Glorificus

"I'm the victim here. First off, I don't even want to be here. And I don't mean this room, or city, or state or planet, I'm talking the whole mortal coil now. You know it's disgusting. The food, the clothes, the people. I could crap a better existence than this. [...] I am hurt, yes, by your incredibly selfish behavior. Newsflash, hairdo: It's not always about you. All I want is The Key"

- Glory to a Monk of the Order of Dagon

Glorificus, commonly known as Glory and also referred as The Beast, The Abomination and That Which Cannot Be Named is a goddess from a hell dimension. She was portrayed by Clare Kramer.

History
Glory is a god from a hell dimension, over which she ruled alongside two other deities though she was the most powerful of the three. Afraid that Glory would take full control of their dimension, the other two began a war against her. Glory lost the war, though narrowly, and was banished into the earthly dimension where she was forced to share a body with a child named Ben, who was created solely to "contain" her.

Glory soon began to gain control over Ben for short periods of time, taking the form of a vain, self-centered human female who possessed superhuman strength but lacked many of her other powers. A magical "amnesia" spell keeps humans from learning that Glory and Ben are one and the same, even if she transforms right in front of them. However, the spell does not affect non-humans and Spike gained knowledge that Glory and Ben are the same entity. This becomes a recurring joke in the penultimate episode of Season Five, where Spike finds himself repeatedly having to explain to the Scooby Gang that Ben and Glory are the same person, only for them either to misunderstand him or to instantly forget. However, as Ben and Glory's personalities begin to merge more and more (see below), the magical ruse weakens until, in the finale, the whole gang is able to see through it.

Sunnydale
Glory comes to Sunnydale looking for "the Key," a mystical item that will break down the walls between all dimensions, allowing her to return to reign in her own dimension. Use of the Key will also cause the merging of all other dimensions, including the one Buffy and her friends inhabit. Glory is not aware of what form the Key has taken. She begins the quest to locate it. Aiding her in this task are a race of pale, black-eyed demons, who are loyal to her almost to a fault, despite the fact that she insults and physically beats them almost constantly.

In order to maintain her sanity and power, Glory feeds off other humans by a process that Buffy and her friends refer to as "brain-sucking." She inserts her fingers into the victim's head, absorbing the energies that bind the victim's mind. The humans that she "devours" in this way become incoherent and mentally unstable; Glory's arrival in Sunnydale is followed by an inexplicable increase in the number of mental patients. One of her unfortunate victims is Willow's girlfriend, Tara. For her part, Buffy is not initially aware of the Key's nature either. It is eventually revealed that Buffy's sister, Dawn, is the Key, in human form. Glory soon discovers this fact, and manages to kidnap Dawn. The Key can only be used at a certain time, and as that time draws near, the power that separates Glory from Ben dissolves. They still inhabit Ben's body separately, but their memories and personalities begin to blur together.

Buffy attacks Glory with everything she has: Willow's magic spell (that draws on Glory's stamina, giving sanity back to Tara at the same time), the Dagon Sphere (that lowers Glory's strength as well), her identical robot twin (the "Buffybot"), Olaf's Hammer (with which Buffy beats Glory to a pulp), and eventually a wrecking ball, commandeered by Xander. Meanwhile, Spike, Giles, and Anya attack her minions. However, the final spell that will open the dimensions has already been started by Doc, unsuccessfully confronted by Spike, cutting Dawn with a knife and making her bleed. Ultimately, after killing Doc and saying goodbye to her sister, Buffy jumps into the portal that is opening between dimensions, resulting in its closure and her own death.

Glory is left defeated and significantly weakened, losing her hold on this reality and returning to the form and mind of Ben. Giles knows that Glory will eventually return and get her revenge unless Ben is killed, so he smothers him to death with his bare hands. As Ben dies, so does Glory.

Glory is also referred to as "Glorificus" by her minions and in most textual references, and occasionally as "The Beast" by the monks who created Dawn (although she has nothing to do with The Beast who appeared in Angel, the spin-off series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Her final appearance in the series is at the end of "Lessons", as a form of the First in an attempt to torment Spike.

Personality
"She was kind of like... well she was kind of like Cordelia, actually."

- Buffy Summers

Glory was mentally unstable, egotistical, and violent. She frequently abused her own minions both physically and verbally, and was also obsessed with herself and her looks. Despite finding human things beneath her, Glory adored fine fabrics like silk, and had an impressive designer shoe collection.

Being from a higher plane and another dimension, Glory's mind did not function like a human's or lower demon's, and existing in our reality meant that her mental faculties were constantly deteriorating. As a result, she had to infrequently fed on the energies that held a human's mind together, leaving the victim a schizophrenic shell. Whenever Glory had gone too long without feeding, she would grow increasingly histrionic -- babbling, kicking, and screaming, most times without even purpose. As the deterioration wore on, Glory would be become nigh-catatonic unless her followers supplied her with a suitable "meal."

Glory was particularly ruthless, unafraid to hurt those close to Buffy in an attempt to torment her, such as crushing Tara's hand and openly threatening to kill Buffy's friends and family and force Buffy to watch as she did so, the latter of which while she confronted Buffy in her own home. However, as her personality and memories began to merge with those of Ben's, Glory began to express seeming regret over her actions.

Powers and abilities
It is revealed that Glory's powers were reduced when she was imprisoned in human form. However, the powers that remained were:
 * Near-invulnerability: Only a troll god's hammer was able to do any lasting damage to Glory when used repeatedly. In her original form, she is immortal. Willow's lightning bolts caused her pain, but caused no visible damage as the hammer did, though she comments that Willow's assault slowed her down slightly; by the time of the season finale, Buffy mentions that Willow was the only one of them who was ever successful in actually hurting Glory up to that point. When a building collapses on top of her (see below), she is slowed down, but unharmed. Similarly, she is unharmed after being hit by a truck at close range. Presumably, she was either unharmed or left with minor injuries after Willow's teleportation spell during the hospital attack.
 * Superhuman strength: Glory possesses physical strength far beyond that of most, if not all, vampires, demons, or Slayers; in fact, she is considered to be the most physically powerful Big Bad in the series. At one point, a building collapses on her after she repeatedly stomps her foot in a temper tantrum over a broken shoe. In "Intervention", she kicked Spike clear across her living room, through a solid wooden door, and halfway across the room behind said door after losing her patience with him. Also, she was able to punch a hole through an extremely powerful forcefield that Willow had conjured up, though the forcefield magically repaired itself after a few seconds.
 * Superhuman speed: Glory's super-speed is depicted as a fast-moving blur that is apparently invisible to the naked eye. This is seen when she pursues Buffy and Dawn immediately after she learns that Dawn is the Key.
 * The ability to drain the mental energy of humans to maintain her own mental strength, presumably to also temporarily keep from reverting to Ben's form. Victims were left in an insane state and appeared to be psychically linked to Glory from that point on.
 * A mystical shroud cast to prevent people from learning that she and Ben were the same person, the origins of which are unclear. It only worked on humans; vampires, demons, and other non-humans were immune. She loses this capability in the penultimate episode of Season Five.
 * The ability to psychically differentiate between vampires and humans, apparently through smelling them, as seen in "Intervention", when her minions capture Spike under the mistaken impression that he is the Key.
 * Apparent omnilingualism: able to speak and understand any human or demon language.
 * In "Shadow", Glory managed to cast an ancient spell that caused an ordinary snake to grow into a giant size, complete with arms, and gave it the ability to see the mystical aura of the Key. Giles claimed that such a spell would require great magical power, and the stress of doing so did not deter Glory in the slightest.

The extent of Glory's true powers as a hell god were never revealed, though according to Gregor in "Spiral", they were beyond what even her compatriot hell gods could conceive. In the finale, she gained Ben's aid in recapturing Dawn by offering him immortality should her powers be restored. Although it is possible she was bluffing, by this point Glory and Ben had merged to the extent that they shared the thoughts and memories of the other. If Glory was bluffing, or if she was incapable of doing it, it is likely that Ben would have known.

Behind the scenes

 * Clare Kramer, in an interview with the BBC, said Glory's strength was her lack of self-doubt: "She was completely secure in herself, focused on what she wanted and dedicated to her cause." However, her strength was also her downfall; Kramer notes that Glory was unable "to look at more than just herself."


 * Glory was originally meant to return for the final episode of the series as one of the forms assumed by First Evil. However, due to conflicting schedules, Clare Kramer could not appear.


 * The picture in the living room of Glory's mansion is a copy (or indeed, perhaps the original, as it is unlikely someone of Glory's personality would settle for "second-best") of Tamara de Lempicka's Irene and her sisters a.k.a. Four nudes. The Polish art déco/futurist artist is renowned for being strongly feminist and openly bisexual/lesbian.


 * Clare Kramer appeared in a picture on a magazine in Once More with Feeling.


 * Glory identification as "The Beast" and "The Abomination" are seemingly references to the Biblical Whore of Babylon.

Buffy Season 5

 * "No Place Like Home"
 * "Family"
 * "Shadow"
 * "Checkpoint"
 * "Blood Ties"
 * "I Was Made to Love You"
 * "Forever"
 * "Intervention"
 * "Tough Love"
 * "Spiral"
 * "The Weight of the World"
 * "The Gift"

Buffy Season 6

 * "Once More with Feeling" (In Photograph)

Buffy Season 7

 * "Lessons"