Talk:Cleaning House

Continuity issue

On September 28 an item was added to the "Continuity" section that read as follows: "The episode may be hinting at Barney's Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which was mentioned in the episode 'Robin 101'." The next day I removed the item because the claim that that episode may be hinting at something is also an admission that it might not be hinting at it either. To conclude that it really is "hinting at" Barney's ADHD is pure original research. The item then got re-added by the same editor who originally added it, but now declaring not that the episode "may be hinting" at Barney's ADHD, but that examples of Barney's behavior "are manifestations of this childhood condition". The item was added with the comment "That is clearly ADHD. Please, with due respect, think properly." But despite this editor's new found confidence to upgrade the claim from one that the episode "may be hinting" at ADHD to the claim that his behavior definitely is a manifestation of ADHD, no support for this being obvious in the episode is offered. As such, it is still OR, even if more boldly asserted OR. The same editor has since said, "It does not have to be explicitly mentioned, that's the beauty of writing references for us to spot." That's an interesting theory of what the writers are doing, but it is still just a theory and thus is also OR. The editor also claims "I have a medical degree to back me up this time" which is unexplained (and sounds rather bizarre).

I believe that what we have here is an editor who has fallen in love with a particular theory to explain the behavior of Barney in a portion of the episode who refuses to see that it really is only just a theory and not something that can be concluded based on the evidence the episode provides. This might or might not help, but here's an alternative theory for Barney's behavior: Barney has just met the man that he has (bizarrely) decided he believes is his father. His response to the situation is to begin to act like a typical 5-year-old, running around trying to get his daddy's attention and wondering if they can go camping. Barney never knew his father when he was a child, so his response to finding his "father" is to try to go back to his childhood and recreate it. Barney's behavior is much more like that of a typical 5-year-old boy than it is like that of an adult with ADHD, so if you really think about it this is the more plausible explanation. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that actor Neil Patrick Harris was more likely directed to act like a typical 5-year-old than to act like someone with ADHD in those scenes. But that's just a theory and it's entirely original research, just like the theory that these scenes are an unstated callback to a one-off joke from a year ago that the writers put in there specifically for devoted fans (with or without medical degrees) to spot. Which is why neither belong in the article. 99.192.85.15 (talk) 13:12, 3 October 2010 (UTC)