Glory's History
Origins
Glory was 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 Benjamin Wilkinson, 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 began to gain control over Ben for short periods of time,[citation needed] taking the form of a beautiful, but vain and self-centered woman. Though her powers were severely diminished due to her being imprisoned in human form, she possessed superhuman strength, speed, and near-invulnerability. A magical "amnesia" spell prevented humans from learning that Glory and Ben were one and the same: even if she transformed right in front of them, they instantly forgot what they saw. 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 was to find the Key, a mystical energy nexus which was the only way for her to return to her original dimension. Although, using the Key would break down the barriers between all dimensions, causing all worlds to bleed into each other allowing "hell to reign on Earth." Despite knowing full well the damage the Key would cause to all dimensions, Glory was determined to return to her dimension and be restored to the height of her powers at all costs.
The Key was safeguarded 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 Slayer, Buffy Summers, 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. Glory was also opposed by a military order known as the Knights of Byzantium, composed of knights and clerics who intended to destroy the Key before Glory could use it.
Sunnydale
Meeting Buffy
Glory arrived in Sunnydale in 2000 in search of the Key. She began by hunting down the sole survivor monk of the Order of Dagon, holding him up in an abandoned factory and torturing him as he was tied to a chair, while she proceeded to complain about her sufferance in this dimension. It was soon after that Buffy arrived and rescued the monk. Glory quickly accosted and proved to be too dangerous and unmatched, forcing Buffy to take a run for it with the monk in hand. An angered Glory — not from losing the monk, but from accidentally breaking her shoe — then unintentionally destroyed the building with her immense strength, making it collapse and keep her trapped there overnight.
Glory was set up in a fancy mansion in Sunnydale and was both aided and pampered by a race of pale, black-eyed demons who were loyal to her, while she abused them both verbally and physically whenever they failed her.[citation needed] Seeing Buffy as a hindrance to her plans, and embarrassingly learning she was also a Slayer, Glory forcibly employed the use of a group of Lei-Ach demons to assassinate Buffy; though they nearly succeeded due to a spell cast by Buffy's ally Tara Maclay, they ultimately failed.
Efforts to find the Key
The Scooby Gang knew very little about Glory. 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 at first elusive. Glory made clear that she came to Sunnydale looking for the Key, which would allow her to return to reign in her own dimension.
Glory was vaguely unaware of what the Key was, only knowing it was in Buffy's protection. To locate it, Glory broke into the Sunnydale Zoo and stole a cobra to use in a Sobekian transmogrification spell. She bought the remaining ingredients for the spell from the Magic Box with Buffy's friends, having no idea what she looked like and being oblivious to her intentions when they sold her the items with no hassle, only to realize who and what she was when they learnt what those purchases were used for when combined. Buffy attempted to stop Glory, but once again she proved to be no match for the hell goddess and fled while Glory successfully performed the spell, converting the cobra into a Spawn of Sobek which could track the Key's location, however Buffy tracked it down and eliminated it before it could inform Glory about the Key.
The human mind could not control the power of a goddess in a human body, which gradually drove Glory insane. In order to maintain her sanity and power, Glory fed off the mental energies of humans by a process that Buffy and her friends referred to as "brain-sucking." She inserted her fingers into the victim's head, absorbing the energies that bound the victim's mind. The humans that she "devoured" in this way became incoherent and mentally unstable, as well as able to see Dawn's true form. Glory's arrival in Sunnydale was followed by a supposedly inexplicable increase in the number of mental patients, a group of victims she refereed to as her "groupies." This forced Ben to summon a Queller demon to "quell" the mentally-ill of Sunnydale, which included Buffy's sickly mother before Buffy managed to kill the demon.
Eventually, Glory openly threatened Buffy, her friends and family by freely entering her house, where Buffy refused to fight as it would've been pointless. Left with a warning, Buffy stood up to the Watchers Council — who had somehow uncovered Glory's identity but preferred to 'test' Buffy to ensure her loyalty to them rather than just providing her with the information — leading to her finding out what Glory was. Around this time, the Knights of Byzantium arrived to Sunnydale and began their crusade against the Slayer and Glory. They succeeded in killing several of Glory's minions in battle before she intervened, slaughtering most of them and taking one (Orlando) captive to torture him for information. He yielded no information, so she fed on his mental energy.
When Ben discovered Dawn was the Key while talking to her, Glory immediately switched places with him at the hospital he worked at, unaware of what was just revealed. She took Dawn away to the x-ray room to begin questioning her, using both promises of rewards and threats. Buffy and her friends then arrived and battled her, but Glory quickly overpowered their efforts. Before Glory could do any real harm, Willow Rosenberg cast a spell to teleport Glory away.[5] Glory later learnt that the Key was specifically in human form when Ben let it spill to a minion of hers, narrowing the search down.
She commanded her minions to search out someone precious to the Slayer and bring them to her in hopes that they would be the Key. After seeing the affection placed on Spike by Buffybot, Buffy's robot double, Spike was selected but Glory quickly confirmed he wasn't as he was a vampire, reasoning that the Key would had to be pure to ensure the Slayer's desire to protect it. She then kept him tied up at her apartment and tortured him so that he would reveal the Key's location. Spike refused to tell Glory anything and used her own ego to his advantage by insulting her to the point of making her hit him so hard he was freed from his bonds and thus able to escape.
Continuing the search, Glory was misled once again when she assumed the key was Willow's girlfriend Tara, believing that her status as the newest member of the gang made her the most obvious candidate. Glory approached her at the Sunnydale World Culture Fair and threatened to hurt her and kill many people if she didn't tell her the identity of the Key, crushing Tara's hands to get the point across. Tara refused and she was then "brain-sucked." Willow enraged confronted Glory at her mansion. Using her witch powers and armed with the most potent magics she could find at the Magic Box, Willow attacked Glory. Despite her best efforts, Willow did extremely minimal damage to Glory who almost killed her if it hadn't been for the intervention of Buffy.
Discovering the Key
Wanting revenge following Willow's attack, Glory came after her and Buffy at their college dorm room where she witnessed Tara describe Dawn as a "ball of green energy." Now knowing who the Key was, Glory chased after Buffy and Dawn, but was stopped when she was hit by a truck and then reverted to Ben. She later managed to kidnap Dawn when Buffy asked for Ben's help, still unaware of his connection to Glory. Buffy and the Scoobies (along with Dawn) were trying to flee from Glory in an RV but were attacked by the Knights of Byzantium and Giles was impaled by a spear.
They managed to find a hideout in an abandoned gas station, but were attacked by the Knights again. This time however, Willow managed to create a magical barrier around them. Buffy called Ben to their hideout to help stitch up Giles. It was then that Glory had taken form and managed to break through the barrier with Dawn in hand and killed all of the Knights outside.
The Key could only be used at a certain time. As that time drew near, the power that separated Glory from Ben soon dissolved. They still inhabited Ben's body separately, but their memories and personalities began to blur together. In this state, Ben initially attempted to help Dawn, but, during a conversation with Glory as the two shifted back and forth, Glory convinced Ben to help her by offering him his own body once she was restored to her full power.
The Big Day
After recovering from a mental breakdown caused by Glory's kidnapping of Dawn, Buffy decided to attack Glory with everything she had: Willow's magic spells (which drew on and weakened the goddess' mind, restoring Tara to sanity at the same time), the Dagon Sphere (a protection talisman created to ward evil, which caused physical pain to Glory and appeared to lower her strength), the Buffybot (distracting her into thinking it was Buffy), Olaf the Troll God's Enchanted Hammer (with which Buffy was able to beat Glory due to the hammer being a weapon of the gods), and eventually a wrecking ball commandeered by Alexander Harris. Meanwhile, Spike, Giles, and Anya Jenkins attacked her minions, who were all preparing for the Big Day.
While Dawn was tied in the top of a tower built by Glory's groupies, Buffy beat Glory until she lost her hold on this reality and returned to the form and mind of Ben. Buffy decided to spare Ben as he laid heavily bleeding and beaten, unwilling to kill a human. Giles knew that Glory would eventually return and get her revenge on Buffy unless Ben was killed, so he smothered him to death with his bare hands. When Ben died, so did Glory, finally ending the hell goddess once and for all.
Death and legacy
Despite Glory's defeat, the final spell to open the dimensions had already been started by one of Glory's disciples, Doc (who was unsuccessfully confronted by Spike), cutting Dawn with a knife and making her bleed out, which made a ball of energy grow and multiple portals to other dimensions open. Ultimately, after killing Doc, Buffy realized that because the monks created Dawn from her essence, they shared the same blood. This meant that her own blood could also close the portals, but it would require her blood to stop flowing. After saying goodbye to her sister, Buffy jumped into the growing ball of energy, resulting in the portals' closure and her own death.
Years later, the First Evil appeared to Spike in the form of major enemies of the Scooby Gang when tormenting him, including Glory's.
