Betty and Veronica/Literature

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Tough luck by now, Ron. Your Betty card may expire one of these dances.

Betty and Veronica in Literature

This is a common theme throughout the novels of Jane Austen, of the heroine being torn between a dependable, caring man and a libertinish cad. She will always choose the former, but Austen will keep you guessing as to who it is. (The exception is Lady Susan, as she is an anti-heroine who is herself a Veronica.)
- Sense and Sensibility: With Marianne as the Archie, Brandon is the Betty and Willoughby is the Veronica.
- Pride and Prejudice: With Elizabeth, Darcy is the Betty and Wickham is the Veronica.
- Mansfield Park: With Fanny, Edmund is the Betty and Henry is the Veronica; with Edmund, Fanny is the Betty and Mary is the Veronica; with Henry Crawford, Fanny is the Betty and Maria is the Veronica; with Maria Bertram, Rushworth is the Betty and Henry is the Veronica
- Emma: With Emma, George Knightley is the Betty and Frank Churchill is the Veronica.
Pictured above: Harry Potter has a number of examples starting with Hermione choosing between the famous, popular, mysterious and intense Viktor Krum (Veronica) and her good friend Ron (Betty). In a bit of a subversion Krum turns out to be quite the Nice Guy when she gets to know him better, while Ron's insecurities sometimes lead him to kind of a jerk to her until he gets over himself.
- This trope is played with canonically on the Lily/Snape/James triangle. Snape's Pensieved memories show that Snape (who was in love with Lily all along) was originally Lily's best friend, while she wanted nothing to do with arrogant bully James. Of course, this changes and Lily eventually marries James, but interestingly it seems that this only happens once Snape switches to the Veronica (by insulting Lily and calling her "mudblood") and James to the Betty (by acting less arrogant and more mature once he left school). It's like a Betty and Veronica love triangle where Archie has no interest in the Veronica... whoever it may be at a given time. J. K. Rowling has expressed her dismay with the fact that All Girls Want Bad Boys in interviews, so this may simply be Lily defying that trope in combination with an Hourglass Plot.
- Ron caught between his long time friend Hermione and the "fangirl" Lavender Brown.
- Harry goes from Cho Chang, the "very pretty" popular girl with long dark hair (though she still has Betty traits via being a Nice Girl), to his teammate and best friend's little sister Ginny.
In Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, the titular character initially marries the charmingly ditzy Dora Spenlow (Veronica), and only later discovers and returns the love of the gentle, supportive Agnes Wickfield (Betty).
Piers Anthony's Isle of View (say it out loud) in the Xanth series resolves the Betty and Veronica love triangle between Prince Dolph and his two fiancees: Electra (sweet, willing, but unexciting) and Nada Naga (exotic, beautiful, but uninterested). By the time it's resolved a few books later, all three characters have been sufficiently Flanderized that there's no reason to care anymore.
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 Misérables 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. However, this was inevitable due to 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.
The Man Who Laughs, where Gwynplaine is torn between the extremely sweet Dea and the rather perverted Duchess Josiana.
Stardust: Tristran has to make a Red Pill, Blue Pill choice between the magical shooting star Yvaine (Betty) and his former crush Victoria (Veronica). Yvaine wins.
- Although you can argue that Victoria is actually the Betty (being the one Tristran was originally in love with and a normal human) and Yvaine the Veronica (being the magical, more 'exotic' choice and a bit of a Defrosting Ice Queen). It's a bait and switch of this trope, really.
In Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga, gender roles are switched—the protagonist, Bella Swan, wants to be with Edward (mysterious, pale, creepy) but Jacob (long-time best friend, genuinely cares about her), who she does have some romantic feelings for, wants to be with her.
Honor Harrington gives an interesting example in which not the hero, but a supporting character, Hamish Alexander, gets torn between his beautiful, loving and brilliant, but invalid wife, Emily (the Betty), and lively, athletic and no less beautiful protege and subordinate, titular Honor Harrington. Being an Officer and a Gentleman, Hamish decided to simply suffer nobly in silence, which brought a truly monumental amount of problems for at least three books until he was whacked on the head by no other than his very wife. He then went on implementing the Tenchi Solution, marrying both.
- Notable in that Honor was aware of Hamish's feelings but he didn't know that she knew, and had also chosen to suffer nobly in silence. Emily's Clue Bat had to work a lot of overtime that week.
Bridget Jones's Diary plays this fairly straight between Mark Darcy (Betty) and Daniel Cleaver (Veronica). The film version even describes them as "too good to be true" and "so wrong he might just be right", respectively. By the end of the books, Mark has won, although when Helen Fielding continued the column, apparently Bridget was still torn between them and even ends up having Daniel's baby.
Kushiel's Legacy has Imriel torn between his dutiful love for gentle brunette wife Dorelei, and his socially inappropriate and fairly kinky attachment to glamorous, feisty blonde heiress Sidonie, a Defrosting Ice Queen. Arguably Phedre, Hyacinthe and Joscelin fall into this as well, if only because of the complicated nature of Phedre's relationship with Joscelin.
In the Russian version of the tale The Shadow, written by E. Shwartz, the scientist Christian Theodore, after defeating his shadow, chooses to marry the faithful Annunciata, rather than the shallow (as it turns out) princess, his previous love interest.
Very early example: the eponymous hero of Daniel Deronda has to choose between sweet, emotionally fragile Jewish musician Mirah and shallow, socialite-fallen-on-hard-times Gwendolen. In a very unpopular move for the times, he chooses Mirah. It was so unpopular, in fact, that an American novelist actually wrote a "sequel," Gwendolen, in which Deronda reconverts to Christianity and marries Gwendolen!
Tipping the Velvet: In a rare lesbian example, Nan has to decide between her beautiful, faithless, music hall artiste ex Kitty and her feisty socialist girlfriend Florence. She chooses Flo. Partly ruined by the TV adaptation, which insists on turning the savvy Flo into an innocent wet weakling. It might be this change in focus that led many fans to complain she should have picked Kitty.
In Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori series, protagonist Takeo must choose between relatively normal Kaede and Ninja Maid Dark Action Girl Yuki.
In Gottfried Keller's Green Henry (1854/55) the protagonist is torn between the sweet Anna and the passionate Judith.
In the novel as well as the film Starter for 10, Brian Jackson is faced with a similar dilemma - he is heavily attracted to his sexy University Challenge teammate Alice (the somewhat 'slutty' Veronica) but somewhat attracted to intuitive activist Rebecca (a more forceful Betty who isn't the 'girl-next-door'), whom he doesn't realize he's better off with. Of course, he does realize he's better off with Rebecca and 'breaks up' with Alice (after she slept with his best friend).
In the Stephanie Plum series, the protagonist of the same name is caught in a love triangle between her childhood friend Joe Morelli and the more mysterious Ranger. However, Joe Morelli isn't exactly your run-of-the-mill goody-two-shoes Betty.
In the Dragonlance novels, red headed Tanis Half-Elven has to choose between Laurana, a sweet, innocent blonde elven princess, and Kitiara, a sultry brunette human warlord. After a great deal of indecision and whining about how horrible it is to have two gorgeous women in love with him, Tanis finally chooses Laurana, mainly because he feels responsible when Kitiara tries to resolve the triangle by kidnapping Laurana and attempting to have her killed.
In The Age Of Innocence, Newland Archer is engaged to the blond, blue-eyed, "perfect" - and completely superficial and ordinary - May Welland (the Betty), but falls in love with her dark-haired cousin Ellen, the family reprobate (the Veronica). Interestingly, the trope is somewhat inverted, as in this case, it's The Veronica who is more suited to him in terms of personality and interests.
In Everwild, Allie finds herself in a love triangle with Mikey (Betty) and Milos (Veronica).
In The Night Angel Trilogy, Kylar finds that he has feelings for the pure and well-meaning Elene (Betty), but also finds himself drawn to the violent and fiery Vi (Veronica) as well. In the end Elene sacrifices herself, leaving Vi and Kylar for each other...
Played straight in Stephen Donaldson's The Mirror of Her Dreams, with Terisa, who has to choose between Geraden (Betty) and Eremis (Veronica). Geraden wins, since Eremis is evil and has been trying to kill Terisa and Geraden for most of the book. For added Squick, his intentions seemed to be to sleep with her, and then kill her.
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier has a gender-flipped example: Pieter the son as Betty and Vermeer as Veronica, with Griet as the Archie.
Moonlight - which can be fairly described as "Twilight with werewolves" - plays this straight, but with a twist. Kayla, the heroine, identifies Lucas as the Bad Boy, and Mason as the "safe" guy. The twist is, even before Mason's Face Heel Turn, reading between the lines reveals that she's got it backwards. Lucas is gruff, aloof, and has an animal magnetism that terrifies her, but he also protects her, trusts her, and never forces her to do anything she's unable to cope with. Mason, while charming and intelligent, comes on to her rather insistently, acts possessive, demonstrates overt disrespect for Lucas (who more or less ignores him in return), and - most tellingly - uses beer smuggled on the trip to get Kayla buzzed before a night of stargazing.
Noblesse Oblige and Yetta Samovar in Barefoot Boy With Cheek by Max Shulman.
Subverted somewhat disturbingly in The Lover by AB Yehoshua, with the quiet day-in-day-out Adam intentionally fixing up his wife with young artist Gabriel as a lover, and later doing it with his daughter’s friend Tali.
In Robert E. Howard's "The Slithering Shadows", Conan the Barbarian tosses off The Vamp at the realization that his slave girl is watching.
In Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Prince Myshkin is forced to choose between Aglaia, a girl with a good reputation from a respectable household, and the scandalous, self-destructive Nastassya Filippovna. He chooses...poorly. Somewhat subverted in that Aglaia is very much a Tsundere which makes her pretty far from the typical Betty prototype.
Some V. C. Andrews books gender-flip this trope: the Casteel series has Boy Next Door Logan as the Betty and Troubled but Cute uncle Troy as the Veronica for Heaven, the Cutler series has devoted stepbrother Jimmy as the Betty and creepily obsessed blood brother Philip as the Veronica for Dawn, and the Landry series has half-brother Paul as the Betty and bad boy Beau as the Veronica for Ruby. And yes, one of the suitors will turn out to be blood-related to the heroine. No exceptions.
Played straight in The Wheel of Time with Lews Therin Telamon's two love interests: the ambitious, dark-haired, dark-eyed channeler Mierin Eronaile, and the red-gold-haired Ilyena Moerelle Dalisar, who has no powers to speak of. He chooses Ilyena, then goes mad and kills her. Mierin's jealousy of Ilyena might have played a role in her decision to become Lanfear, the first of the Forsaken. Also played straight among Rand, Lews Therin's reincarnation, Elayne, Ilyena's reincarnation, and Mierin again: Rand chooses Elayne, though their relationship is complicated by the Tenchi Solution Elayne works out with Rand's two other girlfriends.
In Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, the hero Steven must choose between Annette Watson (Betty) and Renee Albert (Veronica). He chooses Annette.
In the later Vampire Academy books, Rose has Adrian become her Betty and Dimitri, her Veronica.
Matched by Ally Condie is about a dystopian society where everything you do, including your future spouse, is determined by statistics on you and your age group. Cassia has her "matching" ceremony where she is matched with her close childhood friend, Xander. However, the next day she sees that she is matched with Ky. She now must choose between Xander, the person society chose for her, and Ky, a rebellious "Aberration" who should not have beeen matched in the first place.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami has this as its central plot as Watanabe (Archie) is torn between Naoko (Veronica) and Midori (Betty).
Discussed in Faking It by Jennifer Crusie about choosing between the muffin (Betty) and the doughnut (Veronica). The doughnut is exciting and fun and gorgeous, whereas the muffin just kinds of sit there, "lumpy, looking alike, no chocolate frosting." But while the doughnut is good for a one night stand, its sticky and no longer crispy the next morning. Muffins, however, taste better the next day, and are there for the long haul.

Davy: What's Simon?

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Nadine: Doughnut. With sprinkles.

In Sabatini's Scaramouche, Aline and Climene.
Played with in Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. Curt is the Betty, because he is probably the safest option for her especially after she gets pregnant. Curt is very wealthy and has a high status in her school. Matt could be either Betty or Veronica, depending on your point of view. Matt could be Betty because he is the one she's always wanted, her mother knows him, and he is also Chinese. He could be the Veronica because he is poor and for some parts of the book already has another girlfriend. In the end, Kimberly chooses neither. Matt marries his girlfriend, but Kimberly and him do share a kiss.
Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: Deconstructed to a brutal degree in the book Sweet Revenge! The book has Bobby Harcourt (Archie), Isabelle Flanders (Betty), and Rosemary Hershey (Veronica). Bobby and Isabelle were going to be married. However, Rosemary hated Isabelle's guts and had her framed for drunk driving that resulted in the deaths of three people, so Isabelle ends up being ruined and loses everything. Bobby, in a Moment of Weakness (and lust) ends up having sex with Rosemary and marries her instead. By the book Sweet Revenge, however, things change: Bobby ends up realizing that Rosemary is a Jerkass with an It's All About Me attitude and decides to divorce her. Isabelle ends up back in a position of prominence and works hard to ruin Rosemary. Then Rosemary goes Ax Crazy, ends up losing everything, gets ruined, and is last seen placed in a mental institution, possibly to never become lucid again. Isabelle and Bobby did have a short dialogue... but it is painfully clear that it is too late for both of them to have the sort of relationship they once had. So Bobby, thanks to his foolishness, ends up with nothing in a sense, and is forced to realize that he wasted years of his life with the wrong woman.
In The Hunger Games, Gale is the Betty with Peeta as the Veronica as Katniss's Archie. However, it is possible to see Peeta as the Betty - blond, meek, kind and had a crush on Katniss since they were young - with Gale as the Veronica - dark-haired, handsome and more "dangerous". She chooses Peeta - in no small part because Gale screws up big time.
Ivanhoe was fought over between Rowena and Rebecca.
In The 39 Clues' second series, Cahills vs. Vespers, Evan - Amy Cahill's boyfriend - is the geeky, kindhearted, concerned Betty, while Ian - who had a brief relationship with her in the previous series - is the Veronica, a snarky, handsome Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Newcomer Jake Rosenbloom is a Third Option Love Interest.
The quintessential flipped B/A/V love triangle has to be Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Rich, blond Linton being the Betty; dark, poor, dangerous (arguably psychotic) Heathcliff playing the Veronica; and selfish Catherine as the Archie.