10 TV Characters Who Broke Their Own Rules
7. Barney Stinson Broke The Bro Code - How I Met Your Mother
Of the core five characters in How I Met Your Mother, it would be genuinely difficult to define any of them as particularly likeable. Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) in particular had far more vices than virtues, including but not limited to how he treated women, and how he viewed friendship.
Barney lived his life by certain rules that he took very seriously, some of which were written down in a literal, physical Bro Code he claimed was written by his ancestor Barnabus Stinson. The most ridiculous part of this was that he genuinely believed his friends should also follow these rules without question.
Some of the articles included were Bros before ho's, that a bro's mom is always off limits, and that there is to be no eye contact during a Devil's threeway. One of the key ones stated no sex with your bro's ex. In season three, Barney broke this rule when he slept with Ted's ex-girlfriend, Robin (Coby Smulders).
So serious was the breach of the rules that he, and he alone cared about, that he even hired Marshall (Jason Segel) in a legal capacity to try and find some loophole to rid him of any guilt he was feeling. Of course, he couldn't. Ted Mosby was an exceptional friend to Barney, and had never so much as bent a single rule of the Bro Code, while Barney, the one who took it more seriously than anything, did much worse than that.