Tess: Evil or Misguided?

[Izzy&Alex 4eva]

Evil for sure.

Lots of dead people.
Lies
betrayal
manipulating

did i mention killed lots of people.
Unless we have the good type of murderers around these days

does not matter if she's sorry, if she feels guilt/remorse she should know right from wrong. If you're a good person in the first place you wouldn't do such things.

Burn in Hell bad alien/human hybrid

[Natalie36]

hum... I say evil but also misguided. Nasado filled her in on this great deal that went down. But tess went along with it for her own selfish reasons. She made the decission to do what she did for whatever she needed for herself. Misguided because she just assumed the kid would be perfect and accepted. HaHaHa

[ashleyt]

I'd say misguided. She made a lot of stupid decisions that cost lives but I do believe that had she not sacrificed her life for her son she would have worked towards redemption. She was never truly evil in my opinion. Being raised by Nacedo and never being able to let anyone into your life helped to make her the person she was. Plus even in Roswell amoung her fellow aliens, no one wanted to get to know her (except for the Valenti's later on). This doesn't erase what she did because it comes down to her choosing to kill, lie and deceive but I believe it gves us an understanding into why she did it.

Plus I always thought that at the end of Max in the City (I think that's the episode) Rath, Lonnie and Nicholous did something to her. It was way weird that she was all of a sudden evil after that.

[carter13]

ive gotta say evil. nasado died, and she had a chance to move on and leave the deal alone, or at least tell someone about it. instead she chose to carry on. i supose you could say misguided in the fact that maybe she just wanted to please nasado even tho he's gone. i duno, but in my eyes, she's evil.

sam
-x-

[Sin]

I'd have to say that the only logical answer I could deduce from is evil. Yes I completely understand what the previous posters are saying about nature vs. nurture and how you are shaped by your surroundings.

But I don't believe that those surroundings are the only things that make you who you are. I mean Maria wasn't a component of only a girl with an absent father. There's more to her than just that one aspect of her upbringing.

Ultimately responsibility plays a role in this as well, you chose what person you want to be and what way you want to live your life. Nascedo (sp) is only responsible for the things he did up until his death. So shirking the blame on him for Tess' actions when he was dead for like an entire season makes no sense to me. Especially since we saw Tess make great strides in personality changes during the time of his death onward. Was Nascedo her primary care-giver, yes. But she was clearly much more than what Nascedo told her and to deny just seems unhealthy for discussion purposes.

It's not as if Tess couldn't change we saw that she very much was capable of changing but she chose not to.

I think it's clear from a character analysis that Tess was preoccupied with one thing, and one thing only and I don't even think it was about Max. Max was just a stepping stone as we saw from Departure. She was willing to bring them all to their execution in that episode so really how important was he to her in the thick of things? He was a toy, a prop, a sperm donor for how much she really cared about him.

For Tess it was all about being Queen.

Once that was taken away from her, her life meant nothing. She only wanted to be with Max to fulfill her title. That's why she wanted to go back to Antar and that's why she wanted his baby so she could be Queen once more. Once the baby couldn't restore her title as it was human she used the baby as a shield so Max and company wouldn't simply kill her on sight.

I also don't see how people can see Tess as a martyr. I always felt that it was obvious that Tess was done in 4AAAB. She served her purpose and she didn't have anything that held meaning for her life so she was done with her mission. She failed and she had nothing left. She never wanted to be on earth in the first place it seemed (all about getting to Antar) she burned her bridges if she ever wanted to comeback, there was no place for her. She didn't have a king, she didn't have her title, she failed to give birth to an heir that could give Kivar leverage over his enemies, and everyone that she knew hated her. What did she have to live for? She wanted to die and she figured that she might as well take out a few of the people that tried to kill her while she was at it. I mean think about it what was the likelihood of her escaping with Roswell being as patrolled as it was in 4AAAB? I always felt that once that aspect of the story was revealed the baby being human Tess was finished. Her entire purpose for living was obsolete. She couldn't "try again so to speak" Max would never go for it. So she had to die. Her lost her chance to accomplish her main dream so she killed herself.

I think the biggest contrast to Tess as a character is Michael he grew up in an actually abusive household instead of living in an emotionally stunted one and yet Michael wasn't abusive either and he didn't feel the need to use his powers. Michael may have had an even worst childhood then Tess did who mostly looked spoiled and pampered having a relatively pretty nice life in terms of treatment and of the accumulation of things she had in her home. Was she neglected, brainwashed, perhaps but I don't think she was ever damaged to the point where she couldn't make alternate or even MORAL decisions or choices. Obviously she knew that she was doing things that were wrong, why else would she feel the need to hide Alex? She knew she was doing wrong things. And it's obvious that she was causing distress to Alex, Max and everyone else in the group. I mean look at the scene in Tess, Lies and Videotape where Max is so broken because Tess is mind warping him into cheating on Liz? That's despicable. It's obvious that she was mind-warping him the entire episode.

One of the biggest things about a person being evil is knowing their intentions and Tess' intentions where always self serving and her actions always detrimental and harmful to the group.

I would have to say she was evil, I mean what else would you call all of this?

[RoswellOracle]

Sin, I agree with everything you said. Tess made her own decisions, without thought to anyone else, even the man who was supposedly her soulmate and her own son. If what she told Max was true, and they were in love once upon a time, she sure was a coldhearted bitch trying to hand him to their enemies to be killed just so she could rule. Was she even capable of love?

I do think she was 'brainwashed' in a way. She was given the 'alien' morality by Nasedo, who told her to do anything she wanted to obtain her objectives. She was told that humans were inferior, it was okay to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate and probably kill to achieve her ends. But she had the choice, especially after Nasedo was gone. She could have done it another way. She didn't have to betray her family and try to lead them to their deaths.

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.

[Sin]

I agree. I just can't see Tess as a tragic figure especially if we are talking about real canon Roswell. It just doesn't line up with everything. She had to many choices, to many alternatives to what she could have done to be considered "misguided". At one point she came to a fork in the road and made choices that were evil and it's not as if she lacked self-awareness of her actions. In contrast she seemed to be the only one at times who knew where everyone stood at all times. She had too much control and power over situations for her to really be seen as a victim. Her actions with the entire group just don't support this view of her being misguided. That's why it's really hard for me to buy Tess as a good person in canon Roswell fic's just because she was never really written that way. She always had an ulterior motive she was always looking for a way to get ahead. She wanted what she wanted and damn to hell what anyone else felt about it. Even with Alex's death she never showed that she felt sorry for it, her reaction to Max when he brought Alex up was that it wasn't planned. She was cold.

I mean the mind-warping in itself is like a violation which seems to me like one of rape. Some may find that to be an exaggeration but looking at how Isabel, Max, Alex, and Kyle felt after she mind-warped them I find that to be the only word for it and the way she liberally used it was disgusting.

But yeah no love lost for me with Tess. She wrecked so many things with just her mere presence it seemed. Tess is perhaps the biggest villain of Roswell hindsight.

[RoswellOracle]

In a way, I think Tess is a tragic figure. She had everything, beauty, brains, friends, a family, a place where she was accepted, a home, and possibly even love, but she was so blinded to everything but her goal, that she couldn't even see it. If she hadn't been so damn eager to screw everyone around her, she might have noticed that she had a pretty good life. Not to mention that she was given a second chance to live after she'd been killed on her home planet.

I think the writers could have made a credible case for her to have a turnaround and a be a better person, if they'd given it more attention. But could she be truely redeemed? I'm not sure. It would be hard to forgive her for all of her previous behavior, the mindwarping, the plotting behind the backs of her friends and family, the betrayals, and of course Alex's death. And I agree with you that mindwarping people to force them to do things is pretty damn close to rape in the horrible scale. She took away free will, and in Alex's case she robbed him of weeks of his life and his memories.

Tess did ruin a lot of things, but I can't blame her exclusively. There were others that had their hands in the pot too, Khivar, Nasedo, Nicholas and the Skins, Lonnie, Rath, Max, Future Max, even Liz. A lot of mistakes were made and Tess took advantage of them all.

That being said, I do like Tess as a character. I think she is interesting and has a lot of possiblilty evil or not. It took me a really looooong time to come to that point. lol I absolutely HATED her, and Max, for quite a while after the end of season 2.

[Sin]

I think that's what makes it so bad. That she was more or less welcomed into the pod squad and she was trusted. She was one of them and then she betrayed them for pretty much nothing in the end. If Tess was a better person then pretty much all of the bad things that happened in the end of season 2 wouldn't have had to happen. She pretty much had everything but it wasn't enough for her. Nothing was. So she ended up scorching the entire earth for something so trivial and useless.

I don't think Tess ever could have been redeemed after she killed Alex. By that point she was just to far gone. After she killed Alex I don't think she ever could have made up for that and by that point she was still going to lead Max, Isabel and Michael to their execution. I mean there aren't even words for that.

That being said, I do like Tess as a character.

I don't really like Tess as a character just because I don't understand people like her. She reminds me a lot of Faith from Buffy and I couldn't stand her on principal either. There has to be something there that makes the character understandable, sympathetic or at least some version of worth-while for me and I never got that with Tess. She was a means to an end it seemed. And towards the end of season 3 she was merely a plot device.

I think she is interesting and has a lot of possiblilty evil or not.

I think she could have been salvaged if she had fallen for Kyle but to me it's hard to even imagine how to redeem Tess because then she wouldn't even be the same character anymore. The things that made Tess who she was were all of the terrible things she did, if you take that away - take away her sense of superiority, her disdain for all things human, her betrayal's, her manipulative ways and her horrid actions then you take away the very essence of who Tess is as both a person and as a character and she becomes a completely different person than the character we know as Tess.

For better or for worse she is what she is which is why I can't ever really swallow "nice Tess", it's a complete fabrication. It's a myth. An illusion. So I can't take a lot of stories that jump off from canon which feature this version of Tess because that's not Tess what so ever. It's an original creation that shares it's same name and history - but it's not canon Tess.

lol I absolutely HATED her, and Max, for quite a while after the end of season 2.

I'm resigned for the most part.

I don't so much hate Tess, I am not even mad or angry with her. I expected as much. I am angry with Max.

I am angry with Max because I can't look at ITBAITL and onward and think that Max is just completely faithless. To be honest I am not even angry that Tess was the woman he slept with. I am just angry that he slept with another person at all. It may be unfair and not take Max's side into account but ultimately what Max did completely altered their relationship in a way that couldn't be changed back with just an apology and an explanation, and while Liz did interfere things could of went back to the way they were before more or less because ultimately she didn't really do anything that marred the dreamer relationship. 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.

I think this line really says it all:

Liz: Every single time you mention your son... I am reminded of what you did to me... how you were unfaithful to us--how can you not know that?

As soon as he slept with her it was like the real Max the Max from season 1 and 2 who loved Liz with all of his being died and I don't think there is a way that I'll ever feel different because he slept with Tess. He gave up, he stopped loving her in that moment and there's a baby alive out there that proves it. That's the way I look at it.

I hate it but it exists and it wasn't worth what it took away. I really don't understand how the creators and show runners slept at night when they ruined the main ship of the show. Do I still love Max and Liz? Of course. They are the only ship that I support from Roswell. But I can't deny that I am left with a heavy heart whenever I think about Max's actions with Tess. It just underscored that while Liz was always' Max's, Max isn't/wasn't always Liz's that he belonged to his alien side more than her.

[Coccy]

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.

i often thought about this possibility.
The thing is.. Nacedo never got the chance to say what had really happened so it was easy for her to blame him
On the other hand i also find it believable that Nacedo made the deal because he was crazy and lets face it their "protectors" sucks Langley wasn't better. It didn't seem to me that they chose their "job" with free will.
It's also possible that their real protector was Langley and not Nacedo. I don't remember if Nacedo had to follow Max's direct orders too. It's possible that he was programmed like that too but we didn't notice it because it's a subtle thing to notice.

Apparently Nacedo got killed by the skins or Vanessa and this alone seems weird because the skins were Kivar's allies and Tess said that they weren't her enemies. However 40 years is a lot of time and things can change. We don't know how many group of skins existed. It's also possible that they killed Nacedo because they saw him as a threat for some reason. Just because he made the deal with Kivar and they were his allies it doesn't mean that the skins were Nacedo's allies too. We can find a decent amount of possible reasons that can explain why they killed him, if they really killed him. It's even possible that they didn't know about the deal or that Kivar didn't need the heir anymore (something that Tess wouldn't know). By killing Nacedo they didn't even damage the deal with Kivar because after all Kivar only needed Tess.
It's also possible that Nacedo wasn't killed by the skins and he died on purpose so they would trust Tess. Another weird thing is that Nacedo was impersonating Pierce and he said that he was having sex with Vanessa O_o a skin and a shapeshifter.. oh God that's weird how is possible that he didn't realize that she was a skin?

Really i can't decide if Nacedo was a mysterious or simply crazy/weird character or both. I guess that it makes sense that he didn't make sense because he was portrayed like that since the beginning.

One thing is sure: whatever made the deal and who Nacedo really was he died and Tess is the only one who actively worked for the deal.



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. She's a fictional character like all of them and she's created/written/portrayed into a way that can be hated by many. She's not a real person to "protect" from mean people.

I think that she's incredibly overrated even as the bad guy. To me Pierce was a more interesting enemy and i hated him. Not to mention the enemies from the books. To me she was boring when she was good and she was boring when she was bad. Mainly because the writers didn't make her interesting, they didn't really develop her character. She was more a plot device than a character to me. It seemed that they just didn't care. If the writers themselves didn't care about their own character how *i* could really care about her? They didn't make her sympathetic so she seemed stupid/crazy to me most of the time. I don't *feel* her, i don't understand her. Nothing about her kept me interested, i surely didn't watch the show for her, even in her scenes with Kyle (that i did enjoy) Kyle has all the merits for me.. he makes her likable. She doesn't make me feel like i can create something about her (a fanfiction, an essay, a fanart...) because i feel that there're other bad characters or original characters that are more interesting.
Her being not good isn't the reason of why i don't like her. I liked many very bad characters in the past and i still do. Sometimes you have bad characters that are written so well and have so many layers that i can't help but love them (a recent example is Ben from lost). I don't need to justify their actions or make it seems that they're angels. I understand it when people don't like them. Surely some characters aren't people that i like as people or i would meet for a coffee or a date I like some mean/bad characters as fictional characters that are well written. I don't know if it makes sense.
Even Catherine and Heathcliff (especially him, he's even considered a "byronic hero") from Wuthering Heights aren't good people still many love that novel and like those characters because they think that they're well written, flaws and all.