see if it works better on the rewatch. And if you still don't like it, you can never watch it again and the rest of the show will hold up.

Thoughts?

Final Report 2012

Still not dead!

So, okay. I did succeed at NaNoWriMo this year. I haven't mentioned anything about it since n'yeah because I'm still not done with the book yet, which is how it should be. I'm currently at 70,000 words, give or take, and steaming on to the big final battle.

I'm going to keep writing through 2013, of course. I want to finish and then revise the NaNoNovel, and then I think I'm going to work on my short story game. I would like to submit a few complete stories this year, whether or not they get published.

I had a very lovely Christmas holiday which consisted of visiting family and talking and generally being happy. I go back to work tomorrow, then I'm off again for New Year's Day, then I'm back to work for real. My resolution for the year at the office is to manage my timekeeping properly and to avoid any psychotic episodes.

What else did I do this year? Oh that's right, I bought a house and moved into it, which still leaves me feeling bewildered every once in a while. I am proud to report that my home feels like home, and now that I'm settled in I don't think I'd trade it for any other house in the world, rickety fence and all. Next year will  bring more surprises, and if they're as nice as this one has been I'll look forward to them.

I paid attention to politics more than ever this year, and now my heart is full of hate. 'Nuff said. But I'm glad Obama won.

And now because I wasn't really planning a recap of my year when I sat down I'll do some easy product shilling.

I read some great books, I read some good books, I read some okay books. I don't think I've read any truly bad books this year, which is not a terrible thing. No Know Fear was a spectacular highlight for the generally fantastic Horus Heresy series, while Betrayer left me feeling completely frazzled (in a good way). Let's Pretend This Never Happened made me laugh, and I got some warm fuzzies rereading classics like Heir to the Empire and The Hobbit.

I'm planning to read through The Silmarillion this year. All of it. I might write more about that later, but I suspect there's nothing more terrifying a man can do when he's trying to write his own epic (or any) fantasy book. I also might write more about Ravenwing, which was a very well-written book that still had me loathing most of the cast well before the halfway point.

I have fallen in love with Two Best Friends Play!, and maintained my adoration for The Mike O'Meara Show and The Big O and Dukes. The one upside to an hour-long commute is that I can keep up with my favorite podcasts without too much trouble. I would also recommend Nerd Poker to anyone who wants to listen to a filthy Dungeons & Dragons podcast from professional comedian Brian Posehn.

I've kept up with big changes in the comic book industry, but I'm sad to say that next year will probably see me cut back on my comics reading considerably, if I don't drop it entirely. I can't afford the price and the storage space to keep up with every Earth Shattering Event (tm) that comes down the pipe. With that said, I'm going to try to keep up with Saga and Transformers: Regeneration One, at the very least; and I'm very curious to see what Dan Slott has planned for the Superior Spider-Man.

I still play video games when I can, though I rarely have enough time to get serious with them. I got my first Call of Duty game for Christmas, and I'm curious to see if my Battlefield skillz transfer over. And I'm bound and determined to get Sarah on board for a Lego Lord of the Rings playthrough.

I'm not deeply committed to a lot of television shows. I'll be watching Doctor Who, and Game of Thrones, and the finale of Breaking Bad. I'll also try to keep up with The Walking Dead, which is more difficult than I'd like. For movies, I'm looking forward to the Evil Dead remake and trying to stay optimistic about World War Z. I'll take the rest as they come. There were a lot of good movies out this year, so suffice to say The Avengers was my favorite.

Have I shilled enough yet? Do I get a check from Google or Amazon now? God this was disjointed...

The Mythbusters vs James Cameron and Plot-Induced Stupidity

I love the Mythbusters, okay? I don't watch the show as often as I'd like, mostly because my wife isn't a fan and I have to compromise on our TV time.

But a Titanic episode? On whether Jack could have survived at the end of the movie? That compromise is going my way.

Be warned, spoilers for the episode follow. I guess spoilers for Titanic have already happened, but we're a decade out, people, go see the movie already!

On Angels In Manhattan

So, Doctor Who mid-season finale. Without spoiling anything, I enjoyed the episode and I'm looking forward to seeing where the series goes from here. Now I'm going to do a slightly more detailed review, and talk about some of the narrative challenges I think Steven Moffat had to face while writing it. So stop reading now if you haven't seen the episode yet.

My Doctor Who Season 7 Wingnut Theory

The Doctor Who season seven trailer is out this week, and we're seeing a lot more of what's likely to occur this season. Check it out:



Awesome, but that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about a pet theory of mine on how the season's going to wrap up and set the stage for the Doctor's new companion. Rampant wittering (with full-blown spoilers for seasons five and six) begins after the jump.

Status Report - Black Library Window 2012

Oh yeah! I write things. Bet you forgot about that, didn't you?

Last Saturday was the deadline for Black Library's latest submissions window. This was the last one they were accepting novels for - from now on, it's short stories or bust. So I figured it was about time I got off my ass and put together a novel pitch I felt proud of.

And I did! One novel pitch, and three short story pitches. I'm proud of all of them - less so by the day, granted, but I'm a neurotic. I do think my writing is getting better. I don't know if it's getting consistently worthy of publication, but I'll find that out in three months or so, hey?

I'm not going to go into problems I still have to get over right now, because that's shooting myself in the foot and I don't want that. But I will say that I'm getting better at planning out my work. Outlines, random notes, character sketches - all of this is seriously helpful.

I can recommend two books that are great primers on the subject of planning a book:

Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence by Roz Morris. Roz is very big on planning and walks you through all the prep work you need to do for a book.

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K.M. Weiland. This book is entirely focused on outlining, so don't expect full novel-writing advice, but it does have useful tips for putting an outline together. And they aren't the same tips Roz documents, so it's worth reading.

I've read both of these myself and they were both worth my while.

So... what am I doing now?

I am not resting on my dubious laurels. I've got a plan for a novel about fairies and the people who kill them that has been rattling around in my head for... Jesus, five years now. It's high time I got the bastard on paper, even if it sucks (again). I think I'm up to writing it properly this time, though - by which I mean last time it was a NaNoNovel I didn't plan properly, and this time I intend to outline and plan and make sure I know exactly what I'm doing when I sit down to start writing prose.

And oh my God, would Breaking Bad mind keeping a consistent volume level for its dialogue? I get that there's power in soft-spoken menacing words, but it's kind of lost if I can't hear what anybody is saying without waking my wife up with gunshots...

Sorry. This got a little stream of consciousness there, didn't it? I'm trying to catch up on the show so I'll be ready to watch it's fifth season as it happens. Fantastic writing on this thing. It got my best friend to quit watching it halfway through season two, and I dropped it for awhile at the start of season three because it made me so uncomfortable. And then I started watching it again. That's quality, folks!

So yeah. I'm also dealing with a plumbing problem that is on its fourth visit by a repairman and hasn't been resolved. My home warranty company just loooves me, no doubt. I certainly love them. Why shouldn't I? I burned through my deductible two visits ago and they haven't cut me off. Take that, leaky pipe!

...I may have been mildly intoxicated while writing this post. Which I suppose I shouldn't encourage. Drunk authors are already practically a stereotype. So here's a picture that'll get you all jumping on the latest version of Firefox.

Once Upon A Time - Reflections on Season One

Well, Once Upon A Time has finished its first season, and with confirmation that the show will be coming back for another round of episodes, I felt like revisiting an earlier post. I liked the show then; I still do now. And I'll give them full credit, they've gotten a lot of things right. But still, there's just a few little things that bother me...

I'm writing this assuming that you've watched the whole of the first season. If you haven't, read no further. Spoilers ahoy.

On Once Upon A Time

Not the opening phrase, the new television show from ABC. Consider this your spoiler warning for the first two episodes.

Miscellany

Status Report! I'm two weeks out from a submission deadline and feeling, for once, pretty confident in my work. Project Oh God It Burns and Project Lost In The Woods are both revised, polished, and sitting with beta readers for a quick once-over before I give them a final bit of shine and send them out to the God-Editors. Let me take a moment to thank my beta readers, better known as my wife Sarah and my best friend Colin. They don't generally read the stuff I like to write, but they're still willing to take time out of their busy lives to pore over manuscript pages and tell me where I've gone and fucked up. They both rock.

Project Long Hard Slog Over Broken Glass has not been so much fortunate: For the moment it's sitting in a drawer, waiting for me to dust it off and get it on its feet again. That could happen in a few weeks; that might not happen for months. I'm not sure at the moment which: at the moment it depends on how well Project Oh God It Burns is received, in my mind if nowhere else.

I am currently casting Project Sexy Golem, which involves taking a hard look at the characters I know I want in the story, and making sure they have what it takes to carry a story. That means giving them names, faces, goals, loves, hates, quirks, neuroses: the whole gamut of what makes someone interesting to read about. Once I've got a few sketches together, I'll be outlining. Once I've outlined, I'll start writing. That should still happen in August.

* * *

I'm slightly scared about taxes.

Well, that goes for everyone. What I'm worried about is paying my taxes when (never if) I reach the next level as a writer, which is making enough money at it that I'm forced to register myself as a business. So far my income's been meager enough that I've been able to file this as a hobby.

No writers write about taxes. Stephen King discusses how his short stories helped him scrape by before Carrie, but Uncle Sam does not appear once in On Writing (he's probably got a guy). A few books about writing take a stab at the business end of things, but never in great detail. The books that devote themselves entirely to freelancing never tackle the question of what you do if you already have a day job.

I have a job I'm not quitting anytime soon. I get taxes withheld from my paycheck and a W-2 at the end of every year. I do not want to layer quarterly tax filings on top of that if I don't have to. I don't know if I have to. I don't know anyone who's dealt with this and spoken about it publicly.

Help!

* * *

I'm developing an unhealthy obsession with OCD: Obsessive Corgi Disorder. It's just pictures of Corgis. There's nothing else to it. But it updates faster than a speed freak and it always brings the cute. I'd contribute, but the lighting in my house is horrible and Lina refuses to take a good picture recently.

* * *

True Blood has me actively hoping for a black panther massacre. If you're following the show you know why. It's something that bothers the living fuck out of me whenever I try to read supernatural romance of the Charlaine Harris or Laurell K. Hamilton variety. The main character typically gets fed on, mesmerized, cursed, raped, infected, and God knows what else by the cast of a Hammer horror film in every book. Yet, somehow, thoughts of stakes or silver bullets never enter the heroine's mind, at least not associated with the sexy bad boys gnawing on their neck.

I wonder to this day what would happen if Anita Blake got loose from all the shit flowing in her veins and reverted back to the no-bullshit investigator we met in Guilty Pleasures. I guarantee you Jean-Claude would be a tiny pile of ash inside of a week. Which is kind of how Project Sexy Golem came about, now that I think about it.

* * *

Two last bits of business.

Ari Marmell has a new book out. The Goblin Corps is epic fantasy written from point of view of the monsters: the orcs, gremlins, trolls, bugbears, and other miserable creatures bound in service to the titular Dark Lord. Except this lot is foul-mouthed, crude, treacherous, and somehow quite sympathetic on top of all that. It's a load of fun to read and well worth your time if you've ever enjoyed anything with an orc in it.

Chuck Wendig also has a new book out, but electronic-only I'm afraid. 250 Things You Should Know About Writing is a dirt-cheap collection of his 25 Things You Should Know About... blog posts, all of which have been informative. You also get some articles that were never posted on the blog, such as 25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Fucking Sentence. For 99 cents, you've really got no reason not to pick it up.

Go. Read. Enjoy.

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day 22

27476 / 50000 words. 55% done!

Some progress today - not as much as I'd like, but enough to keep me from slipping behind yet another day. I will say that when I was writing, the words were coming much more smoothly than they had been. I think the new direction is going to be a big help.

On a side note, the Venture Bros. season finale, Operation P.R.O.M., was phenomenal. Just about every plot from season four gets wrapped up neatly in an hour long episode featuring action, heartbreak, renewed love, career changes, mutant flies, hos, Hulks, and alien technology. The animation was great, the writing was great... the only thing missing was Phantom Limb, but I honestly don't think they could have fit him in. If you follow the show, check it out; if not, be ready next Sunday to jump onboard from episode one and get yourself caught up.

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day 1

1924 / 50000 words. 4% done!

I'm starting off strong today with 1,924 words, just a hair over par. It looks like evenings are going to be my prime writing time this month. With any luck, I'll be able to get into a routine I can maintain into December and beyond.

Unfortunately I only got about three hours of sleep last night, so I'll be turning in relatively early tonight to make up for it. No mad all-nighters for me, or at least not yet...

And while I've got you here, be sure to check out The Walking Dead on AMC, or at least pick up the original graphic novels. The story is old-school zombies done right, and it's creepy as all hell.

What I Learned About Writing From Watching Glee!

Glee! is a sitcom on the Fox network that revolves around the members of a high school glee club. It is a pretty good dramedy, and I'm going to be going into some major spoilers for it here, so if you think you might be interested I'd recommend browsing to Hulu and watching at least the first two episodes before reading any further.

You back yet? Good.

Television abounds with lessons to teach the writer, both good and bad. Today I'll be talking about what a writer can learn from watching Glee!. To keep the post short, I'll be focusing on three of the show's antagonists and their relationships to the protagonists.

The Characters

Terri Schuester is the wife of Will Schuester, the show's protagonist. Terri is introduced in the first episode as an antagonist. She and Will are fairly obviously not right for each other, something which both characters are becoming aware of. Terri is terrified that Will is going to leave her, to the extent that she suffers a hysterical (false) pregnancy. Once she learns that she is not pregnant, she fears that Will will leave her as soon as he finds out, and determines to deceive him and find a substitute baby to save their marriage.

Quinn Fabray is the leader of the school's cheerleaders. She is introduced as an antagonist to Rachel Berry, a lesser protagonist who has a crush on Finn Hudson, Quinn's boyfriend. She is later revealed to be pregnant by another student, Puck, but convinces Finn that he is the father even though they have never had sex.

Sue Sylvester is the coach of the cheerleading squad and another antagonist for Will. She is determined to squash Will's glee club, in the interests of keeping the lion's share of the school's budget coming to her cheerleaders.

Lessons Learned

Give your antagonists believable motivations - No bad guy should ever be evil just for the sake of being evil, unless you're writing a philosophical story. Your antagonists should have reasons for doing what they do that are just as strong as your protagonists.

• Terri lies to Will about her pregnancy because she is terrified of losing him. All of her actions are motivated by her desire to save their marriage.


• Quinn lies to Finn about him fathering her child, and does her best to hide it, because she is terrified of losing the approval of her peers and parents. Her actions are motivated by her desire to keep her social status.


• Sue sets out to destroy the glee club because she wants to maintain the primacy of her cheerleading squad. She is motivated by her desire to succeed.

Make your antagonists sympathetic - Being able to sympathize with a bad guy lends the character extra depth. You might not want them to win (should not, in fact, want them to win, unless your protagonist is the bad guy), but being able to relate to the reasons they do the things they do adds another layer to their conflict with the protagonist.

• Terri is presented as amoral and manipulative, someone we hope that Will will ultimately leave. However, she clearly loves her husband in her own way, and her attempts to deceive him are her way of hanging on to her love. The viewer can sympathize with her, even while they hope she doesn't succeed.


• Quinn is presented in a similar fashion to Terri, but her motivations are different. She deceives Finn not out of love (she constantly attacks him), but because she believes he will be a better boyfriend and father than Puck. She acts out of self-interest alone, and the viewer finds it harder to sympathize with her. This makes Quinn a more two-dimensional character than Terri: easier to dislike, but ultimately less interesting.


• Sue is presented as an eccentric, hyper-competitive woman. She will take any action to ensure that her cheerleaders succeed, even if she has to crush other people to do so. But when not engaged in competition, she can be generous to her peers, and is capable of showing kindness even to her enemies under the right circumstances. She does not appear capable of true malice, and the viewer can relate to her as a fair competitor.

Don't force your characters to act like morons - This doesn't mean your characters can't actually be morons. It means that you should never have a character act stupidly or out of character in order to stick to your desired plot.

• Terri convinces Will that she is pregnant by wearing a fake baby bump. The viewer is asked to believe that Will has not seen his wife naked in months, has not touched her belly under her shirt, and that he can't tell the difference between padding and a human stomach. It's conceivable, but difficult to believe.


• Quinn convinces Finn that he got her pregnant by ejaculating in a hot tub. While Finn is not portrayed as intelligent, a simple Google search would be enough to prove that this is a lie. The deception irritates the viewer because it is artificially prolonged.


• In contrast, Sue constantly takes actions that should be unbelievable. However, all of her actions are in keeping with her character. The viewer accepts her eccentric actions because they are consistent with what they know about her.

Conclusion

There are other lessons one can learn from watching Glee!, and other characters that could be examined. These are simply the ones that stuck with me in the early part of the show. Feel free to comment if you disagree with anything, or think there's something else about the show that an author could take to heart.

Author's Log

Running well ahead of par in NaNoWriMo, with 40,000 words so far. I'm hoping to reach 50,000 by the end of the weekend. To my fellow month-long novelists, I wish the best of luck (and I hope you'll reciprocate!).

Current Reading

I've finished book three of the Dresden Files, and have started on book four, Summer Knight. This series really does just get better as it goes.