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Veronica "Vera" Whitefern is the main antagonist of the novel My Sweet Audrina, she is also a terrible evil b****, written by Virginia C. Andrews. In the 2016 television adaptation, Vera is played by Tess Atkins in adulthood, by Kacey Rohl at age 15 and by Hannah Cheramy at age 11.
Physical aspect and personality[]
Vera is the older half-sister of Audrina Adare, the protagonist of the novel and the TV miniseries. She is described as a very beautiful girl, with red hair (similar to the color of apricots), penetrating black eyes, very light skin and a lean but statuesque physique. In the TV miniseries, she has light brown hair and blue eyes. Despite her beauty(which isn’t really present) , Vera is extremely delicate and vulnerable to physical injury, as she suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta, resulting in frequent broken bones. This causes one leg to be shorter than the other, forcing the adult Vera to wear an orthopedic shoe to avoid walking with a limp.
Vera is the daughter of Damian Adare - father of Audrina - and Ellzabeth Whitefern, with whom Damian had an affair before meeting and marrying her sister Lucietta. Damien's refusal to recognize Vera as a legitimate daughter causes her great despair. Her sadness soon turns into anger and hatred toward her father, and above all, toward her half-sister Audrina, as Vera considers herself the rightful heir of all the affection and possessions that the family showers on Audrina.
Vera's hatred fuels countless acts of spite and physical and verbal abuse against family members and especially Audrina. Among the worst of these are inducing a gang of classmates to rape the young Audrina on her way home from school, and later, two attempts at murder (first, by pushing Audrina down the stairs, and later, by turning off the machinery keeping the comatose Audrina alive). Vera's obsession with Audrina also drives her to try to imitate everything Audrina does, with the hope of experiencing similar successes (such as proficiency on the piano), and earning the affection and respect of the rest of the family.
Vera also shows an unhealthy sexual appetite starting at the age of 11, which becomes more and more voracious. As a child she expresses this appetite by browsing erotic magazines and anatomy books, and later as an adolescent and adult, by reading romance novels and seducing men whom she considers attractive. Her main target of seduction is her schoolmate Arden Lowe. Although Arden falls in love with Audrina and later marries her, he is not immune to Vera's beauty or promiscuity. It is implied that Arden loses his virginity with Vera as a teenager, and continues to have an affair with her after marrying Audrina, due to Audrina's intense phobia of sex. Vera declares herself to be in love with Arden several times, but her prime motivation for the affair seems to be revenge for all that Vera believes that Audrina has stolen from her. Vera also seduces Lamar Rensdale, Audrina's piano teacher, by whom she eventually becomes pregnant. Vera declares herself to be in love with Lamar too, but ends up driving him to despair and suicide.
Meanwhile, Vera schemes to inherit all the material assets of her father, of which she considers herself a legitimate heir having been born before Audrina. Vera also deeply hates her mother - Audrina's aunt Elizabeth, Lucietta's sister -- who reciprocates Vera's hatred, as her daughter reminds Ellzabeth of the failure of the romantic relationship with Audrina's father, Damian Adare. Eventually, Damian fathers a third daughter, Sylvia, whom he acknowledges as his second legitimate daughter, further fueling Vera's rage. Hatred and greed push Vera to try to kill Sylvia, with the secondary goals of having both Damian and Sylvia locked up: he in a hospice, she in an asylum.
The only person for whom Vera seems to hold true affection and admiration is Lucietta, Audrina's mother. Although displaying signs of hatred -- for example, claiming to rejoice when Damian slaps Lucietta during a quarrel -- Vera also seems to admire Lucietta's beauty and bearing, and basks in her affection, so unlike the cold aloofness of her actual mother, Ellzabeth. When Lucietta dies giving birth to Sylvia, Vera grieves her death (even if she relishes seeing Audrina grieve as well).
Despite her evil deeds and lack of repentance, Vera suffers greatly as her father and all the men she seduces inevitably end up discovering and despising her true nature. She feels hated by all who live in her father's house, and ardently wishes to live a different life. Yet after she fled with Lamar Rensdale, she recalled that their life together was a very hard period for her. On many occasions she is seen crying (as at the end of the book).
History[]
As previously mentioned, Vera is the daughter of Damian Adare and Ellsbeth Whitefern, whose relationship ends when Damian falls in love with Lucietta, from whose subsequent marriage Audrina will be born. After the birth of Audrina, Damian pours all her affection on her and dismisses Vera showing her hatred and contempt, as she sees her as a symbol of her past mistakes, and passes her off as her acquired granddaughter to avoid scandals and slander from the villagers. This hatred is shared by Ellsbeth, deeply embittered by the end of the relationship with Damian (with whom she is still in love). Seen relegated to the background, deprived of the affection of the parents and the substantial legacy of the Adare family, Vera falls into a despair which, over the years, turns into deep hatred, feelings that translate into spite and increasingly evil actions towards of his family. Her main goal is Audrina, towards whom she has feelings of hatred and deep envy for the affection and benevolence that everyone - starting with her father - feels towards him. In particular, it is on her that Vera is raging, first with small spite (such as teasing, lies, etc.), then talking badly about her at school and making her believe that Arden Lowe - a classmate who knows Audrina by hearsay and he wants to know her - he fell in love with Vera and gave her a box of red satin heart-shaped chocolates (actually intended for Audrina). But the pinnacle of Vera's cruelty is reached on Audrina's ninth birthday, when she convinces a group of her classmates to chase Audrina as she returns home after a day at school and to subject her to group rape. The violence suffered by Audrina will however be an event that will make Vera's life take a turn that she would never have imagined, and which will further worsen her life: in an attempt to save herself, Audrina, upset and traumatized by violence to the point of having tried to commit suicide and convince herself that she became dirty and corrupt in the eyes of her father, Damian submits her to electro-convulsive therapy sessions, trying to erase the memory of the rape and forcing the family to conspire to convince Audrina to be two years old fewer than she actually had, and that the rape had been committed not against her but against an older sister who had died before her birth.
In the end the repetition of this story worked and Audrina believed it, believing that she had an unreliable memory. Since the family has deliberately changed the house clocks and even torn the calendar days at random, its sense of time has also been altered. This therefore meant that Vera had to follow Damian's strict rules to carry out this staging, finding herself penalized by the madness of the man's plan and therefore not being able to enjoy natural pleasures such as celebrating birthdays or even just watching television, to indulge Damian in his creating a timeless atmosphere inside their home. This of course increases Vera's hatred of Audrina and her family, a hatred that gets deeper and deeper when Audrina and Arden (for whom Vera feels a strong attraction) finally get to know each other in person and begin their friendship relationship, Lucietta becomes pregnant and will give birth to Sylvia (although the death of the woman as a result of giving birth will cause her some sorrow) and when Audrina starts attending piano lessons with the young and attractive teacher Lamar Rensdale - who immediately feeds a great admiration and great affection, and she intercedes for her by convincing Ellsbeth and Damian to send her to school - and her new life as a primary school student. Eager to earn her father's affection and admiration and to prevail over her stepsister, Vera enrolled in the same piano lessons, and begins to seduce Lamar, who immediately realizes that Vera hates her, has great jealousy in her compare and would like to have everything she has. Despite this, Lamar succumbs to the seductions of Vera, who has her first sexual relationship with him and weaves a relationship with him, during which she will become pregnant. Then when Damian brings Sylvia home - remained in hospital for the first few years of her life because of her mental retardation - Vera lashes out again at Damian reaffirming her hatred for the stepsisters and reproaching him for never having had love with him, being beaten and scolded. For a while, then, Vera decides to pretend she wants to be friends with Audrina only to hurt her once she realizes how much she really hated her, but this staging will end when Audrina spies on her and Lamar to have a sexual relationship and discovers that he also had sex with Arden. This translates into a violent quarrel between the two sisters, during which Vera reports a fall that causes her a miscarriage. Desperate for having lost the baby and for having had neither understanding nor help from the mother - who tells her that it is good that she aborted and coldly orders her to clean the blood-soaked carpet on which the abortion took place - Vera escapes from home at night to leave with Lamar - who wants to move to New York - not before having robbed Audrina and her father of many clothes and jewels that belonged to Lucietta. Unfortunately for her, the stay in New York will not be easy at all: Lamar becomes an alcoholic, cannot find work and refuses to give love to Vera saying that he could have loved her only if he had really looked like Audrina, while Vera earned to live by working as a nurse. Eventually Lamar commits suicide, leaving Vera alone.
It is from this moment that Vera begins to implement her revenge against her family. He returns home without being seen by anyone and kills Ellsbeth by pushing her down the stairs, puts on her travel clothes and prepares a suitcase full of clothes, thus making her believe that she accidentally fell while trying to leave. Some time later, Vera returns again by introducing herself to Damian and reaffirming that she wants to live with him and the rest in the family (to which in the meantime Arden - married to Audrina - and his mother - who has entered into a relationship with Damian - have joined. Here Vera begins to seduce Arden, kills Billie by pushing her from the stairs (as she had done with Ellsbeth) by putting the blame on Sylvia and finally tries to do the same thing with Audrina making her end up in a coma and trying again to kill her by removing the machines that keep her in life, not before having had a sexual relationship with Arden (despite being too demoralized for the condition of his wife but at the same time eager for Vera's company) in front of her and saying that soon she will be the owner of her father's house and that Arden will be his, meanwhile unaware of the fact that Audrina can see and hear, although she cannot move. Her evil plan is thwarted by Sylvia, who manages to save her and restore her vital functions. Months later, Audrina recovers and discovers the whole truth about her condition and what led Damian to make her participate in that huge staging. Vera then has a furious confrontation with Audrina and Damian, reaffirming all her hatred towards them and begging Arden to take her away from that house. Furious at finding out that Vera planned Audrina's rape, Damian tries to assault her and Vera, in an attempt to escape her anger, rushes down the stairs causing numerous internal injuries. His first words, before losing consciousness, are pleading to Arden, asking him again to take her away with him.
Shortly thereafter, Vera dies in the hospital. Despite all the harm she has caused, Audrina will forgive her.
Audrina was dumb as hell to forgive her. And she was also stupid for forgiving her deadbeat husband for having an affair with Vera. And she could HEAR it?!! Oh hell nah. FAWK Vera. If there’s a hell she went straight to it.
