can i be riverpilled on main for a sec. if jughead has been controlling the narrative all along - which tbf we were told in the first five minutes of the show - then it makes sense that both betty and veronica are not representative of themselves, actually, but rather of himself. if we are to believe the story of riverdale, then two things are true: 1. that jughead has been in love with archie this whole time and 2. that jughead himself never wanted to be part of the narrative. think about it - each season, apart from 1 and 3, involve some kind of death/death threat for jughead (serpent battle, stonewall preps, rat…king? dead and sent to heaven for sabrina to retrieve him, literally booted out of the narrative). however, someone is still required for him to project his feelings onto. if you believe that riverdale is a story starting with the real events of jason’s murder, jughead takes on the role of investigator/narrator. this means he needs someone else to be the love interest: enter betty. someone he would’ve known since forever, and so all of sudden, as jugheads story starts, betty “réalisés” she wants to tell archie she likes him -> jughead’s own crush coming to light / vs. veronica coming to town and immediately catching archie’s eye (AND she resembles him, dark hair, dark clothing, pretentiousness galore) -> jughead wanting archie to want HIM. all of this explains why betty and archie never really click in s5, why betty repeatedly takes the chance to kiss archie despite her friendship with veronica being at stake (what jughead would do, if he could) why veronica cannot handle loneliness, why a lot of the time neither betty or veronica’s actions match up to the personalities that they actually have -> betty is repeatedly made out to be a “hero” struggling against her internal demons/serial killer genes despite everything that would condemn her as a bad person/friend whereas veronica tries to be better and still falls short at every turn -> representation of repressed homophobia re: how not confessing makes him feel better about himself, like he’s doing archie a favor vs. even thinking that he would LIKE to date archie makes him “feel evil”. in the end, betty and veronica don’t even actually care about archie, romantically; the one person betty misses more than anyone in the last episode is veronica (her long lost love) and veronica throughout the series spends more time trying to figure out what would actually make her happy even though she has archie and that should supposedly be the answer; this is their actual characters breaking through the shell of projection given to them by narrator!jughead. of course, this would’ve been solidified if cole sprouse wasn’t a coward and kissed kj apa on screen in the finale but you know what they say about the absence of a thing .
