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, the Nice Girl, and Veronica, the Vamp who may be prickly and temperamental but is fun. 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:

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

• Avatar: 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.