Tess: Evil or Misguided?

[Sin]

I've often wondered if Tess made up the whole deal that Nasedo supposedly made with Khivar. I think she made the deal, possibly in New York, and then blamed it on Nasedo to save her ass. She never did say what happened when she was alone with Lonnie and Rath. She was just like them, willing to do anything and sacrifice anyone to get back home. It makes sense that she could be working with them, or even possibly made a deal with Nicholas behind everyones' backs.

as for the "like Tess or not" discussion
Honestly, I don't like Tess as a character and i don't understand why i should lol
It seems to me that in the fandom some people choose to like her just because she's hated by many or because "she's bad written". Like a form of courtesy or pity that i don't understand.

I've noticed that interesting phenomenon as well. It's really weird. I would think she would be reviled just on principal alone. But they end up liking her because "she made the show exciting" or some rather odd explanation like that. I don't really get it. I've never heard of real good reason to like Tess as a character from the people that I've talked to. It's either that she brought drama to the series or that she provided an alternative "romantic" interest for Max. There just seems to be a lot of acclaim for what she ended up doing for story rather than for her substance.

Sure she was a plot mover and a pot stirrer for sure. But that seems to be the main reason I get when I ask people why they like her, which doesn't really tell me much about what character aspects they liked about her or what made her special to them. Just that they liked the plot movement or the story from keeping the show from being "boring". Which kind of says volumes I think when the best thing about a character has nothing to do with the character themselves. I mean that literally could have been anyone to do that. So that's not necessarily anything Tess brings to the show exclusively. I agree with what you said about her being a plot device. I don't hate her at all but that's pretty much what she was, a tool the writers used to push their agenda's.

[tequathisy]

At worst all she did was tell him that they couldn't be in a romantic relationship. Max though he really changed EVERYTHING when he slept with Tess and it's because of that action which stains a lot of the dreamer relationship for me. It's like it was all lies.

At worst, Liz walked away from Max after he had been abducted and tortured and then didn't talk to him for months, when she came back to Roswell she apparently slept with Kyle and then appeared to be beginning a relationship with Sean Deluca.

If you look at things from Max's point of view, the dreamer relationship was already well and truely over by the time he slept with Tess. Liz had done so much to hurt him. Yes, she was acting with the best of intentions at all times, but it's not as if Max knew that or it didn't hurt him.

Can somebody please explain to me why Max is always blamed for destroying the dreamer relationship by sleeping with Tess, when it happened a year after Liz had broken up with him and months after he had caught her in bed with Kyle? Why does Max get all the blame and Liz get off scot free?

I'm not anti-Liz or anti-dreamer but it's something that has always confused the hell out of me about dreamers.

[Coccy]

If you look at things from Max's point of view, the dreamer relationship was already well and truely over by the time he slept with Tess. Liz had done so much to hurt him. Yes, she was acting with the best of intentions at all times, but it's not as if Max knew that or it didn't hurt him.

Can somebody please explain to me why Max is always blamed for destroying the dreamer relationship by sleeping with Tess, when it happened a year after Liz had broken up with him and months after he had caught her in bed with Kyle? Why does Max get all the blame and Liz get off scot free?

I'm not anti-Liz or anti-dreamer but it's something that has always confused the hell out of me about dreamers.

i agree with your post (and it's obvious that i'm a die hard dreamer and i will never hate Liz or Max)
I didn't reply to this particular discussion because.. i gave up long ago
when i read some things like "At worst all she did was tell him that they couldn't be in a romantic relationship" they're so partial and alternative universe for me that i don't know where to start. The discussion could be endless and it's pointless.

I think that sometimes it's a matter of people's personal "morality" (i don't know if it's the right word)
Our real life opinion about things and our personal experiences can inevitably influence our perception of the fiction

Personally, I don't care about the "sex" part, i tend to diversity love and sex. Sometimes between them there's a wall for me.
To me him sleeping with Tess was never a big deal. Of course it could have been beautiful and very rare that Liz was his first too but in a way she's because she's the only woman he ever loved, inevitably she's different from Tess for him.
The worst thing about that storyline was the soap opera pregnancy but him sleeping with Tess in *that moment* is something that i consider OOC but that i can, at the same time, still understand. Even the writers themselves said that Max wasn't really himself. Alien side? Depression? After all even in real life people can "alienate" themselves sometimes. People are not machines.
Putting things in the right context is important. I never hated Max i just didn't agree with some of his actions (same goes for Liz and other characters), actually i always perceived his POV just like Liz's. I was even surprised that he didn't "explode" soon. I really loved him when in the second season he still tried to be friends with Liz and protected her... he still had hopes for them but at the same time he respected her decision...to me that was amazing because i wouldn't have done the same thing (with his POV) no way. To put it cynically I didn't expect him to evirate himself because he couldn't be with Liz.
His mistake doesn't devalue his love for Liz because he showed and proved it with things that are way more meaningful and important to me. He slept with Tess when he felt like s*it a year after Liz had broken up with him and when he believed that Liz didn't love him and considered him the responsible of Alex's death and so? This makes him human and fragile like all of us but it can't affect his feelings for her. The guy even killed himself for her, he constantly put himself in danger for her and he literally did anything for her. I don't think that he could have proved to love Liz only by not sleeping with Tess. That's too easy. Just because he wouldn't sleep with Tess, for example, that wouldn't prove alone that Liz was the love of his life. I think that this idea is based on a flawed logic. There're many people that are apparently "faithful" but they don't love the person they're with. Not to mention the ones that are constantly unfaithful with their thoughts but don't have the guts to do what they want (and to me it's worse).
He did things in the series that are way more meaningful and rare for me, he proved to love her with those things. Keeping record of one mistake when he did so many good things is very partial. If we should judge all the people like that then we couldn't find a difference between real criminals and the ones that aren't, for example. Forgiveness wouldn't exist and people would be judged only for their flaws and never for their merits too. If we should use for all the characters of the show this kind of judgment then Michael didn't love Maria, Maria didn't love Michael, Liz didn't love Max, Isabel hated everyone, Kyle should stay single. No one of them was perfect you only have different flaws and mistakes.
Beside, Max had to pay a lot for his mistake more than the REAL cheaters if you ask me.

I strongly disagree when some call him "cheater". How he could be. They weren't together since a whole year. Not only they weren't together but he believed that she had sex with Kyle and didn't love him, didn't want to die for him. At the same time Liz couldn't be considered a cheater when she kissed Sean (and she did it even before Max kissed Tess)
When Max was with Liz he was totally loyal to her (it's the reason of why in FMax's timeline Tess left roswell) i don't remember a scene when he made an appreciative comment about another girl or women in general (reason of why i smile when people make him a playboy in fanfictions. It's really OOC )...it seemed that for him only Liz existed to the point that he didn't even seem "normal" and i bet that his parents thought that he was gay LOL. Liz was his first kiss and the only woman he ever dated.. and he was 16 years old when it happened.
The only time he felt attracted to someone (Tess) who wasn't Liz he believed that she was Nacedo(a man! Oh God Max...) doing weird things to him pretending to be a girl. Even in the second season If you think about it Tess had to work a lot and be very very patient in order to get a single chance only when he had a very bad moment. And we're talking about a beautiful girl. It speaks volumes that Tess could get a chance only when Liz lied to him and made him believe that she didn't love him enough. And even with Liz's "help" and such convenient and useful actions/words from her Tess still had to await a year before getting one moment.



I noticed that the dreamers who watch the show now aren't so angry toward Max like the dreamers who watched the show when it originally aired and had to endure a lot of drama from the fandom and also the fact itself that they didn't know how the show could have ended.
I noticed it when my friends watched roswell years after i watched it. I expected them to be angry when they saw that storyline but they weren't so much. They were like "oh well it wasn't so bad like people make it seems". I think that when you watch all the episodes/seasons together (the ensemble) some things are more understandable and bearable.
It's also true that recently people have to watch shows that are way worse, tv-shows where the characters switch the relationships like a pair of shoes. Think about OTH and gossip girl.

I've noticed that interesting phenomenon as well. It's really weird. I would think she would be reviled just on principal alone. But they end up liking her because "she made the show exciting" or some rather odd explanation like that. I don't really get it. I've never heard of real good reason to like Tess as a character from the people that I've talked to. It's either that she brought drama to the series or that she provided an alternative "romantic" interest for Max. There just seems to be a lot of acclaim for what she ended up doing for story rather than for her substance.

Sure she was a plot mover and a pot stirrer for sure. But that seems to be the main reason I get when I ask people why they like her, which doesn't really tell me much about what character aspects they liked about her or what made her special to them. Just that they liked the plot movement or the story from keeping the show from being "boring". Which kind of says volumes I think when the best thing about a character has nothing to do with the character themselves. I mean that literally could have been anyone to do that. So that's not necessarily anything Tess brings to the show exclusively. I agree with what you said about her being a plot device. I don't hate her at all but that's pretty much what she was, a tool the writers used to push their agenda's.

agreed. For example even when people talk about her supposed layers it's more their interpretation than something that the writers actually created in the show. It's something created more in the fandom and in the fanfictions than the real show. In the show her only purpose was to be obsessed about Max/destiny and stalk him when he was sad. The writers never showed us her POV, her feelings. I even think that they made her so "mysterious" on purpose so they were free to do what they wanted with her. It isn't the first character used like that. They only showed her actions and the basic motivations. But they never analyzed her character and made her sympathetic. The result is that she's not layered. She's more crazy/lunatic like Nacedo.

To me the other characters are more complex and interesting than her. I have no doubt that people can make her complex and layered in their fanfictions but they have all the credit for it not the writers.

[Sin]

Can somebody please explain to me why Max is always blamed for destroying the dreamer relationship by sleeping with Tess, when it happened a year after Liz had broken up with him and months after he had caught her in bed with Kyle? Why does Max get all the blame and Liz get off scot free?

I don't think it's really about blame so to speak. Nor do I think it even has to do with their relationship so much as the dynamic that was Max and Liz and ultimately the damage that was dealt to the dreamer fanbase when Max slept with Tess. I think Max is viewed more harshly at times mostly because up until the point he slept with Tess, Max and Liz still could have had their happy ending so to speak. The damage that was done to Max's character was substantial to the point in which I don't believe he ever recovered after he slept with Tess. I feel these posts probably do a better job of explaining it then I can.

We are desperately pinning for Max and Liz to be together. But when Max comitted a bestial sex with a rodent and have a full rodent baby. We just basically gave up. Because there's no way we that Max and Liz are going to be together ever after the tex. Because now we felt that Max does'nt deserve her anymore. Max is not the hero anymore nothing is special about him. How can we pined for a character whom we lost all respect for.
----Anti Max/Tess Thread, Fan Forum, 2-23-2004
Posted By: Siopao

Every couple needs to have some obstacles placed in their way to make writing or watching the show interesting. But the ultimate goal is to have the couple overcome their obstacles after a period of time. But like you said, there are boundraries that can't be crossed otherwise you destroy essentially who the characters are. And that is what happened on Roswell. There is a fine line between placing obstacles between a couple and destroying things between a couple.
----Anti Max/Tess Thread, Fan Forum, 2-27-2004,
Posted By GrhmLz

Very early on presented their couples, and established the traits each character had. Max and Liz, Michael and Maria, Alex and Isabel.

In order to form new couples, the writers had to take the characters in each pairing and destroy one of them. Max went from the shy, sensitive guy who risked everything for the girl that he's loved from afar for years to a callous, cold alien.

the lead character, Max suffered the worst because of the total devastation of his character to accomplish this unconventional pairing with Tess.

It's always bad writing to throw out any basic traits that characters have (Max's shy devotion to Liz), and write brand new, nasty traits in order to make up a new pairing. It demands too much from an audience to expect them to swallow that the basic foundation of a character can be turned on a dime to break up the happy, boring couple simply for the sake of conflict.
---Anti Max/Tess Thread, Fan Forum, 2-27-2004,
Posted By Seieve

You see it isn't so much about blame in my opinion so much that it's about finding the character of Max to be unrecognizable and the demise of the dreamer relationship comes to the head of the actions Max took because those actions destroyed the very principal of both who Max was and the heart of the Max/Liz relationship. Had Max and Liz both been loose about sex perhaps Max's tryst with Tess wouldn't have been such a hard pill to swallow, however then Max and Liz wouldn't have been Max and Liz in the first place. I think it all comes down to the fact that Max/Liz were held together by the writing of season 1, which said that Max and Liz loved each other more than anything and it's the connection that locks them to one another, and ultimately you had Max saying over and over how much he loved Liz and only Liz and then he sleeps with Tess which is an intimate action by Max's standards. That out of character action destroyed Max and then you factor in that there's Liz who wasn't even on the same level as him anymore because of Max's indiscretion. Yes in Max's view things were a lot different but it doesn't change much when the end result is that Max isn't even the same Max anymore and the entire relationship falls apart because the core of the Max and Liz --and Max as a character has been destroyed by sleeping with Tess.

I'm not anti-Liz or anti-dreamer but it's something that has always confused the hell out of me about dreamers.

I hope I was able to answer your question. I think the main reason why dreamers take it so hard is because we very much live up to our name. The fact that Liz and Max had something that was transcendent, clandestine and pretty much other worldy in terms of romance and Max sleeping with Tess pretty much attacked the very center of the dreamer values. It was hurtful and there were times when it even Katims even seemed to make it personal.

Personally, I don't care about the "sex" part,

I wouldn't have cared if the characters didn't care so to speak. But since it was established that both Max and Liz thought of sex as something important and meaningful I think it's worth noting that it's important to them.

To put it cynically I didn't expect him to evirate himself because he couldn't be with Liz.

I don't get when people say this. Is it because Max is a guy that implies that he is supposed to be out having sex with any one that would offer? I don't think dreamers wanted Max to "evirate" himself. Did Liz do the female equivilent of evirating herself when she chose not to have sex with Sean? It seems that were dealing with sterotypes here. My main point in this is that Max thought that sex was meaningful which is why he didn't have sex with any girl that offered. He wanted to share that with Liz. So I don't understand where this part comes from? It's not at all about emasculation.

To be honest that line reads like an insult to me. That's like saying that because a man doesn't have sex he isn't a "real man" when he may want to wait for it to be meaningful with another person, it may be his religious reasons or he just chooses to be celibate, etc. Max wasn't emasculated because he didn't choose to have sex and to be honest it was no prized deal when he did it with Tess anyway. But it's not about Max being less of a man, I actually think it's the direct opposite. He would have been more of a man if he didn't. He would have been stronger had he not slept with Tess. It's about this:






It's about the connection between Max and Liz and the dream that they personified for relationships that he only wanted her and she only wanted him and him sleeping with Tess destroyed that connection/dream. To be honest that was a huge part of the appeal I believe. That these two people were so deeply in love, so deeply attached, so connected that all they wanted was one another and they wanted to be together and that's all they wanted. No matter what. When Max slept with Tess that changed and it was never really recovered.

The dreamer fans could still say that Liz felt that way (everything she did was for his benefit) but we couldn't say the same about Max anymore. It completely harpooned the ship. The dreamer fans couldn't only say that Liz was the only one for Max. Where as we could still say that Max was the only one for Liz. I think that pretty much sums it up. I couldn't really see Liz with anyone else but him, where as Max actually took realized steps to be with someone else and nearly succeeded.

This makes him human and fragile like all of us but it can't affect his feelings for her.

I don't really agree with this. I still believe that you can be human and still do the right thing so to speak. It's as clear as day that Max knew that sleeping with Tess was the wrong thing to do yet he did it anyway because he was weak.

You once said that love is only as strong as the person who feels it, which I agree but that makes it seem as if Max is weak. We are saying then that Max at his core at his values is a weak person. That he doesn't stick by them and doesn't protect the things that he values and believes in. Max in the fiber of his person is a weak person. Which doesn't sit well with me. Yeah he may love Liz enough to save her life, protect her but what was attacked here with the Tex sex was that Max wasn't faithful to the love he and Liz shared (he wasn't faithful to himself, his heart or the romance they shared) which underscored all of the things that made Max and Liz such a special couple in the first place. Once that was taken from them it seemed as if they were like all the other couples from other series. One of the best things about Max/Liz was that they weren't some mix-matched Dawson's Creek couple.

I don't think that he could have proved to love Liz only by not sleeping with Tess.

Proved it? No. I don't think it's about "proof", would it have validated and been consistent to what was canon up until that point, yes? The fact that it didn't is why it was so hurtful.

Keeping record of one mistake when he did so many good things is very partial.

I don't think this was one little thing though. This was huge (as we can tell from the fan reaction that still exists to this day). It was something that changed Max as a character. Something that changed his life. Something that changed him and Liz's relationship. This is 'the' Jump Shark moment of Roswell.

Beside, Max had to pay a lot for his mistake more than the REAL cheaters if you ask me.

I don't agree. How did Max end up paying? Was it with his son? Eh. I actually think this was another reason why fans were so disgruntled about season 3 because nothing was said or dealt with about the Max/Tess/Liz triangle, there was no discussion - no conversation - no anything. Max and Liz just got back together and that ended up alienating even more viewers then they did when they had Max sleep with Tess originally. There was no follow-up to Departure in terms of Max and Liz what so ever. Instead they just became pod people.

reason of why i smile when people make him a playboy in fanfictions. It's really OOC

I actually think it could have hurt a lot less if they originally made Max a play boy then it wouldn't have hurt so much when he slept with Tess (because then it really would be meaningless and it would have made sense because of past actions) but then Max wouldn't be Max and Liz and Max wouldn't have been who they are.

I noticed it when my friends watched roswell years after i watched it. I expected them to be angry when they saw that storyline but they weren't so much.

I think that just goes to show how cynical everyone else is now about television pairings, since time has changed. LOL.

Now a days couples pretty much cheat on each other every chance given (see Gossip Girl) and it's barely a problem. I would say that it hurt Max and Liz a different way because they were so different from everyone else. Times change of course and people are seemingly more tolerant to what couples can do to one another and what's acceptable and forgivable. But I think what made Max and Liz so different from other couples was the fact that they weren't like typical couples. They were so much more so to have Max fall into the proverbial trap just made it so much worse. And it was a crime that they were degraded and devalued for Katims' season 3 vision.

When that was taken away it was a hard thing for dreamer fans to come to terms with. I think several still have the scars from when they first saw ITBAITL ten years ago.

[tequathisy]

I don't really agree with this. I still believe that you can be human and still do the right thing so to speak. It's as clear as day that Max knew that sleeping with Tess was the wrong thing to do yet he did it anyway because he was weak.

You once said that love is only as strong as the person who feels it, which I agree but that makes it seem as if Max is weak. We are saying then that Max at his core at his values is a weak person. That he doesn't stick by them and doesn't protect the things that he values and believes in. Max in the fiber of his person is a weak person. Which doesn't sit well with me. Yeah he may love Liz enough to save her life, protect her but what was attacked here with the Tex sex was that Max wasn't faithful to the love he and Liz shared

Why should he have been faithful to that love? Liz had already pissed all over it by sleeping with Kyle. As far as Max knew, that love didn't exist anymore. Was Max really supposed to remain single and celibate for the rest of his life because he loved Liz even though she had made it clear that she didn't want to be with him anymore and she had slept with somebody else?

[Cocogurl]

Oh, no! Not another Max and Liz debate!

I think I'll start with my opinions on Tess and work my way through there. Was Tess evil or misguided? I think she was probably evil. This is not to say that evil people can redeem themselves, because she obviously tried to do that in season 3, but this is how I perceived her in season 2. She had tons of chances to change and to create a new life for herself, but she didn't. She killed Alex, which I get wasn't on purpose, but she still didn't try to make things right. This is when I stopped having sympathy for her--not that I had too much to begin with. And then she was still planning on turning Max, Michael and Isabel in to Kivar, the people she had the nerve to call her family. I just can't make excuses for what she did there, because there is none. And I notice a couple people have talked about how she believed Max was hers or whatever, but this had nothing to do with Max. Tess and Nasedo came into Max, Michael and Isabel's lives knowing exactly what they were going to do. It wasn't about getting back her lost husband, it was about getting pregnant and turning him in. So that's not an excuse.

And as for Max and Liz, no, Max did not cheat on Liz, like I believe Liz wouldn't have been cheating on Max if she had really slept with Kyle. They weren't involved with each other. However, I do think that Liz has the right to be heartbroken about it. She shouldn't be angry at Max like she was Ch-ch-changes, but she's allowed to grieve for what's been lost because of Max's decision and hers as well. But she never did. She was so focused on helping Max find his son, that she didn't take proper care of herself emotionally and she let Max walk all over her, which is part of the reason why her speech to Max in Ch-ch-changes came out the way it did.

"Every single time you mention your son, I'm reminded of what you did to me. How you were unfaithful to us." - Now this is definitely chalked up to writer error, in my opinion, because they never properly worked through Max and Liz's issues in season 3. They were too busy making it the Jessie and Isabel show for the most of the season. But, if they had showed us everything differently, than I totally would've gotten it a little more. Liz may know in her head that Max didn't cheat. She even said so in Panacea. But she'd never let herself believe it in her heart. So it just festered there for a long time, untouched and unexamined. She never faced it, so she ended up lashing out about it at Max.

If nobody reads this, I understand completely. I tend to turn what's supposed to be a little paragraph into one big, long speech.

[Coccy]

*Sin we already had this discussion so i won't reply to all the parts because we already established that our opinions are the opposite it's like we're the alternative universe fanfiction of each other lol

everything i get by reading somethings is: Max must be always perfect (because he's a man) Liz is a saint. no matter how unreasonable it can be he must be prince charming.

I don't really agree with this. I still believe that you can be human and still do the right thing so to speak. It's as clear as day that Max knew that sleeping with Tess was the wrong thing to do yet he did it anyway because he was weak.

You once said that love is only as strong as the person who feels it, which I agree but that makes it seem as if Max is weak. We are saying then that Max at his core at his values is a weak person. That he doesn't stick by them and doesn't protect the things that he values and believes in. Max in the fiber of his person is a weak person. Which doesn't sit well with me. Yeah he may love Liz enough to save her life, protect her but what was attacked here with the Tex sex was that Max wasn't faithful to the love he and Liz shared

Why should he have been faithful to that love? Liz had already pissed all over it by sleeping with Kyle. As far as Max knew, that love didn't exist anymore. Was Max really supposed to remain single and celibate for the rest of his life because he loved Liz even though she had made it clear that she didn't want to be with him anymore and she had slept with somebody else?

exactly. Assuming that him being faithful to that love was solely based on him sleeping with another woman or not.

I don't get when people say this. Is it because Max is a guy that implies that he is supposed to be out having sex with any one that would offer? I don't think dreamers wanted Max to "evirate" himself.

maybe you don't realize it but this is what you're saying. ^^"
The way i see your posts is that Max was supposed to save himself for Liz no matter what she had done to him, no matter if she didn't love him anymore, no matter if she slept with Kyle, no matter if she didn't even want to be friends with him anymore (i'm using his pov at the time)
he had to save himself because only Liz could touch him. Since Tess dirty hands touched him too then he must go to the hell for his unforgivable sin. maybe she really infected him with a virus and this is the reason of why in the third season the writers made him die, his body became dust and he got a new fresh body that only Liz touched.

i used the word "evirate" because it seems that what matters here is ONLY the physical act (while for me it doesn't)
evirated or not for you he couldn't be with someone who wasn't Liz no matter what.

see. I once was in a relationship with this guy. At one point we broke up and inevitably for the following months we both dated other people. Then we got back together. Now, both of us were a bit jealous for the other relationships but we couldn't blame each other because we dated other people when we weren't together. It didn't matter anymore because we were together again.
It's the same with Max and Liz. With them it's even worse. They were broken up since a year and they were free to date and sleep with who they wanted. They were worse because Max believed that she had "betrayed" him with Kyle
why saving himself for Liz when she didn't the same for him?
Some don't realize that by the time Max slept with Tess Liz already changed their relationship when she slept with Kyle.
The Max that "valued sex" and couldn't sleep with someone that he didn't love was killed when Liz did it.
If Max dreamed to have his first time with Liz she destroyed that dream when she didn't save herself for him. So why he should have saved himself for her?
From his pov he did what Liz had already done.

The problem is always the same. We can't talk about Max assuming things that he didn't know.
We knew that Liz didn't slept with Kyle and didn't mean the things that she had said but Max didn't.

It's about the connection between Max and Liz and the dream that they personified for relationships that he only wanted her and she only wanted him and him sleeping with Tess destroyed that connection/dream.

this is when you put sex and love in the same room. Talk about stereotypes.
see what you said could be true if Max wanted Liz only for lust so when he went to Tess him "wanting" Liz and the foundation of their relationship collapsed.
But Max loved Liz and shared with her a bond that he never shared with Tess. Furthermore their relationship was never based only on sex. You even said it. They had a transcendent connection, they saw in each other souls. They're soul mates. This is what their relationship was about (and i love them for this reason). It have nothing to do with sex. Sex is like a plus.
I find your logic a bit contradictory because you stated that they had this transcendent bond but then in the same post you make it seems that the most important thing about their relationship was a physical act.

I don't know if i'm able to really explain what i mean.
If what made M&L unique is their unspoken bond, their connection and something "spiritual" it shouldn't matter so much that he slept with Tess before Liz. Unless you're saying that their connection was solely based on sex.

there's something about what you said that i always fail to understand. Things that don't fit together and are a contradiction.

I don't really agree with this. I still believe that you can be human and still do the right thing so to speak. It's as clear as day that Max knew that sleeping with Tess was the wrong thing to do yet he did it anyway because he was weak.

another contradiction.
If you're human you can't do always the right thing. Otherwise you're a machine, a robot.

Human: Subject to or indicative of the weaknesses, imperfections, and fragility associated with humans

I have to assume that you never did a mistake in your life and you always do the right thing. Lucky you.

You once said that love is only as strong as the person who feels it, which I agree but that makes it seem as if Max is weak. We are saying then that Max at his core at his values is a weak person. That he doesn't stick by them and doesn't protect the things that he values and believes in. Max in the fiber of his person is a weak person. Which doesn't sit well with me.

it's not entirely correct. I said that Love can be stronger than everything but the person who feels it can be weak.
Love isn't directly proportional to the person that feels it.
Otherwise people in love would never have problems, everything would be always perfect.

I also think Max's love for Liz made him weak when he felt that it wasn't reciprocal and she didn't want him. She had the ability to hurt him like no one because he loved her.
You can see the difference between Liz betraying him and Tess betraying him. Tess did worse things but she wasn't able to hurt him like Liz could with only one phrase.

I think that just goes to show how cynical everyone else is now about television pairings, since time has changed. LOL.

my friends aren't cynical maybe they're realistic?
maybe they, along with many other dreamers i've read recently, just don't share your views and perceive things differently.

it isn't only the television pairs. It's real life too.. since always even when roswell was airing, i think.

[Cocogurl]

Well, this gets into a person's personal believe. For some people, it's easy to seperate sex and love. I am one of those people who believe that while you can have sex without being in love, sex and love should go hand in hand. I could never just give my body to someone I didn't trust and truly love. That's just not in me. I feel it should be an intimate act between two people in love.

And a lot of dreamer fans feel that way about Max and Liz's relationship. That's not saying that it's all about sex, to me, that's just saying that some people have the fairytale idea of sex. That's why I think some people feel that Max ruined it by sleeping with Tess and the fact that it was the first time is another big thing. You only get have your first time once. Now, I don't believe that Max tainted the relationship, and in a lot of ways, I feel like Max and Liz are much stronger people because of what they've gone through. But I can see why some people would feel the way that they do. To each his own.

I also see and agree with a few of your points as well. Just because two people are in love does not mean they're perfect. People make mistakes. Max made a mistake. But mistakes are how people learn. Nothing can ever be as simple or as perfect as we'd like them to be.

[Coccy]

Oh, no! Not another Max and Liz debate!

they never end
and then some say that they're boring characters/couple

She had tons of chances to change and to create a new life for herself, but she didn't. She killed Alex, which I get wasn't on purpose, but she still didn't try to make things right. This is when I stopped having sympathy for her--not that I had too much to begin with. And then she was still planning on turning Max, Michael and Isabel in to Kivar, the people she had the nerve to call her family. I just can't make excuses for what she did there, because there is none. And I notice a couple people have talked about how she believed Max was hers or whatever, but this had nothing to do with Max. Tess and Nasedo came into Max, Michael and Isabel's lives knowing exactly what they were going to do. It wasn't about getting back her lost husband, it was about getting pregnant and turning him in. So that's not an excuse.

i agree.
My main problem with Tess is that she never stopped her plan. Even when Alex died she not only didn't change her mind but used his death for her advantage. Because the truth is that his death helped her a lot, more than anything. It was so convenient for her. She took advantage of the weakness that it created in the group and between Max and Liz.
I can't forget the scene where Max was almost crying because he couldn't save Alex and Tess was there pretending to comfort him and at the same time telling him that he had to save Alex. That was so offensive.

Well, this gets into a person's personal believe. For some people, it's easy to seperate sex and love. I am one of those people who believe that while you can have sex without being in love, sex and love should go hand in hand. I could never just give my body to someone I didn't trust and truly love. That's just not in me. I feel it should be an intimate act between two people in love.

And a lot of dreamer fans feel that way about Max and Liz's relationship. That's not saying that it's all about sex, to me, that's just saying that some people have the fairytale idea of sex. That's why I think some people feel that Max ruined it by sleeping with Tess and the fact that it was the first time is another big thing. You only get have your first time once. Now, I don't believe that Max tainted the relationship, and in a lot of ways, I feel like Max and Liz are much stronger people because of what they've gone through. But I can see why some people would feel the way that they do. To each his own

I understand it.
Technically if you believe that Max is Zan and he lived before then he (and the others) was never a virgin to begin with
The cloned body is virgin. But then the new body Max got in the third season (that was his body but it was, at the same time, a new cloned version of his body) should be considered virgin too.

I want to specify that it's not that i devalue sex and i believe that Max and Liz should be libertines.
BUT there's something incredibly contradictory here.
Again, Max and Liz's relationship was a soulmates one. Being soulmates surely isn't based on sex.
It wasn't based on something physical. And this is what i like about them. They had this irrational bond.
Of course they have the passion and chemistry too (sexual healing anyone?), they aren't asexual But it was the natural result of their existing spiritual bond, it wasn't what created the bond in the first place.
Their relationship isn't based solely on the physical attraction. For example Max fell in love with her when he was a kid. Kids are totally innocent and they surely aren't physically attracted to each other like adults. Sure enough he didn't know that it was love then because he was a kid but he recognized her as the one for him and loved her for years. At one point he surely started to think about her sexually too, but this happened when he already loved her. He grew up loving her and that love acquired different layers with time.

When he said that Liz was the one for him i don't think that he only meant that she was the only one he felt attracted to and whom he wanted to have sex with. I think that he meant something more profound. I think that he meant that she was the half of his soul that he recognized in her something that he didn't feel for other people.

quoting myself:
If what made M&L so unique is their unspoken bond, their connection and something "spiritual" it shouldn't matter so much that he slept with Tess before Liz. Unless we're saying that their connection was solely based on sex.

what could have tainted the foundation of their love was him sharing with Tess the kind of love that he shared with Liz. But the show pretty proved that they're totally different.
I used to think (and i still do) that Max needed to sleep with Tess in order to create an emotional bond that he didn't have with her (and that even sex failed to create, no wonder why).
The "cementing" was supposed to make him and Liz even more inseparable. On the other hand sex only made Max and Tess even more separable

Sometimes i even think that it isn't such a coincidence that when Max and Liz made love it was implied and not showed.
Of course i wanted to see that scene but at the same time i like that they didn't need it to be a couple they didn't need it to feel emotionally connected to each other, feel ONE. They were intimately connected into a way that goes beyond sex. He gave her his soul. She saw things about him that no one saw. I swear, maybe it's because i never felt that way but i could never let someone see inside me like that, see everything about me.
Their bond was so strong that when he died she felt it and could bring him back to life.
even the episode "chant down babylon" showed how the most important thing about a person is his/her soul. Things that you can't rationalize and you can't touch. Max died, his body was a puddle of dust. But his soul didn't "die", he survived for her. I think that in the end when the body died again after the fall Clayton died for good because unlike Max he had nothing to hold onto. Max's soul had Liz, he had their love and he didn't want to leave her.

i was watching a dreamer video on youtube and someone in the comments perfectly summarized what i mean

"I was the opposite of you, I was happy that this couple didn't have sex, due to the fact that I am the type of person that prefers the emotional aspect of a relationship over the physical one. People in general allow their physical attraction for someone to blind them from seeing the big picture which is love between TWO souls. But if two people can establish both physical and emotional attraction and manage to balance out both of those elements then that's a wonderful relationship!"

The point is: I can agree that him sleeping with Tess took something away from M&L BUT i don't think that it (something physical) deprived them of the foundation of their love (something spiritual that goes beyond everything) and devalued their love.
This is what i disagree with.
If we want to talk about stereotypes then this is one: the idea that two people in order to love each other have to be each other "first" at any cost regardless the circumstances.
There're many couples that are each other "first" but they never did what Max and Liz did for each other.

in a lot of ways, I feel like Max and Liz are much stronger people because of what they've gone through.

i feel the same. It's easy to love someone when everything is always perfect....
With everything that happened to them nothing could keep them apart. In the end they won.
Others give up for so much less.

[Sin]

Why should he have been faithful to that love?

Because he supposedly loved Liz more then anything in the world. As Max said he only saw Liz and everything else faded away. Ultimately the end result is that Liz wasn't everything to him. As he wanted to have these things with Tess. I think it just leads to the end assumption that Liz wasn't everything to him. Liz was not enough for him or what they shared wasn't enough for him. It was enough for Liz, we saw this all the time, but it wasn't enough for Max. Which went against everything that was stated beforehand from the pilot onward. From the Pilot to CYN their love literally knew no bounds.

As far as Max knew, that love didn't exist anymore.

Not quite there were still Max and Liz moments that proved that they still cared for each other. ARCC, WO, Harvest, MITC, VLV, CYN, etc. It's not as if it just ended so to speak and that leads to the belief that Max and Liz were never friends or on good terms. That love was still there just in a different way.

Was Max really supposed to remain single and celibate for the rest of his life because he loved Liz even though she had made it clear that she didn't want to be with him anymore and she had slept with somebody else?

This makes it sound unreasonable when I don't think it really is. I mean Liz dealt with a similar situation and she never slept with Kyle or Sean even though she was having an equally hard time through season two. I only care about the sex in context to what it meant to Max. If Max didn't value or think sex was meaningful then I wouldn't care. But it did. Why was Liz able to abstain? Because Max was it for her and she couldn't see herself like the way Max was able to with Tess. I don't really see how this is all that hard to believe. It's the backbone of the ship, that there is only one person who gets them, understands them, etc. Once that was taken away the ship nearly collapsed and the writers spent an entire season trying to make things better because of the complete shipwreck that was Tex.

everything i get by reading somethings is: Max must be always perfect (because he's a man)...no matter how unreasonable it can be he must be prince charming.

I guess I don't see how it's really that unreasonable? I mean did Max have to sleep with Tess or something? Was he forced to? I don't get this.

The way i see your posts is that Max was supposed to save himself for Liz no matter what she had done to him, no matter if she didn't love him anymore, no matter if she slept with Kyle, no matter if she didn't even want to be friends with him anymore

I don't think I am saying this. What I am saying is that Max of season 1 who felt that way about Liz wouldn't have slept with Tess and the fact that he did damaged his character in a very real and irrevocable way. The man that saw Liz when she was 9 years of age and knew she was the one vanished. Why? Because it wasn't a Max like action to do. It wasn't who Max was. I believe that in this case it proved everything he said to Liz back in season 1 was null after he slept with Tess. Liz wasn't that special to him. He didn't value her in the same way. I don't see where I am saying that Max is supposed to emasculate himself here. I am simply saying that Max wouldn't have slept with Tess, that the Max who did wasn't the same Max from before and it in general was not a Max like characteristic because Max isn't loose with sex.

This action changed Max forever.

he had to save himself because only Liz could touch him.

This isn't the reason. It's because Max loved Liz and he wouldn't have done it. It's not consistent with his character. Max is more or less a one girl kind of guy, he only saw Liz and only wanted Liz when they changed that about his character he became unrecognizable. He was never the same. It's not so much about saving himself for Liz, but about betraying the character (the person who Max was at his very core) and destroying the thing that made the dreamer ship so special in the first place. Once they destroyed those two things it ruined everything. Because Max wasn't the same and neither was the dreamer ship because they changed and ruined the very thing that made Max and Liz so special, and changed the entire person who Max was.

what matters here is ONLY the physical act

No. That's not it at all. What's the problem is that Max wasn't Max. Like I said before had Max been a character who was sexually loose it wouldn't have mattered what so ever. The sex would have been meaningless and it's effect on him none. But because of who Max was it changed him and it in turn changed his relationship with Liz, how could it not? What I am getting at is not about the physical act but about what this act did to Max's character, how it changed who Max was from the very core of who his being and as a result changed the aspect of the dreamer relationship. So much so that Liz too had to change who she was just to be with him.

Some don't realize that by the time Max slept with Tess Liz already changed their relationship when she slept with Kyle.
The Max that "valued sex" and couldn't sleep with someone that he didn't love was killed when Liz did it.
If Max dreamed to have his first time with Liz she destroyed that dream when she didn't save herself for him. So why he should have saved himself for her?

I don't agree with this, just because I believe that Max was still Max until ITBAITL. I don't believe Liz really changed things all that much. It was pretty much what Max did to Liz in Heat Wave or in The Balance, saying that he couldn't be with her for pretty much the same reasons Max said to her - his life was to dangerous- The sex aspect was a problem until Max came back from NY and forgave her.

Max and Liz were still friends. They were still close. They just weren't in a romantic relationship. Their love was still expressed just in friendship, was Max hurt? Of course. But Max was still Max. He wasn't not himself until much later which was in ITBAITL. Max was still himself prior to that though. There was no change in his beliefs (from what I could tell otherwise Max would have been sleeping with anyone after he saw Liz sleep with Kyle).

this is when you put sex and love in the same room.

Max still felt the same way when this happened it seemed. There was no shift or change from what I could tell that said he believed sex wasn't special or that it was simply carnal. It's not as if he suddenly did believe that sex was meaningless. Otherwise as I said above he would have slept with anyone.

Sex is like a plus.

I don't see it that way. Nor do I believe Max and Liz do otherwise they wouldn't have had such explosive reactions to finding out that the other had sex with other people. Sex wasn't just a "plus", it was huge for both of them. And it ended up hurting both of them deeply whenever the subject of Kyle or especially Tess was brought up.

find your logic a bit contradictory because you stated that they had this transcendent bond but then in the same post you make it seems that the most important thing about their relationship was a physical act.

no. Again it isn't so much about the sex so much as what it meant to Max's character. I hope I was able to translate that with this post. Again the sex would mean nothing if Max didn't value it. If it was nothing it wouldn't have bothered him. He wouldn't have regretted it. It wouldn't of meant anything but it did. Like I said if Max was a player it wouldn't matter that he had sex with Tess as then it would truly be meaningless. But it wasn't. It did mean something to his character which is why it changed him. We could tell that it changed him from the moment after it happened.

It changed everything. I don't think I am exaggerating here when I say that I mean why else were viewers so thrown by it when it happened? If it wasn't a big deal no one would have cared. But people are still passionate about the fact that Max slept with Tess as when they first saw it on their screens.

If you're human you can't do always the right thing

I think my original point still stands more or less. You can still be human and do the right thing. I mean if the excuses for murders were that "they were human" and they got off what would that mean? I'm not comparing the two actions I am just saying that you can still do the right thing and be human. I don't believe I am asking for Max to be perfect here and he certainly made many mistakes, but the fact that people do the right thing - sometimes the hard thing- even at cost to themselves I feel that is what makes those people heroes. The fact that they took the hard way out instead of doing something easy and being weak. Otherwise there wouldn't be real people who are considered heroic. Let alone fictional ones.

Like I believe it was said before, there can be obstacles in relationships - no doubt, it would be boring without, but when the writers pass a line and end up destroying the character then you violate the very thing you created in the first place and Katims knew it.

my friends aren't cynical maybe they're realistic?

I wasn't really saying things directly about your friends, I feel in general that audiences have gotten more cynical with the passing of years, so much now that it seems as if there are no breaking points with ships anymore and it seems as if people seem to only want a ship to succeed because they like the chemistry or they like the look of the couple. It doesn't matter anymore what the two characters do to each other and things in general always seem less and less sacred.

Which is fine I guess but I feel the dynamic is entirely different from when Max and Liz were a couple. Now a days couples can try to kill each other, rape, control and abuse one another continuously and still be wildly popular and even stay together till the end. It's like a prize or something. In general I just think the viewing audience is a lot more tolerant then the viewers of the WB years. It's just a completely different show climate.

Now this is definitely chalked up to writer error, in my opinion, because they never properly worked through Max and Liz's issues in season 3.

Liz wasn't a priority to the writers in early season 3. I remember reading a post on Fanforum about the writers thinking that Max was the main appeal and so they gave Jason the major storylines and since Jason and Katherine were dating at the time they decided to give her lots of story too. Liz was more or less just a Stepford wife until Ch-Ch-Changes.

i agree.
My main problem with Tess is that she never stopped her plan. Even when Alex died she not only didn't change her mind but used his death for her advantage. Because the truth is that his death helped her a lot, more than anything. It was so convenient for her. She took advantage of the weakness that it created in the group and between Max and Liz.
I can't forget the scene where Max was almost crying because he couldn't save Alex and Tess was there pretending to comfort him and at the same time telling him that he had to save Alex. That was so offensive.

I don't think I will ever truly understand Tess. Perhaps I am not supposed to. She had EVERYTHING she ever wanted. I don't get why she felt the need to betray Max and co. It just doesn't make sense. She had him exactly where she wanted him more or less. He "felt something for her", she had the winning trump card - the baby, and she had friends and a family more or less. What else does she need, was being Queen really that important to her? I guess I'll never understand her. Hell she probably could have gotten Alex to decode the book by simply asking him, it was obviously an important book for the pod squad. sigh.

When he said that Liz was the one for him i don't think that he only meant that she was the only one he felt attracted to and whom he wanted to have sex with.

I guess we disagree more. Perhaps I am just naive but I always was under the impression that all Max ever wanted in his life was just Liz. I never saw him as the guy who looked around and scoped out chicks while Liz wasn't there or something. I always felt that Liz was the only one that Max could really see himself being with which is what I think makes them so special. I often think that in his other life Max/Zan/the Zan dupe were miserable because they didn't have a "Liz" to love. Which may be why he was so harsh and cold and such a totalitarian ruler. Why Ava said that Zan was always looking or waiting for something even though he had Ava to amuse him so to speak. I mean if you take away that Liz was the one for Max - the only one and not just chance or happenstance then I believe you are taking away the very thing that made them them.

what could have tainted the foundation of their love was him sharing with Tess the kind of love that he shared with Liz.

But he did (not as completely - he and Tess never connected the same way emotionally) but he still felt something for her, still loved her in a way, still opened himself up to her that way, still was tender with her, still was more or less a boyfriend to her. In the way he was with Tess in both ITBAITL and BIY. I guess we'll just disagree because that's the very reason why I think it was such a problem.