Betty, Veronica and Archie Switcheroo

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Meet Archie. He is your protagonist and by default the The Everyman. He is torn between two people: Betty and Veronica. Betty is the Nice Girl, and Veronica is the Vamp who may be prickly and temperamental but is fun. It seems like a straightforward Love Triangle.

Or is it?

The Betty, Veronica, and Archie Switcheroo is when these roles are switched around. Sometimes Betty is revealed to have a hidden wild side or tragic backstory. Maybe Veronica is revealed to have Hidden Depths that put her in the Nice Girl territory. Perhaps Archie is actually a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing or isn't interested in either girl. In any case, the roles switch because people are not just flat characters.

Examples of Betty, Veronica and Archie Switcheroo include:

Anime and Manga

• Revolutionary Girl Utena has the titular character experience variations of this trope:
  • Utena starts falling for Akio, Anthy's brother. He seems much nicer than Touga, the Student Council president that tried manipulating Utena into losing a Rose Duel and becoming his girlfriend. Then Touga realizes that Akio has something sinister planned for Utena and tries warning her about the plot for the End of the World. Despite saying that he can't help Utena if she won't see the truth, Touga selflessly follows her into the castle to rescue Dios from Akio, and unlike the other council members his flaws don't trap him; Touga is horrified when Utena sacrifices her existence to free Anthy from her curse. The manga ends with him relieved that Anthy is going to find Utena while Walking the Earth.
  • Anthy at first appears to be the Archie in the relationship, as the Council members fight over ownership of her in mandated duels, with Utena serving as the Betty. It comes out that Anthy is more important than she looks; far from being a mere prize as the Rose Bride for the students to win, she's Dios's sister. In fact, what happened was that Anthy shielded Dios when he worked himself to death, accepting swords of hate that infuse her with pain after a mob wanted to confront him. Dios later becomes Akio, and used Anthy in his campaign to acquire power so as to become Dios again, by making people fight over her. When the truth comes out, Utena declares that she will earn her way to become a real prince for Anthy, by freeing her from her curse and bondage to Akio. This involves sacrificing her existence, and giving her courageous spirit to Anthy. Anthy gains her freedom and is no longer the Archie.
• Sailor Moon showed this happen in different ways:
  • Rei starts dating Mamoru in season one of the classic series. While she's portrayed as the Veronica to Usagi's Betty, in truth both of the girls bicker a lot, with Usagi sometimes having unprovoked jabs at Rei, and at this point Usagi has eyes only for arcade manager and Nice Guy Motoki. And in the end, Rei steps aside because she realizes that while she liked Mamoru, she didn't love him the way that Usagi does to the point of having a breakdown after learning the Dark Kingdom captured and brainwashed him. Plus, by then, a drifter named Yuiichiro catches her eye, to the point they become a couple in later seasons.
  • In the anime, Makoto gets jealous when finding out that Motoki has a girlfriend, a Nice Girl named Reika who would be the Betty. Makoto would normally be the Veronica and prepares to sabotage the relationship, only to find out that she can't do it. When Reika is hesitant about accepting a job abroad that would separate her from her boyfriend, Makoto says that long-distance relationships work all the time, and encourages her that she and Motoki can still be happy, returning to their relationship when Reika's job is over. And indeed, when Motoki sees off Reika at the airport, both Makoto and Usagi are touched at how much the two care about each other
• Yona of the Dawn has the titular character torn between her bodyguard Hak and her cousin Su-Won. Hak is Tall, Dark and Snarky who often treats Yona like a child, while Su-Won is always sweet to Yona and giving her lovely trinkets. Then Yona witnesses Su-Won killing her father the king in cold blood, on her birthday no less, and then trying to murder her as well; Hak selflessly risks his life to evacuate Yona and cannot understand why Su-Won would do such a thing. We also find out that the trope is more complicated; as a kid, Hak make Su-Won promise to marry Yona so they could all stay together, as friends.

Film

• The Scooby-Doo movies occasionally show this dynamic played with in a few films:
  • In Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Fred is implied to be in a relationship with Daphne long after the gang broke up, serving as her cameraman. They meet Lena in New Orleans, who invites them to visit a real haunted home on Moonscar Island. Daphne becomes jealous when Lena starts flirting with Fred, and she seems to be the Veronica to Lena's Nice Girl and Supreme Chef Betty. Lena is a demi-mortal werecat who lured the Mystery Inc. gang to the island to feed on their souls, and her flirting with Fred was an act. She admits he's cute after capturing him, but not cute enough to spare.
  • Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost has Daphne tease Fred that he has a crush on Hex Girl lead singer Thorne after he says they should investigate her, showing Character Development and no jealousy. Fred blushes and denies it; he also seriously suspects that Thorne is a witch. Turns out Thorne is not interested in any guy canonically, and she ends up helping stop the real villain, the resurrected ghost of Sarah Ravenscroft.

Literature

• The novel Fangirl (novel) has two instances of this:
  • Cather, the protagonist, is the Archie as she's attracted to both her roommate's boyfriend Levi, who is an older range management major that smokes and keeps inviting her to parties, as well as Nick, her quiet writing partner in class. Levi at first seems to be the Veronica while Nick is the safe Betty. Not that Cather is interested in either until her long-distance boyfriend Abel breaks up with her. Then it turns out Levi is truly the Nice Guy of the duo, who goes out of his way to drive Cather to see her dad at the hospital after they haven't talked for months, while Nick uses Cather's writing to pass their Creative Writing final. Cather even lampshades that she didn't realize what a phony Nick was until he revealed his true colors.
  • Meanwhile, Cather believes that she is the Betty to Levi, who is ostensibly dating Reagan, her college roommate that smokes, swears and kicks their door open a lot. She also says to herself that she is not interested in Levi because he is clearly taken. Reagan reveals that she and Levi broke up months ago but stayed friends, and does ship them reluctantly.

Newspaper Comics

• In Garfield's Nine Lives, during the Detective Sam Spayed story, Sam is torn between his Nice Girl secretary Kitty who makes great coffee and his new client, a widow named Tanya O'Tabby whom he suspects of killing her husband and using him as a Detective Patsy. Turns out that Kitty was in love with Tanya's husband, and quit her job as his secretary after realizing that he would never leave his wife. She didn't kill him, but her testimony leads Sam to the real murderer. Tanya also reveals that she is legitimately grieving her husband, thanking Sam for solving the case and paying him handsomely, but also lets him down gently about any romantic relationship since she is still in mourning.

Western Animation

• The Legend of Korra used Character Development to incorporate this trope with Korra, her crush Mako and his girlfriend Asami. It's a rare case when the protagonist is the Veronica, owing to her being the Avatar and having No Social Skills while Asami is the Betty: a Spoiled Sweet Nice Girl that sacrifices her cushy life to protect her friends from her turncoat father. Yet when Asami finds out that Korra kissed Mako, she doesn't blame the former and rightly susses that Korra doesn't understand romantic boundaries, while calling out Mako for not telling her. After more back and forth in season two, the girls finally talk it out in the season three premiere after they both break up with Mako. They then end up dating in the series finale. Go figure.
• In The Dragon Prince, Prince Callum at the start of the show is in love with his bodyguard's sister Claudia, a sweet girl that is a Cool Big Sis towards him and his little brother Ezran. He meets Elf Assassin Rayla when the latter hunts him down in a bid to kill Ezran, and he spends most of season one not trusting her, for obvious reasons. Season two has Callum and Ezran learn that Rayla was right that Claudia and her brother Soren found them in the mountains not to help them, but to take them and baby dragon Zym hostage to serve their father Viren, who wishes to usurp the throne. As they fly away, Callum has a heartbroken, betrayed expression on his face. Rayla spends the rest of season two and three dedicated to protecting the brothers, as well as Zym.
• What's New, Scooby-Doo? pits Veronica against Veronica in the Halloween special with K.I.S.S.. Velma's cousin Marcie, local Corn Queen and Alpha Bitch, starts flirting with Freddy in Daphne's presence, while Freddy remains Oblivious to Love. Daphne becomes jealous and questions if Marcie could be the one sabotaging the Halloween festivities; Marcie gets defensive and proves with security cameras that she was working retail at the time of one of the attacks. While Daphne had no proof, she was right; Marcie was the saboteur, using remote electronics to cover her tracks. The camera provided different evidence, that the gloves Marcie was stocking matched the ones found at the site.