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.

History
Glory is a goddess from a hell dimension, over which she ruled alongside two other deities. The three of them originally ruled with equal power, but Glory's strength grew beyond even what the other two could conceive, as did her lust for pain and misery, and she quickly became the most powerful and frightening of the three deities of the dimension. Afraid and fearful that Glory would seize their dimension for herself, the other two deities struck first and a great war began. Glory lost the war, though narrowly, and was banished into the earthly dimension, where she was forced to share a body with a human child named Ben, who was created solely to "contain" her.

Unexpectedly, Glory was too powerful to be completely contained within a human vessel, and although not until Ben reached 20, she begin to gain control over Ben for short periods of time, taking the form of a beautiful, but vain and self-centered human female who possessed superhuman strength, speed, and near-invulnerability. Though her powers were severely diminished due to her being imprisoned in human form, her strength was far greater than any Slayer, vampire or demon on earth, making her a most formidable enemy. A magical "amnesia" spell prevents humans from learning that Glory and Ben are one and the same: even if she transforms right in front of them, they will instantly forget what they saw. However, the spell does not affect supernatural entities like vampires and demons. 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 is 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. Additionally, though Ben and Glory were aware of each other's existence, one was rendered dormant while the other was active and did not remember any of the other's actions.

Glory's only goal is to find the "Key", a mystical energy nexus which is the only way for her to return to her original dimension. Unfortunately, using the Key will break down the barriers between all dimensions, all worlds will bleed into each other allowing "hell to reign on Earth". The Key was safe guarded by an ancient group of monks known as The Order of Dagon. When they discovered Glory was after the Key, they chose to hide it. Using ancient magic, they transformed the Key into a human girl and placed her under the protection of the Vampire Slayer, Buffy, altering the memories of the Slayer and anyone connected to her into believing the girl was Buffy's sister Dawn. The Order of Dagon was ultimately destroyed by Glory, who took and interrogated the last of the monks for information. Under torture, the monk revealed to Glory that the Key had been transformed, but not about what form it had taken, and though he was later rescued by Buffy, he still died.

Glory was opposed by a military order known as the "Knights of Byzantium", composed of knights and clerics. The knights, who are sworn to prevent Glory from using the Key, fight with Buffy several times in attempt to kill Dawn (the Key), before Glory can find her. In the episode "Spiral", when a large group of knights are gathered to besiege Buffy and Dawn, Glory arrives and slaughters nearly all of them, taking the Key with her.

Sunnydale
Although Glory enters early on in Season Five, the Scooby Gang knew very little about her. In fact, Buffy was able to find out her name only because she heard one of Glory's minions say it. Glory's status as a Hell-Goddess, her extreme power levels, her history, the Key's true power and its origins, were not revealed until the last dozen episodes, but drawing closer towards the end. Glory comes to Sunnydale looking for "the Key", which would allowing her to return to reign in her own dimension. Despite knowing full well the damage the Key would cause to all dimensions, including the one Buffy and her friends inhabit, Glory does not care in the least, being ruthlessly determined to return to her dimension and be restored to the height of her powers at all costs.

Glory is not aware of what form the Key has taken, though she knows that Buffy, the Slayer, protects it. She begins the quest to locate it, aided by a race of pale, black-eyed demons who are loyal to her almost to a fault, though she does not care for them, and viciously abuses them, both verbally and physically, for even the slightest failures. She quickly established herself as one of the most dangerous and determined enemies Buffy had ever encountered, second only to the First Evil; at one point, she confronts Buffy in her own home, openly threatening to kill Buffy's friends and family and force Buffy herself to watch her do so.

Due to Glory being a goddess in a human body, the human mind cannot control such power, and this gradually turns Glory insane. In order to maintain her sanity and power, Glory feeds off the mental energies of 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; those affect are also able to see Dawn in her true form. 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 "new sister", Dawn, is the Key, in human form. Glory soon discovers this fact, after witnessing Tara describe Dawn as ball of green energy 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.

After recovering from a mental breakdown caused by Glory's kidnapping of Dawn, Buffy decides to attack Glory with everything she has: Willow's magic spells (which draws on and weakens the goddess' mind, restoring Tara to sanity at the same time), the Dagon Sphere (a protection talisman created by the monks, which causes physical pain to Glory and presumably lowers her strength), Buffy's robot double (the "Buffybot"), the Hammer of Olaf the Troll God (with which Buffy is able beat Glory to pulp due to the hammer being a weapon of the gods), 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 one of Glory's disciples Doc, unsuccessfully confronted by Spike, cutting Dawn with a knife and making her bleed (the act of which opens a portal to the other dimensions). Ultimately, after killing Doc, Buffy realises that because the monks created Dawn from her essence they share the same blood, which means that her own blood can also close the portal, but it would require her to die (the portal will only close when her blood stops flowing). After 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 on Buffy 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 and the Knights of Byzantium. Note: 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
"Do you ever stop talking? I don't know which is worse: waking up in a dress not knowing where I've been, or having to hear all your self-involved ranting!"

- Ben to Glory

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 to be beneath her, Glory adored fine fabrics like silk, and had an impressive designer shoe collection. Her ego is such that she was horrified and offended when she learned that she had just faced the Slayer, describing such a face-off to be "unbelievably common." After her first battle with Glory, Buffy compared her to Cordelia Chase.

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 openly threatening to kill Buffy's friends and family and force Buffy to watch her do it while confronting Buffy in her own home ("Checkpoint"), brutally torturing Spike to get him to reveal the identity of the Key ("Intervention"), and violently crushing and breaking Tara's hand ("Tough Love"). Additionally, Glory frequently showed a blatant lack of empathy and disregard for human life, most notably shown in her pursuit of the Key despite full knowledge that using the Key would cause severe damage to the very fabric of reality. Other examples include her regular draining of sanity from the humans of Sunnydale, brutally torturing the last monk of Dagon ("No Place Like Home"), and casually snapping the neck of a security guard at Sunnydale Memorial with no hesitation ("Blood Ties").

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 tremendous 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, shown to be able to inflict massive damage on her opponents through pure brute force and physical strength alone. When Buffy first fought Glory, the latter quickly proved to be too much for Buffy to handle, causing Buffy to take quite a beating before just running away. During the hospital attack, she effortlessly defeated the entire Scooby Gang, though Spike managed to physically restrain her for a few moments. 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. In "Spiral", 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 Tara, in her insane state, accidentally reveals that Dawn is the Key.
 * The ability to drain the mental energy of humans. This was primarily to maintain her own mental strength, but would also prevent Ben's form from resuming control. Not only does the drain draw out all energy leaving the victims in an insane state, they are also able to visually see the Key's true energy and ultimately become psychically linked to Glory and the Key.
 * 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. This is known when humans and demons would talk to her in other languages, and she would easily be able to interpret and understand.
 * Magic: In "Shadow", Glory cast an ancient spell that caused an ordinary snake to grow to a massive size, and granted it the ability to see the true form of the Key, in addition to making it completely loyal and submissive to Glory. According to Giles, a spell such as that required enormous levels of magic to perform, and the stress of doing so did not deter Glory in the least.

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.

Name
"That Which Cannot Be Named" came into existence before written word, and therefore (as its title implies) has no name. When the hell-god came to this dimension, she was dubbed "Glorificus" or sometimes "Glorifius," names which she shortened to "Glory." She was also known as "the Glorious One" (among many other amusing, groveling titles such as "Her Splendiferousness," "Her Sparkling Luminescence" and "Oh Sweaty-Naughty-Feelings-Causing One") by her demon minions, and as "the Beast" or "the Abomination" by the human priesthood and the Knights of Byzantium. The Scoobies often referred to her by the insulting name of "Hell-Bitch", and Ben referred to her as "the Most Unstable One" at one point.

Behind the Scenes

 * She was portrayed by Clare Kramer.


 * 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.


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


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


 * She has several common points with Sélène (divine status, taste pronounced for the luxury, the inhalation of the life forces and megalomania), Hellfire Club's Black Queen and enemy of the X-Men.

Appearances

 * "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"
 * "Once More with Feeling" (Only in a Photograph)
 * "Lessons"