a fascinating aspect about tenna that i think about quite often + that i feel doesn't get explored very much is tenna's own relationship to power, or specifically his lack of actual power. he is a character in various roles of power as the boss of his world, whose actual power over others gets subverted or flipped from what might be expected in a couple different ways.
full analysis under the cut! Any image text transcriptions will be in alt text as usual :)
tenna is a character that carries some rather incredible literal power to him, no doubt. likely one of the most physically powerful darkners we see outside of the shadow bosses. he has literal reality bending powers (including being able to split the screen in two), the ability to teleport himself + others, is implied to be able to see into the lightworld more directly, is physically VERY large, and seemingly has lightning powers. he's kind of overpowered if you think about it too hard! but this isn't necessarily where he lacks in power.
Tenna is the "boss" of TV world - he made it, he 'rules' it, but we have never actually see him use these powers against his workers specifically, and even against the lightners he only uses them during moments of extreme duress (doomboard where he is having an active psychological break, and his battle - his very last resort, in which he is still for the most part making you play minigames instead of actively fighting with bullets and whatnot). Rarely does he ever seem to actually use these powers much outside of just making things "fun" unless he is forced to, like we see in chapter 3 when contextualized by Sword Route.
Despite being the boss of this world + the literal manager-type boss in charge of his darkners, he lacks any sort of real bite beyond his passive aggression and his need to micromanage. His employees don't really cower in fear to him - they don't hold much respect for him.
Any authority he may have had gets undermined rather notably when we see his employees perfectly comfortable goofing off on the clock, stealing from his bonus zone Right in front of him, and or beating him up even under threat of being fired / not being paid. AND they're unionized (mostly putting here because this is incredibly funny to me. sorry. tv world being unionized is genuinely unbelievably funny to me). They're not actively scared of him because they know he's not really going to go through with any actual punishment.
i see him get compared to a CEO pretty regularly and sure: yes, technically, he is the one running his studio. But, at least in my opinion, he's much more comparable to a middle manager type, all things considered. he may be the director and the one running his show, but he still answers to the powers that be. He's at the whims of whoever is above him much like any other darkner, but being TV in the living room - the ones who can change the channel, the ones in charge of his ratings, are the ones who truly call all the shots: His lightners most notably. or the censors. or whathaveyou.
He's like a hardass theatre director, and he's a hardass for a reason - if his performers slip up, its lights out for HIM! He doesn't even force his workers to stay even with his possible ability to trap people in gacha balls. he Lets them leave. The only thing he does when his workers start actually leaving is get on his knees and beg for help.
and if you wanna talk about what literal television is emboldened to follow behind as well, things like ads and sponsorships also have a hand in controlling television. As im sure everybody is aware we all know quite well that spamton and tenna had, at the *very* least, a business partnership (if not more). Rather frequently i see depictions of their relationship with a power imbalance in Tenna's favor - he's the big boss, so of course, he must be the one to hold more persuasion in that relationship! but i would like to propose that the power pendulum might actually have been more in Spamton's favor, realistically.
While we don't have a completely solid timeline about their relationship (and likely never really will), based on the way tenna talks about spamton, it can be assumed that he met him during or after spamton's rise to fame. This is something that can be deduced due to much of their relationship seemed to involve Tenna's desire to know Spamton's secret to success - to becoming a Big Shot - more specifically. At the point of their meeting, it was very likely that Tenna was already beginning his downswing and desperation to become relevant to his family again.
He needed someone new, somebody who knew money: an ad guy. A sponsor. And Spamton was a business owner, a car dealer, in the big shiny Cyber City - a person with political power (lobbyist), with a room in the Queen's mansion. Someone with powerful allies. Somebody who could leave at any time if he wanted; he was part of that laptop after all. He was a guy with much to offer, while what Tenna could offer was to... put him on TV. he could only ever offer himself.
Tenna was seeking Spamton's own Wizard of Oz, and Spamton could never ever actually tell Tenna the truth - that everything was always built on a lie, that much of his success was borrowed from elsewhere. It's one of many close-kept secrets that Spamton kept; including his own very nature as a spam email, lest he reveal his hand. Pushing off actually telling Tenna about newer technologies like he'd promised.
Whether he intentionally did it or not, Spamton held this information above Tenna's head long enough that he grew desperate to ensure he would stick around, and drafted up that contract in an attempt to finally catch hold of that secret. This isn't to say the two never cared for one another: i do personally absolutely think they did. And I don't think Spamton would have ever agreed to sign the contract if he didn't genuinely care. He broke his deal, ran out after that phone call somewhere Tenna could never follow (big box tethered to a wall and all), and left his business partner completely in the dark and even seemingly taking Mike along with him.
... and mike. We still don't really know any conclusion on the real Mike, not yet anyways. We know Mike was maybe spamtons friend, maybe tenna's friend. Was he ever even real? Is he made up? Who's mike? Who knows! But what we do know is that a fake (later joined by two more) stepped into his place in the wake of Spamton's absence. and who took up the mantle of whatever role they thought mike took, and even some roles seemingly... outside of old mike's wheelhouse.
i've spoken more in depth about this here before but, regardless of whether Mike did so before, the fake Mikes end up in a position where they are, in effect, taking care of Tenna (see above quote). Regardless of whatever relationship Mike had before, he has become something of a caretaker for him and by his own admission, Mike is acting as a therapist to him. And as such has been subjected to some of Tenna's darkest and most vulnerable thoughts, with Tenna not truly knowing who Mike is under that suit. And is enabling the shock therapy. Can't forget the shock therapy.
At best, this is 3 strangers posing as somebody who is meant to be his friend, and at worst - he's facing caregiver mistreatment / abuse by 3 strangers posing as someone meant to be his therapist. I do think the Mikes genuinely do care for Tenna but the neglect + carelessness still has a massive effect on him regardless.
The reason why I personally don't think Tenna knows the Mike truth is that I don't think he would have any reason to say anything about the spamton contract + deal during the chapter 5 mike room cutscene if he DID know. if he DID know they were posers, I don't think he'd be referring so directly to the event considering the mikes (or at least small mike) don't know who spamton is. tenna is also a character struggling to see reality as is (something he actively says during the mike cutscene as seen above! but is also evident within his behavior during ch3 where he loses grip on reality around him during his breakdown) and as such i personally do not believe he actually knows the mikes are faking.
The fake Mikes, as much as they act as employees for Tenna in their normal role / under their assumption that Mike was also an employee, still hold power over him as characters literally in charge of his therapy - "Mike" is his caregiver. And regardless of whether Tenna knows they are fake or not, the Mikes are continuing to keep up this lie to Tenna; again, holding information over his head to "appease" him or keep him easy to work with.
The chapter 5 mike room scene isn't the first time we see 'mike' threaten to leave either, considering he does it in chapter 3 when everyone else leaves (and well. real mike has already been gone!) - something i am sure the mikes are aware of being a vulnerability for tenna, but is still used as a threat against him. even if its not on purpose, it is a way in which they hold power over him. This is again, a theme I've talked about before here but: he's treated like an obstacle, like a danger to people around him (regardless of whether he is or not!) instead of like a person.
It's also not the last time we see Tenna taken advantage of or otherwise lied to. It's actually a rather consistent pattern for him! We see it with Spamton, we see it with the Mikes, and we also see this with his deal with Kris (and the Knight by extension), even if Kris also did not want to be in this position either. And we see this later in castle town, where he gets put into a situation where spades is taking advantage of his desperation.
One last thing as part of this equation that i find gets missed a lot in some takes regarding Tenna is the reveal during sword route that he is essentially being held at gunpoint (or well… sword point). It re-contextualizes Tenna's choices and behavior within the chapter. most people pick up that theres something amiss with how tenna is acting but may not end up seeing the pay off if they don't end up playing or watching sword route play out when we find out that he has some sort of deal with kris and later we find out more of the exact terms of this deal during the cutscene leading up to his fight.
That it was very likely, with how Tenna within the game speaks, that he was threatened with being unplugged or turned off again (something he is characterized to be afraid of). He's not really extending his boards and games for attention (he actively gets annoyed / more strained at having to keep adding them on). He's stalling for time and waiting for the knight to show up. And waiting. and waiting. If he doesnt distract the gang, if he doesn't keep toriel locked away, he will be Turned off. Unplugged. Thrown away.
He's an immensely physically powerful darkner, possibly one of the most powerful beyond the shadow bosses, and is the head of his darkworld. But he is completely at the whims of what the people around him do; his lightners, his workers, his partners, his friends, his caretakers. his kid, kris. The power dynamics one may expect out of him as this powerful boss are flipped. His lightners don't know he's there, his workers don't respect him and treat him like an obstacle, his friends still leave him despite seeing his vulnerability, he still gets lied to, manipulated, and kept in the dark.
And of course:
He's perhaps most powerless against the fate that lays before him.
As they're sitting down to finalize their contract, Spamton receives a call. Only this time, a new offers been placed on the table. An offer regarding Tenna. An offer he may regret accepting.
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