Tess: Evil or Misguided?

[dreambeliever]

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.

I have to agree with Sin on this one....Max did share some sort of feelings, maybe even love for Tess. Not the same love like his love for Liz, I'm sure, but he cared still. He even says so in 4AAAB ' I can't believe I ever cared about you.' He tells her. So it is safe to assume that he cared for Tess and that it wasn't just sex for him, he had formed an emotional and physical bond with Tess. And if you look back, there arn't very many scenes that show Max as caring for Liz as he was for Tess. I'm not saying there weren't plenty of dreamer moments...there were, but there are alot of scenes where Max is all around being a very attentive friend/boyfriend to Tess...MITC, MTTM,Wipeout and more....even the foot massage (excuse me while I barf) Heck liz was the waitress and we never saw her get a foot massage.... so to say it was just sex for him I think would be wrong. He cared for Tess. He felt something. Which I believe leads up to why some say he ruined the Max/Liz relationship.
Yes Liz slept with Kyle..or so he thought, but that was it. He didn't see a Liz/Kyle relationship forming...didn't he stop to question this? Apparently not. I think Max ruined the Max/Liz relationship when he stopped having faith in Liz. When he kissed Tess and Liz saw this, Max told her to have faith and she did. She set out to find out what was going on. Max didn't...hence the lost of faith in his relationship with Liz. He knew Liz wouldn't do that to him but did he bother to find out...yeah he asked her a few times but it wasn't enough. I believe the dreamer relationship was ruined when he lost faith in Liz.

Why should he have been faithful to that love?

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.

Again I agree here. It isn't that we expected him to remain celibate and single. However I think we expected him to care and have a relationship for someone that he feels for emotionally (and probably not as quickly as he did...yes it was a year, but he supposedly cared for Liz for years) To find out it was Tess...Also I sort of feel that it did sort of downgrade what we thought he felt for Liz. We perceive Max as thinking Sex means something so for him to have sex with Tess means he felt something for her, that he is slowly moving on past Liz. However we have Liz on the other hand who stays true to her love, even if Max doesn't know it, she herself stays true to him for him, whereas he didn't. He moved on, he cared for Tess...enough to have a physical relationship with her.

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 sort of agree here....He did feel that Liz had ruined their first time together.

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.

Totally agree here



And since this is the Tess: Evil or Misguided? thread....

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.

[/quote]

I agree.

Evil....final answer




That's all. I'll crawl back into my hole now.......

[Coccy]

*Sin

again you make it seems that Max knew the truth about Liz but HE DIDN'T
from his POV he was alone in that love he had no hope, nothing to fight for... she didn't want him.

If Max had know the truth then we wouldn't be discussing about this right now.
Because If Max had know the truth nothing of what happened could have happened (unless they made him crazy or something)
The writers wrote Liz like that on purpose. They wanted him to be miserable so he could fall in the trap made by Tess and they could get their evil Tess storyline with alien pregnancy.

i may be wrong but it's obvious to me that you're a tad partial to Liz.

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.

Not in that moment. Not after Liz slept with Kyle.
From his pov he only did what Liz had already done.

I find it a bit hypocritical that sex is valued so much here while she kissed and dated Sean even before Max kissed Tess
She also almost slept with him in the departure and that scene proved that everyone in a bad moment can fall in that kind of "trap".
If we want to talk about being unfaithful to a "love" then Liz was too. You don't need to have sex with someone to be "unfaithful" (but to me none of them were like that. )
at least not for me.

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.

At first I didn't notice the first quote you posted in the other reply
I have to admit it, Honestly I find that quote a bit... terrifying. No offense but if that isn't blaming him and it isn't double standard, unrealistic and unreasonable then for the life of me i don't know what it's. O_O I don't understand.
I hope that i wrongly interpreted it or maybe the person was in the heat of the moment (and i can understand) but It seems to me that for some Max's only purpose was to love Liz and be hers only.
This could explain phrases like "there's nothing special about him anymore" just because he once slept with Tess. Like if he were an object and since Tess "used" him first he's "secondhand" now and he doesn't deserve Liz.
I find it a bit insulting honestly.
Dreamer or not I strongly disagree with posts like that one. Max is a character that i love
He wasn't just a toy placed there to make either Liz or Tess happy. It's ridiculous.
I surely admire his love for her and their relationship contributed and made me love him more but i love him as an individual character too. To me he was special for other reasons too not just because he loved Liz and was her puppy.

I notice a lot of double standard. For example in the third season many called Liz a "doormat" when she wanted to help Max. Yet the same people basically hate Max in the second season because he wasn't her doormat and he didn't kiss her feet when she was hurting him. Basically when the guy makes sacrifices for the girl it's romantic. If the girl did the same for her guy it's unfair.

What I am saying is that Max of season 1 who felt that way about Liz wouldn't have slept with Tess

and that's what even Katims himself said.
The Max that slept with Tess wasn't himself. Because of the alien side? Because of depression? Both things?
To me it makes sense that he couldn't be himself in that moment.

I still don't understand why for you he ruined everything between him and Liz just because he slept with Tess in *that moment*. I still find the logic a bit contradictory.
But i give up.

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.

I know. In fact many ship Liz (in fanfictions) with dupe Zan or other male characters from other shows that are "playboy" the same people that bash Max. I find it contradictory and a bit hypocritical.

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.

all the characters changed because they grew up and matured. Liz changed too. Max changed because of what Liz had done too. You don't see that, for you she's a saint. This is the problem IMO. This makes these discussions kind of pointless. It's like talking two different languages. You turn a blind eye to everything but what Liz did or suffered.
These discussions make it seems that Max was an object or something. His feelings are completely irrelevant.

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.

are you kidding me?
i don't think that TEOTW and what Liz said and pretended to do can be comparable with what Max did in those episodes.
I feel like an alien right now. Because it's not possible that you don't remember what Liz did in TEOTW, what she made him believe and what she said. The Romeo&Juliet speech especially is terrible. She herself cried later because of what she had to say.

sorry but i always have the impression that you're minimizing Max's feelings.

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.

Honestly i think that some roswell fans (and some dreamers) are the most self critical, hypercritical, perfectionist and unreasonable fans of the world. I don't mean it as something offensive because i realize that sometimes i'm like that too or i was in the past. You're right some fans of the other shows love things that are really flawed yet they never criticize the shows/shippers like roswell fans do. I wish that a "balance" could exist because both behaviors are extreme.

anyway, many roswell fans that watched the show on their own don't share our views and i understand why. It's not because they're cynical and don't recognize the "flaws" of the show. They do. It's just that when you watch all the episodes together (and i experienced it by myself too) some things are really a "spit" compared to the rest. Everything is more bearable and it's easy to see the whole picture without obsessing too much on a single detail. It's more easier to see the story like the writers saw it. I also think that the "drama" from the fandom can influence our perception of things a bit and it's better when we see things alone without external influences.

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.

this makes me remember when people blame the dreamers because the writers made Tess evil
come on...
I can agree that the third season was mainly about Isabel but some "gossips" were simply unrealistic for me

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.

that's not what i mean.
maybe i fail to explain my pov
When Max said that Liz was the one for him, that she meant everything to him i believe in him because it's Liz the one that kept him alive when they were torturing him and Liz is the one that saved him when he died.
It was only the memory of her that kept his soul alive. Liz was everything he could see when he was dying, the flashes of his life were only about her. And he literally died for her. I don't think that the writers could find a better way to prove the phrases he said. He did things that other characters never did for the one they love but apparently he doesn't get the credit for it.
It seems to me that for you the most important thing was him sleeping with Tess and i find it partial and unfair for Max as a character not to mention that it's double standard. Like if everything about him is limited to that moment alone and nothing of the things that he did before and after that matter to you. He could even kill himself for her (that IMO it's the most extreme thing you can do when you really love someone) but it doesn't matter to you because him sleeping with Tess is more important. It's a matter of principle. It's more or less an "ad hominem" argument
One physical squalid thing became more important than those things he did that are a way more meaningful and concrete way to prove that he loved her, for me.
This logic leads to hypocrisy too because like i previously said there're many people that don't cheat on their partner (and Max didn't even do that!) but are still unfaithful with their thoughts and don't really love the person they're with.
What i disagree with is the idea that Max was supposed to prove that Liz was the one for him (assuming that he had to prove something) ONLY by not sleeping with Tess (even when he was in a bad moment and believed that Liz hated him. a YEAR after Liz broke up with him)

I know that maybe in my posts i make it seems that sex is not important but it's not what i really mean.
It's not that i devalue it. I simply think that some things are more authentic, sincere, meaningful and important than sex, more important than a physical act that all the people do even the ones that don't love each other.

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.

well he cared about her after all why he shouldn't. He didn't know that she was bad, he thought that she loved him while Liz didn't (for him). I didn't expect him to beat her for no reasons or something like that. LOL It's a bit surreal and unrealistic.
However it was obvious that he was with her more for duty than for anything else. As soon as he saw her true colors he easily forgot about her. I also remember the phrase "if you can't be with the one that you love then love the one you're with". Anyway even Tess admitted that he didn't love her (and she basically did it 3 times: off the menù, departure, four aliens and a baby. Unless i forgot other times too), she even said that everytime Max was with her she got flashes of Liz from him (that is something that we even saw in departure too)

idk when i read these things it seems to me that Max is like an automatic machine that distributed things and since he gave something to Tess too he's mean because Liz had to get it all. Like if Liz wasn't nice with other people apart from Max. Oh right she only kissed Sean she felt nothing for him just because she didn't slept with him. Everything is always about Liz of course.
Above all Max is a gentle person if we really want to talk about it i feel that he said some meaningful things to Isabel and he was more caring with her than with Tess. Even in departure he told Michael that he loved him. Based on your logic i should believe that just because he said that to Michael he loved him in the same way he loved Liz.
I see a lack of substance here like if everything is a matter of some material things and details while the most important things are devalued. Or i simply value things differently.

[Coccy]

And if you look back, there arn't very many scenes that show Max as caring for Liz as he was for Tess. I'm not saying there weren't plenty of dreamer moments...there were, but there are alot of scenes where Max is all around being a very attentive friend/boyfriend to Tess...MITC, MTTM,Wipeout and more....even the foot massage (excuse me while I barf) Heck liz was the waitress and we never saw her get a foot massage....

are you kidding me? (btw Max to the Max? ) what happened to all the times where he hugged Liz, comforted her, kissed her, hold her hand for no reason even when they weren't a couple Even in the first season when they didn't already kiss and weren't boyfriend/girlfriend he was always caring with Liz.
I can't believe that you're really quantifying it but if we want to play Max and Liz have like 3 whole seasons and tons of scenes while he only had few scenes with Tess and most of them are tainted by her manipulations/lies (like when she made him believe that his son was dying)
Believe me I know what i'm talking about because i'm the crazy dreamer that made the banners for dreamer kisses/moments survivor game at the fanforum (i also made a picspam with all their holding hands scenes too) and it was a never ending and exhausting thing to do and i didn't even use all their moments. A friend of mine teased me saying that i should be grateful that roswell lasted only 3 seasons. I don't doubt that he had some moments with Tess too but Dear Lord it would have been easier for me to make a picspam about about them instead

Also Max wasn't Tess boyfriend. He wasn't dating her. Even after the kiss from Heart of mine he wasn't sure that he wanted to be with her and he said it (because Tess herself asked him) he felt awkward with her even after they slept together and she noticed it. To me they always felt forced. Was him caring sometimes? Of course he was from his POV Tess loved him.
When he slept with Tess it felt rushed because they weren't really a couple and they hardly were friends. They basically didn't follow all the steps of creating a relationship they directly went to the last step.
Is it me of we're putting things out of context here? It's not that Max programmed what had happened.

Yes Liz slept with Kyle..or so he thought, but that was it. He didn't see a Liz/Kyle relationship forming...didn't he stop to question this? Apparently not.

yes but he asked Liz and Liz kept telling him that it was the truth. Even if Liz wasn't dating Kyle Max couldn't force her to be with him when she didn't want to be with him and clearly said so.

also, maybe Max didn't have to see a relationship between her and Kyle forming but he saw them in bed together, he saw Liz smiling at him and don't forget that Kyle was her boyfriend in the first season. For months (even before the pilot) he had to see them together when he was hiding his feelings for her. So you can imagine how he perceived her sleeping with Kyle after he had believed that her heart was finally his.
He saw her in bed with Kyle, a human, after she had told him that she wanted to fall in love with a normal boy and she didn't want to die for him like Juliet.

Max also saw Liz having fun with Sean in "disturbing behavior". He also saw her being caring toward him in off the menù in the same scene where she seemed angry with him because Sean got injured by Brody while Max was defending her.


See, If we want to be analytical and notice every detail happened in the series we can do it with the other characters too not just Max.
When people want to find "faults" in the actions made by the characters they find them. Regardless if they're really faults or not. It just depends on what you want to notice and what you don't want to notice.

Following this logic i could make an essay about each character and prove that no one really loved the person they ended up with.
In the same way Tess fans could prove that all the characters were bad not just her.

When he kissed Tess and Liz saw this, Max told her to have faith and she did. She set out to find out what was going on. Max didn't...hence the lost of faith in his relationship with Liz.

It's a totally different thing
when Tess mindwarped/manipulated Max in the first season Liz had faith in him because he told her that Tess was manipulating him. He didn't tell Liz "i kissed Tess i don't want to be with you anymore deal with it!".
Liz pretended to sleep with Kyle and told Max that she didn't want to die for him. It's not the same thing.
Liz wasn't telling Max "have faith in me i didn't sleep with Kyle i still love you". She kept telling him that it was the truth.
What he was supposed to do? He couldn't read in her mind.
He saw it with his own eyes still he didn't believe it at first and he gave her the chance to tell him the truth but she never did she always confirmed that she had slept with Kyle and didn't want to be with Max.
Max could have all the faith of the world but he couldn't deny something that Liz herself didn't deny. Something that Liz didn't want him to understand.

LIZ: Max, look. There's just...there's nothing left to say.
MAX: Except the truth.
LIZ: We have already been through this!
MAX: So far, all I know is what I saw, and what I saw can't be true, because it means everything I felt in my heart for the last year is a lie! Now, you owe me an explanation, and I want it right now!
LIZ: Please quit shouting, Max. You're scaring me.
MAX: That's a lie, too! You're not scared. You're hiding something.
LIZ: I'm not.
MAX: What the hell is going on with you, Liz? We never lied to each other, never kept a secret from each other.
LIZ: You know, you have got me up on this pedestal, Max, and...I'm not this perfect person. I made a mistake. Look, Kyle and I made love. The end. I'm sorry.

#2x6 The Harvest

he also asked her in Max in the city and she still confirmed it.

When i remember those scenes I even believe that he still wanted to be with her and could forgive her for what had happened with Kyle. He was asking her to explain it. He wanted to understand her. The problem is that Liz told him that she didn't want to have a romantic relationship with him. Not only she said that she also told him that he was dangerous for her. This linked to what happened in cry your name and what she told him then created a situation where Max believed that Liz resented him. The idea that she could be in danger for his fault and she wanted to be with a normal guy was his worst fear and insecurity.

He knew Liz wouldn't do that to him but did he bother to find out...yeah he asked her a few times but it wasn't enough.

again what he was supposed to do? I get that he's an alien but i don't remember that he had to power to read in people's mind. Maybe i'm wrong but i don't remember that he had this power.
he could connect to her but only if she let him and she obviously didn't.
apart from what Liz said and what he saw he had not a single clue. No one but Liz knew about FMax and what had really happened and she didn't want him to know.
Later only Maria knew about it. That's all. Fmax didn't leave some clues that Max could find and would give him something to start from and find the truth.
from his POV he was "delusional" he couldn't doubt something that Liz herself and the facts didn't doubt.
he tried to be delusional but at one point he had to get real.

In cry your name Liz herself told him to move on with Tess and that she was ok about him kissing Tess. She didn't even give him the chance to explain. Honestly sometimes Max seemed resigned to me. She just didn't give him the chance and kept sending him mixed signals. You can do very little when you're bombarded with all the evidence he got.

However we have Liz on the other hand who stays true to her love, even if Max doesn't know it, she herself stays true to him for him, whereas he didn't. He moved on, he cared for Tess...enough to have a physical relationship with her.

for the life of me i fail to understand how people can compare the two things
Liz knew the truth, her pov was completely different. No wonder why she was like that!
Put her in the same identical situation like Max was in that moment and lets see if she reacts in the same way or not. Same for the other characters. Since the show never did that we can't know what Liz or other characters would have done in Max's place and we can't assume that they're better than him.

and even Liz tried to move on. Again she dated and kissed Sean before Max kissed Tess.
Max kissed his "past wife" a year after Liz had broken up with him and Tess was all over him telling him fairytale stories about their supposed past life and even helped him to get some memories (real or not we don't know but it makes sense that to a degree they could confuse him like it happened to Isabel in the third season). Tess had to await for the most miserable time of Max's life to get a chance.
On the other hand Liz kissed Sean after a week he made his appearance in roswell. And surely Sean wasn't a past life boyfriend that she was forced to be with because of "destiny". And it's not that Max told her to move on with him.

double standard much.
believe me i love Liz. But i can't stand the double standard
i noticed it with Maria too. It seems that the girls were free to do everything they wanted while the guys get crucified everytime they look at another woman that it's not their gf (although i have to say that compared to Max Michael kinda gets a free pass for Courtney and some of his weird phrases about Isabel.).
I get that most of the female fans tend to identify themselves more with the female characters than the male ones but this creates double standard. I don't see objectivity and realism.

[Sin]

*Sin

again you make it seems that Max knew the truth about Liz but HE DIDN'T

I never said that he did. All of what I said was from said under the impression of his limited view point of season 2.

from his POV he was alone in that love he had no hope, nothing to fight for... she didn't want him.

I don't really agree with this. Yes Liz told him that they could no longer be together romantically but they were very much still friends and still loved each other just in different ways. That love was still there just expressed differently. Hell Liz STILL put herself in danger for him in Harvest, Wipeout and through out the entire season. So it's not as if Liz still didn't prove her loyalty to Max and the pods squad with the whole skin situation.

They wanted him to be miserable so he could fall in the trap made by Tess and they could get their evil Tess storyline with alien pregnancy.

I agree with this. It's the writers fault.

i may be wrong but it's obvious to me that you're a tad partial to Liz.

What is this meant to imply? Ultimately I feel that I am a defensive dreamer who is sticking up for the heart and values of the ship and when those values were destroyed, diminished and devalued I am naturally upset. They changed everything when the writers made Max sleep with Tess and they knew it and they didn't care.

Not in that moment. Not after Liz slept with Kyle.
From his pov he only did what Liz had already done.

Again it's not as if Max had changed his attitude towards sex after he saw Liz with Kyle. Again otherwise he would have slept with pretty much anyone directly after that. He still thought that sex was special after he witnessed Liz and Kyle together. His outlook didn't change before or after he slept with Tess. We could tell directly after it happened that Max regretted sleeping with her because he still felt that having sex meant something more.

I find it a bit hypocritical that sex is valued so much here while she kissed and dated Sean even before Max kissed Tess. She also almost slept with him in the departure and that scene proved that everyone in a bad moment can fall in that kind of "trap".

Sean was meaningless. He was never a threat to Max and the audience knew it. Both Kyle and Sean were inconsequential because they meant basically nothing to Liz. I don't really care that Liz kissed Sean because he never got within any where near her heart. To try to compare Sean or Kyle to Tess is laughable simply because Max opened himself to Tess way more than Liz ever let Sean or Kyle in. The Departure scene pretty much just proved (yet again) how strong Liz is as a person. She didn't want to have sex with Sean and she wasn't weak and didn't give into something that was easy. It was a major contrast to Max in ITBAITL.

If we want to talk about being unfaithful to a "love" then Liz was too. You don't need to have sex with someone to be "unfaithful" (but to me none of them were like that. )at least not for me.

How was Liz unfaithful? LOL. Sean didn't matter in the slightest. He was simply a distraction to the fans so Katims could pair Max with Tess in the last few episodes. That's what he was. A real and true red herring.

I hope that i wrongly interpreted it or maybe the person was in the heat of the moment (and i can understand) but It seems to me that for some Max's only purpose was to love Liz and be hers only.

For me the main thing that made Roswell so special was the relationship of Max and Liz. So yes without Liz, Max becomes ordinary and without Max, Liz becomes boring. Is this to say that Max's only purpose was to love Liz, no? But when the series is built upon the dreamer relationship and when the main thing about the main protagonist on the show is how much he loves this girl beyond measure and you take that away then what are you left with? That's what happened to Max. He became unrecognizable because they took away the very foundation of his character. If this was some cold mechanical alien sci-fi show it probably wouldn't have mattered much but it wasn't. This show was the Max and Liz show and when you change Max and take away the very foundation of who he is (that he has always loved Liz and Liz was special to him because he could only see her) then he isn't Max anymore. He is a pod.

This could explain phrases like "there's nothing special about him anymore" just because he once slept with Tess. Like if he were an object and since Tess "used" him first he's "secondhand" now and he doesn't deserve Liz.

It's not so much about being second hand to me so much as it's just like he is every one else. He's like all the other guys now. What made Liz and Max special was that they weren't the typical Dawson's Creek or Gossip Girl coupling with this action they became another in a long line of statistics which sucked because they were so much better than that.

Monogamy is something that was very important to both dreamers, Max, and Liz.

I surely admire his love for her and their relationship contributed and made me love him more but i love him as an individual character too. To me he was special for other reasons too not just because he loved Liz and was her puppy.

I just don't see how that makes him a different character though. There are plenty of other "heroic" school boys who are similar to him, I mean look at Clark from Smallville, Lucas from One Tree Hill, Dan from Gossip Girl, etc. who pretty much meet all of the things Max was without Liz. a school boy looking to find himself, a good son, good brother, good friend, various pressures, feeling out casted and lonely, etc.

I notice a lot of double standard. For example in the third season many called Liz a "doormat" when she wanted to help Max. Yet the same people basically hate Max in the second season because he wasn't her doormat and he didn't kiss her feet when she was hurting him. Basically when the guy makes sacrifices for the girl it's romantic. If the girl did the same for her guy it's unfair.

I really don't think that's it. The reason people are upset with Liz in season 3 is because she basically had no life outside of Max during that season. She was basically Max, Max, Max, Max the entire season. Say what you will but Max was never written like that. He had other things he dealt with finding out his origins, dealing with Tess, finding his son, etc. Liz basically made Max her life. That's what I think people are saying when they say she was his doormat amongst other things. As to Max's actions in season 2 I think people are upset with all the reasons I proved above along with the fact that Max wasn't there for her when her best friend died and he didn't even try to understand where she was coming from.

I know. In fact many ship Liz (in fanfictions) with dupe Zan or other male characters from other shows that are "playboy" the same people that bash Max. I find it contradictory and a bit hypocritical.

Why? Ultimately I don't believe anything is threatened if Zan and the other male characters who have sex all the time believe that sex is meaningless. It's when it means something that I think threatens things (if the story is written as if Liz is the big love of their life). I think it would have been a lot easier if Max was a playboy and he slept with Tess because then it could be seen as Max is just having sex - it doesn't mean anything. But it wasn't just sex. Max let Tess in to a part of himself that only he shared with Liz and that's where people got angry.

all the characters changed because they grew up and matured. Liz changed too. Max changed because of what Liz had done too. You don't see that, for you she's a saint. This is the problem IMO. This makes these discussions kind of pointless. It's like talking two different languages. You turn a blind eye to everything but what Liz did or suffered.
These discussions make it seems that Max was an object or something. His feelings are completely irrelevant.

I don't agree. I completely understand the pain Max went through, I just doesn't change the way I see things.

sorry but i always have the impression that you're minimizing Max's feelings.

I am not minimizing it but it was just things Max had said before and what they had come to realize. Being with him was dangerous. Does it hurt? Yes. Is it true as well? Yes. I don't see how it was really all that different and all that cruel. Did she have to say it that way? No. But what other way could she have said it to get him to understand that it was dangerous for them to be together?

Like if everything about him is limited to that moment alone and nothing of the things that he did before and after that matter to you. He could even kill himself for her (that IMO it's the most extreme thing you can do when you really love someone) but it doesn't matter to you because him sleeping with Tess is more important.

No, I don't think that's what I am saying. What I am saying is that Max may have loved Liz enough to die for her which is easier to do then to love her even when it's hard for him to. I don't believe I am saying Max doesn't love Liz just that Max loving Liz isn't as special as it once was because he ended up loving Tess in a similar way. This underscrowled everything Liz and Max had together because the main part of who Max was -- was the fact that he loved and only saw Liz. When that changed it made his feelings for Liz less special and the thing that made the dreamer ship special disappeared with this because they became just like other couples. A couple who's feelings were fleeting and in the moment rather than long lasting and true. Which is my main point.

I also remember the phrase "if you can't be with the one that you love then love the one you're with".

I hate this phrase just because I think it's so dumb. It's a substitution and it cheapens the way you truly feel about the person you love and also degrades the person you are settling for.

are you kidding me? (btw Max to the Max? ) what happened to all the times where he hugged Liz, comforted her, kissed her, hold her hand for no reason even when they weren't a couple

Max loved Liz though, naturally he was affectionate with her he wanted to be as close to her as possible. Max basically acted like a boyfriend/spouse to Tess after the had sex and even seemingly before than with Tess at various times. Prom, memory sessions, Larek, etc. I think this point just helped to show the fact that Max was sharing things emotionally and otherwise with Tess. Which showed that his feelings for Liz really weren't all that special which was a huge slap in the face to what was canon at the time.

It's a totally different thing
when Tess mindwarped/manipulated Max in the first season Liz had faith in him because he told her that Tess was manipulating him. He didn't tell Liz "i kissed Tess i don't want to be with you anymore deal with it!".

I actually agree with you which is why I understand why Max was upset with her in Harvest, when he went to New York and other times. I understood that he was hurt and angry and took it out on Liz and it all made perfect logical sense. What I never got though was why Max couldn't have been there for Liz after she told him that Alex was murdered. It is basically the SAME situation as Tess, Lies and Videotape yet Max couldn't back her up and the situation was largely similar. Yet Max couldn't put aside his hurt for one minute and even half-way try and see what Liz was saying and that maybe she could have been right.

Liz knew the truth, her pov was completely different. No wonder why she was like that!
Put her in the same identical situation like Max was in that moment and lets see if she reacts in the same way or not... Since the show never did that we can't know what Liz or other characters would have done in Max's place and we can't assume that they're better than him.

I don't agree here. Liz was in a very similar situation in Departure but she was strong enough to make the right choice and not sleep with Sean and have empty meaningless sex. Even though Max said that he loved Tess, was leaving the planet with her, had a murderer on the loose trying to kill her and with the knowledge that Max impregnated Tess with his child. All this combined with the fact that she was faithful and true and the love of her life was leaving her and had betrayed their love even though she did everything she did to protect him from the fourteen year future. I think that situation was similar to Max's in ITBAITL, yet she was still capable of being strong enough to realize that she didn't want Sean.

double standard much.

I don't think it's a double standard simply because Sean was immaterial, he didn't matter. He meant literally nothing. We never heard from him again after Departure. Liz used him more or less because she couldn't stand with Max being with Tess. But at the end of the day Sean didn't matter to Liz.

I get that most of the female fans tend to identify themselves more with the female characters than the male ones but this creates double standard. I don't see objectivity and realism.

I don't think it's about gender at all. This is about the foundation of Max's and Liz's relationship that was destroyed during the last three episodes of season 2.

[tequathisy]

Yes Liz told him that they could no longer be together romantically but they were very much still friends and still loved each other just in different ways. That love was still there just expressed differently. Hell Liz STILL put herself in danger for him in Harvest, Wipeout and through out the entire season. So it's not as if Liz still didn't prove her loyalty to Max and the pods squad with the whole skin situation.

Ah, I get it now. They were friends , so that meant Max wasn't allowed to sleep with anybody. I see. Thank you for clearing that up.

[Sin]

Yes Liz told him that they could no longer be together romantically but they were very much still friends and still loved each other just in different ways. That love was still there just expressed differently. Hell Liz STILL put herself in danger for him in Harvest, Wipeout and through out the entire season. So it's not as if Liz still didn't prove her loyalty to Max and the pods squad with the whole skin situation.

Ah, I get it now. They were friends , so that meant Max wasn't allowed to sleep with anybody. I see. Thank you for clearing that up.

I don't think my points landed at all.

[dreambeliever]

Liz knew the truth, her pov was completely different. No wonder why she was like that!
Put her in the same identical situation like Max was in that moment and lets see if she reacts in the same way or not... Since the show never did that we can't know what Liz or other characters would have done in Max's place and we can't assume that they're better than him.

I don't agree here. Liz was in a very similar situation in Departure but she was strong enough to make the right choice and not sleep with Sean and have empty meaningless sex. Even though Max said that he loved Tess, was leaving the planet with her, had a murderer on the loose trying to kill her and with the knowledge that Max impregnated Tess with his child. All this combined with the fact that she was faithful and true and the love of her life was leaving her and had betrayed their love even though she did everything she did to protect him from the fourteen year future. I think that situation was similar to Max's in ITBAITL, yet she was still capable of being strong enough to realize that she didn't want Sean.

Oooohh I never really registered this. Sin, you're right. Liz was put in an identical situation....add on the fact that everybody during this episode practically hated her.... and yes Max basically did tell her he loved Tess, had sex with her and got her pregnant.

Personally for me it just feels like Liz stayed truer to the relationship than Max did. Yes we all knew Liz's POV and the truth however Liz was presented with a similar situation to Max at the observatory.

Also I don't believe either one 'cheated' on the other. Neither were together when they each slept with others.

And I am very much a dreamer actually I am pretty much a diehard dreamer.

Just let me say Coccy, I do see your points and to a certain extent I understand and agree with some of them, it's just that I feel more strongly about certain points than others....call it hypocritical...double standard...or whatever....I admit it.

And again since this is the Tess: Evil or Misguided? thread I'll speak a little about this........Evil

[Sin]

And I am very much a dreamer actually I am pretty much a diehard dreamer.

So am I, they are the only reason I watched Roswell. I only ship Liz with Max related characters (Zan, King Zan, Max and Future Max) because that's what's real and what is canon. It's out of character for Liz to love anyone else. The main reason I am upset about what happened in season 2 is because I am a dreamer, perhaps a spoiled one apparently because I refuse to deviate from what they were in season 1 and season two and three are so painful to watch because they were driven into story lines that made them unrecognizable to the audience. Am I happy that they are together? Of course but that doesn't take away the fact that the writers took something precious away from them with ITBAITL. I often find myself reading fics that either explain Max's actions, deal with the fall out or some how explain what happened in that episode as a way of getting over it of some how getting over the trauma of it all and of course there is AU. I just think that Max and Liz and what they are, what they were in their purest forms should have been preserved.

[Sin]

I don't know I know I would have liked to see more of it... or less of it. They had a pretty good show going in S1 through sexual healing then thay threw in a heavy dose of the sci-fi side of thing until the end of S2 then they backed off of it almost completely in S3. They either needed to not introduce it in the first place or keep with it to it's conclusion. S3 should have been about repairing the relationship between Max and Liz and preventing TEOTW now that Tess was out of the picture anyway. Instead we got a gloss over on the Max/Liz repairs and completely abandoned the war that was still left to fight.

I think this was Roswell's major problem. They didn't really know what they wanted to do with the alien theme. I think everything worked pretty much until Destiny. As much as it pain me to say this Tess' appearance didn't really hurt things too much at that point in time. The show was still incredibly healthy and still rather viable. Even the ratings were fine for the most part there was a healthy 2-3 million people watching each week which the WB was more or less happy with. When they introduced the alien stuff heavily it always ended up giving temporary boosts and then when it got to be too much for the viewers people just tuned out. Wipeout is the last episode that actually cleared 3 million viewers in the ratings after that the ratings tumbled consistently until the final episodes of the season which averaged around 2.6 million. It just goes to show that the audience was willing to go with the alien stuff to an extent but that was not ALL they wanted to watch, Roswell didn't really know how to balance.

I never really got why they didn't just go the superman route and just tell the pod squad that their home planet was destroyed and that they wanted their children safe, they still could of had Tess there too saying that she was a family friend and they had grown close or whatever and then Tess could use the excuse that they had to be together because they were both similar, the same and even have memories of them playing as children or what not before they were frozen in the pods for the trip. That to me makes a lot of sense. The whole clones thing was dumb, the royalty thing even stupider, etc.

[Coccy]

It seems that i'm not able to make not long posts even when i summarize the points. Sorry


My impression is that some people hated that storyline, hated that Liz had to lie but they don't want to blame Liz (because after all she believed that she was doing the right thing. Also because they identify with her) so instead of blaming Liz because she chose to not tell him the truth sooner and damaged their relationship people blame Max because he was oblivious and he couldn't read in her mind and "do all the work" in order to have the dreamer relationship back. Because that's what people wanted from Max: a miracle. Very high and unrealistic expectations IMO.
I wonder about what would have happened if we didn't know about FMax and we could only know what Max knew.
Basically Max's fault is that he didn't stop a lie that Liz created and that he didn't know what it was a lie.
To me it's a bit like a fan of Tess who blames Alex because he couldn't realize sooner that Tess was mindwarping him and he wasn't able to stop the mindwarp when she was doing it and "accidentally" killed him. Totally different examples yet the same unreasonable and biased logic IMO.

What is this meant to imply? Ultimately I feel that I am a defensive dreamer who is sticking up for the heart and values of the ship and when those values were destroyed, diminished and devalued I am naturally upset. They changed everything when the writers made Max sleep with Tess and they knew it and they didn't care.

Maybe it's my perception of things but it doesn't seem to me that you're simply sticking up to the heart and values of the ship
Many dreamers (myself included) don't share this kind of opinions so what? we aren't able to see the heart of the relationship?
It seems to me that you are fond of *Liz* and just want to prove that Liz was better than Max.
again, I feel that for some Max's only purpose in the series was to love her (while on the other hand Liz had the right to have a life outside Max and she's called doormat when she doesn't for a while. Max couldn't have a life outside her and when he had one he's called bad. )
Loving her was a part of him but he's a character like the others too and it's not that he's just the guy who loved Liz like you make it seems.
My impression when i read some posts is that you put them against each other and want to prove who loved more between the two because you love Liz as a character more than Max. Maybe because you understood her better. This isn't wrong itself. But i don't think that some discussions can be qualified as "sticking up for the heart and values of the ship"
To do that you should equally analyze both their POVs but i feel that you always talk about her pov and minimize his feelings in order to prove your point.

His outlook didn't change before or after he slept with Tess. We could tell directly after it happened that Max regretted sleeping with her because he still felt that having sex meant something more.

again, what i mean is that Liz slept with Kyle so no matter if Max saved himself for her or not from his pov they could never get their first time together anymore. He did lose something.
the scene from departure confirmed me this feeling (when he said "saved myself for me? you slept with Kyle!")
For me he didn't think that his first time was worth it anymore. This doesn't mean that he could sleep with anyone just for this reason, the fact that he slept with Tess only in the end when it was the worst time of his life speaks volumes to me.
He didn't even use protection . He clearly wasn't himself and you said it too. And If he wasn't really himself in that moment then he wasn't the Max that valued sex so much.

anyway we always assume that Max felt that his first time was important but in the show he never talked about it. He never talked about sex, in the first place. Nothing in the show suggests this idea that he valued sex so much.
We can only say that he valued it very much when he was with Liz and for example he never tried to force her to do something that she wasn't ready to do. He didn't care if they were doing it or not and he seemed just happy to be with her. It seemed to me that he didn't need sex to be close to her.
I see Max as someone who cared more about the things of the "soul", i see him as someone who saw sex as a "plus" but not what could make him and Liz a couple. This doesn't mean that he could do it with anyone.

The Departure scene pretty much just proved (yet again) how strong Liz is as a person. She didn't want to have sex with Sean and she wasn't weak and didn't give into something that was easy. It was a major contrast to Max in ITBAITL.

i guess that we perceive it differently.
To me departure pretty proved that Liz wanted to have sex with Sean for the same reasons Max felt when slept with Tess (more or less). If even Liz who knew the truth and didn't endure what Max had to endure got her temptation ..
The scene showed that everyone in a bad moment can fall in this "trap" and use people as rebounds. Of course Sean didn't manipulate Liz's feelings like Tess did with Max, Liz didn't have an "alien side" to deal with and of course Liz stopped because she had Max's example still livid in her mind and it was stupid for her to do the same thing especially after she saw the consequences that Max had to face. Liz as a person deals with things differently from Max. I can agree that she's stronger. But just because her personality is stronger than his it doesn't mean that she loved him more.


Honestly if Liz had slept with Sean i wouldn't have crucified her for it.
I can dislike some things but i can still understand why they happen.

It's not so much about being second hand to me so much as it's just like he is every one else. He's like all the other guys now.

something that for me it isn't a problem
I related more to him when he was imperfect than when he was perfect (he never was btw). To me he's one of the most human characters ever written and that's what i found fascinating about him.
No one said that in order to love someone and to have a special relationship you have to be perfect.
Liz wasn't perfect too and i like her for this reason.


about Liz shippered with "playboy" characters.
again i fail to understand your logic and why something is justifiable for the others but unforgivable for Max. The pretext that for the others sex means nothing doesn't make sense to me because fallowing your own logic if Liz is "the one" for a guy he simply can't sleep with other women because Liz is everything he can see.
and again Max never said that Liz was the one for him because he wanted to have sex only with her.

I am saying Max doesn't love Liz just that Max loving Liz isn't as special as it once was because he ended up loving Tess in a similar way.

similar? but that's not true. He never shared with her the same bond he shared with Liz. That was the whole point. Tess herself knew it and admitted it. She hated it.
I don't think that Tess loved Max but she hated the fact that no matter what she did, no matter what had happened between them, no matter what Liz had done to him Max was still in love with Liz and not her .. he loved a human and not her.

"Not like i love you"
----

Max: Life matters Tess. My life, your life, his...
Tess: What matters is getting home, but you could never understand that could you? I might have been able to teach you but that stupid bitch had you wrapped around her...
Max: Don't you ever call her that!
Tess: See! Look how fast you run to her defense! Why couldn't you ever feel that about me? I'm your wife, Max! I'm carrying your child!

(departure)
-----------

Tess: ...Max loves you. Every time we were together. Every time we kissed. He was thinking of you. He had these flashes... that I saw... and... they were always of you.

(four aliens and a baby)

It couldn't be more clear.
The main message i see in that storyline is:
- There're different kind of love, you can care about many people for different reasons (like them being your friends, siblings - Isabel and Michael - or someone like Tess who seemed to love you and be there for you when you had no one) but you really love only one and there's nothing you can do in order to change that.

What I am saying is that Max may have loved Liz enough to die for her which is easier to do then to love her even when it's hard for him to.

i don't understand this phrase

A couple who's feelings were fleeting and in the moment rather than long lasting and true. Which is my main point.

except that this basically goes against everything the show proved. Because in the show it was proved that no matter what and who in the end they could still find their way back to each other.
Their mistakes only made them stronger.
Even when Max was angry with Liz and believed the things he believed about her he never stopped to love her and even Tess admitted it.

Max (to Liz): I've been really wrong about a lot. But I was right about one thing: To get you into my life, to be around you, to love you. --

He basically admitted that he wasn't the most perfect person of the world but loving her was the only right thing of his life.

I hate this phrase just because I think it's so dumb. It's a substitution and it cheapens the way you truly feel about the person you love and also degrades the person you are settling for.

i didn't say that i agree with it or i think that it's right.
I just said that it makes sense that sometimes people feel that way.

What I never got though was why Max couldn't have been there for Liz after she told him that Alex was murdered.

because of what Liz said in cry your name. He was in denial. Max didn't want to accept that an alien killed Alex because that would mean that it was HIS fault too. In the same way Liz didn't want to accept that Alex died for suicide because that would mean that she had changed something in his future too and he died for her fault.
Is this reasonable? No. But when they were? They always felt guilty for everything. Max especially always felt responsible of everything and everyone and it's not that when Alex died and he failed to save him someone told him that it wasn't his fault. Even Tess told him that he had to save Alex (gross gross gross scene)
More than anything he needed a friend (and vulture Tess surely wasn't one if she were a friend she wouldn't have taken advantage of the moment. To me what she did was not so different than sleeping with drunk people, i fail to understand why for some she was a victim. ), he needed time and someone who could make him understand. Generally Liz was that person but in that moment she was living her own hell so she couldn't be. Although i will always find it very forced that she didn't tell him the truth even in that moment. It doesn't make sense to me that she didn't think that by knowing the truth Max's pov about her could radically change and he could better understand her then. It's obvious to me that the writers pretended that her lie didn't exist because they knew that if Max had know the truth they couldn't have placed him in the situation they placed him in.

I don't think it's a double standard simply because Sean was immaterial, he didn't matter. He meant literally nothing.

this made me
poor Sean LOL