Tess Harding

Tess Harding
Roswell character
Emilie de Ravin as Tess Harding
First appearance	"Crazy"
Last appearance	"Four Aliens and a Baby"
Created by	Jason Katims
Portrayed by	Emilie de Ravin
Information
Aliases	Ava (former life on planet Antar)
Species	Alien-human hybrid
Gender	Female
Family	Nacedo/Ed Harding (father figure) Jolene Skarrstin (genetic template)
Children	Zan (son)

Tess Harding is a fictional character created by Jason Katims for the 1999-2002 American science fiction television series Roswell. She was portrayed by actress Emilie de Ravin.

Tess came to Earth with the other alien-human hybrids, Max Evans, Isabel Evans and Michael Guerin, but left her pod after they left theirs. They are clones of dead royalty, known as the Royal Four, from the planet Antar. She was raised by another alien, Nasedo, who had apparently been sent to Earth to protect them. However, he had made a deal with Kivar (the enemy of the Royal Four) 40 years before: return home with Max's son (with Tess' help) and deliver Max, Michael and Isabel to Kivar, who would have killed them. Eventually, Tess is the one who completes part of the deal, as Nasedo dies at the beginning of season two.

When first introduced in the series, Tess appears to be obsessed with Max and fulfilling her destiny by being with him. However, at the end of season two, her true goal and purpose is revealed: to return to Antar pregnant with Max's child.

In her previous life, Tess was known as Ava. She was the queen of Antar, married to Zan (Max's former self). She appears to be the only one of the four hybrids with any memory of their previous lives, although this is not made clear.

Tess is the most powerful of the Royal Four because she has used her powers from the beginning, and with Nasedo's help, she improves her abilities. She tries to teach the other hybrids how to use their own powers.

Her main power is to "mindwarp" people, making them see things that are not real. She can temporarily create illusions by manipulating the actual reality people are seeing. The first time she uses this power is in the episode Tess, Lies and Videotape against Max. She is also capable of achieving a certain level of mind control with it or as Kyle calls it "brainwashing". At a certain point, her powers grew so strong she was able to bring her illusion into reality, when she kills the Skins with fire, and possibly how she blew up the FBI building.