Riverdale Rants: Veronica and her Daddy

I will continue my analysis for Veronica’s character by discussing the obsession she has with her father. It is a mutual obsession that they share that makes up all of her personality in the later seasons. In the first season, Veronica and her father have this estranged relationship. Hiram’s actions has left them shunned from their old lives and their new ones and now Veronica has to try to earn her status in society for the first time. In the first season, this works, and it provides a much-needed challenge with some stakes involved. In later seasons, it gets creepy.

When Hiram comes to Riverdale, it is obvious that he has an almost sexual obsession with Veronica. It is clear that she is his favorite and for the rest of the series all his actions revolve around keeping Veronica dependent to him. But it is also clear that Veronica is obsessed with Hiram. Her only personality trait in later seasons are a product of this odd back and forth between being a defiant daughter and being a loving one. She wants to be independent but continually relies on the benefits that her father’s status gives her. A lot of what she earns in later seasons are pretty much given to her.

I’ve mentioned this before, the main characters in this show become extremely boring when there is no longer any challenge. They all seem to be the best at what they do and any obstacle that comes their way is more of an annoyance. This doesn’t work for the themes that they try to portray and for Veronica, it makes her character rather irrelevant. The show tries to depict Veronica as this powerful independent boss woman, but she consistently relies on men to get her out of difficult situations. It doesn’t help that her only plot point in later seasons is being this mob boss character who is slowly building an empire under Hiram’s. She does so rather easily because those who appose her prove no threat to her. Anytime she does struggle, her father will bale her out so there is no risk. The audience knows she will succeed and figure out how to get out of trouble so there is no real point in following her character.

If they wanted to make her a mob boss, I would have liked her to face real consequences. Death is a part of this show. They could have killed a couple of her underlings as she tries to make her way up. They could have taken away her bar permanently or burnt it down. For a world that has all these gangs fighting for control of Riverdale, no one does any real gangster shit. You can make the argument that she has a gang of kids working security, but they go to school, participate in musicals, and live their lives. They leave a lot of time for people whose full time it is to be gangsters to do some real damage to Veronica’s operation.

So why is it that Veronica is able to get so far? They address it a couple of times in the show, Hiram allows her to pretend to be free. It is again this obsession that distracts from the fact that Veronica has no real personality outside of fighting her father. Through trickery, for example, she is able to buy Pops, the dinner. Later you find out that her dad still owns the dinner making the big moment where is able to outsmart her father irrelevant. She is also able to operate in the town he runs because he allows her. In multiple occasions Hiram has proven that he is capable of murder, yet he will never kill Veronica. He may take away her money or create obstacles that she will overcome one way or another, but Hiram will never kill her and vice versa. This makes his presence more of an annoyance than a villain with a presence.

If they wanted to make this a show about gangs, then have gang warfare. If you introduce death, have people die. If they wanted to give Veronica daddy issues, there are better ways of doing so. I don’t think they had an idea for the direction for Veronica’s character because she will go back on any growth she makes in order to defy her father. I don’t think they have any plan for the show but that is a story for another time. She should constantly have to redeem herself because her name is so important to her and Hiram keeps damaging it for her.  If they wanted to make her have daddy issues they could have made her constantly trying to separate herself from her father and her name and not have her constantly go back to him. It is fair that she wants his approval, but after all the bad he has done to her, her friends, and Archie, she shouldn’t be going back.