On paper, How I Met Your Mother’s Marshall Eriksen is the perfect man — but is he, really? Marshall gets to be the moral center of the show, and part of his moral superiority stems from the fact that he’s been with Lily for his entire adult life, and is a doting boyfriend, husband, and father — something that insulates him from the many horrible and manipulative dating decisions made by Barney and Ted. He’s committed to being a good husband, father, and he wants to improve the world. But, upon further inspection, Marshall seems to be just as self-serving and morally limited as the rest of the cast, and he displays How I Met Your Mother’s inherently limited moral outlook…
TRANSCRIPT
On paper, Marshall Eriksen is the perfect man — but is he, really? Marshall gets to be the moral center of How I Met Your Mother. Part of his moral superiority stems from the fact that he’s been with Lily for his entire adult life, and is a doting boyfriend, husband, and father — something that insulates him from the many horrible and manipulative dating decisions made by Barney and Ted.
Marshall Eriksen: “Lily’s a part of who I am.” - How I Met Your Mother
In fact he calls out his more immature friends for their transgressions. He’s committed to being a good husband, father, and he wants to improve the world. But, upon further inspection, Marshall seems to be just as self-serving and morally limited as the rest of the cast, and he displays How I Met Your Mother’s inherently limited moral outlook that being a good person basically means being a supportive friend. Here’s our take on how How I Met Your Mother’s nicest guy, Marshall, reveals the show’s underlying philosophy.
Of all the characters on How I Met Your Mother, Marshall is consistently depicted as the most ethical, and the one most committed to being a good person. And on this very relationships-focused show, being a good person is largely determined by who you are as a friend and partner. Most centrally, he’s the token “good guy” of the three male leads. Marshall frequently acts as a moral check on Ted and Barney, reminding them that it is, in fact, possible to go too far in their pursuit of serial conquests.
Marshall Eriksen: “You kissed a married woman, Ted. You committed credit card fraud. You… you kissed a married woman!” - How I Met Your Mother
Marshall gets a lot of high ground in his group, and likability points from the audience, through his being in a long-term, committed, monogamous partnership.
Lily’s also the more dominant person in their relationship, something that gets established in the pilot and that the series frequently uses for comedy.
Lily Aldrin: “Hit me? Please, this guy can barely even spank me in bed for fun.” - How I Met Your Mother
These jokes establish Marshall as being non-threatening, even though Jason Segel is much taller and bigger than Alyson Hannigan. Even his brief breakup with Lily makes Marshall seem sympathetic, and like the quote-unquote “weaker” partner — instead of the cliché of the man avoiding commitment, she is the one who leaves him. This contrast applies to their respective values, too: While Lily’s idea of justice generally involves deciding that she knows what’s best for the people around her and manipulating them accordingly, Marshall prides himself on believing in people, and assuming the best of even those who have hurt him.
However, Marshall consistently is faced with choosing between the greater good and his family. Though Marshall generally wants to make the world a better place, Marshall more specifically believes in the “family first” mentality, something he got from his own large, tight-knit Minnesota family. This view is so entrenched he forces it on Lily’s relationship with her estranged father, Mickey, despite how poorly Mickey treated his daughter. Marshall has a highly traditional idea of family. While Lily is more adventurous and open about being attracted to other people, including other women, Marshall is disgusted by even the idea of sleeping with anyone else. Marshall’s love for family above all is presented as a great virtue, but it’s also his ethical downfall and the thing that makes him, and the show, ultimately limited in their morality.
Marshall tries to maintain the moral high ground throughout the series, but what defines his ethical standards? And what happens when he is forced to choose between his traditional family values, and serving the greater good? Though he’s repeatedly depicted as an idealistic crusader who wants to protect the environment, he winds up in a series of corporate law jobs, which break his spirit and cause him to work for the exact opposite of his ideals. Why would Marshall spend years undermining everything he says he believes, you may ask? Well, this is a classic moral dilemma. He wants to make enough money to support his family. Marshall constantly has to pick between his moral obligation to his family and his moral obligation to the world. This causes him a lot of cognitive dissonance, where he feels in order to fulfill his duty in one area of his life, he must compromise the other. Often, Marshall describes his corporate work as being “empty.”
Marshall Eriksen: “I have a big, meaningless stack of paperwork that I have to get off my desk to make room for tomorrow’s big, meaningless stack of paperwork.” - How I Met Your Mother
But it would be one thing for his work to be simply meaningless — instead, it’s actively harmful. . . He helps the people that work to destroy the environment, to make money for himself and his loved ones, which is ultimately very selfish. Does he actually value the environment as much as he says he does, or was that just something that sounded good when he was young? Even when he’s quitting one of his soul-sucking jobs, Marshall’s main concern is telling Lily about the threat to their livelihood.
Though Marshall eventually manages to find work at an environmental law firm, it’s for far less time than he spends in corporate law, so (at least in his law career before becoming a Judge) he has done more damage than good. Over the course of the series, we realize what is really important to Marshall: his own friends and family, at the expense of what he claims to value regarding the greater good. Consider the moment when Ted, struggling personally and professionally, pitches to design a new headquarters for Goliath National Bank, only to have Barney give the job to a rival architectural firm. Marshall tells Barney he’s doing the wrong thing by picking a different design. To Marshall, picking your friend over a better-qualified stranger is the “right” thing to do. But this is simply nepotism. Before Marshall interferes, Barney is actually doing his job — he might have bad taste, but he’s choosing the design he genuinely thinks is best. If we step back, most of us would likely say Barney initially did the right thing. But in Marshall’s telling, the “right thing” is the one that helps the people closest to you, even if it bends or breaks larger moral rules, like fairness, in the process. And in keeping with the series’ overall message, the episode ultimately lands on Barney realizing that “moral compass” Marshall is right.
All this raises the question, how moral is Marshall, and by what standards do we judge him? Even when Marshall does take actions to do the right thing, it often feels somewhat self-serving. He fantasizes about the glory of having saved the planet, again, through family: imagining impressing his future son.
Marshall Eriksen: “One good deed leads to another, and another.”
Marvin W. Eriksen: “Man, you’re wise.” - How I Met Your Mother
Marshall’s sentimental need to feel good about doing good things can make him naive and overly trusting, open to being taken advantage of. This is seen in his relationship with his law school friend Brad, who pretends to be down on his luck in order to gain access to Marshall’s law office. Instead of being fired, Marshall is ultimately rewarded for this: he narrowly ekes out a win in the case, though for only a thousand dollars more than his firm had originally been offered in a settlement. It’s a personal victory for Marshall, but the other lawyers at his firm could have worked on other cases and done much more important work.
This disappointment eventually leads to Marshall’s decision to become a judge, so he can impose his ideas on environment-related cases. Not only would he have more power in such a position, but he feels the amount of good he can do will outweigh the bad of his previous work-related decisions. As a judge, Marshall claims the authority to make decisions on behalf of other people. But as we’ve seen, his own judgment isn’t always the most objective. Marshall routinely puts personal relationships above the greater issues — as we see in this very episode. Though his co-worker Brad lied to Marshall and worked in support of the polluters he supposedly hates, it only takes one brunch invitation for Marshall to accept Brad’s apology. In this respect, Marshall’s appeal for the audience is a lot like Barney’s: he might behave badly in his outside life, but as long as he treats his close friends in a generally kind and supportive way, we can forgive him and continue watching the show. In fact, what Marshall learns from his trial is the same thing Barney learns when he starts working at GNB in the first place: the best way to get what you want is to go to where power is.
Judge: “Son, yes, Gruber Pharmaceuticals probably polluted that lake. But I’m not going to ruin an important company just because they gave some bird a rash.” - How I Met Your Mother
Overall, Marshall seems to try to do what’s “right” — as long as it doesn’t cause any problems for himself, his family, or his friends, which makes him no fundamentally better than any of the other characters.
While they may be frustrating at times, Marshall’s inconsistencies make him human, and a flawed character that we love to watch. He operates on a plain of hope, that all will be well as long as you have faith.
Marshall Eriksen: “Faith is what gives life shape and meaning. I mean, if there aren’t yetis and leprechauns, what’s the point of even getting up in the morning?” - How I Met Your Mother
Perhaps what leads everyone around him (and the viewers) to see him as a moral center is that Marshall believes he’s doing the right thing at any given moment. Marshall has to believe in his Pebble Theory, that one win or small victory can cause other good outcomes, and maybe somehow make up for the rest of what he’s done with his life. And the series’ frame narrative of Ted talking to his kids in the future proves Marshall right, even saying that his law firm somehow reversed climate change! By the end of the series, we’ve spent enough time with Marshall, and are sufficiently invested in his relationships, that we want him to overcome any obstacle simply by being a “nice” guy. And it’s through Marshall’s character that we get How I Met Your Mother’s ethical map. For better or worse, ultimately the show tells us that being good to your loved ones is the most concrete and realistic route to being a relatively moral person and living a fulfilled life.