Betty And Veronica - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Trying to hold two women is tearing me apart.

Trying to hold two women is tearing me apart.

One's got my money, the other's got my heart.

It's a long old grind, and it tires your mind."

-- The Oakridge Boys, Trying to Love Two Women

One of the most common types of Love Triangle.

Our Hero is caught between his affections for two girls. One, the "Betty", is sweet, pretty, and normal (read: kinda dull), and the other, "Veronica", is perceived by those around her as more beautiful and exotic, but has a more troublesome personality. Named for the two female leads of Archie Comics, which made this plot famous (although it's far older than that). While a videogame, comic, or TV series can play it out for all its worth, movies generally favor the Betty. The Veronica is often Ms Fanservice, and often has the upper hand in the guy's affections, whether she particularly cares about him or not.

In many cases, particularly in a Romantic Comedy or Teen Drama, the Betty is herself in love with the Hero, whilst the Veronica (at least initially) barely even knows he exists. A common dynamic in this trope is to establish the Betty as the Hero's best friend (which partly explains why he's often so slow to wake up to the fact that she's obviously in love with him, as he often claims to view her as being closer to a sister than a potential romantic partner), whilst the Veronica is Ms. Unattainable in every way possible, thus being a demonstration of "wanting what you can't have and ignoring what you've got". In these cases, despite being in love with the Hero themselves the Betty will be forced by feelings of I Want My Beloved To Be Happy to assist in his quest to attain the Veronica and quash her own feelings for him. This version of the triangle generally (but not always) ends with the Hero deciding that the woman he thought he wanted wasn't right for him after all (ironically, usually after the Veronica becomes available and interested in him) and that the Betty was the woman for him after all.

While the "Betty" rarely changes in any substantial matter, the "Veronica" can be one of a dozen character types: Femme Fatale, Troubled But Cute, Rich Bitch, Action Girl, you name it, as long as it's outside the norm. For teenagers, the Veronica is often either a cheerleader and / or the most popular (and therefore the nastiest) girl in school). This isn't to say that the Betty has to be completely boring. Some genres and media types give a lot of leeway for Betty's character. For example, both may be Action Girls in an action movie, in which case Veronica would be the Dark Action Girl, while the Betty of a Sci-Fi or anime may be a Wrench Wench or Hot Librarian/Scientist (especially once she takes those glasses off... or not) compared to Veronica's Green Skinned Space Babe. Which type is presented as "better" changes with time, and country -- the Japanese usually prefer the Betty in an anime, while Americans prefer the Veronica.

In a Role Playing Game, Betty is usually the Staff Chick, while Veronica is the Black Magician Girl, Summoner, or Fighter.

If a series involves the Call To Adventure, the Veronica may be among those giving the Call to the Hero, encouraging him along the way. The Betty, on the other hand, is more likely to appear to be a Muggle, at least at first, and may metaphorically try to offer the "blue pill" to the Hero.

Modern shows tend to exaggerate the differences, to the point of caricaturizing the character types. The Betty may be emotionally fragile, a Control Freak, or cardboard come to life. The Veronica may be an escaped criminal or just plain insane.

Subtler pairs are Colour Coded For Your Convenience, giving you a blonde Betty and a dark or red-haired Veronica.

If two characters are established as Betty And Veronica and a third love interest comes along, she's Cheryl Blossom.

Examples:

Western Live TV

Every third episode of Ally Mc Beal had this plot, either for Ally or one of her clients.
Degrassi The Next Generation has a gay (male) Betty And Veronica played straight -- one boyfriend is a timid neat freak, and the other one is clueless and selfish.
South of Nowhere is unique in that it features a "Betty" and "Veronica" lesbian romance - a blonde "girl next door" who falls for her troubled, petulant, dark-haired friend - with no "Archie" in the middle, after the first few episodes.
Of course, Gilligans Island has the perennial question of "Ginger or Mary Ann?", where Ginger is the Veronica and Mary Ann is the Betty.
- When it gets a church sermon, you know its well known.
Willow from Buffy The Vampire Slayer was the Betty to Xander's Archie. She was a genuine love interest for Xander, but he was far more drawn, in different ways, towards two different Veronicas: Buffy and Cordelia.
In Veronica Mars, there's several instances of this throughout the entire series. Duncan (Betty)-Veronica-Logan (Veronica). Veronica (Veronica)-Duncan-Meg (Betty). Piz (Betty)-Veronica-Logan (Veronica). Even Wallace gets his brief moment of Love Triangulus. Not to mention, Weevil and a certain dead girl and their involvement in a past-tense love triangle, an example which is especially adequate for this trope.
- Try not to be confused by the fact that the female lead's name is actually Veronica. The writers lampshaded the fact by having Veronica don the name "Betty" when she needed to infiltrate a rival school (appropriately named Riverdale High) and assumed a different identity.
In the Dark Shadows, the original supernatural soap opera, Friendly Neighborhood Vampire Barnabas Collins is torn between the memory of his fiancee, Josette du Pre, a Betty type, and the Veronica type (to the max) Angelique, the witch who gave him the vampire curse. At the end he gets over his torch for Josette, and avows to Angelique that he loves her. She is then killed, and Barnabas ends up with neither.
Unusually The OC had Seth, the Cool Loser end up with popular, beautiful, initially uninterested Summer (Veronica) while the seemingly kindred spirit Anna (Betty) was quickly dropped.
Chuck: For one or two episodes, Chuck has to choose between CIA Action Girl Sarah (Veronica) and sweet deli owner Lou (Betty). Later, there's a Gender Flip example when Sarah has to choose between Chuck (Betty) and her spy ex-boyfriend Bryce (Veronica).
In My So Called Life, Brian Krakow is the love-struck, blonde boy next door (Betty). The protagonist Angela Chase (Archie) just can't see him because she's too busy lusting after bad boy Jordan Catalano (Veronica). Luckily, Brian and Jordan are Color Coded For Your Convenience.

Western Animation

Clone High pushes this one to its logical extremes: Abraham Lincoln is madly in love with demanding, selfish, spoiled, slutty, gorgeous, popular Cleopatra, while remaining completely clueless to the devotion of his best friend, spunky, intelligent, independent, creative, semi-goth Joan of Arc. Of course, in the end he realises that he really loves Joan, etc, etc.
Applies to "Danny Phantom", where Danny is infatuated with Paulina, the shallow, beautiful "Veronica" of the school, ignoring the pretty, intellegient "Betty" at his side, Samantha Manson. The love triangle isn't clear at the beginning of the show, when Samantha and Danny are Just Friends, but eventually their feelings do grow for each other. Later on, Danny's crush on Paulina fades, and one of his arch-enemies becomes the "Veronica" instead. A bit of a subversion, in that the biggest strike against Valerie is that she's trying to kill Danny. Definitely a case of Dating Catwoman.
Parodied not subtly at all in South Park. In the two parter "Do the Handicapped Go To Hell?"/"Probably", Satan has to choose between his two gay lovers, and the Veronica happens to be Saddam Hussein. And the two rivals keep killing each other, but they're in Hell already, so they just keep coming back...
Gender Flipped on Code Lyoko: The Chick Aelita is quite open about her (mutual) feelings for The Smart Guy Jeremy but also has quite the Slap Slap Kiss attraction going with The Big Guy and Kid Anova Odd.

Anime

Super Dimension Fortress Macross had Lynn Minmay as the Veronica and Misa Hayase as the Betty. Minmay herself had a similar case, with Hikaru as the Betty and Lynn Kaifunn as the Veronica.
Macross 7 had a gender-reversed version of the trope, with Gamlin as the Betty and Basara as the Veronica.
Macross Frontier has Ranka as the Betty and Sheryl as the Veronica.
Inverted on Neon Genesis Evangelion, where the hero Shinji never quite gets into a Love Triangle with an obvious Betty and Veronica, respectively Rei and Asuka.
- Though which is which is, as with Final Fantasy VII (see below) up for debate...
In School Days, shy and reclusive Kotonoha is the Betty and sociable Sekai the Veronica. Kotonoha has some surprising sides to her character though.
In Shakugan No Shana, Kazumi Yoshida is the Betty and Shana the Veronica.
Full Metal Panic! inverts this: Chidori is the Veronica despite being the Ordinary High School Student, while Tessa, who is a captain in a covert paramilitary organization and has command of a submarine and several hundred troops, Sousuke included, is the Betty personality-wise.
In Nana, rock star Takumi would probably count as a male version of Veronica for Hachiko while Nobu serves as a male Betty.
Love Hina has a pretty basic version of this: Cloudcuckoolander Mutsumi versus Tsundere Naru.
In Hana Yori Dango, the heroine Makino is the object of both Rui's (the calm, supportive Betty) and Domyoji's (the violent, passionate Veronica) affections. Subverted in that Makino initially has unrequited feelings for Rui, while it is Domyoji who has (initially) one-sided feelings for her, and in that the Veronica triumphs.
What, no Kimagure Orange Road? Kyosuke is torn between Hikaru (the ever-doting Betty) and Madoka (the wild child Veronica).

Film

A "color-coded" triangle exists in film noirs The Postman Always Rings Twice, Tension, and Out of the Past (where the evil Veronica, Jane Greer, dresses all in white, as Lana Turner had in "Postman"). In the black and white film Dark Passage, both the Veronica and Betty characters (Agnes Moorhead and Lauren Bacall respectively) are brunettes, but Moorhead's character loves and is coded by the color orange.
John Hughes has used this binary triangle with some success. In Pretty in Pink, the traditional "Betty/Veronica" triangle exists between two boys and a girl ("Blaine", "Ducky", red-headed "Andi")... Yet the unpleasant "Reggie" archetype is played by the blonde, wealthy James Spader, who seeks to sabotage his friend "Blaine", an "Archie" type nice boy. The character of "Duckie" is comic relief, like "Jughead," but unique in that he's also a love interest. Hughes turned the cliche over with Some Kind of Wonderful - a red-haired "Archie" (Eric Stoltz) loves a popular girl (Lea Thompson) with brown hair, but can't see that his blonde, tomboyish best friend (Mary Stuart Masterson) loves him.
- Of course Pretty in Pink was originally shot to have her end up with the Betty (Ducky) as well, but thanks to Executive Meddling...
Partially subverted in The Mask, where the Betty, a news reporter, sells Stanley out to the Big Bad, while the Veronica, the Big Bad's Moll, is the one who stays true and ends up with him.
The two fiancées in Corpse Bride fit this trope--shy, proper, living Victoria is the Betty and the lively-but-dead Emily is the Veronica.
A lot of eighties teen movies use the Betty-as-Hero's-crushing-best-friend and the Veronica as Unattainable-Queen-Of-School dynamic.
Featured but skewed in Strange Days, where the Betty is an ass-kicking tough-as-nails limo driver who is devoted to the (slightly skeevy) main character, and the Veronica is a flaky, self-centred punk rock singer who broke the main character's heart and who he's been obsessed with ever since. The Betty wins out, partly because the Veronica slept with the main characters best friend and conspired with him to frame the main character for two murders.

Comic Books

It goes without saying that the Archie Comics characters Betty and Veronica are the definitive example of this trope.
John Romita, one of the artists on the Spider-Man comic book, deliberately made Gwen and Mary Jane into an Homage to the Archie Comics Betty and Veronica respectively. Gwen seemed to have won... until she died. (The Ultimate Universe swaps them, making Mary Jane the Betty and Gwen the Veronica.) Later, the comic briefly had Mary Jane as the Betty and the Black Cat as the Veronica.
X-Men had a long-running Love Triangle with Jean Grey, Cyclops (Betty) and Wolverine (Veronica)...which was turned on its head during Grant Morrison's early 2000s run, which introduced a Betty And Veronica love triangle with Cyclops as the center figure, Jean as the Betty, and Emma Frost as the Veronica.
Flash Gordon does this several times: Flash must choose between Dale (the Betty) and Princess Aura (the Veronica); Princess Aura must choose between Flash (the Betty) and Prince Barrin (the Veronica). The 2007 series confuses things by throwing Baylin (the Veronica) into the mix.

Drama

In Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical Jekyll's fiancée, the highly respectable Emma (aka Lisa) Carew, is the Betty; Lucy Harris, the prostitute he befriends, is the Veronica.
- This concept was introduced to the Jekyll and Hyde story in the 1920s John Barrymore silent film, which introduced the prim Millicent Carew and the music hall dancer Miss Gina. Later adaptations followed suit.
In the musical Notre Dame de Paris, an adaptation of Victor Hugo's book by the same title, also known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (thanks to Disney), Phoebus and his innocent 14-year-old cousin Fleur-de-Lys sing a song about how they're going to marry each other and love each other etc. Then Phoebus goes off and meets the exotic gypsy Esmerelda. A bit later, he sings a song ("Torn Apart") that embodies this trope to a T (although the English translation is painful). There is a mild subversion in that the Betty character Fleur-de-Lys undergoes what passes for character development in the play and after Phoebus decides to sleep with Esmerelda sings what in this troper's opinion is one of the best songs in the musical both in the original French and in the English translation, titled "My Heart if you will Swear" whose message is "I will love you, and forgive you, etc. so long as you make sure that the bitch you were about to sleep with gets hanged." A bit dark for a typical Betty.

Opera

In Georges Bizet's opera, Carmen, Micaela and Carmen are, respectively, a Betty and Veronica for Don Jose.

Video Games

Played with in Skies Of Arcadia, where Vyse is between the Mysterious Waif Fina, and his best friend Aika who happens to be a Pirate (to be fair, Vyse himself is also a pirate).
- Subverted in that Fina and Vyse never express romantic interest in each other, period, and while Aika clearly has feelings for Vyse, they're still best friends during the course of the game. It only fits this trope at all because the player is the one who expects it, but the plot is wholly unconcerned with the main character's love life unlike the vast majority of RPGs to come out around the same time.
An interesting example occurs in Grandia II, since Betty and Veronica are the same person. Not to mention that the Betty, Elena, is pretty much a priestess, while the Veronica, Millenia, is a part of the evil god Valmar (his Wings to be exact), that's possessing Elena. The main character seems to be leaning towards Elena, though they don't really hook up. Also, Millenia separates from Elena near the end. Somehow.
- Big Fat Magical Priest did it.
Occurs in Final Fantasy VII: Cloud is given a choice between the Betty, Aerith, and the Veronica, Tifa, though this is no longer an option when Aerith joins the Lifestream. It can also be argued that Aerith, as the spunky up and at 'em last of a dying race, is the 'special' Veronica type, and the shy girl next door Tifa is a Betty type. In reality, both girls are a blend of the two archetypes.
According to the author, the potential love interests for the player character in Planescape Torment, Annah-of-the-Shadows and Fall from Grace, were inspired by Betty and Veronica.
If one has two or more of the female love interests in the party in Baldurs Gate II, multiple Betty and Veronica scenarios can exist. Sweet, innocent Aerie is definitely the most Betty-ish, with no-nonsense old friend but world-wise warrior Jaheira being somewhere between the two, and darkly exotic rogue drow Viconia being firmly a Veronica. (Alternatively, with all three one might be said to have a Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl situation--except there are no three-way fights over you, just two-way.)

Literature

Harry Potter gets to choose between the beautiful and popular but fragile, weepy, constantly-on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown Cho Chang and the gutsy, tough, persistent, capable, red-headed Ginny Weasley. The First Girl Wins, since Harry actually met Ginny before he met Cho; by the end of The Deathly Hallows, Harry and Ginny are happily married.
- Granted, Cho's weepiness is probably not her 'true' personality, as her boyfriend had died only a couple of months previously, and she was under a lot of pressure from her mother.
- This troper would argue that the true choice was between Ginny (Betty) and Luna Lovegood (a Cloudcuckoolander-flavored Veronica). By the time the infamous "Chest Monster" made the scene, Cho and Harry couldn't look at each other without intense mutual embarassment.
  - Ginny couldn't see this rivalry. When Harry needed someone to take him in to Ravenclaw Tower, Ginny quickly overruled Cho's offer to take him and suggested that Luna do it.
  - If Luna has a rivalry with anyone over anyone, it's with Hermione over Ron. Of all the members of the cast, she clashes with Hermione most (Luna being Faith and Hermione being Reason and all) and the very first thing she does when she appears is hit on Ron.
- All right everyone, break it up. There's no need to reenact the Battle of Midway with our respective Shipping fleets. The Word of God has already been set down, all other fan theories have been [[Jossed Jossed]], the series is over, and there's nothing more to get worked up about. Besides, the only real and proper example would be Hermione having to choose between Harry (the brave, compelling, and heroic Veronica) and Ron (the slightly more stable, redheaded Betty).
Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov has oldest brother Dmitri caught in a Love Triangle between the aristocratic Betty, Katerina Ivanovna, and the less-than-reputable Veronica, Grushenka.
In R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse the blonde, brainless, surprisingly-innocent Serwe is Betty and the dark-haired, intelligent prostitute Esmenet is Veronica.
Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and all of its kajillion adaptations do this. The rebellious student Marius (Archie), the cultured and mysterious orphan Cosette (Betty), and the spunky, determined, and quite possibly not-right-in-the-head street urchin Eponine (Veronica), the winner being Cosette by Values Dissonance. Eponine was intended as a living critique of 19th century France's rigid class system: she never could get in a relationship with the (broke, but still) aristocratic Marius, because they just weren't considered equals.
- Actually, Marius remains completely blind to Eponine's feelings for him until the very end. A better example would be The man who laughs, where Gwynplaine is torn between the extremely sweet Dea and the rather perverted Duchess Josiane.
Stardust: Tristran has to make a Red Pill Blue Pill choice between the magical shooting star Yvaine (Veronica) and his former crush Victoria (Betty). Yvaine wins.

Webcomics

In Fans!, Rikk is the subject of a love triangle between Rumy, the quiet, shy but centered and focused Betty, and Alisin, the hedonistic, outgoing but self-loathing and unpredictable Veronica, both of whom are equally devoted to and passionately in love with him. Over most of the series, Alisin had the upper hand, which led Rumy to channel her feelings into ensuring that Rikk was happy with Alisin instead. Somewhat uniquely, everyone in the love triangle become so close that they eventually decide to form a three-way romantic relationship.
Pibgorn: Pibgorn (Betty) and Drusilla (Veronica) both love Geoffrey, but when he chooses Pib, Drusilla goes along with it.
Rip And Teri: The 'Betty' is Teri, a meek and somewhat nerdy English teacher. The 'Veronica' is Tatyana, a glamourous and gorgeous ex-super spy and TV station CEO. However, whilst Tatyana thinks that the hero still has a thing for her, he's actually madly in love with Teri. It kind of helps that, in their brief romance, Tatyana manipulated and betrayed him, however.
College Roomies From Hell: While Dave seems to have chosen Veronica (Rich girl with issues, Blue) over Betty (Survivalist Psycho Chick, Margaret), Dave remains close to (and admittedly emotionally attached to) Margaret.
Arthur King Of Time And Space: In the "space arc", Arthur has to choose between the outspoken but basically nice Action Girl Guenevere (Betty) and the ambitious and amoral enchantress Morgan La Fay (Veronica). The First Girl Wins, although only after Second Girl is disqualified.

Music

This dynamic is perfectly captured with the lyric "your debutante just knows what you need, but I know what you want"

Real Life

Real life Betty/Veronica tensions = brunette, cute Judy Garland vs. fast, "sweater girl" Lana Turner, both in love with bandleader Artie Shaw. More famously, Debbie Reynolds (Betty) vs. Elizabeth Taylor (Veronica). After Taylor was widowed suddenly, Reynold's husband Eddie Fisher (father to Carrie) left his family to be with Liz. The nation sided against Eddie and Liz, until Liz came down with a near fatal case of pneumonia.
Blonde Jennifer Aniston as the Betty, brunette Angelina Jolie as the Veronica, Brad Pitt as... Archie? The tabloids had many, many field days with this.
Didn't want to say it, but... pretty much any woman/man in David Bowie's life during his first marriage can be cast as the Veronica, which makes the hardly tame Angie (y'know, his wife) the Betty. Yeah. He got around.
WARNING! Do not put examples from your personal life here! I feel your pain, it's happened to me. But no-one cares!

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