Tess: Evil or Misguided?

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FaithfulAngel24
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Post by FaithfulAngel24 »

TESS: EVIL OR MISGUIDED?

Such a wonderful topic. Kudos to the brillent and contraversal question. Here's my opinion. Tess was probably most complicated character on the show. Nature vs. nuture aside she made a horrible mistake.(I love Alex; and would in no way demean his death) but I do believe it was an accident. An accident caused by her taking away his free will. Which is what I think was her biggest sin. The writer's beginning concept was to have a girl to disrupte the dreamer couple. That was her entire purpose, but since they knew that no "ordinary" girl would cause Max to stray the used to "Alien" thing to rope him in. This made her the perfect antagonist.

As the show went on they began expirementing with the dynamic. Sparks flew between Kyle and Tess ,but instead of embracing that they brought Future Max in to once again get in between Max and Liz. But that wasn't enough. Instead they reasoned that the furthur they pushed our dreamers apart the more rewarding it would be when they got back together. However in order to do this they had to defile the characters we know and love. They made them do things you never would have thought. All because they were trying to add drama to keep it on the air. Unfortunately they twisted things in such a fashion that no one could see it being okay again.

Max and Tess sleeping together was horrible ,but I blamed Liz just as much as I blamed Max. She basically pushed Max into Tess' arms. The victum in this aspect is Tess, who thought that she had finally found some one to love her. Max slept with Tess knowing he didn't feel the same.

How many women have you sympathized with who were in the same situation?

It's after that the writer's decided to kill off Alex due to Colin's heatic work schedule. Who would do it? What would boost ratings? A betrayal! So they looked for someone to take the flack. Tess. She was used as a stand in girlfriend since the beginning. Tess was an interesting character and there was so many ways they could have taken her. Instead they switched teams half wya through and made her evil even though they had already portrayed her to be caring and devoted.

So opps she is the ultimate evil. Now everyone has someone to blame for all their problem. Liz and Max didn't break up because of Tess. One woman can not tear up a happy couple. If she breaks them up they obviously had other problems that just escaladed it. Max and Liz broke up because they didn't trust each other. They didn't believe in the love.

Later Liz blames Tess for why her and Max have problems even after she flew off to Antar. So the writers once again need to have someone to use as a pitfall for the dreamers relationship. Insert Tess. She comes back even scrapper than before and the writers scream redemption and expect us to jump on the bandwagon.

After Tess' death Liz speaks about how perfect everything was now. Huh? If that what it takes to have a good relationship with your boyfriend maybe you need to look a little deeper ,and get to the root of the problem.

Tess could have been a character just as complex, lovable, and indepth if the writer's would have just stuck with their thoughts mid season of season two. Instead they chose a lees flattering and uncreative version.

I am the type of person who loves bad turns good stories, but Tess was never allowed the chance to show that she could be more than just one dimensional. Which is why I thank my lucky stars for fan fiction writers. They right so many of the wrongs presented in the show. :wink:
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Post by kerri240879 »

I loved Tess as a character. She was complex, manipulative and she had the potential to be so much more....key word being potential...then Katim's happened.

I've read so many of these threads, and I can say this with a small smile. She was seen as the problem in Liz and Max's relationship. She was seen as the evil bitch monster from hell who took away Alex's life. And she was seen as the benidict arnold who caused nothing but problems for all.

Did anyone see her as manipulated too? Think about when she told Max she was pregnant. Here she is, with a major problem, and her partner freaks. I'd be upset too. :lol:

It just seemed to me, that if her character had been given a chance by Katim's, she would have been brilliant. If a lamp trimmer relationship had been given a chance, they would have rivaled Max and Liz. But no...Katim's happened.

All in all? She's both. Misguided and evil. But you have to admitt, love her or loath her, we do it with a passion. Cheers guys. Kerri.
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Post by sylvia37 »

Although some of you have made some very valid points about Tess's character, evil or misguided, I think that KK has it right. The writers didn't have a clue what they were doing and used Tess to "fix" the mess they had made.

I've actually always felt that way, even when I was first watching and wanted to throw something at the TV at the end of season 2. It seemed incredibly stupid to me that they would take a character with so much potential and only use her as a plot device to break up the show's most popular couple. It was obvious to anyone watching that Tess had more chemistry with Kyle than with Max, her supposed former husband, and yet the writers chose to ignore that.

It was also obvious that the choice to make her suddenly "super evil" as opposed to the wishy washy, not sure if she's redeemed character that she had been during most of season 2, was a midseason decision that didn't fit with what had been going on. I mean, here she was at Christmas, cooking and decorating and matchmaking and smiling with Kyle, and there she was at the end of the show, using Kyle to dump Alex's body and leading her "husband" to his death. Did that make any sense?

If they had taken the time to actually write the characters with any consistency, then Tess would have been a majorly interesting character. If she was supposed to be redeemed and slowly part of the group, then they should have followed that path with more depth. If they wanted her to be evil, then they should have given us more clues, like any good story, instead of dumping it on us at the end.

As it was, they screwed her character in the end, just like they did almost everyone else's.

In short, I think she had the potential to be more than a plot device, but never had the chance.

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Post by NikkiA »

I'm actually liked Tess, she drove me nuts and I always felt bad for her but I felt she had a great deal of potentiol. If it wasn't for some of the deeply cute friendship moments I would have totally boycotted most of the last season and 1/2.

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Post by roswellliz2188 »

TESS IS COMPLETELY EVIL, MISGUIDED IS JUST A PRETTY LAME EXCUSE, SHE HAD EVIL / BAD INTENTIONS FROM THE BEGINNING! :twisted:
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Post by Kzinti_Killer »

roswellliz2188 wrote:TESS IS COMPLETELY EVIL, MISGUIDED IS JUST A PRETTY LAME EXCUSE, SHE HAD EVIL / BAD INTENTIONS FROM THE BEGINNING! :twisted:
Just a little netiquette lesson. Never post in all capital letters, other than for occasional emphasis. On the web it's seen as the equivalent of screaming in someone's face, and is incredibly rude.

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Post by Roslover39 »

I've enjoyed reading all the comments :D Here's my two cents for good measure. :idea:

I wonder if I would have liked Tess as a character If I were anything other than a hard-core Dreamer :?: I mean how can you be fond of someone who was thrown into a plot just to cause s**t for your favorite couple :?: I felt that Tess was trouble from the first five minutes she appeared on screen. I admit she did have some redeeming qualities (scenes with the valentis) but all in all, I believe her mission...her plan was to send the pod squad to their deaths. I also believe that she mindwarped Kyle out of his lustful feelings for her to have a clear shot at Max.

Don't get me wrong, Max deserves some blame also. I feel that even though he thought that Liz slept with Kyle, that didn't give him the green light to sleep with Tess. He did it because he thought he had a good excuse to do it. I agree that Tess had far more chemistry with Kyle than with Max, but Max was the target.

Max said something in Busted that really disturbed me:

Max: meeting someone, someone like me, it attracted me. I admit that. It was something I had to find out about. and now I'm over it.

What the hell was that about :?: :shock:

Max was just putty in Tess's hands and if it weren't for Liz, he would have gone back to Antar to his death and I imagine Isabel would have went with him. In this case only Michael had the sense to want to stay. He felt the love.

I hope I've made sense :roll:
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Post by Kzinti_Killer »

Roslover39 wrote: Max said something in Busted that really disturbed me:

Max: meeting someone, someone like me, it attracted me. I admit that. It was something I had to find out about. and now I'm over it.

What the hell was that about :?: :shock:
Just more bad writing, like Liz moaning about how "Max always hurt her" when her powers started to bite. What? He should have left her a corpse on the Crashdown floor, thus saving everyone a lot of trouble? For God's sake, show a little gratitude girl. :roll: The plotting was a confused mess after TEOTW. It was like they couldn't make up their minds what to do with which character, couple, or plot thread so they tried to do some of everything. And of course they ended up doing none of it well. That's what happens when you have "too many cooks in the soup". And incompetent cooks at that.

To this day, I maintain that Tess at Christmas was an entirely different plotline from what they ended up doing with her. Sometime after that point some genius (sarcasm so thick that you could slice it, fry it, and serve it on toast) decided, "Hey guys, instead of having her settle in and be happy with Kyle, leaving Max to Liz, lets make her a simple minded two dimensional villain so she can get rid of Colin's character for us and Liz can kick her ass later. The fans will love it." Bleah.

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Post by Roslover39 »

Too true Kzinti_ Killer

The writing team really screwed around with the plot and characters. It's amazing that we're still devoted fans after all the character flip-flopping.

Question:

Am I the only one to think that the whole You were my husband on Antar stuff was just another mind-warp?

If anyone thinks that was real, can you explain why you do?
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Post by Chrisken »

Roslover39 wrote: Question:

Am I the only one to think that the whole You were my husband on Antar stuff was just another mind-warp?

If anyone thinks that was real, can you explain why you do?

Hmm... well, to a certain extent, yes I do. That yes, Tess and Max were created incorporating elements (rescued DNA, some kind of 'energy' or 'spirit') from King Zan and Ava on Antar, who were married... and probably happy and in love at the time. It's a storyline that I like, and a lot of the attempts to disprove it end up setting off my internal BS-detector. (Though I do love a 'Liz is the once and future queen' story now and then. :) )

Do I think that Tess or Max ever really remembered that life, and that they really are the same as Ava and Zan from Antar? Not... not so much. They're new people with new lives, (though the people who sent them there might not have realized that would happen,) and I'm not convinced that they could get hybridized with the memories of who they used to be built into their brains. (If they did, Max would probably have been able to contact those memories long before he met Tess... though what he would have made of them I don't know.)

So... well, that's pretty much my opinion.
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