Sin wrote:
I guess this is where I disagree.
if you don't find it believable that Max could feel still hurt by Liz and that what she did had many repercussions especially in the end it's pointless to discuss this point.
Still, following your logic Liz, in the third season, she didn't have a reason to feel still hurt just because things between them were ok again
I guess I see them as similar thing.
but it isn't. They're two completely different storylines
I mean Max was willing to be tortured for the rest of his days to protect the other aliens (Michael, Tess, Isabel, Nascedo, etc.).
He wasn't willing to be tortured. They captured him. It's not that he told them : here i'm torture me
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
he had no choice, even if he wanted to sacrifice himself it would be pointless because they wanted to analyze him.
They would have killed him anyway.
It's not that Max sacrificed himself in order to save them so he delivered himself to Pierce.
Actually, like i previously said, he got captured because he fell into a trap and he fell in that trap because he was protecting Liz and he didn't care about himself even knowing that the FBI wanted him.
Still, even in that episode it was showed that Max really lost it only when Pierce made him watch that pic of dead Liz. Only in that moment he was willing to do anything so Pierce wouldn't hurt her. He even said it.
Pierce didn't made a photo-manipulation using his friends. He used Liz, he specifically threatened her. Why? the answer is obvious to me.
He was willing to put himself in danger countless times with for the good of the group, he always protected people. I see them as similar things, here.
again protect the others and being a leader is a thing
killing himself for Liz is another.
Above all, when Liz was in danger Max reacted differently. He was irrational and he didn't think that his actions could put Michael and Isabel in danger. See when in ch-changes he told Michael that he would have contacted even the FBI if that meant saving Liz.
This was something Max did all the time for the group
but he never killed himself for the others and again he actually chose Liz over the others' safety, sometimes.
I am not saying Max never did amazing things for Liz. I think the fact that he exposed himself to protect her is a huge thing. I don't feel like that's what I am discussing.
you keep saying "expose himself" when what chant down babylon showed is way more than this.
the episode showed that a person (Max) died and his soul didn't "die" because he didn't want to leave the one he loved (Liz) and for this person he killed himself to save her.
I always saw it as Liz loved him enough to bring him back.
of course for you Liz has all the merits
i always saw it as their love bringing him back
even before that scene his soul already survived for her, this showed that he loved her so much that even after his death loving her gave him the strength to stay here.
LOL. Of course not death is usually a one-shot thing.
for Max it isn't since he died twice
if the writers had really wanted to imply that Max would have done the same for everyone they wouldn't even need to kill him. Just show that he was willing to do that like they did, before that scene, when it was about Liz.
I mean he ends up healing Clayton because his friends are threatened.
he didn't know that he could have died. He only tried to heal him.
when he shared the body with Clayton he made the decision to kill himself. He even asked Liz to do it in one of the moments when he got the control.
when he wanted to contact the FBI in order to help Liz he knew that the FBI could have killed him or torture him without giving him any help. He wasn't so irrational even when he needed to save his son.
When in Max to the Max he chose to follow Liz and protect her Nacedo told him that he was in danger, Max knew that the FBI could have captured him but he didn't care.
when he proposed to her he knew that if he didn't escape from roswell alone like they had previously decided he could have lived only for 12 days but he was willing to do that if it meant being with Liz.
My point still stands. Just because he killed himself for Liz it doesn't mean that he would do it for everyone just because he's the leader. Frankly it's ridiculous. It's an assumption that doesn't find something concrete in the canon. Again no offense but you're minimizing it using a lame pretext and making comparisons between things that aren't comparable by any standard. The example about the white room (and i even suggested you a better example) that you keep using is not only completely different but even that example itself
proved that Liz is different for him because he got captured while he was protecting *her* and it was Pierce threatening *her* that made him so desperate and willing to do anything, even giving answers that he didn't have, to protect her.
Honestly I think that you minimize what Max did mainly because you know that what he did in that moment (CDB) basically goes against the opinion you have about him (because of what happened with Tess). Because killing himself for her should be considered a bit more symbolic of his love for her, more than anything else because nothing can be so extreme.
Since you want to overrate one thing (him sleeping with Tess) you devalue another (him killing himself for Liz)
So you minimize it like you minimize Max's feelings in the second season and the context where his mistake happened.
I would appreciate it more if you simply and honestly said that by that point of the series you didn't care about his love for her anymore and he could have done anything for her even killing himself but nothing could change your mind. The third season doesn't exist. I wouldn't lose my time talking about this point then. It would make more sense since for you he ruined everything in the second season.
You also don't realize that If you use the same logic for Liz too then she basically did nothing special for Max either because Liz was protective and self-sacrificing with her friends too so what? She would kill herself for all them? She would give up about her dreams for them all?
In order to say that Max would have done it for everyone you need something more concrete than the examples when he simply exposed himself for the others or helped them.
You make it seems that i'm giving this merit to the dreamer relationship only when he killed himself or almost did it for everyone but it's not true.
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He both implied that he could do that and he really did that only for Liz. It's canon
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this is how the story is developed. If the writers had wanted to imply what you said they would have done it.
Plus she was the only thing that kept him alive when he died, the only one able to save him. and it's not just because she loved him like you said
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
it's because she was what kept his soul alive, in the first place.
Again the episode didn't show you that Max's soul survived for Michael, Isabel and the others. He did only for Liz. All the flashes were only about her. If the writers wanted to imply that Max could do that for everyone they would have done it by showing memories of them too, for example, and by proving that what kept him alive was Liz
and his family. Instead it was only Liz. Even in the white room it was her. It's not that he didn't care about the others but the episode showed that some people can do anything, even something so extreme, for the love of their life.
He didn't kill himself because Clayton wanted to hurt Michael or Isabel. He did that because the old man wanted to hurt Liz- Why? Because Max survived for her. Clayton knew that by getting rid of her he would've removed what made Max stronger, the reason of why a part of him was still alive. Of course Clayton didn't realize that by threatening Liz he condemned himself because Max tried to kill the body (so both of them) and he ultimately succeed. When the body died Clayton died for good while Max came back. I think that the reason is that Max had something to hold onto, he was loved and he loved her and didn't want to leave her. Clayton didn't have love, he had nothing that could keep him alive so died.
a similar thing happened even in the books by Melinda Metz too.
Even in those at one point Max was essentially dead but their love saved him.
in the books the storyline about Tess is basically reversed minus the sex part
If this is the case he simply could have said that he cared about her. Instead he used the word love which has a much stronger connotation in describing his feelings toward Tess and it's so obvious that his relationship with Tess was much different then his family ones toward Michael and Isabel. Do I believe that Max was in love with Tess? Perhaps not. But I do believe that he did love her in a romantic way. I guess in a way Max proved that you can love two people at the same time.
Liz didn't ask him if he cared about her. She asked him if he loved her. and he honestly answered but at the same time he told her that he loved her, Liz, even if that wasn't what Liz asked. He clearly said NOT LIKE
of course people can interpret it differently according to what they want to believe and what's their opinion about that situation but i think that the interpretation that most of the people do is correct because it's supported&confirmed by other phrases in the same episode, what he later said and by the fact itself that even Tess admitted that he loved Liz and saw her in his mind everytime they were together.
Tess may be crazy but i think that if he had really loved her she wouldn't have betrayed him like that even if that was her plan.
Instead she preferred to see him dead instead of being with him while he was still pining for Liz and would've never loved her like he loved Liz.
I guess this is the distinction, he never directly says how he feels about Tess prior to the reveal that she killed Alex and was about to kill them so we don't know how he feels about her.
so basically for you just because he didn't say it it automatically means that he loved her? It doesn't make sense to me
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
using this logic everyone loved everyone and Liz loved Sean.
The fact itself that he never said it should be a clue that it wasn't how he felt toward her. otherwise he would have said it. It's not that with Liz he had a problem with the "i love you".
also it's not true that he never said how he felt toward Tess. It's not true that we don't know how he felt about her because he not only said it but even Tess herself knew it and admitted it. She knew that he only cared about her but he loved Liz
you said: "Then why use the term love at all? He could of simply just said no."
well he could have just said "yes" too.
He didn't need to tell Liz that he loved *her* since that wasn't what Liz was asking.
It makes sense that after that reveal Max would deny or downgrade his feelings for her now that he knows her true intentions. All that we know is that during this time period Max used the term love to describe how he felt about Tess.
yes but before that moment it's not that he told Tess that he loved her
The "not like i love you" scene with Liz happened before it was revelated that Tess was a betrayer.
what Tess said about him loving Liz and never feeling the same for her was referring to the time before that
what Tess said about him thinking about Liz when he was with her was referring to the time before the "evil tess" revelation
of course after he saw her real colors even his care for her was killed.
But i also think that it could be destroyed so easily because it wasn't a very strong feeling, in the first place.
If the feeling was strong he wouldn't believe so easily that she was a traitor and he wouldn't have tried to kill her...twice. Mainly because i feel that when you really love someone you know him/her. Otherwise what you love? Unless like Max you only care about a person because it seems that person cares about you.
Liz betrayed him too yet for Tess own admission he never stopped to love her. It took Max a year and the worst moment of his life to eventually give up about his relationship with Liz while it took Max some minutes to get rid of Tess and stop to care about her and her safety.
And he didn't have the same relationship with Isabel and Michael as he had with Tess so I don't think that comparison really holds up that well.
i only made that example (his i love you to Michael, Isabel and his mother) in order to say that the phrase can be used for other kinds of love too not only the one he felt for Liz. (at least in English.) Because he cared about other people too. Still he didn't even say
that kind of "i love you" to Tess and i believe that even the care/love he felt for his family was stronger than what he felt for Tess. (not just because he said that but because he showed it)
I also made the example to show that he had no problem saying it to the ones that he really loves.
I believe that Tess was more then just a rebound.
yeah, he always went to her only when things between him and Liz were bad and he ultimately gave a chance to her only because he believed that Liz didn't love him and he was angry with her
it's not a rebound (put sarcasm here) no no
I guess this is where the catch 22 comes in. She couldn't tell him and he couldn't know.
this doesn't change my point.
Lets say that even if he really couldn't know then they had no hopes to be what they were before that because you can't create a relationship with such a lie between them. It goes against their kind of relationship. They're the ones who saw in each other souls and knew each other like no one. How you could have
that back if she was keeping such a huge secret from him?
Otherwise the world would have ended. Future Max was adamant that he not know and Liz didn't want to change the future for the worst.
The future had already changed when FMax vanished and that tragic timeline didn't exist anymore. The plan had already worked. Beside, at one point it seemed that Tess saw Kyle as a possible romantic interest. One way or another Liz succeed because Tess stayed.
Liz didn't need to still lie to Max. Especially when Alex died and it was obvious that the future had changed for the worse.
That storyline is dumb and it's one of the most stupid and forced things ever written on tv.
It also made Liz OOC for me. It's not believable to me that she didn't tell Max the truth even after Alex died.
but it's canon.
also, she did tell him the truth eventually (Ronald Moore also said that Liz told him about Fmax in the summer before busted. Apparently we couldn't even get the real scene
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
the resolution of one of the most important things of the season is only implied. ). So she could do it very well.
She just chose to do it when it was too late.
I don't blame either of them in this case. Max couldn't know and Liz couldn't tell him. But I still don't think that this changed their relationship that much, again they were very close friends event after TEOTW, and it seems that you are implying that their relationship was this hardship when I don't think it was. At least not until Alex's death. Like I said before there are too many scenes showing differently.
what i'm saying is that with all your talk about how their relationship was special before Max slept with Tess i don't understand how you can feel that they were still the same before that when one of the foundations of their relationship (honesty) wasn't there anymore.
The point is that Max damaged something that was already damaged by Liz. Their relationship already wasn't the same anymore and couldn't be without her telling him the truth.
This have nothing to do with Tess. Even If Tess didn't exist you still wouldn't have their relationship back to how they originally were. Unless Liz finally told him the truth and they could make the decision together.
This is true. But my point still remains I feel. They were still close, they were still Max and Liz they simply weren't together romantically.
and they could never be, at least not like they were in the first season where you liked them so much
because Max didn't even know that she actually still loved him and wanted to be with him
him not knowing the truth would taint their relationship forever because he always be insecure about the things that she had told him in TEOTW, he would always believe that deep down she still saw him as someone dangerous and a part of her wanted to be free and fall in love with a normal guy.
I can't see Max as someone who wants to be with her even knowing that she won't be completely happy with him.
He still had hopes for them (up to heart of mine) but he didn't want to force her into a relationship with him so he respected her decision.
Liz told him those things
because she knew that only by making him believe that he would finally give up about her feeling that it was the best for her.
If we are talking about strictly my view on it then I think that their relationship was ruined because Max was ruined. Because Max would never have done it, but the writers forced him into a situation where he did sleep with Tess when under the circumstances on the show he never would have slept with her. That's what it comes down to Max would never have slept with her. The fact that they twisted his character into doing that destroyed Max and it destroyed him so fully that he was never really Max after that. I think that's the best way I could put it. Tess destroyed him and he was never the same after that because they had Max do something he never would have done and it broke who he was as a character and no one could heal that after wards.
you don't realize it but the same can be said about Liz.
TEOTW was forced too. It made her OOC too. when Alex died she was ooc too. I can't see Liz lying to him all the year and even pretending at one point that the lie didn't exist. She didn't even realize that from his POV her phrases were hurting him badly.
that storyline was forced beyond limits. Its only purpose was to break up M&L for a year and give a chance to Tess who eventually was evil and needed to get pregnant from Max. So they could get their alien soap opera.
In fact the writers didn't even feel the need to show us the scene when Liz finally told him the whole truth. It's only implied.
This speaks volumes about its REAL purpose, and it had nothing to do with the end of the world.
again, if their relationship was ruined it happened way before too late too bad.
because, again, without him knowing the truth you could never get their relationship back to its origins.
I am approaching the situation from all sides and I feel all sides kind of end up having the same conclusion.
how they can have the same conclusion if one contradicts the other?
I already explained why
not to mention that your logics are definitely double standard.
I don't have a problem with people having a different opinion if they apply their opinion to all the characters.
but i feel that for you some logics are valid only for Max while other people, in the same situations, are or could be justified.
The character of Max died that night.
I don't think so.
Maybe what was destroyed is the unreasonable and unrealistic logic of the ones who saw Max as the dream guy always perfect who could never do something wrong and they took for granted that he could be always perfect no matter what was done to him. With an opinion like this one it's easy to get disappointed.
Sooner or later it was inevitable that he would have done a mistake because perfection doesn't exist even for Max. People make mistakes and they learn from them.
You said that the ones that don't share your opinion are cynical because new tv-shows sucks so they're used to watch worse things. In a way it's true (and it's a compliment to roswell. Because people criticize it yet they love things that are way worse. Compared to most of the shows, novels, movies and real life roswell is a fairytale!) but i don't think that it's a matter of being cynical. It's more a matter of being realist
and perfection isn't real. You will never find that even in fiction. Unless you have mary-sue characters, that are hated by most of the people anyway and no wonder why lol
I could never relate to a perfect character. This doesn't mean that we have to love the super imperfect ones and bad people are the best of the world
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(like some people make it seems. some people make it seems that just because you're good you're boring. This is wrong too)
Even Liz was far from being perfect. You can change the mistakes and the modalities but the result is always the same: no one is perfect.
That storyline sucks but it isn't such a "tragedy". It's not that the writers made him cheat on Liz while he was with her. That would really be OOC and against their build up
They created a situation where it was way too understandable for me why Max did what he did. Still in the end they were able to eventually find their way back to each other because their love was stronger.
Sometimes i get the impression that you even hate this (that they were able to still love each other)
I mean I think it makes so much sense why Katims completely ignored that part of the story and only chose to write about his son. Because he knew that he couldn't write a scene in which this was believably played - he couldn't really give the audience a reason as to why this happened - which is why he never really explains it. I mean the fact that he had every one go into denial and pretty much refused to talk about Tess at all shows that, doesn't it?
what are you talking about? he explained it and it was already obvious that she was a rebound. What you needed more.
maybe it wasn't clear for you but it's not true that what happened was such a "mystery". I don't think so.
again even Tess herself admitted that he loved Liz and he was pining for Liz while he was with her.
even some of the people who don't like M&L understood that storyline.
Beside it was obvious that Max regretted what had happened with Tess and he was trying his best when she got pregnant.
There were plenty of people that he could have gone to, to talk about things with.
like? an imaginary friend?
i already excluded Michael, Maria, Isabel and Liz (especially Liz)
who remains? Kyle?
and again it's not that he went to Tess on his own accord.
Max's choice was to be alone and deal with his feelings alone like he always did. She was the one who was stalking him
It's not as if he had to spill his guts to Tess. I guess I don't really get this. I mean it's fine if you think he wanted to talk to Tess and believe that he had the right to but just admit that it was Max's choice to do so and that he wanted to talk to Tess. Again no one forced him to do otherwise.
i don't get why for you it was ok for Liz to talk about her problems with Sean and even use him as a rebound and go to him
on her own accord many times (see heart of mine and in departure and when she was investigating about Alex)
WHILE Max couldn't
even REPLY, reply, to Tess when
SHE went to him and offered her (fake) support.
This is hypocritical.
and no you can't justify Liz saying that Sean was "nothing"
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
Unless Liz is crazy.
Because if Sean was really nothing and she really felt absolutely nothing for him, even friendship, then she wouldn't go to him, she wouldn't kiss him. Sean was a temptation like Tess. Look at the scene when Liz and Maria talked about the kiss. (that is a bit similar to the scene when they talked about Billy kissing Maria.)
don't make it seems that Liz is a saint when, according to your own rules, she isn't.
Of course she did. That's who Liz is. Liz often always provided her help to the group. She did EVERYTHING for Max.
and so?
you said it
It's not as if Max couldn't have told her no
he did but she insisted.
he couldn't "rule" her, no?
(he did as much in Control).
and this shows that he cared about her safety and he wasn't willing to put her in danger like you're saying
He knew the situation was dangerous but he didn't care. All he cared about was finding his son
that's not true. and the scenes that i posted prove it.
if he didn't care then he would have accepted her help without telling her that she didn't have to do it.
It's not that he asked for her help
it's not that he didn't show that he felt responsible for her although Liz made it perfectly clear that they were in that
together.
I don't understand why Max could put himself in danger for her and this is considered always romantic while Liz couldn't do the same without people saying that it's not fair.. without people blaming Max for her own decisions
She had her own brain and she was perfectly able to make her choices.
It seems to me that Max was hated in too late too bad because he wanted to "rule" her. Yet you wanted him to do the same in busted and make the decision for both of them.
If Liz wanted to do something she would do it with or without Max's permission and she proved it in the series.
. Liz very easily could have been shot (again)
she was the one holding a gun.
suicide?
trying to find that stupid spaceship and it was out of character (again!) for Max to use Liz in the way he did in Busted.
he didn't use her. She was willing to help him
They're a couple. They always did things together. Nothing new here.
I have numerous problems with the baby storyline above all is that it was more or less just Tess ripping them apart (again) and just showing that Max wasn't really Liz's.
being jealous of a baby isn't something that i can agree with.
"Max wasn't really Liz's" what the heck it means? He's not an object that Liz possessed.
with all the talk about the things that the writers pretended that didn't exist you basically wanted Max to pretend that his son didn't exist.
How it can be reasonable? the baby was in danger and he felt like s*it because he couldn't help him yet everything you care about is Liz. Liz. Liz.
Liz who shared with him a part of the blame because they ended up in that situation for her fault too and she knew it.
He didn't care.
again this doesn't fit with the canon.
it's not true that he didn't care otherwise your wouldn't have the scenes i talked about in my previous post.
again your logic is a bit double standard about this point too
you're the same person that basically minimized Max's feelings in the second season and didn't find it believable that he could be angry with Liz in the end... just because he was friends with Liz and things between them were
nice
in the third season things between M&L were beyond nice, they were a couple again and Liz even wanted to help him yet this didn't mean that she wasn't still hurt and needed to talk about it.
Using your own logic
one could say that Liz didn't care about Max's feeling in the second season.
if you remove "the end of the world" it's the same thing.
I guess I don't see why else you would be monogamous. I mean you have to at least respect the person you are being monogamous to otherwise there is no purpose. I am not talking about just staying together "for the kids" or something like that. I feel there must be some love there between the two otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me.
are we still talking about Max and Liz?
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i've lost you here.
cocogurl wrote:But we could all debate this until we're a bunch of old people, and it still won't change our opinions probably.
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
So, I'm fine with agreeing to disagree. And wasn't this supposed to be about Tess and her evil ways?
you made a point
it's the reason of why i avoided this discussion at the beginning. It's just
pointless and we always repeat the same things over and over and over and over (and i admit that i have this flaw too. Sometimes i should just give up instead i lose my time)
about the third season i feel that it was balanced between the beginning where Liz was the one being there for him when he needed her and the ending where Max was the one being there for her when she needed him. Just saying.
eta: i've read the reply by Rowerdog
for me we can end this discussion and you can all avoid my reply.
ps: sorry for the spelling errors.