Tess: Evil or Misguided?

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Applebylicious
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Post by Applebylicious »

Everyone needs to chill out immediately or this thread will be closed. Period.

Thanks! Lindsay
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Post by Raychelxluscious »

Aoedele wrote:I would like to quote Tess and be done with this topic, "some people can't see what's right in front of their eyes."
LOL. I could say something, but considering that I previously stated that I was done with this specific detail, and out of respect for the original poster and mods, I'm not. :)

However, I have a question for the rest of y'all. A couple of friends and I were discussing "redeeming" qualities in general, and it got me thinking...

Whether or not you guys thought Tess was evil or just misguided, what did you think of her post-4AAAB? Did her "sacrifice" make you see her in a new light? Was she thus redeemed, or did you just kind of scoff and think "yeah, I wish you had died a long time ago." After all, she *did* kill Alex - and who doesn't love him?

Just curious, cause I was thinking about this instead of focusing on my astronomy class. :roll: Any who! Any thoughts?

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Temptress
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Post by Temptress »

No, I did not think Tess was redeemed in any way shape or form. Yes, she sacrificed herself for her son which in and of itself is a selfless act. But she put herself into that situation. If she hadn’t killed Alex and hadn’t gotten herself pregnant then she wouldn’t have had a son to sacrifice herself for. She knew what she was doing when she slept with Max. She knew what she was doing when she got pregnant. She knew what the outcome would be. Her coming back and trying to right a wrong doesn’t negate all the terrible things she DID do.

Tess was selfish. If you love someone enough you let them go. Just like Liz let Max go in TEOTW. (And keep in mind i didn't agree 100% with Liz's actions here, but I respected that she would let him go in order to do what was right) But Tess couldn’t and wouldn’t do that. Tess wanted so desperately to be apart of a family, she wanted so desperately to be loved that she let that desperation shadow what everyone else wanted. None of her actions spoke of helping someone else in need. Her actions spoke only of what Tess wanted and what Tess needed and ultimately not even the death of an innocent could stop her from getting what she wanted.

All of the Roswell Characters made mistakes. They ALL hurt each other, over and over again. But when you get to the point of murder, none of your mistakes can be redeemed. Whether it was by accident or not Tess knew that Alex’s mind was weak but she proceeded with the mind warp. Her selfish acts cost him his life.

Did I cheer when she killed herself? No. I felt there was a lot that could’ve been done with the character. But I do hold animosity towards the character that hurt so many. I guess we'll never know what was going on i her head when she finally put this plan into action. There were different points in the show when i could almost like Tess but the murder of Alex overshadowed any of those things in my eyes.
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Post by Raychelxluscious »

I think I agree with a lot of what you said, Temptress. By the time Tess killed Alex - intentional or otherwise - she was so flawed that I don't think there was ever a point where she could turn around and change. It's difficult for me to place all the blame on her, simply because I believe she was misguided, but she did make those final choices.

I don't know how I feel about her "sacrifice". I mean, she came went against Khivar to save her son - who was human. Maybe it was the maternal instincts inside of her, but I'd figure if she had no regards to human life she would have fled Antar without Zan.

When she went back to the compound and essentially blew herself to smithereens, was that also an effort to protect the rest of the group as well? That's how I had interpreted it, but it's been a while since I saw that episode. I thought that it was a noble gesture.

...However, she killed Alex. Whether or not she meant it, whether or not she was evil or misguided, she killed one of my favorite characters. And, though, I still found Tess fascinating, I didn't want her around after Alex's death, because I didn't want that reminder. Am I glad she's dead? Eh...That's debateable at this point. I would have been fine with her spending the rest of her life far, far away.

So, I guess, basically I'm undecided as to if Tess has redeemed herself or not. I honestly don't know, I just wanted to hear the rest of your opinions.

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Aoedele
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Post by Aoedele »

I din't realize this thread had a problem. Whatever.

To answer your question Temptress, Tess was pure evil. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. The Valenti's took her in, gave her a nice stable home and what does the biyotch do? Betray their trust. Mindwarp Kyle in helping her dispose the body of his friend. What kind of person does that? An evil unfeeling beast that's who.

I don't believe for a minute she sacrificed herself for her son. She's too selfish. She blew up that building, killing all those soldiers in pretense. Biyotch is out there somewhere roaming the country, causing carnage.
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Post by Applebylicious »

Aoedele wrote:I din't realize this thread had a problem. Whatever.
Instead of going back and quoting each individual problem on this thread, I'm just going to say that there WERE several, and if it continues this thread WILL be closed. End of discussion. Take your arguments to PM if you must, but don't air it out on the board.

Treat everyone's opinions with respect, please.

Thanks!
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Post by maxandliz4ever1357 »

Sorry, Lindsay, you're absolutely right. I won't say anything else about that.

Moving on: Tess was just so complex. If you look at her on the surface, like most people do, she was an evil murdering bitch. But if you look at her on different levels, she's really quite interesting.

A lot of people don't tend to think about the type of upbringing Tess had. Living with Nasedo (...that spelling looks wrong :lol: ) must have been extremely hard on her. I know most of us don't like who she grew to be, but imagine a poor lost, lonely 6 year old in the hands of a monster. I truly don't think that Tess would have been evil had she been raised by say, the Evanses. She showed some goodness at different points in the series, and I can't just write her off as being an evil bitch. It's dull, to tell you the truth. Thinking about nature over nurture is much more interesting than writing her off as an evil villian bent on destroying the aliens.

I agree 100%, however, to what Temptress said about her going too far. She killed someone, and that can never be forgiven. She went too far with her actions, and no amount of explaining or sacrifice can make it up to the people she hurt.

But I think that she had human feelings, and I believe she had a soul.
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Post by FaithfulAngel24 »

I think that the writers were desprately trying to redeem her character ,but were unable to do so. Redemption is a hard road and maybe if we could have seen Tess' struggle a bit more than one eppy maybe we could have seen the pain and brain washing that was inflicted upon her by the man who raised.

I am in no way of rectifying her actions because I am about as big of an Alex fan as they come. She took something away from them. Their friend. She took Alex's life away from him, and for what. To decode some stupid book. However she didn't see it that way. In her POV they were never supposed to befriend humans let alone fall in love with one.

All during the end of season one and through season two she was struggling to find her place. she wanted to know where she belonged. Questioning your existxnce in thie world is scary enough. Imagine finding out that something you had been told your entire life, your role, was not needed. Max already had his soul mate. Then the closet thing she has to a father dies leaving her completely alone.

The group never fully accepted her. Even before all the bad stuff. Kyle and his father were the only ones who treated her kindly. For the evil Tess at the end of Season two I have to blame the writers. They made her do a complete 180. I guess they wanted the enemy to be someone in the center of friends, but was anyone really suprised it was Tess? It was so easy for them just to say.. Opps she was really evil the whole time.

I was like huh? Clearly you can see in the Christmas eppy of season two that she just wanted a family. She wanted to belong. Ahhh so she messes up. I mean bad!! I don;t think she meant to kill him. I really don't. There are times in our lives when we all make mistakes and sometimes the only thing that keeps those mistakes from hurting the people we love is luck, Other times we aren't that fortunate.

Tess loved her son. Regardless of the fact that she herself was never taught to love. So she did the only thing she knew how to. She followed in nacedos footsteps. She protected him with her last breath. She didn't do it for the glory. or to be a hero. A martar she was not. She did it because she knew Max could give him a better life. One ouside the people who wouldn't accept them.

I know what your thinking..[/color]."Well that still doesn't change the fact that..."

I know. it doesn't Tess commited the worst sin of them all,and She paid for it with her life. Can't that be enough?

Please do not get angry with me. It's just what I think and in the large scheme of things it doesn't matter anyhow. :roll:
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Post by Calinia »

maxandliz4ever1357 wrote:Moving on: Tess was just so complex. If you look at her on the surface, like most people do, she was an evil murdering bitch. But if you look at her on different levels, she's really quite interesting.

A lot of people don't tend to think about the type of upbringing Tess had. Living with Nasedo (...that spelling looks wrong :lol: ) must have been extremely hard on her. I know most of us don't like who she grew to be, but imagine a poor lost, lonely 6 year old in the hands of a monster. I truly don't think that Tess would have been evil had she been raised by say, the Evanses. She showed some goodness at different points in the series, and I can't just write her off as being an evil bitch. It's dull, to tell you the truth. Thinking about nature over nurture is much more interesting than writing her off as an evil villian bent on destroying the aliens.
I have to agree with a lot of things you said, especially the bit about Tess being complex. I think she was the most complex character of them all and I hate what the show did to her. Not necessarily because they turned her evil (even though I preferred her nice), but because they made her such a pathetic bad-guy.

She kills Alex, is ready to kill the others, but at the same time she's obviously jealous of Max's love for Liz which implies her having feelings for Max, which doesn't quite make sense if you ask me. And then suddenly she turns into a martyr? Yeah right. Way too many contradictions.

If they had to turn her bad, they should have made her evil through and through. They should have used that last scene in Departure to have her reveal how she'd been working with the skins from the start, how she never cared for any of them, how it was all an act. Then she would have become a character that I would have loved to hate. They way it was, she became flat and one-dimensional, and I stopped caring either way.

Besides, the fact that she killed Alex didn't make much sense from the start. Going back to Antar some day was the general plan for all of them, so there was no need for secrecy regarding the translation of the destiny book. Besides, since when was she strong enough to mindwarp a person for months? Even if she had hidden her tremendous powers from the others, we know exactly how strong Max, Michael and Isabel were and it makes little sense that Tess was so much stronger than them, despite her "advantage" of growing up with someone who knew everything about her powers there was to know and who could train her.

I think the show didn't redeem her not because what she did was too horrible to be redeemed but because she wasn't believable enough to be redeemed.
FaithfulAngel24 wrote:For the evil Tess at the end of Season two I have to blame the writers. They made her do a complete 180. I guess they wanted the enemy to be someone in the center of friends, but was anyone really suprised it was Tess? It was so easy for them just to say.. Opps she was really evil the whole time.

I was like huh?
I agree 100% with this. I always had the feeling that Tess was not meant to be evil from the start, I always had the impression that it was a last-minute decision on the writers' part, which explains the many, many holes in that plot.
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Post by Raychelxluscious »

-hehe- I think I was right with what I had predicted people to say, but I didn't think the reasonings would vary.

For the most part, I knew people weren't going to see Tess with any redeeming quality. Hell, like I said, I have no *real* idea about how I feel about her "martyr death" to quote someone else.

Thanks to everyone who responded, I agree with a lot if not all of what you've said. It's shame that we didn't get even a glimpse of what Tess' life must have been like with Naesado. It would have been awesome to see if she really was a victim of nuture vs nature. Maybe then some people would be reluctant to categorize her as a bitch - mindless, calculating, or otherwise. But then again, maybe not.

It is insanely unforgivable that she killed Alex. I mean, this theory has been posed before - would he have decoded the book if she had simply asked? Of course, I don't doubt for a second that he didn't. Alex was our fun and loveable comic relief. He was the epitome of the average guy that just made us melt, right? So, to see Tess - who was already on the bad side of all the dreamers - murder Alex was like the final straw. There's nothing she could have done to rectify the situation. And that goes for bringin her son back, safe and sound, to Earth. And destroying what little threat she could of the enemy.

I think I'm talking myself into Tess' actions being unredeemable, which is totally fine. Since, the moment Tess killed Alex I had stopped defending her.

*sigh* It's a shame that this was all just a pitiful attempt on the writer's part to tie up loose ends. Maybe if this had been one elaborate scheme - if it were obvious that it was - then maybe I wouldn't have such a hard time disliking her.

Again thanks for the comments guys.

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