The Libby - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Alpha Bitch

I take it as a rule of nature that all American high schools are ruled by a pack of snobs, led by a supremely confident young woman who is blond, superficial, catty, and ripe for public humiliation. This character is followed by two friends who worship her, and are a little bit shorter. Those schools also contain a group of friends who are not as popular and do not think of themselves as pretty, although they are smarter, funnier and altogether more likeable than the catty-pack.
—Roger Ebert's review of Sleepover.

Cut to inside the school, where we meet the obligatory School Bitch. We know she's the School Bitch, because first of all, she's blonde. Second of all, every teen movie is required by law to have a School Bitch. Third, everyone she passes (including the guys on the basketball team) makes a really overdone act of backing away from her, twitching in her presence, and acting like chills are going down their spines. So, School Bitch, or Death Personified. One of the two.

— Agony Booth review of High School Musical

In High School, our heroine will always have to deal with The Libby.

The Libby goes by many names: Queen Bee, Alpha Bitch, and other less flattering terms. Despite almost always being an unpleasant, bullying and mean-spirited snob who looks down on almost everyone she encounters except for an elite few that she deems worthy of her good will (and she's still usually pretty snide even to them), the Libby is somehow the most popular girl in school. She will be the heroine's main rival — especially if the heroine is a Cool Loser — and will focus her bullying on the heroine with a combination of snide put-downs, back-handed compliments and mean-spirited pranks. The heroine is rarely invited to the Libby's party (or if she is, it's usually the setup for a mean joke played by the Libby by telling the heroine it is a costume party), and if the Cool Loser is having a party, the Libby will immediately schedule a much cooler, better party at the same time out of pure spite.

The Libby is also immensely spoiled and possesses a massive sense of entitlement, and if the heroine has anything that is in any way better than hers (clothes, possessions, boyfriend etc), she will instantly enter a war of one-upmanship or try to steal / sabotage the heroine's possession / relationship. Confrontations with her usually occur at the High School Dance. She is also usually voted the Homecoming or Prom Queen, despite the fact that she consistently treats the people whose votes she depends on to reach this position so poorly that their reasons for voting for her are a complete mystery. She frequently heads the cheerleading squad, meaning that despite her many deep-seated character flaws, she is automatically lusted after by every single boy in school (which, in retrospect, might be how she can get the votes to be homecoming or prom queen). The Libby's boyfriend will almost always be the Jerk Jock, though occasionally he will be the Big Man On Campus who ends up learning the error of his ways and dumping her for the Cool Loser heroine.

In contrast to the savvy, intelligent heroine, the Libby is almost always The Ditz or The Brainless Beauty (albeit a mean-spirited one) who coasts by on looks and charm. Popular Is Dumb, after all. In some cases, she may simply be Book Dumb. She's evil, but she's frequently a Devil In Plain Sight whom all the teachers think is really helpful. Somehow, despite her stupidity, she's also a grandmaster (grandmistress?) Puppetmaster (puppetmistress?), shaping the whole social structure to her very whim. However, Karma almost always bites the Libby in the ass eventually; if ever we see how the Libby grows up, she almost always ends up a frumpy, frustrated housewife trapped in a miserable marriage (often to the now-deadbeat-and-equal-victim-of-bad-karma former Jerk Jock, whose dreams of athletic stardom inevitably failed to come true) — and to rub salt in the wound, the girls (and guys) that she used to mercilessly bully and lord it over in high school will have all gone on to be much more successful (and attractive) than she turned out to be. Alternatively, if she grows up to be wealthy and pretty, her future life will still be shown to be ultimately hollow and unsatisfying, and the Libby will be doomed to become a Stepford Smiler projecting a superficial facade of happiness to cover up the empty misery that is her life. Maybe she'll go into politics and become the nastier type of Blonde Republican Sex Kitten. Maybe she'll take up booze. Or maybe she won't change much at all.

Frequent subversions / Freudian Excuses are situations where the Libby is actually quite an intelligent, sensitive and deep down rather sympathetic soul who has merely been raised in a superficial environment where looks are perceived to be everything (often by a mother who was herself once a Libby and met the same fate raised above, and thus forces and influences her daughter to follow the same path in order to compensate for her own unsatisfying life once her reign as the Libby came to an end). In these cases the Libby is often bullied at home for similar reasons that she bullies people at school (by her mother or older sisters), and is deep down insecure about herself.

The Libby is usually a Rich Bitch, and she often has a Girl Posse that follows her around. She is who a female Spoiled Brat grows up to be. In a Betty And Veronica romantic triangle, she is nearly always the Veronica.

Named after the character from Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

There is a miniscule chance that she will become a secondary character version of the Fallen Princess. There is a near-100% chance the heroine will get a Broken Aesop about pitying/respecting/trying to befriend her because of the Freudian Excuse.

She is unlikely to be a Fille Fatale. She's too outwardly mean for that. Frequently on the Snob end of Slobs Versus Snobs.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Nanami Kiryuu from Revolutionary Girl Utena is a particularly subtle and cruel anime example.
- This troper is baffled for seeing the word 'subtle' in the same sentence as 'Nanami Kiryuu'. The few times she even tried subtlety backfired horribly on her. She can be pretty damn cruel at times, but seems to grow at least partially out of it through the series.
Soukou No Strain adds Isabella to the list of characters that it kills off, but her even worse successor, Mariette, has not bit the dust as of episode 11.
Subverted in Red Garden. One of the Student Council members constantly complained about how the protagonist was being treated with kid gloves for her constant absences and tardies and is seen several times spying, as if to blackmail the protagonist... then, in an emotional scene, she reveals that she's been worried about the protagonist for a long time, and wants to help her with whoever is hurting her.
Tamaki Reika from Ojamajo Doremi, though she has a bit of a Freudian Excuse. ( After she got serious burns as a baby thanks to her Bumbling Dad leaving a cup of hot coffee within her reach, he swore to never again make Reika cry... but ended up spoiling her rotten. )
Aki Honda from Narutaru, despite not being rich like most Libbies, is just about the cruelest and most horrible Libby ever created, graduating from criminal harassment to full on rape. She meets a very nasty end when her favorite victim, local Lonely Rich Kid Hiroko Kaizuka, gets her Shadow Dragon and brutally murders Aki and her Girl Posse in what proves to be her Start Of Darkness.
Sae from Peach Girl. She's Momo's main love rival, and is especially good at doing nasty things to Momo while making herself look innocent.
Shiho Huit fills this role in Mai-Otome, playing tricks on Arika and the other Corals and looking down on them because of their status.
- Tomoe Marguerite is a more traditional Libby, though, with a young hanger-on named Miya whom she verbally and physically abuses when no one else is looking. She's even tried to kill Arika and her friends on a few occasions.
Motoko Minagawa from Fruits Basket, complete with obsessive crush on Yuki Sohma and a Girl Posse that harasses Tohru after she goes to live with Yuki and Shigure. In the manga, however, Motoko actually grows up and gives up on Yuki.
Mao, an anime-only character in Kekkaishi, was apparently created to serve as The Libby for leading girl Tokine in that she flaunts her wealth and makes catty comments about the latter. Subverted because Tokine isn't really affected by her snarky comments.
Aya Misaki from Oniisama E, in all her bitchy, slanderous "glory". Poor Nanako and Mariko.
- Ichinomiya Fukiko(Miya-sama), whose minions include, oh, the entire snotty sorority is another example, though her bitchy-ness doesn't show until the later chapters.
Michiyo in Mahoraba acts like a Libby Ojou to Asami out of insecurity. She really wants to be friends with Asami.
Ami of Toradora, who usually hides her bitchiness behind a saccharine mask of sweetness until she feels she can get away with it. She does get Character Development though.
Maho Izawa from Kare Kano fits this trope... at least, she did during the one episode she went out of her way to cause trouble for Yukino, specially by alienating her classmates away from her. After that, though, they become friends, but it's more natural and heartwarming compared than other similar instances of the main girl forgiving The Libby. So, she's actually one of the few Libby-like characters who are actually layered and likable in their own rights.
- Given Yukino Miyazawa herself used to hide her emotions and try to "delude" everybody into thinking she's such a great person and given Maho is just her moral mirror image with different personal attributes then Maho can't possibly be the Libby. Not even a multi-layered Libby. In fact, Kare Kano is at all times too sympathetic with each character's individual traits and internal struggles for the viewer to be able to pin down any character as a character type, much less an "evil" character type. That's Kare Kano's strength, of course.
Katherina Sforza from the Nunnally-centered Code Geass manga Knightmare of Nunnally. She and the Girl Posse get embarrassingly punished by Nunners's classmate and the local Extraordinarily Empowered Girl Alice, though.
Tenjouin Saki of To LOVE Ru is something of a subversion; while she meets almost all of the standard Libby traits, right down to the noblewoman's laugh and princess curls, she has a very human side; she obtained one of the girls in her girl posse by rescuing her from bullies. She is legitimately kind to her friends, and even to her servants.
Anna Maria from Blood Plus is a poster girl for this trope, despite not having a very large part in the series. A Rich Bitch complete with Princess Curls, her own posse of female followers, and being unreasonably rude and bullying. Naturally, she gets a slap to the face when Solomon invites Saya to dance instead of her.
Kafuko from Space Pirate Mito, complete with Girl Posse, sense of entitlement, and not-so-secret crush on the protagonist.
Reiko Komori, one of Mamoru's friends in Gao Gai Gar, seems to be a younger, nicer version of this. The claws only come out on Sunou, one of their other friends, to one-up him whenever he starts bragging.
In Mahou Sensei Negima, after Yue gets Laser Guided Amnesia, she ends up enrolling in a Magic School and has to deal with one of these. They get along better after that incident with the griffin dragon.

Comic Books

Spider Man Loves Mary Jane presents a subversion; through the series, it appears that Liz Allen is The Libby of the school, and certainly possesses the usual qualities — head of the cheer-leading squad, bitchy and snobby, dating the head football jock, obsessed with becoming Homecoming Queen, so on and such. However, come the night of the Homecoming Dance, it's revealed that Mary Jane — the nicer, sweeter, and more easy-going and modest protagonist, and Liz's best friend — is actually far more well-liked, and is voted Homecoming Queen (despite having not even run for it), much to both girl's surprise and, for different reasons, horror. After a big fight between them, Liz later admits that she's always been jealous of Mary Jane, more than aware that she's always been the more popular of the two, thus explaining Liz's desperate need to win the Homecoming Queen crown.
Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. may be a bit of a subversion: Courtney is the blonde newcomer who ends up gaining popularity against a brunette Libby. Of course, said enemy is also a supervillain and the daughter of the series' Big Bad, and once that gets out, the cliques are bound to change.
Replace "High School" with "Super Hero Team" and Sistah Spooky from Empowered proves the platonic ideal of this trope down to the Freudian Excuse (she was a frumpy dark-skinned girl in a high school filled with hellishly gorgeous blond libbies, and wound up selling her soul for looks).
A rare black Libby and among the first to be a protagonist is Generation X's Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix (yes that's her full name), also known as M. She's gorgeous, wealthy, and brilliant, with Flying Brick powers plus telepathy and accelerated learning aptitude. Par for the course was a heated rivalry with Jubilee and a more subtle one with Emma Frost. Being Ms. Perfect has backfired at least once, however. When the Massachusets Academy started admitting human students, nobody asked Monet to the dance because all the boys thought she was out of their league. Thankfully, the many sobering events in the X-Men's world have kept her from becoming a Rich Bitch for the most part.

Films

Regina in the movie Mean Girls. Her Meaningful Name is Latin for "queen". The entire movie is basically a deliberate embodiment and analysis of this trope.
- Hell, the whole movie is about this trope. However, argueably, it could also bee seen as a variation, as the main character (Lindsey Lohan,) basically BECOMES the thirs one of the "two friends who worship her, and are a little bit shorter" as Ebert discribes them at the top of this page.
Subverted in Clueless — Cher Horowitz is unquestionably one of the most popular girls in school, but she's also a genuinely nice person (if a bit spoiled, shallow and airheaded).
- Her rival Amber Mariens is a bit closer in spirit to The Libby, but is less popular than Cher and her sluttiness and airheadedness make her more like The Brainless Beauty (albeit a mean spirited one).
Mandy Moore's "Stupid Cupid"-singing cheerleader Lana Thomas in The Princess Diaries. Notable mainly for the fact that director Garry Marshall explicitly pointed out that Lana was this character on the DVD's supplemental material.
Christie Masters (played by Julia Campbell) in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.
Also played by Mandy Moore, Hilary Faye in Saved!
Amber Von Tussle from Hairspray, played by Colleen Fitzpatrick in the 1988 version, and Brittany Snow in the 2007 version.
Heather Chandler (and later Heather Duke) in Heathers.
Parodied and subverted in Not Another Teen Movie with the character Priscilla.
Subverted in Napoleon Dynamite, in which the Libby turns out to be not so bad.
Sharpay Evans in High School Musical fits the part pretty well, but the movies' upbeat tone means that she's always redeemed by the end.
Jane Mitchell in Zapped! who gets a Carrie comeuppance in the end.
Taylor Vaughan in She's All That.
Subverted in Legally Blonde, where the Libby is actually the Hollywood Homely smart girl who torments the blonde, bouncy, popular, rich girl.

Literature

Nellie Oleson from Little House On The Prairie. Nellie first appeared in the 1937 book On the Banks of Plum Creek.
Amy's rivals April Snow and May Chester of Little Women, making it Older Than Radio.
Ethel Hallow from The Worst Witch.
Pansy Parkinson in the Harry Potter books seems to be one. We don't see much of her, but she acts snotty whenever she shows up and, of course, dotes on her boyfriend Draco Malfoy. Also, she is mentioned to have a Girl Posse and all the "good" female characters hate her with a passion.
- Romilda Vane, Harry's Stalker With A Crush from the sixth book, also had some Libby tendencies, possessing her own Girl Posse and telling Harry that he didn't have to hang out with kids as "uncool" as Neville and Luna.
- Although clearly not JK Rowling's intention, Ginny Weasley is often accused of being this character due to the fact that she is "popular" in the latter books and has a rather blunt personality. (In fairness to her, good social skills do seem somewhat rare in the Potter Verse.)
Christine Hargensen, Carrie's nemesis in Stephen King's book and film Carrie.
Lara from Cherie Bennett's execrable Life in the Fat Lane is something of a failed subversion: She starts out much like Cher from Clueless—the rich, shallow and naïve, but basically sweet (and supposedly intelligent) homecoming queen. Then she (suddenly) gets fat and becomes a social outcast. (Of course, her immediate descent into Wangst upon gaining the first ten pounds had nothing to do with it...) Enter not one but at least two textbook incarnations of The Libby...and a few of their male counterparts.
There are several candidates for The Libby in the Whateley Universe stories, but the best is probably Solange (Tansy Walcutt, from one of the richest families in America). She's blonde, beautiful, shallow, cruel, followed by her equally blond sidekicks Flicker and Fade, and always looking for ways to mistreat the less fortunate. Since she has psychic powers, she has a LOT of ways to do just that. Before her powers kicked in, she was the fat, ugly, braces-wearing, pimply loser who was picked on, and now she gets to dish it out. After she literally absorbs one of the main characters for a week, the other main characters turn their attentions her way, and her life goes rapidly downhill. She doesn't learn a lesson from this.
Carmelita Spats in A Series Of Unfortunate Events is a self-entitled and spoiled young girl who looks down upon and bullies the protagonists simply because of her irrational dislike of orphans. Though this troper can't quite recall Carmelita being involved with any sort of posse, she was well liked by the school's conceited vice principal, Nero.
Massie Block, the main character of the Clique series of novels.
Lana is an even more cliched version of this in the books The Princess Diaries, as well as being a Devil In Plain Sight. Of course, Mia often retaliates.
The young woman who snubbed Will Laurence at his parents' house when he stopped by on the way to the training grounds — This Troper sadly cannot remember her name at this time — was only a mild Libby... until at the end of the book, she "revealed" (Laurence had already heard) during the celebrations that Laurence's childhood sweetheart had gotten married.
Lila Fowler in the Sweet Valley High series.
Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series is possibly a male version of The Libby. He's blond, rich, snobbish, presumed evil, and comes complete with two other boys flanking his sides at all times - though Crabbe and Goyle aren't the stereotypical slightly less pretty; they are anything but. Draco also seems to date what would probably be the ultimate Libby of the series had she been given a larger role - Pansy Parkinson, who travels around with a gang of Slytherin girls and insults Hermione every chance she gets.

Live Action TV

Libby from Sabrina The Teenage Witch (obviously).
Paige Michalchuk on Degrassi The Next Generation is, strangely, a Rich Bitch who isn't rich. She's the head cheerleader (who takes credit for other girls' work), and she's a horrendous snob toward anyone less popular than her. But when school is out, she has to work a minimum-wage job.
- Paige became a subversion of this trope. It was pulled off arguably well (as in more tastefully than this editor expected).
Cordelia Chase on Buffy The Vampire Slayer started out as this kind of character and rapidly became the Fallen Princess version.
- Her sidekick Harmony proceeded to take this position up until being killed and turned into a vampire; then she became the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
Veronica DiAngelo on The Saddle Club.
Stephanie Kaye from the 1980s Degrassi Junior High is a rare case where The Libby is one of the protagonists. As a result, she has frequent Pet The Dog moments in between her bullying.
In Heroes, Jackie is a stereotypical example of this trope (although when her karmic retribution comes, it's a bit more severe than growing up to lead an unfulfilled life). The second season has Debbie, who is a copy of Jackie right down to being the blond head cheerleader.
Missy Meany in Neds Declassified School Survival Guide — The Libby with Theme Naming.
Summer Heights High features a parody of this trope, in the form of Ja'mie (played by a man doing a convincing impression), and to a much lesser extent, her "friends" (played by real girls).
Chelsea Breur in Naturally Sadie. Replaced in second season by Arden Alcot.
From Veronica Mars, three words: Madison Freaking Sinclair.
That's So Raven: The one-time character Nicki.
Wizards Of Waverly Place has Gigi. Inverted with Alex: We see her as the protagonist, but there's no denying that she has Libby qualities.
- It might actually fit better to classify Alex as an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist and Gigi as a Sitcom Arch Nemesis.
Amber in Hannah Montana. She's not a ditz, though her sidekick Ashley fills that purpose.
A one-shot character on The Secret World of Alex Mack who fit this type was actually named Libby, a year before Sabrina. The Freudian Excuse was somewhat subverted; Libby claimed that she has to worry about being popular, and that she really admires Alex, but she was manipulating Alex into feeling sympathy for her, and she wasn't really sensitive or sympathetic at all.
The killer in the Cold Case episode "Stand Up and Holler" was one of these. In the present day, she had two failed marriages (and was working on her third) and was desperately clinging to her glory days when she was the most popular girl in school.
Amanda Tanen in Ugly Betty
Cassie Lynn Nubbles from Family Matters. As Steve Urkel put it, she was "the poster child for useless people."
Freaks And Geeks initially depicts Vicki Appleby as one of these, but it's subverted in "Smooching and Mooching", when she opens up to Bill in a Ten Minutes In The Closet session.
Twist from Spaced, a post-high school version. Twist is attractive and fashionable, but she works in a dry cleaners and seems to have only one "friend," Daisy, whom she showers with back-handed compliments. Daisy doesn't seem to notice that Twist is an awful friend until the end of the show.
Subverted in 30 Rock, where Liz Lemon dreads meeting her Libby at her Class Reunion. As it turns out, that school's Libby was in fact a nice popular girl, whereas all of her classmates regarded her as a bully because of her cruel putdowns.
The Secret World Of Alex Mack had a Libby named Libby, but she got Brother Chucked early on and was replaced by one named Kelly.

Music

The song "Roses" by Outkast is basically a long The Reason You Suck Speech directed at a Libby named Caroline. In the music video she doesn't really seem to mind.
The music video to Avril Lavigne's song, "Girlfriend", has her acting aggressively bitchy against the girlfriend of a boy she fancies. Apparently, the rest of the album has the same tone.
- Having actually listened to the album, this troper can tell you that isnt the tone, and the song in question is actually a song that is parodying the "Libby", though many real life Libbys have not understood the point of the song and taken it as a theme song for themselves.

Theatre

How Glinda initially appears in Wicked, down to the dizziness, fashion obsession and sheeplike Girl Posse. It's only much later we learn she's made of awesome.

Video Games

Etoile Rosenqueen from "Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure", the first part of the Marl Kingdom games.
- Etoile has Hidden Depths, though; she's secretly an Action Girl who hides pistol behind her frilly pink fan.
Kyoka (called "Antoinette" by the main character, after the infamous French queen who's extravagant spending on things such as mansions and the like (although a lot of it was exaggerated by enemies) while people were starving out on the fields was a prime example of the kind of thing that led to the French Revolution) is the antagonist of Aeka's route in Yume Miru Kusuri. Something that's kind of odd to this trope is that she had a crush on the lead from the beginning and tries to get with him several times, though the lead just finds her annoying. This doesn't stop her from targeting him along with Aeka once it becomes official that the two are going out, though. It gets pretty brutal. This goes for the backlash, as well, which sees Kouhei and Aeka turn the tables on and nearly kill Kyoka when she decides to have her friends pin down Kouhei so that he can watch Kyoka's boyfriend rape Aeka.
Joanne Lynette, First Citizen of Vault City in F2. Slavery, racism, and cruelty.

Web Comics

Subverted by El Goonish Shive; Diane fits the stereotype perfectly, but shy, artistic lesbian Nanase keeps brushing off her attempts to get her into the Girl Posse. In this comic, Diane is shown to be caring, implying that her Libby-ness is a facade.
Subversion: In Penny And Aggie, Penny is a popular girl, and seems like a Libby at first (in contrast to the independent-minded Aggie). As the story progresses, however, Penny turns out to be a decent, observant, intelligent person, with most of the conflicts between her and Aggie being initiated by the latter.
On the other hand, Carrie of Loserz is the epitome of this trope, or is at least trying to be. See here.
Sluggy Freelance briefly features Cindi. Subverted when she wanders rather badly out of her league in this strip.
Sayuri Morita in Red String. However, her nastiness eventually comes back to bite her, and the main characters actually haven't gone and befriended her yet.
Kharisma in Something Positive. Oh Lawdy does she get her comeuppance. And then some.
Felicia Laine in Ozy And Millie fits most of the characteristics of a Libby, despite being in elementary school. In subversion of the trope, however, she's not stupid (as much as she acts the part), nor does she have any attraction to the strip's Jerk Jock Jeremy (indeed, they've never even met). Her infatuations are mostly directed at the members of boy band du jour.
You'd think that with cheerleaders as protagonists, Cheer! would be free of Libbies. You'd be wrong.
Sarah and Cass from Yu Me Dream, though Sarah and Fiona were childhood friends.
Emily's pre-misfile friend Molly in Misfile. The current arc has Emily going to her for advice on how to deal with The Rival, Missi.
- Jenny Jr. shows many characteristics of The Libby as well.

Web Original

Ami from Sailor Nothing.
- Aki starts off as the Hidden Depths version, with a lack of confidence in her own abilities and secretly happy that Himei is acting a lot less depressed (for about two minutes, but meh). An encounter with an Enemy Without is enough to convince her that she's becoming a Stepford Smiler, and she drops out of the Girl Posse and becomes the first member of Himei's Power Trio.
Sooni from Tales Of MU both uses and subverts the trope. While she starts out appearing to be a textbook Libby, it quickly becomes clear that she's trying to live out a fantasy, with a Girl Posse made up of virtual slaves and little actual popularity.
Helena van Garrett (v1) and the Sisterhood (v2) from Survival Of The Fittest.

Western Animation

Bonnie Rockwaller on Kim Possible, except she tries (repeatedly and in vain) to usurp the role of captain from the cheerleading heroine. Bonnie did eventually become cheerleading captain in one episode, and much to Kim's initial dismay, proves to be exceptionally competent and dedicated to the job. (Though she doesn't become any less bitchy.) Kim eventually decides to not fight it, as she's sure Bonnie will get sick and tired of all the hard work involved with being squad captain. And she's right; the next episode showing the cheerleading, Kim's clearly back in charge.
Mandy from Totally Spies. Extra points for being totally shallow.
Paulina from Danny Phantom.
Gemini Stone from Sabrina The Animated Series.
Princess Morbucks from The Powerpuff Girls.
- More just a Rich Bitch since she doesn't have a posse and doesn't seem particularly popular.
Sierra McCool in Disney's The Replacements.
The Oblongs has Debbie Klimer and her posse of identical Debbie clones.
Mindy from The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy is a much younger Libby, as well as an incredibly obsessive one. For example, she loses her head cheerleader position to Mandy (who just shouts the game plans to the team) and after consulting the "patron saint of cheerleading" (a trophy she thinks is talking) decides the best solution is to incapacitate her in some way in the middle of the match, or, failing that, blowing her up.
Miranda Kilgallen in As Told By Ginger, however she is the second-in-command to Girl Posse leader and Brainless Beauty Courtney Gripling.
- She also defrosts a little. She never exactly becomes friendly, but she's a lot worse at the start than she is at the end.
Élisabeth "Sissi" Delmas in Code Lyoko is a strange version of this. In the first season, this is played straight, with the exception of a few scenes in only a few episodes. However, her assistance to the heroes in later seasons, particularly the second and fourth, is often offered without second thought or a specific request for a reward, though this can happen quite a bit in a life or death situation. It seems that her personality alternates between seasons, from a straight Libby in seasons one and three to a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold in seasons two and four. The grand irony of the heroes' attitude toward her is that it is not based on her personality, but actually mistrust. She Missed The Call in the prequel when she was too afraid to enter the scanner on the first night, and lost the groups trust permanently when she did the right thing and told the secret of Lyoko to the adults to prevent further possible catastrophes. The group distrusts her to the point that she became particularly mean toward them, creating a kind of vicious circle of animosity between the Lyoko Warriors and herself. This is mainly persisted by Ulrich, whom Sissi has a crush on, and is rightfully rectified by him when he makes her part of the group in the last episode of the series (as of now still unaired stateside).
On Winx Club, a girl from Bloom's old home town named Mitzi definitely fit the bill despite only appearing a few times. On the Halloween episode, she invited the Bloom and her friends to a party - which turned out to be an elaborate scheme to humiliate the girls. She bought and rigged a house, made up an elaborate legend, hired actors to pose as party guests (complete with scripts), and set up elaborate special effects around the house, just to pull a prank on someone she had barely seen in two years, along with four girls she had never met.
- Mitzi has a more prominent role in the fourth season: she has laid her eyes on Brandon and wants to take him from Stella.
Nazz from Ed Edd N Eddy could be seen as The Libby since she is the cheerleading captain of her school, always hangs around Kevin (the captain of the football team) and that practically every guy on the show except for Rolf & Jimmy like her. However, she is nice towards people most of the time and could even be seen as The Ditz (especially in season five).
In The Spectacular Spider Man, Cheerleader Sally Avril is the most abusive girl in M³'s Six Student Clique, even mercilessly mocking fellow clique-member Flash Thompson when his hero Spider-Man appears to be commiting robberies.
- Slightly subverted when Peter's aunt has a heart attack as Flash mentions that even Sally feels sorry for him, although she is not as forthcoming with her sympathies as his friends are.
- Both she and Flash have gone through a bit of Character Development. When she thinks that Peter's been killed, Sally is horrified. She does say it's because she'll have to tell Liz and Liz "looks awful in black", but when she sees that Peter's okay she performs a textbook Fear Leads To Anger. A bit later she tells him that no, she doesn't care, but she doesn't want him to be blown to bits, she's not a monster.
Sandi Griffin in Daria, who is outright emotionally abusive even to the other members of her own clique (Stacy Rowe in particular). It isn't until the series' final season that her position of control is finally first slowly undermined by both Quinn starting to distance herself from the group and Stacy gaining a sense of self-confidence, and then then finally lost when the other three members of the Fashion Club all agree to dissolve the group and she agrees last, as a face-saving measure.
Trixie Tang of The Fairly Odd Parents is rich and popular AND lusted after by everyone, including Timmy, the main character. However, in the episode The Boy Who Would Be Queen, a genderbended Timmy learns that there is another side to Trixie — a boyish side that likes comics and video games, which would shock all of the people who worship her. She says that all she wants for her birthday is a friend who understands this, but when Timmy arrives at her party and makes the offer, she saves face by rejecting him.
Penelope Lang in Atomic Betty, who coincidentally also looks Asian. Her two cohorts are a pair of syncopantic nerds. Is the increase in Asian Libbys some sort of Take That by Cho Chang haters?
Tricia from 6teen.
Heather the "Queen Bee" from Total Drama Island has pulled this off quite well in a non-highschool setting.
Tiff and Brit,the Krust Cousins from My Life as a Teenage Robot.
B.B. Bluff from Doug is a subversion. The richest (their middle school was named after her by her Dad), most popular, and somewhat snobby and spoiled, she was actually quite nice to everyone despite these character traits. She even ended up being Doug's First Kiss in a sweet way.
Angelica became this in the transition from Rugrats to All Grown Up, though she's admittedly less of a jerk than she used to be. Maturity can do that to you sometimes...
Monster Buster Club gives us a subversion of the Always Female rule. Resident Libby Mark is a male Spoiled Blond Rich Kid who delights in insulting and generally being less than pleasant with the four kid heroes, apparently for no reason. He may in fact be this show's answer to Sissi from Code Lyoko; as it has been pointed out, Monster Buster Club rather seems to take after it.
On the show Horseland, we have sisters Chloe and Zoey Stilton, who are basically Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in appearance. They're definitely Libbies, also Rich Bitch material...odly enough they seem to have bigger "boobs" than the other girls. That's not accurate, let me rephrase...none of the girls, who are about 13, have "boobs" they have "bumps". But Chloe and Zoey seem to be drawn a little bigger. So Yeah...
Similarly on the show WITCH there are three resident Libbies: one is WITCH team member Cornelia Hale, who is a bratty rich blonde, though generally considered to be a pretty and popular girl. More of a Rich Bitch but with a touch of The Libby. Cornelia's certainly rather bitchy and exceedingly bossy, but she's also a superhero so she's not all bad. Then you have the Grumper Sisters, twin redheads who are also pretty and popular, but unlike Cornelia, are not superheroes and just bitchy.
Miss Montagu, a minor character from the Temeraire series, is what a Libby would be if she were in the early 19th century Britain and out of school.
Connie D'Amico from Family Guy. Especially glaring since not only is she mean to Meg, but Brian spells out how her life is going to turn out (as described at the top of this page), and predicts she'll "hit the wall" at age 19. This sends her running off crying.
Refreshingly subverted on American Dad where a character, Lisa Silver or some such, is introduced as the "hottest girl in school" and the head cheerleader, in an episode where the nerdy son hits puberty. He tries to ask her to a school dance and she agrees. Now one would expect, she's a total bitch...but no! Indeed, she is a perfectly normal girl, who is far more understanding than most girls would be, even after the son blows her off more than once (actually not his fault, his parents injected him with a serum that caused him to de-age and then rapidly age) and actually goes to the dance alone waiting for him to show up. You'd think they'd have her break up with him or humilate him...again, no! Though he does get humiliated it's because of the family's Jerkass pet Grey alien and not her. Quite refreshing, much more mature than the constant need to humiliate the Libbies in other series.
Nanette Manoir from Angela Anaconda