A lot of readers completely misunderstand Tess' character

The amount of people I've seen saying she hasn't gotten any development is mind-boggling. She had some of the most obvious character transitions in the whole story. Her development did come late, which is true. But that makes perfect sense. Teenagers mature as they grow, and that is exactly what she did. It's realistic growth. I didn't think much of her at first, but volume 8 made her one of my favorite characters in the novel. In my opinion, she had some of the best development, behind art, ellie, sylv, and bairon.

The level of maturity, leadership, and guidance she displayed in her and ellie's POVs was honestly outstanding. For some reason, I literally never see people giving her credit for all that. She understood her faults and how losing arthur had changed dicathen's view of her, especially ellie and alice. She decided to atone for her mistakes, took ellie under her wing as a student/younger sister, took initiative when her people needed saving, and got to work. She guided her team on a ONE day mission to save hundreds of elves while she single-handedly took on a retainer. She was performing like a lance in strength, leadership, and professionalism. After screwing up to try and save her parents, she never showed any signs of naivety ever again. That's the growth and maturity that like 80% of this fandom can't see cus they wanna call her ass for dumb shit she did as an emotionally distressed teenager.

Even the way she speaks to Cecilia and lectures her is so insightful and intelligent. She has grown incredibly wise, but people are always stuck on the mistakes she made as a child. You can say she just isn't an interesting character to you, or that you found her annoying early on, but you can't say that she didn't have any development.