Characters / Riverdale - Cheryl Blossom

RIVERDALE CHARACTER INDEX
Main Characters (Archie Andrews • Cheryl Blossom) | Riverdale High | Riverdale Townspeople | Outside Riverdale

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Cheryl Marjorie Blossom

"I'm Cheryl Blossom, a.k.a. Cheryl Bombshell, which means I need no reasons. I simply am. Feel free to tremble."

Played by: Madelaine Petsch

Riverdale's resident Manipulative Bitch whose twin brother Jason is murdered, launching the series's plot.

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A-L

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Downplayed in regards to Archie. Cheryl is a physically beautiful girl but Archie is clearly turned off by her advances towards him mostly because of her rather unpleasant personality. When Cheryl tries to come onto him by kissing him, he pushes her away and tells her that he's not interested because he has a girlfriend.
  • Cheryl was also this for her secret crush Josie McCoy.
• Abusive Parents: Her parents behave horribly towards her, especially her mother.
• Academic Alpha Bitch: Cheryl is the resident Lovable Alpha Bitch but she also gets high grades.
• Academic Athlete: She is the head cheerleader and does well in school too.
• The Ace: Putting aside her bitchiness, Cheryl is smart, beautiful, charismatic, and skilled at many things. She is a decent businesswoman; a talented archer, dancer, and singer; and runs the cheerleaders, Pretty Poisons, and the President of Student Body and LGBTQIA Alliance of Riverdale High School. And despite all the horrible stuff that happens to her, she still manages somehow to maintain high grades.
• Action Survivor: Cheryl is usually capable of handling herself in dangerous situations.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the show, Cheryl is much more angst-ridden and she goes through way more personal and emotional issues than her comic book counterpart. Her twin brother Jason is murdered and Cheryl ends up suffering serious emotional trauma over his death. She also comes from a dysfunctional family with Abusive Parents. Cheryl is also very lonely and somewhat disliked amongst her peers. She's also mentally unstable and is clearly suffering from a mental disorder of some kind. Ultimately, Cheryl goes through such a Trauma Conga Line that she is Driven to Suicide, trying to kill herself to be Together in Death with her beloved twin.
• Adaptational Badass: Comic Cheryl wasn't too much of a fighter: her role was mostly the be the Alpha Bitch tormenting others or Third-Option Love Interest for Archie. Here, she is full of Badass Boasts, with archery skills, willing to get physical too, if the situation calls for it.
  • As of Season 5, she has magic abilities.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: Has green eyes in the comics. Here they're brown, like those of her actress.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Cheryl's always been heterosexual in the comics; here she's gay and dating Toni Topaz.
• The Aloner: She isolates herself for 7 years in Thornhill after graduating because she thinks her family is cursed with unhappiness and doesn't want to spread it to others.
• Alpha Bitch: She's a Rich Bitch and head cheerleader who runs the Riverdale social scene with an iron fist.
• Angsty Surviving Twin: Jason dies while they're on a boating trip together, and she milks this for all its worth. Kevin lampshades that she's playing the role of the bereaved sister to a T. However, upon seeing Archie filling Jason's role, she breaks into tears as the reality of her brother's death (actually murder) finally sinks in.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Mostly to her mother, who mentally abused and gaslighted Cheryl since childhood.
• Anti-Hero: Cheryl constantly zigzags between this and Anti-Villain in the first 2 seasons. She does a lot of morally ambiguous stuff for her own benefit, but she does help Betty, Archie, Veronica, and Jughead when they need her. It's unfortunate that it usually takes a lot to convince her to do the right thing.
• The Antichrist: Conversed by Veronica, in Season 1 at a party: "I know her brother died and everything, but Cheryl Blossom is The Antichrist."
• Armored Closet Gay: It’s gradually revealed in Season Two that she has been this since middle school. After her mother catches her sharing a bed with her best friend and romantic interest Heather, she verbally abuses Cheryl with homophobic attacks. This causes Cheryl to feel ashamed of her sexuality, inducing her to actively repress it. She eventually starts to deny her leanings in very toxic ways such as stalking and threatening Josie and mocking Toni for her bisexuality. However, through Toni’s emotional support and reassurances, Cheryl eventually comes to accept her sexuality and even openly dates her. Madelaine Petsch has recently confirmed that she and showrunner and writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa discussed Cheryl’s sexuality and have decided that Cheryl is a lesbian.
• Attempted Rape: At the So Dale Gala, Nick St. Clair puts a rape drug in Cheryl's drink and tries to violate her in a secret room while she's unconscious. She is saved by Veronica and the Pussycats.
• Attention Whore: Cheryl seems to love being the centre of attention and she'll do anything to achieve it. She definitely shares this trait in common with her comic book counterpart.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: With Betty. They both care for each other but haven't openly admitted it, therefore they can be seen as friends in denial about their friendship. Possibly and inconsciently more after they find out, they are actually cousins. Cheryl even started to call Betty "cousin".
• Badass Bookworm: Cheryl likes to read and now that she has magic abilities she studies various magic tomes.
• Badass Boast: Cheryl becomes fed up with her mother's bullshit and gives one to Penelope while she's hospitalized, severely burnt.
  Cheryl: If you breathe, it is because I gave you air. If you drink, it is because I poured your cup myself. And if you move, it is quietly and with my blessing.
  • See also the image quote.
• Beauty Is Bad: Downplayed. Cheryl comes from an evil The Beautiful Elite family, but instead of actually being bad, she is a rather unstable Broken Bird whose malicious acts are a result of the abuse and trauma she endured.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: No matter how many dangerous situations Cheryl is put through, her makeup and hair are always on point.
• The Beautiful Elite: Cheryl is gorgeous, privileged, rich, upper class, and the closest thing Riverdale has to Blue Blood.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • She sincerely thanks Archie and grants him "one wish" when he comes forward about hearing a gunshot on July Fourth, confirming that Cheryl was telling the truth about that part and getting people to stop hounding her. This also factors into her attraction to Archie later on, since he's one of the few people to show her real kindness without any ulterior motives. Unfortunately for her, it gets torpedoed due to Archie wising up to her parents' blatant manipulation attempts.
  • She also invites Veronica to her house for a sleepover and not her school cronies because she was the only one who came to comfort her after Cheryl's breakdown at the pep rally.
  • A variant appears in the season 1 finale that implies she considered Veronica to be the only person who was ever, truly, nice to her, as she's the only one she says (texts, rather) goodbye to before attempting suicide.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Cheryl was very hostile toward Toni the first time they met, since the latter is from the South Side of Riverdale. They insult each other, until 2x14, when Cheryl is feeling very down and Toni is consoling her. They become an Official Couple in high school, but as adults, they take separate paths.
• Berserk Button:
  • Her brother is a sensitive subject for her even years later after his death.
  • Patronizing her or telling her what to do.
• Big Entrance: Cheryl, the local Drama Queen, knows how to make a show even just by entering and walking into a location. A good example is in episode 3x01, when she returns from her summer trip; she enters Pop's diner with a booming song and a Supermodel Strut.
• Big Fancy House:
  • Thornhill, the Blossoms' mansion where Cheryl used to live before she burned down. It is so big it has its own cemetery.
  • Thistlehouse, Cheryl's new home.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Cheryl can put on a sweet, nice, and friendly façade, but underneath that façade is someone who's a major Alpha Bitch and can be extremely bitchy and catty. After some solid Character Development, she casts away this side of her, though she still retains her deceitful edge.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Cheryl is the Redhead, Betty is the Blonde and Veronica is the Brunette and they are the main female trio on the show.
• Brainless Beauty: Subverted. Cheryl is a very pretty girl but she comes off as flighty and The Ditz who has her head in the clouds. In actuality, Cheryl is actually a lot more sharp, manipulative, and cunning than she appears to be. And her scholastic situation is excellent.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Subverted. Her "brattiness" is a result of the horrific abuse she endured at the hands of her parents.
• Break the Cutie: It's evident that years of abuse and lack of parental love, the dysfunction that exists in her family, and the unexpected death of her twin brother Jason on whom she was codependent caused Cheryl's mental well-being to tailspin and spiral out of control. She tries to put on a facade and make it appear as if she is okay, but underneath it all she is a very emotionally damaged person.
• Break the Haughty: Oh and how. At first introduced as arrogant and downright cruel, sometimes even villainous, but goes through such a Trauma Conga Line that she finds friends in the people she once demeaned, particularly Toni, Betty, and Jughead.
• Bright Is Not Good: Subverted. She usually wears red and sometimes white outfits, and just happens to be an unhinged Alpha Bitch. But she does have some redeeming qualities.
• Broken Ace: As good as she is at anything she does, the constant traumatic events of her life, did take a toll on Cheryl from time to time. It got bad enough to affect the "normal" side of her otherwise messy life, like school and her interpersonal relationships.
• Broken Bird: Cheryl is clearly an emotional mess, but this is understandable considering the type of family that she comes from. Both of her parents are abusive and cold and don't provide Cheryl with much love and support. Her twin brother Jason (who she was extremely close to), ends up murdered by her own father. After his death, she completely loses it and never fully recovers emotionally. Add the fact that she doesn't really have any friends or supporters, and it's understandable why Cheryl is so messed up, ultimately trying to drown herself in Sweetwater River in the last episode of episode 1.
• Broken Pedestal: Clearly loved Jason and thought much of him. When Veronica looks into rumors of the football team "keeping score" of their sexual conquests in a book, Cheryl refuses to believe it as she's positive Jason would have told her about it. Later, she discovers that not only does the book exist but Jason's name is all over it with several conquests, making Cheryl realize that her brother wasn't the saintly guy she thought he was.
• Bungled Suicide: If it weren't for Archie, Cheryl's corpse would be now somewhere in the depths of Sweetwater River.
• Byronic Hero: Hugely. Her arc is mainly the story of her rebelling against her aristocratic family most of whom are some combination of evil, criminal, and cruel. Yet she's not so much interested in redeeming their sins as being her own person, and she can be vicious as well.
• Catchphrase: "Toodles!"
• Character Blog: Has a Twitter account by the name of "@CherylBombshell".
• Cherry Blossom Girl: But of course—and not just the Punny Name, red hair, or the mainly red outfits. She's also got the connection to death with her brother Jason's murder and her attempted suicide at the end of season one, and coming from an Old Money WASP family that serves as the rough American equivalent to the aristocracy. The only reason they haven't shown actual cherry blossoms in reference to her yet is likely because season one takes place in the fall and winter. Given that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is also a comic book writer, and is probably familiar with this trope from anime and manga, this is likely deliberate. In the season 2 trailer, Cheryl is seen eating a cherry pie. Other important aspects concerning this trope are Cheryl's on-and-off romance with Toni Topaz, her gaining pyrokinesis powers in season 6, and being associated with the cycle of death and rebirth.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Part of the reason why Cheryl disliked Polly was her jealousy of her relationship with Jason. Considering how close Cheryl and Jason were, it's not surprising why Cheryl would think Polly was "stealing" her brother away. In Season 3, she becomes jealous of Toni's attention for the Pretty Poisons and thinks Toni prefers to hang out with them rather than her.
• Color Motifs: Red. If she's not wearing some variation of red, rest assured she has bright red lipstick on.
• Composite Character: While her own comic iteration was a manipulative schemer and an entitled Rich Bitch, Cheryl has more of a comic "Veronica Lodge" personality in Riverdale, albeit with an Ice Queen attitude. She is now the resident egotistical, hot-blooded, manipulative Drama Queen, with unmatchable sardonic remarks and at least 4 mood swings in the same sentence. Even her Frenemy dynamic with Betty and the red motifs are borrowed from comic Veronica.
• Consummate Liar: While Cheryl doesn't lie constantly, when she does it, she can be very convincing. She told everyone, including Betty and Archie that it may have been a candle knocked over some curtains by the breeze that burned down Thornhill, when in reality she burned the mansion herself to teach her abusive mom a lesson.
• Coordinated Clothes: In flashbacks, both Jason and Cheryl were seen wearing the same colored clothing when they were together, showing that they were extremely close.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Or in Cheryl's case, corrupt the Cute and Psycho; in Season 3, she joins the Farms after Edgar and Evelyn Evernever started to pray on her vulnerabilities.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: You'd be forgiven for thinking Cheryl would perform rather poorly in a life-or-death showdown with an axe-wielding madman. You'd also be dead wrong; with her bow in hand, she single-handedly sent the town's resident Serial Killer fleeing for his life into the woods and immediately went on the hunt.
  Cheryl: I suggest you run whilst you still can. I only miss when I mean to.
• Cruel Cheerleader: She's the head cheerleader of the Riverdale Vixens and a nasty character, though not without her good points.
• Cultured Badass: She is wealthy, sophisticated, and a capable skilled archer.
• Cure Your Gays: After coming to terms with being a lesbian and developing a close bond with Toni Topaz, Cheryl Blossom gets sent against her will to a conversion hospital by her homophobic mother Penelope in a selfish attempt to cure her daughter of her "demons". Luckily, Cheryl is rescued by Toni and Veronica in the nick of time.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Cheryl has reddish hazel eyes matching her red hair.
• Custom Uniform: She has two, her midriff-baring cheerleading uniform, and, in the season two finale, she receives a Southside Serpents jacket in her iconic bright red instead of the normal black.
• Cute and Psycho: Cheryl is cute and all but she has an unstable side to her. She obviously needs loads of therapy. But considering all of the horrible stuff that's happened to her family and the fact that she grew up in such dysfunction, it's not surprising that mentally, Cheryl is a little off the rails.
• Dark Magical Girl: Downplayed because Cheryl is not using her magic abilities for combat, but she is dark, troubled, and morally ambiguous on her best days. She is even used by her own ancestor, Abigail Blossom, who inhabited her body for a while, to take revenge on the descendants of those who wronged her in the past, even if said descendants are decent people.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Or in this case, "mommy". In season 2, when Cheryl starts to date Toni secretly, her homophobic mother eventually finds out and sends her off to an institution to "cure" her.
• Deadpan Snarker: Cheryl is just as sassy as she is quotable.
  Cheryl: I'm going now. My claustrophobia acts up in small houses.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Very, very slowly, she's gradually turning into a friend to Archie and the rest: she's become civil with Betty and she joins Veronica and Kevin at the drive-in.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Cheryl clearly is starved for love and attention. It makes sense considering that her mother never gives her any kind of maternal love and her father is arrogant and emotionally distant. Plus, she's a Lonely Rich Kid who doesn't have any friends and seems to be desperate to make connections with others so that she doesn't feel left out. The only person that Cheryl felt unconditionally loved her was her twin brother Jason, and that's why she completely fell apart mentally and emotionally after Jason was killed.
• Drama Queen: Cheryl has a tendency to do everything as dramatically as possible. Including suicide attempts.
• Dude Magnet: Cheryl may be a lesbian, but she never lacks male attention. This, unfortunately, once led to an Attempted Rape attempt on her person.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Is her stereotypical abrasive self about the girls in the school going through Slut-Shaming but instantly changes her tune and sides with them when shown actual evidence that it is happening, even offering a sincere apology to Betty (because her brother had done it to Polly).
  • When she learns of Polly's pregnancy with Jason's baby, she does everything in her power to help.
  • She's disgusted to learn that her mother has become a sex worker to pay for their home and their lifestyles. Cheryl becomes even more mortified when she learns that Penelope actually loves doing it and has no desire to quit despite Cheryl finally getting them out of their bad financial situation.
  • She doesn't take it too well when she learns that her ancestor, General Pickens (celebrated as the hero who founded the town of Riverdale), was in fact a murderer who stole the land from the Utkena people. She genuinely cries in disgust. The very next day, when the Southside Serpents unexpectedly protest the celebration of Pickens Day, she joins their cause.
• Evil Is Petty: She attempts to ruin Betty and Veronica's blooming friendship in 1.01 after Veronica calls her out in cheerleader tryouts. She's also bitchy toward Betty because she believes her sister shot Jason.
• Evil Redhead: She's a redhead and she's not nice. Subverted as the series goes on and we see her more vulnerable and sympathetic side—and we learn that, while Cheryl's capable of being mean, her maliciousness is nothing compared to that of her parents.
• Evil Twin: Downplayed. Cheryl is not evil, but going by the flashbacks of her twin brother Jason, who appeared to be a genuinely moral Nice Guy, Cheryl is definitely the morally ambiguous twin between the two. Plus, Cheryl has become more and more unhinged and crazy since Jason died.
• Fatal Flaw: Her Undying Loyalty to the Blossom family, despite everything they’ve done to her. Every time she tries to pull out, someone or something related to the family pulls her back.
  • Her bitchy attitude can land her in hot water. Due to her ancestor Abigail having a similar personality, nobody notices that she’s being possessed until Jughead reads Britta’s mind.
• The Fashionista: Cheryl loves fashion and always wears expensive clothing. She evolves in Action Fashionista over time.
• Femme Fatale: Cheryl is both beautiful and vain, and has no problems using her sex appeal to get what she wants.
• Fiery Cover-Up: While there is no actual crime to hide, Cheryl destroys Blossom Mansion in an attempt to Let the Past Burn. She lies to everyone that a fallen candle ignited the curtains and that Penelope got burnt because she tried to save her when, in reality, she ran back into the house to save a "hideous family portrait". Cheryl threatens her own mother that if she ever tells the truth, she will show everyone how her husband died.
• Fiery Redhead: Subverted. Her type of mean is cold and calculating, but she there is the Cute and Psycho side of her which can be very intense to deal with.
• Fiery Sensuality: Cheryl lives and breathes this trope in season 6 once she gains fire themes powers. She is a Femme Fatale and one of the biggest sources of fanservice in Riverdale.
• Fiery Stoic: It wasn't only the Core Four that developed superhuman abilities, but Cheryl as well. Besides her vague magical abilities, she now has pyrokinesis.
• Fille Fatale: Until season 5, Cheryl was an underage Shameless Fanservice Girl.
• Frenemy: For someone who treats the Archie crew like dirt, she does tend to spend a lot of time with them.
• Freudian Excuse: With a mother like that, it's no wonder she's so bitchy.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Cheryl being Cheryl Blossom pretty much has this status in town. Her supposed best friends Ginger and Tina don't really care for her as a person, and only hang with her to heighten their own social standing. Though the main group (Archie, Veronica, Betty,Jughead, and Kevin ) can be sympathetic and tolerant towards her, it's not without usual visible signs of exasperation as she frequently talks down to them. Even her relationship with future Love Interest Toni starts bad at first, before they finally become friends and more. Josie was probably an exception.
• Generation Xerox: Much like her ancestor, Abigail, Cheryl herself had a brother who was murdered and was discriminated against and abused for being queer. She has magical powers and fell in love with Antoinette Topaz, a descendent of Thomasina Topaz, who was Abigail's love interest.
• Girly Bruiser: Feminine, fancy clothing, and ass-kicking. While she doesn't do a lot of physical fights, she's an excellent archer and puts even feared serial killer the Black Hood on the run.
• Girly Girl: Cheryl loves to be as feminine as possible; she wears make-up, jewelry, accessories, shorts, high heels, and very stylish clothing in general, much like Veronica Lodge.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Cheryl loves to be as feminine as possible; she wears make-up, jewelry, accessories, shorts, and high heels and is very stylish clothing in general, much like Veronica Lodge. But unlike Veronica, Cheryl displays less feminine occupations, like archery and her Nightmare Fetishist tendencies.
• Good Is Not Nice: Bitchy, Ax-Crazy, manipulative, standoffish and entitled as she may be, Cheryl will do the right thing and is capable of feeling empathy for others.
• Goth: Not so much in terms of clothing, but she is ice cold, macabre and has a kink for dark stuff. In Season 4, her idea of celebrating a traditional Thanksgiving day is to invite her annoying relatives to honor her "gothic, ghoulish roots."
• Goth Girls Know Magic: As of the Season 5 time skip, Cheryl discovers she has magical powers. Of course, she is as dramatic about it as anything else in her life.
• Grand Theft Me: For some reasons, Nana Rose thought it was a good idea to use her own granddaughter for Abigail to inhabit her body.
• Hair Flip: Cheryl often flips her long, curly, and luscious red hair in front of others, usually as a sign of superiority. Netflix released in January 2021, a video consisting of Cheryl flipping her "signature red mane" and officially named her "The Queen of Hair Flips"

• Heel–Face Revolving Door: She alternates in nearly every episode from being a tenuous friend to the main characters (mainly Betty and Veronica) to an antagonistic rival. And then back again.
• Hidden Depths: Cheryl is such a talented painter that she can perfectly copy other works.
• Hot-Blooded: Downplayed. Cheryl can be very extravagant and overly emotional but she's much more of an Ice Queen. She does have a very fiery and crazy side as well.
• Hot Teacher: Cheryl becomes the Vixen's coach for a while, and, of course, she does it in a way to steal all the attention.
• Hot Witch: Having magical powers makes Cheryl an even bigger Ms. Fanservice.
• Ice Queen: One of Jughead's nicknames for Cheryl is "The Ice Woman".
• Iconic Item: Her spider brooch; it even makes several appearances in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
• Identical Granddaughter: Cheryl is a perfect copy of her great ancestor, Abigail Blossom. Then again, they are both played by Madelaine Petsch.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: She's a very good shot with a bow. Black Hood finds this out nearly fatally.
  Cheryl : I suggest you run whilst you still can. I only miss when I mean to.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • Cheryl, a closeted lesbian, hits on Archie Andrews, kisses Moose, and dates Nick prior to coming out.
  • Cheryl was also attracted to Josie McCoy, who is straight, even stalking her.
• In the Blood: After all the crap she put through in the most turbulent stage of life for years, after graduating, Cheryl genuinely comes to believe there is a Blossom curse that dooms her to a life of unhappiness.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Cheryl acts so big headed it's unreal but it's to cover up her mother chipping away at her self worth over the years. Who wouldn't develop an ego as a defense mechanism? It's gets worse in Season 4, where she wonders to the school shrink if she actually is going crazy when she's actually just being gaslit.
• Interrupted Suicide: Tries to drown herself in Sweetwater River during the finale, but the Archies come in time to save her.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sure, she's an Alpha Bitch who's incredibly spoiled and manipulative, but she does have plenty of Pet the Dog moments with the other characters where she comes off as someone who's redeemable and may have a hidden heart of gold underneath that ruthless, crazy and icy facade.
• Kick the Dog: Near the end of Season One she decides to team up with Chuck to get back at Archie, Veronica, and the gang, setting up a party which ends up making Jughead miserable, embarrassing Archie with Valerie as a side effect, humiliating Betty, and even getting Jughead injured in a fight with Chuck. Made especially heinous because early on, Cheryl was shown to be horrified by the actions of Chuck and his crew when they slut shamed girls.
• Lady in Red:
  • Is almost always seen in some form red clothing. Her nightmare in 1.05 has her in a floor-length red dress. In 1.11 she wears a red ball gown to the dance.
  • In the season 2 premiere, she shows up to the hospital dressed all in white...with one red decoration on her belt. Looks a lot like a bloodstain.
• Lady of Black Magic: Cheryl is cold, aloof, and a uses her magic in mysterious ways like invoking a dead spirit and changing the weather.
• The Leader: She is the leader of Pretty Poisons and the President of Student Body and LGBTQIA alliance of Riverdale high-school.
• Leg Focus: She does indeed and she exposes them by wearing short shorts or very short skirts. She also wears high heels to make them appear longer.
• Let the Past Burn: In 1.13, she burns the Blossom mansion in hopes of breaking from the past, as her mother protests to no effect.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Not as emphasized as Veronica, but she can be the dark to Betty's light. She's a kind of gothic Lady in Red while Betty is a sweet Girl Next Door.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Cheryl is an extremely feminine character, and is also, in her own words, “Riverdale High’s first openly lesbian Student Body President.”
• Lonely Rich Kid: She has a Girl Posse, but no real friends. Apart from the now-deceased Jason and perhaps Nana Rose, it's debatable if there's anyone that really loves her.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: She doesn't show it very often, being undeniably entitled, spoiled and manipulative but deep down Cheryl does have a heart. She's genuinely horrified to learn that not only was the football team making a game out of getting girls at school to sleep with them, but her own brother was participating. She gives Betty a sincere apology when she learns that Jason had done this to Betty's sister Polly.

M-Y

• Manipulative Bitch: She milks her brother's death for all it's worth, rules the cheer squad like her own personal fiefdom, and uses her parties to screw with relationships in order to cause chaos. This is all in the first episode, and from there her scheming only gets worse.
• Mentor Archetype: To Britta who lives in her house.
• Minored In Ass Kicking: Lovable Alpha Bitch that she is, Cheryl usually attacks with her words and wit, generally staying away from physical violence, but she’s also a very talented archer and will use it to defend herself and her loved ones.
• Mirror Character: With Betty. Both live in a dysfunctional family endorsing frequent parental abuse. They had a sibling (Polly for Betty and Jason for Cheryl) who have a relationship they disapprove and suffered of their sibling's disappearance. Even personality-wise, though Cheryl seems more edgier at first, both have Cute But Psycho tendencies.
• Mood-Swinger: She has a habit of switching between cheerfully pleasant and Tranquil Fury.
• Ms. Fanservice: Cheryl is a very beautiful and curvy woman who has many scenes wherein she's wearing not much. About half of the outfits Cheryl has worn so far have shown her flesh, most notably her cheer practice uniform, while the rest of the River Vixen's uniforms keep their stomachs covered.
• Mummies at the Dinner Table: Cheryl does this with Jason's corpse.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Not huge but clearly her reaction after she basically accused Polly of being a crazy ex-girlfriend who may well have killed Jason out of jealousy. Cheryl is rocked to discover Jason used Polly to gain points for the football team's "book" of conquests and apologizes to Betty for her actions.
• Nice Girl: Cheryl in the 50' if it can be believed. While she comes across as aloof and distant at first, she helps anyone who asks for her aid in anything, welcomes Betty and Toni into the Vixens, and secretly helps Toni with money to start her literature club for black students.
• The Nicknamer: Cheryl has a habit of referring people by anything but their names, sometimes to be malicious, and other times as an Insult of Endearment. Jughead and Betty are "hobo and the wife of hobo". Toni is "Cha Cha" and "Gollum", Veronica is "Frida Shallow", Archie and Jughead are "Bert and Ernie" and so on.
• Nightmare Fetishist: One of the most iconic things about Cheryl is her love for disturbing kinks. Dressing up as Carrie White just to scare the shit out of her mother, or keeping the corpse of her dead brother Jason propped up in her home so she can talk to it are just two of the many nightmarish things that Cheryl does.
• No Bisexuals: She was a closeted lesbian who kissed Archie and dated Nick. After coming out, she considers herself "lesbian" and yet still harbors a pseudo-incestuous obsession with her dead twin brother Jason.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: In earlier seasons, on a moment of vulnerability, Cheryl confesses to Toni that people consider her a loveless monster, and it clearly pains her that she is seen like this.
• Not So Above It All: After discovering evidence that proves Jason was using Polly, she genuinely apologizes to Betty for what Jason did.
• Obfuscating Insanity: Not that Cheryl was ever the paragon of mental stability, but she will sometimes exaggerate her instability or play up her Nightmare Fetishist tendencies just to scare off or intimidate people. In the first season, when the students had to dissect a frog in the biology class, Cheryl noticed that some classmates were looking at her and deliberately stabs the frog to get a reaction out them.
• One True Love: Cheryl tries the whole season 6 to get back with Heather, but still had lingering feelings for Toni. By the end of the season, Heather refuses to enter into a relationship with her because she realizes that Toni is Cheryl's true half-soul.
• Only Friend: When you actually look at her life, she doesn't have many people (if any) who genuinely love her. Jason's dead, so he can't count, her mom is emotionally (and occasionally physically) abusive, her father is dismissive of her, and her social group is compromised primarily of people who just want to get on her good side. It's implied she doesn't have many, if any, friends when she (1) is only comforted by Veronica after her breakdown in 1.02, and (2) invites Veronica to a 'sleepover' and Veronica is the only one there. That sets up for a variant of this trope, as Veronica seems to be the only person who does not only put up with her, but understands her. While they may not actually consider each other friends yet, Veronica is 100% the closest thing Cheryl has to one. In fact, Veronica is the only person Cheryl says an official 'goodbye' to before attempting suicide.
• The Ophelia: After Jason's death she has become more and more mentally unhinged, sleeping in Jason's bed and showing up to deliver Jason's eulogy while gliding down the aisle with a glazed expression in the same white dress she wore at Sweetwater River on the Fourth of July for examples. And then she tries to drown herself, and lets herself be carried away by the river, just like the Trope Namer.
• Parental Substitute: She takes in Britannia after the later is thrown in the streets by her own parents for being lesbian.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Cheryl will insult and "Go-and-fuck-yourself' anyone without any remorse, with a sweet friendly voice and prettiest smile ever.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Offers Betty a sincere apology when she discovers that the Slut-Shaming that the football team has been doing is something that Jason did to Betty's sister. Bear in mind that she suspected Polly of being responsible for Jason's death and has found no evidence that proves her wrong.
  • She also convinces Josie to meet with Archie about his music after he vouches for her and confirms her gunshot story.
  • She also warns Polly to not accept her parents' help when she realizes that they would force Polly out of her baby's life.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Archer skills aside, she is the most Genre Savvy character next to Jughead, and seems to have more knowledge of pop cinematic culture even than him. She is walking fountain of Shout Outs with all her anime, comic, books, movies and music references.
• Popular Is Dumb: Averted—Cheryl loves to use her brains especially for schemes, has a 4.0 GPA and runs her own business.
• Proud Beauty: "You can't discriminate against someone because they are better looking than you".
• Rebellious Spirit: Cheryl in a nutshell. This girl just won't stop until things go her way. Mister Haney tries to stop Cheryl, but he usually fails. She locked a teacher in their office because she didn’t want to be taught anything in a school club, put a bee hive in his desk and tried to seduce him because he wouldn’t let them do a musical about a botched sex change. Then she was pissed that she was banned from prom.
• Reformed Bully: Part of her Character Development was to stop being an Alpha Bitch and malicious, especially to Betty. Now she is the resident Lovable Alpha Bitch.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: At the end of the first season, Cheryl becomes humbled enough that she eventually apologizes to Jughead for how she mistreated him and even makes up with the Archie gang, seemingly for good. However, that doesn't stop her from still doing downright insane and dangerous things like setting her entire mansion on fire and burning it to the ground as her mother screams at her on the side.
• Related in the Adaptation: It's revealed in 1.12 that her ancestors and the Cooper's were brothers, Thus making her and Jason distant cousins with Betty and Polly.
• The Resenter: In Season 1, Cheryl held Betty accountable and bullied her because a supposed conflict between Polly and Jason which led to his death. She tries to repent for her misdeeds after learning that Polly was pregnant with Jason's children.
• Rich Bitch: Her family is one of the wealthiest in Riverdale, and she flaunts it at every opportunity, from taking over school dances to holding lavish parties in her mansion and then forcing her guests to cater to her every whim.
• Sanity Slippage: She appears to be undergoing this at the end of the season as she has possession of Jason's body.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Cheryl likes to drop some ten-dollar words into casual conversations now and again.
• Shout-Out: A redhead who develops fire-based powers. Bonus points, Betty compares Cheryl to the phoenix bird.
  • In 06x11, Tabitha refers to Cheryl as a Firestarter.
  • In the grand final of season 6, she wears a similar outfit to MCU: Scarlet Witch, and destroys the Bailey Comet in a similar way Wanda uses her powers.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Cheryl drastically changed her physical appearance over the years. As a teen, she would wear all those short, fashionable clothes, red lipstick and wavy long hair, signifying her confidence in her physical beauty and air of superiority, but also what a dynamic and lively person she used to be. The Cheryl Toni returns to is a completely changed person, who transformed into this lonely, dignified Proper Lady, with an air of tragedy around her, who doesn't really pay that much attention to the way she looks. Cheryl wears similar clothing to her mother now, with a touch of Elsa.
• The Snark Knight: Wether to others or herself, Cheryl always delivers her sardonic remarks with a resting bitch face.
  Cheryl: I never cry at movies, real life's tragic enough.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: On the surface, Cheryl is The Ace, a very confident sassy Rich Bitch and very beautiful. On the inside, she is a Broken Bird with a fragile mental stability that snaps several times.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: During Graduation Day, Cheryl breaks up with Toni because she feels unworthy after what her ancestors did to the Utkena and Toni's family. Overtime, Cheryl comes to genuinely believe that anyone she loves will die if they stay around her, so she isolates herself for 7 years in Thornhill. Toni begs Cheryl to rekindle their relationship, but Cheryl refuses in order to keep Toni safe from her family curse.
  Kevin: RIP, Choni!
• Stepford Smiler: At first she seems to just be playing the grieving sister act for leverage at school and otherwise acts like her average, bitchy self. Come 1.02 where she realizes that Jason is really dead, and she breaks down in tears.
• Stepford Snarker: Cheryl’s harsh words and snappy insults just barely cover up what a sad, damaged girl she truly is.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: She's a very skilled archer, as the Black Hood finds out. When she becomes a Serpent the bow and arrow becomes her weapon.
• Stripperific: Most of her wardrobe is ridiculously revealing. She often wears semi-transparent blouses over tank top or just a bra, combined with skirts or shorts. At school, no less.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Riverdale's poster child. Cheryl is incredibly bitchy and acts coldly towards everyone, partly due to her traumatic issues, but there are moments when she tries her best to comfort others, and can be incredibly loving, if stern.
• Talking to the Dead: Cheryl, being Cheryl, takes this to whole another level. She brings back her brother's dead body in Thistlehouse's chapel and talks to him as he if was still alive. For the first half of season 4 she would walk every morning to greet him, talk to him and even ask Jason's corpse what to wear. Poor Toni could only go along and watch in awed horror. It's a deconstructed case though, as it's just Cheryl's copying mechanism after all she's gone through.
• The Tease: Has teasingly and intentionally revealed her panties on multiple occasions. Two rather infamous examples, are when she and her squad were cheerleading during a football match between the Bulldogs and Stonewall Prep, being the only one who lifted her skirt, while shouting "hello daddy, hello mom". The other time being during the Heathers musical, where again, she lifted her leg so high that everyone saw her red panties.
• Thicker Than Water: Cheryl had a very deep and strong relationship with her twin brother Jason and she would've done anything for him simply because he's her twin and they are blood. It also helps that Jason was the one person who loved Cheryl unconditionally in her family, unlike her Abusive Parents who didn't show any kind of affection towards her.
• Third-Option Love Interest: She's the trope image for a reason. Lets Archie know that with her nothing's off limits...
  Cheryl: [coyly] Except for my body.
  • After coming out as a lesbian in Season Three, it can safely be assumed that Cheryl is officially out of the running.
• Token Wizard: The only character explicitly possessing magic-based abilities among the main cast.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Cheryl was already a Defrosting Ice Queen, but after the time skip she greatly matured. She let go of many of her Drama Queen habits, is much more empathic, speaks into a calmer manner and even becomes the Only Sane Man in the room sometimes. She is still occasionally a bitch, but is much more emotionally opened and starts to spent a lot more time with the Archies.
• Trauma Conga Line: Cheryl can compete with Betty anytime for who is the most traumatized character of the show. Since her birth, Cheryl was threated with disdain by her own parents, who were favorizing Jason, and called nightmare child by her mother all the time. She never had real any friends since she was young, and the only one she had was banished by her homophobic mother because Cheryl was starting to develop romantic feelings for a girl. No wonder Cheryl turned into an Alpha Bitch and a Boomerang Bigot. And this is before the show even started.
  • The premise of the Season 1, starts with Jason's mysterious death, Cheryl comes to believe that Polly shot him dead, gets threaten with being killed by Betty for asking questions about Polly. In the night of the Pep Rally, Cheryl raced off the stage crying after hallucinating seeing Jason instead of Archie. She learns from Betty that her own father killed Jason because his son discovered that Clifford was trafficking heroine into Riverdale. With she was about to confront him Cheryl finds Clifford hanging himself in the barn. Her inability to cope with Jason's murder and her father's death, everything culminated with Cheryl trying to kill herself in the Sweetwater River, at the place where her family tragedy began.
  • In Season 2, Cheryl is threatened and blackmailed by Betty with wide releasing the footage of Jason's death if she doesn't give a testimony in favor of FP Jones. She attends So Dale Gala, where Nick St. Clair druggs her by slipping a pill into her drink and tried to rape her, and even worse, her own mother pressured Cheryl to drop the accusations against Nick as 'she' is the one who provoked him. Next, she learns that her ancestor is not that heroic, General Pickens stole land from the Uktena and killed hundreds of them for "a bunch of maple trees". By far her worst experience this season is being send off to Sisters of Quiet Mercy by her own mother, for being a lesbian. Cheryl was signed up for conversion therapy in an attempt to change her sexual orientation against her will, she was drugged, abused, forced to watch anti-LGBT+ videos and participate in manual labor. Thankfully she is saved by Toni Topaz.
  • In Season 3, she tries to find some peace at the Farm, a cult which was secretly killing people and harvesting their organs. They use Jason's corpse to trick Cheryl into thinking their treatment is working. In season 4, she is secretly gaslighted by her own mother who makes Cheryl believe she is seeing ghosts. Nana's Rose story about Cheryl absorbing Julian in her mother's womb and his spirit returning for revenge doesn't helps either. In order to cope with all the crap that has happened to her since Jason's death, Cheryl brought back her brother's dead body in Thistlehouse's chapel and talks to him as if he was still alive.
    • In 4x08, brings to light how hard was for Cheryl to go trough all of this stuff.
    Mrs. Burble: Speaking of the last few years, have you ever spoken to a professional about everything you've been through? Your mother's abuse, your brother's murder, your father's suicide, your time in conversion therapy and an organ harvesting cult, your near-death experience at Sweetwater River-
    Cheryl: That was an accident.
    Mrs. Burble: It would be okay if you told me it wasn't. Cheryl, you've endured lifetimes of trauma. I can't imagine going through a single one, much less all. And as a teenager? Unimaginable. You are remarkably resilient. It must exhausting.
• Troll: Cheryl is the troll of Riverdale. Then again, what can be expected from a person who says "I'm in the mood for chaos"?
  • Puts a pig's heart in Josie's locker.
  • Pours animal blood on herself to mimic Carrie's White most iconic looks and sets her home on fire.
  • Pretends to feed bits Of uncle Bedford to her relatives who want her inheritance.
  • She kidnaps and keeps her own mom in the bunker as revenge.
  • Holds a party in season 1 and insists on them playing spin the bottle only to create tension among the Core Four.
• Twincest: The aesthetic of twincest is played with a lot. In the opening scene (their Establishing Character Moment) Cheryl and Jason are framed like a couple: Wearing coordinated clothes, holding hands, going on what looks like a Old-Fashioned Rowboat Date, all with a love song paying. Later, there are continued alludes to this. Cheryl once describes Jason as her "soulmate". They are seen in a flashback Sweetheart Sipping. After losing him, Cheryl is referred to as a "Red Widow". There also shades of twincest in Cheryl's interest in Archie, because Archie resembles Jason so much. (It doesn't help that the Blossom parents are on board with, this while also treating Archie like a stand-in for Jason.) Twincest is mentioned by name by Veronica in 1.10. But subverted as it seems that Jason was not with Cheryl: He was very much with Polly, and determined to be her even at a high cost. Madelaine Putsch has said that their relationship was overly close, but not romantic. Cheryl's parents are horrible, and she doesn't have any true friends—Jason was the only person who ever really loved her, so the slightly obsessive nature of their relationship stems from there.
  Madelaine Petsch : On the set we call it twincest. There is... we do play on that just a hair. He's the only person that ever understood her and loved her unconditionally, and so she's never had that love before, so she doesn't know how to feel about it. So it's a lot of different emotions she's trying to figure out. She's never had a boyfriend before, so this is just like her person.
• The Unapologetic: Cheryl can be incredibly harsh and mean spirited and in the beginning of the series refuses to apologize for it, even outright faking an apology to Betty for her bullying in an attempt to manipulate her. A huge part of her character development is about her growing out of this, starting with sincerely apologizing to Betty on Jason’s behalf if he had hurt Polly.
• The Unfavorite: While Jason is treated like a saint by the two, Cheryl's parents are incredibly dismissive and harsh with Cheryl. Of course, it becomes suspect just how well Clifford Blossom actually treated his son in life once it's revealed that Clifford shot him for threatening to expose his illegal business practices.
• Ungrateful Bitch: For someone who literally own her life to the Core Four (especially Archie) after her attempted suicide at the frozen Sweetwater River, she still act meanly with them though maybe not as harshly than before.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Unfortunately, in Season 6, Cheryl got tricked by her own grandma to recites the curse of Abigail Blossom, thus invoking her soul who is out for revenge.
• Uptown Girl: Has this dynamic with Toni Topaz. She is a beautiful red-head that comes from upper class Blossom Family, Toni is a girl with humble roots from the South Side.
• Villainesses Want Heroes / Villainous Crush: Downplayed. In Season One Cheryl sometimes flirted with Archie and even kissed him in 1x10 after coming to see him as the last good person in Riverdale, but she also frequently treated Archie like absolute dirt, manipulating and insulting him just as she does most of her peers. It’s heavily implied that while Cheryl held some genuine affection and gratitude for Archie (thanks to his kindness and his standing up for her), it was her parents who pushed her to attempt to start a relationship with Archie- as they wanted him to replace Jason as their heir. With Cheryl coming out as a lesbian in Season Three, it has been theorized that part of Cheryl wanted to “force” herself to date Archie so as to further suppress her sexuality and please her homophobic parents as well as feel closer to her dead twin brother who Archie reminds her of.
• Villainous Lineage: Cheryl's entire genealogy is pretty messed up, from Barnabas Blossom, who ordered the massacre of the Uktena, her evil ancestor Abigail Blossom, down to her parents who are both murderers.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Downplayed in 2x22, she's ready to shoot Penny if she doesn't release Toni and played straight in 3x22 when she attacks men of the Farm to allow Toni to run away.
  Cheryl: Get your hands off my girlfriend.
• White Sheep: It may not seem, but her family, is so Ax-Crazy that Cheryl really comes out as a nice person by comparison.
• Wild Card: Cheryl is only truly loyal to Cheryl (and Jason, and later Toni). Fickle and self-serving at best, dangerously unstable at worst, Cheryl can be almost anyone's ally or enemy at any given time, depending on what's best for her, if she feels wronged or simply because it amuses her to be. Jughead explicitly calls her a "loose cannon".
• Yandere: Cheryl discovers that Chuck Clayton has feelings for Josie, and due to Chuck's past with women and Cheryl jealously wanting Josie all to herself, she does everything in her power to prevent Josie from getting close to Chuck. In order to do this, she sets up Chuck by planting a pig's heart in Josie's locker to scare her, with all signs pointing to Chuck as the perpetrator. With Chuck's history, this makes it easy to paint a menacing picture of him to Josie.
  • She lets this side of her go by the time she enters an official relationship with Toni Topaz.

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