I'm I the only one disappointed about how wasted Tenn was?
When the character concept art for TFS was released with the character descriptions, Tenn was in my eyes on of the most interesting ones. Y'all remember Telltale said episode 3 was gonna be heavily focused on him, and he was gonna have a flashback explaining his scars? Yes me too. Such a wasted opportunity.
Instead what we get is a dating simulator, starring Violet and Louis. There are some characters that had the potential to be interesting, like Minerva, Tenn and Lilly. But it's like all focus went on Violet, Louis and I suppose AJ. The amount of wasted opportunities also kinda make me think about this season having originally 5 episodes. But cutted down to 4 due to Telltale's "situation".
Sorry if I seem negative in my post. I'm just really disappointed with this final season. So many problems like underdeveloped characters, wasted opportunities and don't even get me started at Lilly and Omar. And honestly I don't know if you can blame it all on the financial trouble Telltale went under....
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Just one of things that remind of the Kenny/Luke/Jane situation in S2, and so many other similar things that writers have goofed up on.
You felt like there was something there for Tenn in EP1 and a tiny bit in EP2.
By EP3 you could easily tell TT dropped whatever they were planning with Tenn. And soon enough he joined Aasim, Ruby, Omar in relevancy. His reason to exist in the plot is ultimately a weirdly written sub-plot with her adopted sister and being AJ's bestie.
I admit I found the Tenn ending enjoyable. Feels nice that AJ didn't have to kill his first friend and that he can continue to bond with him and actually teach him about proper survival. It's an underrated ending.
At least they could've explained his behavior and why he had that scar but in the end he turned to the dumpster with all the old characters that had potential for some great story telling to the trash, nothing new.
Honestly most characters were disappointing besides Louis and Violet. Like Aasim I really thought was gonna be somewhat of a larger side character but instead he became Omar 2.
Tenn I find to be really bad because no one gives a fuck he died. Like you know somethings wrong where everyone thinks the "good" ending is where he gets shot. Literally no one wants Tenn alive over Louis/Violet which fun fact, is what happens when you develop only 2 characters and leave the rest out.
Can’t exactly waste an opportunity when you can’t afford to go for them.
Oh no, you are definitely not.
Tenn is by far one of most bizarrely wasted characters in this series and that's saying something.
Can't say we should be all that surprised though.
He never made an impression on me. None of the minor characters did.
The problem is that he was supposed to be one of, if not THE major one.
The whole cast was irrelevant; let alone Tennessee.
In retrospect Tenn was one of the worst characters in the season... I regret being so nice to him
He had good build-up in EP1 and decent build-up in EP2.
But you could tell they dropped whatever cool idea they initially had about him in EP3.
Tenn literally says "all those drawings I made were stupid and my theories about a walker heaven were stupid and I'm stupid" to AJ in the ending. Basically the developers speaking to us.
Craziest recant of a TWD character I've ever seen.
Yeah, there was a lot of promise for his character but it was apparently thrown out the window in between episodes 2 and 3.
You know a character was poorly handled when the best outcome is if they just fucking die
Nonetheless I still found the Tenn ending endearing for AJ.
I feel AJ deserves a real first friendship and to have that wholesome bond. For Aj to forgive Tenn and either encourage him to be like him or to continue being an artist is touching. I feel it's important for AJ to have someone like Tenn around no matter how weirdly resolved their character arc is.
...
It seems like Tenn went from being a character of strong potential that completely fell by the wayside towards the middle of the season.
It also didn't help that they began dumbing him down in the season finale so they could interject the forced tension on the bridge.
Aasim was doomed the second he was captured in episode 2 .
Now that I've had a fair bit of time to think about it, I think I can cobble-talk a bit on the latest of this recurrent issue.
It's a tad funny because, when the Ericson Quartet as I call them were first shown off at PAX East or whatever the real first reveal was(Found it!) with concept art and then-descriptions of their characters, he was arguably my second least favorite of the five..? At the time, seeing that he was a nervous little black boy who was visually implied to have a 'capable-older-female' looking after him, I couldn't help but think that seemed oddly redundant considering the poster art. At the very least, his somewhat mismatched apparel with the little South Park hat combined with the vibe that he was probably gonna be a mute Woobie-type was "cute" and there was of course also the then-promise that he & his backstory was a major part of the story, so he wasn't all questionable, thus he was okayish with the potential of being nice&interesting and I could at least be somewhat optimistically patient that what they would do with him would fill in the gap.
Uh, YMMV on how middling or otherwise that turned out obviously, but...yeah!
Personally speaking, Tenn was one of my favorite characters from the beginning. A pretty idealist if quiet and shy artist, he was actually one of the more level-headed of the delinquents once he started talking. And just straight up one of the most (for lack of a better word at the moment) sweet things about this season was his status as AJ's BF. (...Which kinda part of what makes the way the game can end rather gnarly, but we'll get to that.) Overall, he was refreshing in a humble way.
Which yes, makes the fact that he's supposedly a main character with the way the game [inevitably?] turned out fairly notably disappointing. The developers themselves showcased and more importantly described Tenn as if he had significant role to play in the story. But as you've said, his highlights in the story are spread among increasingly obvious as protracted(?) checkpoints:
Oh, and of course doing or even saying relatively little else with each following episode. It's a shame because, like Louis and Aasim, he had a distinct and interesting, yet easy to understand and fit in worldview. Combining that with his overall nature and his various relationships with Violet, Marlon, Brody, the twins, and AJ seemingly made him a natural shoe-in for being the heart of this season. But for some reason(s), the game was really stingy with him and didn't really use him much. Case in point, there are at least two memorable scenes where his presence is a nice touch, being the second card game and the Hootenanny, but noticeably skimp on actually having him participate and thus be developed more...aside from the former's, "and now it's time for another segment of Deep Six with Tennessee!" We don't even have a hint of where his trademark scar comes from, much why someone as kind as him is in a Boarding School.
I think it's another part of why Minerva just failed to constitute as a meaningful plot point, nevermind character imlo--the "main" character she's should have the most connection and weight with is barely even around. Quite frankly, this should've been the major emotional torque of the plot: a meek young boy who found a somewhat eerie way to cope with his sisters finds out that one of them is still alive, but then has to face her somewhat accepted role and the interrelated factoid of what happened to Sophie. Instead, we get more pushing of her and Violet, which amounts to being relatively minimal considering the story pacing problems Episode 3 has, he doesn't learn of her presence until literally right at the kickoff of the third act after Louis/Violet takes him aside, and the two don't even see each other until literally another dangerous bridge scene. One that blatantly functioned to try & make her somehow worth a damn as an antagonist and ultimately finish her off alongside either him or Violet/Louis.
Which, yeah, let's actually get to that cap: Take Us Back, the finale of TFS AND the original Telltale Game Series story at last. The cast overall was pretty damn--nay--just straight up squandered in this episode, to say nothing of it's relatively middling outline length. We have pretty much all of the voice actors barring stars Ray Chase, Hedy Burress, and Alex Ferdandez(oh, and Debra Wilson, if I'm not mistaken) present for this one and they get to do oh so very little. Like no joke, Clementeen and AJ were the only characters that got much focus in this, with James as the closest to a (determinate?) third. And the few that do get significant screentime, most of the Ericson Quartet, are...well, moving on. Ominous bridge/crossway in finale, The Night Will Be Over Song, triggerhappy Witch, axe through the boot, walkers suddenly deciding to turn on her, big determinant outcome--Tenn [determinantly] dies!
Move over, Sullene and Brody--the position of Most Wasted TFS Character has been usurped in seconds! As a vindictive -plainer and a burning toad have said, you know you're pushing around shit when a innocent boy being shot in the throat specifically is considered the GOOD ending. Oh my gosh. --What was Tenn trying to accomplish when he saw Minnie getting eat there? Like, this isn't some uppity rhetorical question--I genuinely don't understand what he was supposed to be doing there. Trying to help her? Offering his hand in dying? Being hypnotized [determinantly] again? It doesn't help that the pacing and cinematography in that scene is kinda wonky when you're paying attention to the finer details--hi, Minnie firing off into a herd at frequent intervals and doing a Valkyrie battlecry.
Before we got to the subtext/interpretative impression, let's go into the base developmental aspect of this issue: rewrites. "Oh no, rewrites?!" Yes, rewrites--the writing element that simultaneously & significantly irons out and yet sometimes scatters a story's finalized cohesive intent. What this(and maybe a couple of other things) ultimately comes down to here is the fact that the whole "Ten is Very Important" was indeed a thing--in the original version of the story. Once the current team including Mr. Mudle came on and took over, they shrunk down the scope to emphasize the school and whatever was planned for Tenn in the longterm went out with the roadtrip to Rancho Verde.
Episode One was pretty much half in stone at that point, so they didn't change much to that foundation beyond the school not being destroyed and simply added on the plot we ended up with. The dark secret regarding the twins, Abel & the Delta, and the sisters themselves were their concepts that ended up representing the actual Final Product. Two of which they attached to Tenn, with obvious tuneups being done for their final, ironically complicated renditions. Yet unfortunately, as @Firewallcano and @Deltino once said when this generally thing was noticed after Broken Toys, Tenn no longer had much of a story.
And now, we get to the underlying implication behind how he was actually utilized. Even(or rather accentuated) after seeing both endings for Violet-centric playthroughs, one can't help but get the feeling with this series that at least one influential person on the newer writing staff CLEARLY hated Tennessee as a character/concept, as in poor form as that might be in this tense.
But Cheese and Rice, I know I said TFS's story was a watered version of Season's from the getgo, but it is fairly close to being the Sarah Situation again. I won't pretend to know the exact lines since I haven't seen any of the episode since those first 2-9 days, but here is what you hear if you didn't trust AJ:
..Wow.... Just, way to THROW him under the bus like that. Real gallant. You know, how that description has never been applied to him before now? Not by Marlon, Mitch, or more promptly, how Willy didn't allude to that being a thing before. You're doing a good job, good job.
I can delineate a little bit more before I stop, but for now I'll just declare that his wasted status also applies, yet again, to how minimally fleshed out his actions, reaction, and, well, interactions are. There's a number of details and trains of thought, including the ones listed about, that could've used more exploration given the supposedly boned up format. Yet another character on that list, that potentially very long list.
I'm jumpin the gun on posting this, but since Snit already brought up it, I'll bump now: There was a big wtf regarding Tenn in the earlier version of Take Us Back.