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: Its not always about you. ALL I WANT IS THE KEY!”

~ Glory to her minions

That which cannot be named….

Glorificus (Glory) is a powerful and enigmatic god from a  Hell dimension. Glory is portrayed by actress Clare Kramer. We first saw her in the TV series in Buffy the vampire slayer when she appeared to search for what she titled as “The Key”. The key is a powerful ball of light that has the ability to unlock dimensions. Dawn, Buffy’s sister, was the physical embodiment of the key after loyal monks placed the key in the form of a human body, one that they knew the slayer would protect with her life. Glory follows the scent of the Key to  Sunnydale as she chases down the order of Monks killing them one by one, searching for the key.  Buffy runs into one of the order one night and learns the truth about  Dawn and the key and fights to protect the world and her sister from death and destruction. Glory feeds off of human brain waves by shoving her hands inside their head and draining the energy. This does not kill the humans, it simply manifests as mental illness throwing the humans into a state of incoherent babbling. A side affect of the attack though, anyone who has been drained by Glory can see the light that surrounds Dawn and can recognize the keys essence.  Buffy faces Glory on several battles, Glory overthrows her with no damage to herself. Buffy has never faced such a menacing foe, no physical damage can slow down the god and  Buffy soon escapes barely alive.  Willow comes close to damaging Glory with her magic but is also soon defeated.  Spike is captured and tortured but holds true to his word and protects  Dawn‘s secret.

 “You hit me! What are you Crazy? You can’t go around hitting people. What, were you born in a barn? Fine. Be that way”
~ Glory to Buffy as she slams her in the face and sends her flying across the room.

The Beast 

Glory was once the most powerful ruler of a Hell dimension, alongside two other gods. The two other gods grew afraid of her power and they were terrified of her so they sneakily surprise attacked her and trapped her inside a human body after a massive all consuming war. Glory was banished to the earth dimension and forced to share a body with Ben, a human male. After a time Glory was able to break free of the constraints for a short time, forcing her will through and changing the outer appearance too that of a beautiful sexy looking woman. Though Glory can break through from

the human constraint, she is not able to for long, and after some time, is forced back inside Ben. A magical spell causes any human who sees the transformation to immediately forget. However, the spell does not have an effect on anything not human and  Spike is soon able to learn the truth of the god. Glory works out that  Buffy is linked to the key somehow and slowly works her way through the Scooby gang trying to find the one who knows something about the key. During this time Glory attacks and drains  Tara  of her brain energies, leaving her a dribbling mess and causing  Willow to attack the god with dreadful consequences. During this time Dawn is going off the rails, stealing and acting out, eventually she runs away from the house and breaks into the Magic Shop, only to discover  Giles Watchers Diary where she learns the truth about who she is. Buffy chose to hid the true identity of Dawn from her to protect her. After Dawn learns of this she is at the Sunnydale hospital where her mum is in sick with brain tumors. It is here that Glory’s alternate self Ben works as an intern. During a conversation with Ben Dawn reveals that she is the Key but before Ben can tell her to get way Glory appears and the truth about Ben and Glory is revealed. Not long after this Jinx one of Glory’s underlings discovers the truth about Dawn and she is captured and taken hostage by Glory and her followers.

“Ew, what is that? And why is its hair that color?”
~ Glory on Spike as he is captured by her minions.

The order of Dagon

These monks were founded solely to protect the key from Glorificus. But by 2000 the monks had been killed out by Glorificus, but not before they managed to protect the key and place it in human form.  Buffy encounters the last surviving member just before his death; it is here she learns of Dawns true nature. 
 
“I just noticed something. You have super powers. That is so cool. Can you fly?” ~ Glory as she throws Buffy across the room.

You have… a Hammer…

Buffy and the Scooby gang come up with a plan to combat Glory and her minions plan to open up the dimensional hole. Xander has a wrecking ball and Buffy has a Troll hammer. The group eventually manages to take out Glory long enough for them to get to Dawn who is trapped at the top of a tower ready for her blood to be spilled to open the dimensional rift. Dawn finally relaxes when she sees a “friend” but he betrays her in the service of Glorificus. None of the crew manages to get to her in time and Dawns blood is spilled to open the rift, demons begin to escape. Fighting through Glorificus’s minions, Buffy manages to get to Dawn just as her blood has been spilt. She is too late to stop the rift and must think of some other way to protect her beloved world and save her friends and family once again. The message from the ancient slayer flows into Buffy’s mind and she realizes what she must do.

“A Slayer? Oh god, Please don’t tell me I was fighting a vampire slayer! How unbelievably common! If i had friends, and they heard about this…” 
~ Glory on Buffy as she discovers the minions knowledge on Buffy.

Death is your gift…

Buffy finally realizes what will stop the rift, leaving the gang behind she dives into the hole that is created and sacrifices herself to save the world. Glory is defeated and the world is safe once again. Death was her gift, that is what the first slayer had told her and she finally understood what that meant.

“Oh Shi…”
~ Glory as she is hit in the face with the Troll hammer.
 

Powers and Abilities

 Glory’s powers where incredibly reduced when she was sharing a body with Ben on earth. Glory’s true powers where never seen but they were revealed to be beyond what her fellow hell gods could conceive. She was too powerful for even them to destroy.   
 
Her remaining powers on earth in a shared body with Ben are: 
 
Super strength: Glory is considered to be the most physically powerful villain in the show. Her strength is far beyond any slayer, demon or vampire. She’s stomped her foot and caused an entire building to collapse. She’s caused her opponents to go flying, weather she does this by punching, kicking or throwing them. 
 
Invulnerability: She’s had a building collapse on her, been hit by a speeding truck, smashed by a wrecking ball, dropped from high in the air, and taken several blows from Buffy, none of these had caused her any damage. The only thing ever to hurt her a bit was a god troll hammer when used repeatedly and Willow’s lightning bolts which caused her pain. 
 
Super speed: Glory’s can run so fast she’s invisible to the human eye.  
 
Enhanced hearing: “Hey! Minions, I can hear you. God-like ears don’t miss much, you know what I’m sayin’?”  In ‘Checkpoint’ Glory was able to hear Dawn far away from her while Dawn wasn’t moving or making any noise (just her breathing).
 
Magic: Glory has been able to cast a spell causing a snake to grow massive in size and to obey her every command. Giles stated that in order to preform that spell she would have to be on an incredibly high magical level. Glory did the spell easily.
 
Protecting her identity is a mystical “shroud” that erases the memory of her transformation into Ben from humans.  

Glory has the ability to drain mental energy from humans. She does this in order to retain her own mental awareness and also to keep Ben from taking control of their shared body. However, when she preforms this it leaves the human mentally damaged.
 
She can differentiate between vampires and humans and is able to speak and understand any human or demon language.  
 

Personality

“You know, I honestly don’t think there’s a human word fabulous enough for me” ~ Glory to Spike. 

In an interview with BBC, Clare Kramer said this about Glory, “She was completely secure in herself, focused on what she wanted and dedicated to her cause.” 
 

Glory is superficial, always obsessed with her appearance and herself. She’s very fashionable, often wearing high heels and dresses, even in combat. She has tones of high end shoes and loves the feel of silk on her skin. She considers herself above everyone else. Buffy descried her as being like Cordelia but with super powers. She’s confident and never afraid. Glory constantly insults and beats her minions, calling them names such as “worthless dirt”, and “unworthy”. 
 

Since she was from another dimension it was hard on her mind, causing it to deteriorate (which is why she had too feed on humans). So whenever she went for a long time with out any mind sucking she would be very mentally unstable and grow histrionic, pulling out her hair, screaming, kicking, etc…
 
Glory is violent and ruthless. She’s threatened to kill everyone Buffy loves and make her watch as she does it. She’s brutally torched Spike and crushed Tara’s hand causing it to crack and bleed while she taunted her. 
 
As time went on, Glory began to feel regret over what she had done in the past. This was caused do to the fact that her and Ben’s memories and personalities began merging.
 

Call me Glory!

 

“That Which Cannot Be Named” came into existence before written word, and therefore 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 like “Her Splendiferousness,” “Her Sparkling Luminescence” and “Oh Sweaty-Naughty-Feelings-Causing One”) by her minions, and as “the Beast” or “the Abomination” by the human priesthood and the Knights . 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.