Bad Dreamer moments, Tess's Appearances

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Sin
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Re: Bad Dreamer moments, Tess's Appearances

Post by Sin »

Sundae wrote:The whole idea of Tess being programmed to "love" / "like" Max or them having an arranged marriage is complete bull (well somewhat bullish) when you take into account what Brody/Larek reveled in "Off the Menu".
I personally don't really care about the pre-programmed argument, the Max and Tess relationship has so many flaws that even if you take away the pre-programming argument it still can't be held up to any kind of loving/healthy relationship. Under any kind of inspection the relationship falls apart like a house of cards. I honestly think that forcing Max to be with Tess may have been the worst thing that the writers could have done to him. Even including what they did to him in the white room, why? because of how deeply unhappy he is when he is with her.

He is completely miserable and unhappy with himself whenever he is around her. That is the only way that Tess and him can be together when he is so miserable and unhappy with his life she's right there. She feeds of off his misery like some kind of parasite. This is the only way that Tess can thrive.

Tess could honestly be attracted to Max and it still wouldn't change the fact that what they had was not love, because Tess was shown incapable of truly loving anything or anyone, I don't even believe that she loved her baby otherwise she would not have risked his life by bringing him to Antar to rule under Kivar, she didn't know what kind of being he was, she didn't know what Kivar could do to her child, she didn't know if her child would be able to live on Antar, she didn't care about what was best for her baby she just cared about what was best for her even when she comes back that's what her main concern is about. She is still lying to Max, still trying to save herself until the end where she realizes that her entire life was meaningless and that she had failed in doing the one thing she was supposed to do (carry an alien child and give him to Kivar) and by the time she realized how fruitless all of her efforts were she had burned all her bridges to the group so she had no other reason to live.

Tess didn't love anything least of all Max so the flaws in their relationship are so numerous and multifaceted that I don't think I even have to really argue about the pre-programmed part of the debate. It was never love. If it was then Tess would never have done any of the things she did, she would never want to hurt Max in all the ways she DID because her love for him would stop her from hurting him. So I honestly don't care if they were preprogrammed or if they weren't. It obviously didn't take if they were programmed. All of the aliens forgot about her. None of them recognized her. She never fit in with them. She was toxic.

They (Max/Tess) were still a toxic pairing due to the fact that Tess herself was toxic and self-defeating even at her best and brightest so it only stands to reason that whenever Max was around her he became a worse version of himself.
They met on Dimara's rock. Zan and Larek were swimming, Zan looked up and saw Tess and said she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
If we take this at face value then all that it means is that Zan thought that Ava was attractive. This doesn't mean that he loved her. To be honest it's absolutely nothing like the reaction Max had to seeing Liz for the first time. Max saw a oneness - recognized something within Liz that said this is who I am supposed to be with. He saw her and just KNEW that he wasn't alone and was drawn to her from the very first glimpse of her. Her saw Ava and thought that she was pretty. Hardly earth shattering news. I don't think that most people think that Emile is a troll. :lol: Next?
Its clear to see that emotions on Antar were the same as they are on Earth.
Even if this was the case doesn't this proves even more so that Zan didn't love Ava if Max still didn't want to be with her at that point even if he "remembered her". Max still didn't want to be with Tess even with his supposed memories of the "love" they shared. I think this just goes back to the dupes of Zan and Ava and how Zan still felt empty because he was waiting for something even though he had Ava. Much like how Max felt empty because he wanted Liz even though he could have Tess. The Tess/Ava option was not appealing to them because they wanted something else, the other half of themselves (Liz). Which just proves that what Zan and Ava had was not love perhaps a strong attraction and a like for each other.
Brody/Larek uses words like beautiful, shy, love, quiet. He's uses imagery that's soft and distinguishes between emotions a person feels...its not clinical or technical as most fics that are placed Antar seem to be.
Well we know countless aliens who were said to be ruthless and inhumane (Nascedo, Rath, Lonnie, Tess, King Zan, etc.) so I don't think it's much of a leap to say that the aliens were not a very loving or sentimental race. What we get are Larek's memories which may have been tampered with, what we know from multiple episodes (Meet The Dupes, the Nascedo arc, the Skins, Control, the person who Tess is, etc.) is that the aliens they usually encounter are not very humane creatures. Again we don't really know who Ava and Zan are but from what is implied aliens in general (even King Zan) are seen as heartless beings. So how deeply could Zan have loved Ava if he was a selfish demanding ruler that only cared about himself if we are taking Langley at his word.
Arguments of Tess only being with Max to be King
I'm confused. Are you saying that Ava was not arranged to be with him? Or are you saying that Tess was not interested in him only because he was King?

To be honest here I don't like the assumption that original Ava was like Tess in the first place. We don't know what the original Ava was like and we only have vague pieces of what the original Zan was like. So trying to assume that Ava = Tess and Zan = Max is a flawed argument because it's conditional on Max and Tess being 100% like they were on Antar. When we don't know. Ava could have been like the Ava dupe or like Tess. We don't know. Althought it's implied that she was duplicitious and evil with her association with Kivar.
I know...I think I'm one of the only few that truly believes that Tess and Max were truly in love on Antar.
I don't know how Ava andZan were on Antar. None of us will never know, but I do think that the show strongly implied that Ava and Zan did not love each other and I think it also implied that Ava was not the most trustworthy person considering how Kivar used her.
(a conflict of a life she remembers that may have been perfect vs a life she has now that is full of abuse).
I think it's a mistake to assume that Tess even knew about her previously life on Antar.
Max doesn't remember his past and for that he's content with his life on earth..and he connected with Liz.
Max loved his life when he was with Liz. To deny that part of the story is to deny the entire canon of Roswell.

I think the dupes are pivotal in understanding the dynamics between Ava and Zan on Antar which means I think Coccy is very right here. Zan and Ava remembered who they were and all that happened on Antar unless I am mistaken yet Zan didn't love Ava in the way that she loved him, there was no triangle, no one who really took Zan's love away from Ava and yet Zan could not love the her in a way that truly satisfied Ava. Which makes me believe that Zan and Ava's relationship was not one borne of earth shattering love. I think this makes sense and this fanon is justified in discussing the Ava/Zan dynamics we of course will never know how the true Zan or the true Ava felt because clones were just that clones not the original people. But I think that they may have felt at least an echo of the feelings from the people they were cloned from especially if they had the memories from their old lives. Yet not even these echos could awaken this supposed destined love? That makes me think that there wasn't much to it.

I mean Ava even says that Zan was looking for something and he was always waiting for something --- because something was missing for him, (I think it was Liz) he was not whole even though he had Ava. This completely dispels the myth that Ava and Zan were really in love, or at least not the kind of love that satisfied Max/Dupe Zan/Original King Zan.

And Larek telling Max that Zan thought Ava was beautiful isn't enough to contradict this in my opinion. Is it possible that Zan loved Ava on Antar perhaps, but I think what the writers gave us in the form of Zan/Ava interaction, Max's actions, Tess' actions and Kivar's plans point to the opposite direction. Why would Kivar choose Tess to betray the group if Ava and Zan were this great love? Like it's been said previous by Coccy it's unlikely.
I was talking about Antar and who Zan and Ava were there and I was basing the information on unbiased information
But if the Dupes remember their past lives and didn't feel the same way doesn't that show us how limited (to say the least) the real Zan and Ava's relationship was? Even if they remembered everything about each other (that they loved and hated) Zan STILL was unable to love Ava fully the way in which Max loved Liz. Moreover Zan was still looking for something to give his existence meaning (Liz). I have a hard time buying that Zan loved Ava when you factor this in. Zan and Ava could have been different people but they would still recognize eachother and would still love the things about each other that made them fall in love in the first place.
the things Tess did to everyone on Earth indicates a higher level of feeling (whether it be hurt/hate/revenge) than what can generate through a mutual arranged marriage set on some distant planet. Something must have happened for her to view Max in a light that produces those types of feelings
I don't think Tess hated the pod squad. I simply believe that Tess was uncapable of love. She was a sociopath. Plain and simple. I don't think she hated Michael or Isabel she was just selfish. She wanted to go home and be worshiped as a Queen. She saw that the only way that could have happened is if she got pregnant, aligned herself with Kivar and sent Michael, Max and Isabel to their executions. I do believe that Tess was enraged that Max didn't love her (not because she loved him, there's no way that Tess could have loved Max) but because she was insulted that Max could love a human (Liz) but not love her. It was a subject of pride. But I don't think she hated Max or the pod squad. She was too detached to label that as hate. I think the only beings she really hated was the humans.
He remembers…and that’s why I say Zan and Ava were in love.
Well I wouldn't even call the dupe relationship "love" either. Zan didn't want her. He wanted something else. Ava may have loved him but Zan did not love her. I think the dupes are the best you are going to get in terms of seeing how the "true" Zan and Ava were and how they interacted with eachother. Zan may have liked Ava but he didn't love her. And that's not because I am comparing Max/Liz with Ava/Zan but because I don't see how someone pining away from something (someone else) and wanting more is seen as love. It may be friendship. May even be like. But certainly not love. It's not strong enough to be love. At least not in the romantic sense.
nitpick23
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Re: Bad Dreamer moments, Tess's Appearances

Post by nitpick23 »

Sin wrote:I think it's a mistake to assume that Tess even knew about her previously life on Antar.
There is a big group of Roswell fans that think that Tess and Ava's pods were switched somehow. It seems that the NYC dupes remembered their pasts while the NM podsters had no idea who or what they were. It was even mentioned in one of the episodes that the NM podsters had too much human added to the brew.
And Larek telling Max that Zan thought Ava was beautiful isn't enough to contradict this in my opinion. Is it possible that Zan loved Ava on Antar perhaps, but I think what the writers gave us in the form of Zan/Ava interaction, Max's actions, Tess' actions and Kivar's plans point to the opposite direction. Why would Kivar choose Tess to betray the group if Ava and Zan were this great love? Like it's been said previous by Coccy it's unlikely.
You keep mentioning that Kivar picked Tess to betray the group but he actually didn't. Kivar was only involved in the whole cloning business after the fact. The whole clone the king and his court was mom's idea. It was Nacedo that chose Tess to be the one to betwray the group. He raised Tess and filled her mind with all of the crap about a great love, her deserving to live like a queen, that Max had to be with her, etc. Nacedo was Kivar's man on the scene and had years to brainwash Tess.

The whole idea of Ava being out there some place was one of the storylines that was never revisited. Ava always seemed to be like the NM group, not the NYC dupes. She seemed to know that Max wasn't preprogrammed to love her or Tess and that his healing Liz was a huge event. She never told Liz much more then that though.
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