The Place of Distilled me™

Personal values

Glory grew up in an environment that constantly devalued her as a person. While all of the Dragonets of Destiny suffered under their abusive upbringing, the others could at least find SOME solace in the fact that their lives supposedly mattered. They had a destiny. Glory did not have that. She was the errant Rainwing, the error of Webs, that inconvenient creature that was there because the Talons kind of needed her, but didn’t really want her all the same.

In the absence of external validation, one of two things will happen to us: Either we find some value within ourselves that helps us weather the harshness of life, or we sink into despair. This is the core struggle of Glory’s existence: She was born with nothing, told she is and will always be nothing, and claws and fights for any scrap of meaning she can give her own life.

Of all her peers, she is the most driven. She has to be, because her merit, her competence, her ability to accomplish things is how she defines her self-worth. Where Clay is placid, Sunny is carefree, Starflight is meandering, and Tsunami is flighty, Glory has iron discipline. The guardians refuse to see her worth, so she works twice as hard as everyone else to prove to them she has it. And more importantly: To prove to herself that she has it.

This mindset, while mentally and personally taxing, makes Glory very efficient, to a somewhat ruthless degree even. If she sets her eyes on a task, she does not waver or get distracted and it will generally be done. It’s a quality the others often find inspiring, if somewhat hard to imitate due to the intensity with which Glory pursues it.

While under the mountain, she actually studies as much and has an amount of knowledge comparable to Starflight. In a trivia contest, these two would be neck and neck. The reason why Starflight is known as “the” scrollworm among the group, and Glory is not, is because Starflight has a genuine passion for learning. He puts the work in because it’s how he relaxes, he loves it, talks about it all the time. Glory puts the work in, but it does not relax her, rather, it makes her more tense and tires her out. Yet she still does it because she has to, because the alternative is admitting that her tormentors are right about her, and that she is good for nothing. To her, this is unacceptable.

Glory works hard because it gives her life purpose. It’s something she can be proud of when no one else is.

In one particular sense, this is tragic. Of all the places this behavior could have been inspired from, it most closely aligns to Kestrel, who is equally driven and goal-oriented. That means in trying to escape from the psychological pit she was in, Glory subconsciously took on traits from her greatest abuser. As a testament to her own strength though, where her guardian was self-defeating and miserable, Glory did not let herself be ruled by fate, managed to transform these traits and eventually channel them into a successful life.

Physical constitution

It doesn’t come up a lot in the books as a major obstacle, but logically, Glory would have grown up severely malnourished. Rainwings are photosynthetic and their bodies require sunlight for certain key functions. Being forced to grow up underground would mean Glory was deprived of vital nutrients and vitamins she needed, which is why she was chronically fatigued while in captivity.

To be honest, I don’t quite know how this didn’t make her end up like Chameleon, stuck with one color forever. Perhaps what little sunlight made it through that one hole in the ceiling was just barely enough to not permanently debilitate her.

In any case, I imagine these circumstances made her somewhat of a sickly child, rail thin and much more prone to illness than the others. Not that she would allow herself many opportunities for bed rest regardless, to avoid exasperated yells of “the Rainwing is sick again??”. You can kind of see how she ended up the most cynical of the group.

Fortunately, she managed to escape these unhealthy living conditions before any of those complications stuck for good. With regular exposure to sunlight from then on, she made a full recovery. This might also be part of why she becomes a bit kinder once she’s in the rainforest. It’s much less emotionally draining when you don’t have to fight your own body on the daily, on top of everything else.

Character flaws and growth

Despite her reliability and personal fortitude, Glory is not infallible. While her ability to stay laser-focussed on a task is in many ways admirable, it also gives her an affinity for working herself to exhaustion. She often forgets to tend to her own physical needs—like eating, drinking, or sleeping—and has to be reminded, or sometimes made, to take breaks to do these things. There is one example of this in her book, where someone tells her to take a nap because she’s been going without sleep for upwards of a day.

To her, being idle equates to being lazy, that dreaded label she is trying to avoid at all cost. Fatigue, sickness, injury? Mere obstacles that must be overcome. You can power through anything if you just grit your teeth enough. Getting this dragon to relax is a monumental undertaking. If you convinced her to take a vacation, you’d soon need one yourself after how difficult that would be.

I imagine this has lead to complications in the past, that Glory has collapsed before and someone like Clay had to find her and carry her to a watering hole so she could get rehydrated. Maybe this is why she has a closer bond with Clay than with the others; the confidant she can let her guard down in front of because he’s been with her when she was at her weakest. I also imagine this exacerbated her already negative relationship with the Guardians, Kestrel and Dune being angry that “the Rainwing is sleeping in the hallway again!”

Glory is also very distrustful and has a misanthropic (misdracopic?) streak. While she genuinely loves the others and treasures their friendship, she perceives herself as not as close to them as the rest are to each other (with maybe the exception of Clay). Due to the very specific flavor of abuse she received from the Guardians, she has developed a tendency to other herself. Glory does not consider herself a Dragonet of Destiny and perceives an immutable separation between her and the rest of her peers, though this perception is not mutual. This is exemplified in, when her friends learn of Kestrel’s plan to kill her and brainstorm ways to prevent it, she keeps insisting that this is not their problem, which just serves to confuse them.

I find it interesting in this context that Glory is the only one of the arc 1 protagonists who ends the arc physically separated from the others. It makes sense in context, but also serves as a bit of an extension of how she sees herself in the group.

It’s because of this perceived gap that Glory is haunted by a subconscious expectation—or perhaps even fear—that she will be abandoned if she stops being useful or becomes inconvenient. There is always a little voice in her head that parrots what the Guardians told her growing up—that she is worthless and undeserving of love. She usually pushes it back, but certain stimuli can bring her buried insecurities to the front, and as is common with long repressed feelings, it tends to make her lash out.

The most notable example of this happens just after the group escaped Scarlet and the Sky Palace. Clay approaches Peril and theorizes that she might be the missing Skywing from the prophecy, and that she would have a place in their group if she needs it. The statement is made with pure, altruistic intent. But Glory hears it and interprets it maliciously, that Clay intends to replace her. I imagine deeper down she knows this is nonsense and that Clay would never be this openly callous to her. But in the moment, it triggers her greatest fear and she reacts irrationally.

So in that state she concocts a weird, spiteful scheme with Tsunami to punish Clay for his “betrayal”, by making him think he caused Glory so much anguish that she ran away. It’s honestly kind of uncomfortable and possibly one of the grossest things she does to another person (who isn’t trying to kill them). Like, I understand all of it and it makes perfect sense for her to act like this in that moment. But perhaps the story makes a misstep here by never having Glory visibly apologize to Clay after the fact, even when the story sets up an opportunity for it later when she and Clay are alone.

For me it’s not an insurmountable problem because I can just imagine they talked about it on their way to the Mud Kingdom (I’ve thought about how that would go before. I might write it out some day). But I could understand if this moment of spite towards a benevolent presence in her life with no explicit reconciliation soured the character for some people. Maybe that’s why the graphic novel cut that scene entirely (you know, other than for brevity).

Glory, over the course of their journey, eventually does address and temper a lot of these personal shortcomings. In particular after she gets out of that suffocating cave and connects with her people she blossoms into a more empathetic and considerate person. Perhaps finding her calling, with all the responsibility and purpose she craved, allowed her to move on from constantly pushing herself to the brink and being stressed out.

Nightwings' folly

This is already well-documented, so I’m going to be brief here. Perhaps one of the most satisfying aspects of Glory’s role in the story is how her presence exposes the folly of the Nightwing Regime and causes Morrowseer’s entire plan to implode, all through his own fault.

Glory enters the Nightwings’ awareness as a spanner in the works, a quick fix that became necessary due to an intervention by Scarlet, and a completely unknown variable. Consequently, she and the way she is treated shine a light on Morrowseer’s ability to adapt on the fly. Namely, the complete and utter absence of any such ability.

There were definitely ways for Morrowseer to make this work. The simplest solution would have been to just deliver an updated prophecy to account for Scarlet’s meddling, though he was really leaning on that fake mysticism and “unseen hand of fate” schtick, so I get why he didn’t want to tip his hand like that.

Ignoring that, he could have simply claimed that Glory IS the Skywing of the prophecy, that actually she is half Skywing, and then told her to stay red whenever she’s in public. He could have then ordered Kestrel to pose as her mother, which would have been extra ironic since Kestrel DID have a child with a Rainwing.

If they had done literally anything other than antagonize Glory and treat her as some kind of mistake, it stands to reason that the Dragonets wouldn’t have rebelled and tried to escape. Without the threat to Glory’s life, the others might not have been able to convince Sunny to leave and they would have stayed put. Maybe Morrowseer could have even swayed them to his side, by coming in as a savior to validate Glory’s existence and deliver them all from their captors’ torment.

If Morrowseer had swallowed his pride and been kind to Glory, even just pretending to be so, their plan would have gone off perfectly, and Blister would have taken the throne.

But instead, he short-sightedly ordered her death, ensuring that the Dragonets would never be loyal to him, and that Glory would dedicate her efforts towards destroying their plan. They created their own undoing, and as a reward, Morrowseer dies by having a volcano literally erupt up his backside.

Truly a con for the ages.

What I would do differently

Earlier nitpicks aside, if there is one blemish on the character for me, it is in the moment where her competence is tested and she becomes Queen.

Here is a quick recap of that moment: Glory, fed up with the display of self-serving lethargy, has just challenged Magnificient for the Rainwing throne. The ruling structure has decayed into this strange amalgamation of volunteering commoners who all take the position for selfish reasons, and the previous Queen just let this happen because she got disillusioned with her people. Glory needs the position to be functional right now to rescue some kidnapped Rainwings, so she seeks to cut out the rot.

Magnificient however is a catty little shit and convinces her gaggle of equally inadequate commoners-turned-monarchs to rig the challenge and humiliate Glory. Glory tries to persevere through the rigged challenges but it doesn’t look good. When she is at her lowest point, Kinkajou accidentally gets injured and Glory’s quick thinking saves her from excruciating pain. This reveals to the tribe that Glory has secretly been the Rainwing Princess all along and is the true legitimate heir to the throne by right of birth. This realization makes the previous Queen forfeit her match and wins Glory the challenge.

This is certainly a nice and validating moment for Glory, I’m happy for her, but... to be quite frank, this is completely backwards. The reason why Glory is awesome and aspirational is because of her inner strength, her propensity for getting things done, and her refusal to give up even as everyone keeps shovelling manure into her face. She is amazing because she comes from nothing and nobody expects anything of her, and she—through sheer grit and determination—turns all of that around and makes herself not only into SOMETHING, but one of the most significant somethings there is.

To have her personal, most important victory hinge on a random fortunate blood link that she had no control over is antithetical to her story. It removes all of her agency and, instead of proving that circumstance of birth does not have to define who you are, doubles down on it by suggesting Glory was incapable of winning by her own merits and had to be bailed out by a secret royal heritage.

Like, am I to assume that, if Glory wasn’t coincidentally a secret Princess, she would have failed? That everything she accomplished through her own power was rendered meaningless? Why is so much importance placed on birthright (of royalty) being the savior, when previously birthright (of being worthless) has suffocated Glory’s entire life? Like, the concept of birthright is arguably the VILLAIN of her story, why is the villain resolving her conflict for her?

And conversely, if we assume Grandeur would have heard her out even without the secret lineage, then why is it necessary in the first place? All it does is muddy Glory’s character journey and defiance of birth circumstance being a thing that defines you. No, sorry Glory, birthright still does dictate who you are, it’s just that your birth happened to be better than previously thought.

This secret Princess twist is perhaps what I would consider as the one significant misstep in Glory’s character development. Which is why I usually rewrite this portion of the story for myself.

Here is how I picture this playing out: Just turn it all around, flip the statuses. Rainwings don’t keep track of their personal lineages, but the exception of this is and always has been the royal family. Queen Grandeur had five daughters and she knows who all of them are. However, they were all incompetent for one reason or another, so when the time came to pick a successor, she couldn’t. At a loss for what to do, she reluctantly allowed all of them to share the throne on a weird rotating schedule. Her hope was, while they were all individually inept, maybe together they could balance out each others’ shortcomings.

This went catastrophically wrong. The Rainwing government became a farce of self-serving, ineffectual bullcrap. The Rainwing tribe, once a proud hub of travelling merchants, fell into complete decline. Grandeur saw this decay, but couldn’t do anything about it because she had already abdicated and couldn’t retake the throne. Thus, powerless and seeing no alternative, she became jaded and disillusioned with everything.

Then comes Glory, an upstart commoner and outsider, and dares make a grab for power. Magnificient huffs and slinks off to her tired mother, laying this out, but twisting it in her own favor. She completely neglects to mention the kidnapped Rainwings and instead assassinates Glory’s character, describing her as jealous and lusting for the position. Grandeur, long having grown accustomed to displays of selfish behavior around her, believes this without scrutiny. The former Queen is too checked out to question it. She half-heartedly agrees to mess with this upstart to get her daughters off her back.

The challenges play out, but throughout Grandeur keeps catching glimpses of Glory’s actual character, which does not align with the twisted caricature she was presented with earlier. It all culminates in that scene where Kinkajou tearfully apologizes to Glory for messing up the venom challenge, and Glory treating her with compassion and understanding, mentioning the kidnapped Rainwings in the process. Grandeur has caught on by now and decides to just talk to Glory to figure out what her deal is. Glory tells her about all the Rainwings currently in captivity. Jambu and Mangrove tell her about how Glory tried to find Orchid. Kinkajou explains how Glory risked her own life and got herself captured to rescue her. And the other Dragonets tell her about being stolen from the tribe when she was an egg. Grandeur learns of all the things Glory has done for their tribe since she arrived, despite not even really being a part of it or knowing any of them.

Grandeur hears this and becomes absolutely livid at having been lied to. She starts tearing into Magnificient about playing around while their tribe is being preyed on and the callous dismissal of their people’s plight in captivity. She is furious that her daughter would be so selfish to actively delay the only person trying to help, and frustrated at herself for enabling it through inaction. The rage reawakens the fire within her, she is feeling a drive and passion for her tribe and position like she hasn’t in many years. So she throws the challenge and disowns Magnificient on the spot, then names Glory her successor by right of merit, lack of royal blood be damned.

This is only possible because of all the things Glory chose to do for these people, and the heart, craftiness, and competence she displayed while doing them. It’s the personal integrity she showed in those moments, not a blood link, that sways Grandeur to her side. It’s an earned victory, not facilitated by luck or circumstance of birth, but an unrelenting will to prove to the world and herself that she matters.

It is the very victory Glory has worked towards her entire life. She wasn’t born special, but she made herself special. The circumstance was overcome.

Conclusion

It may strike some as odd that I dedicated so much essay space to discussing Glory’s character flaws (in-story flaws, not flaws with her narrative purpose). A while ago I saw this sentiment around that Glory is “too perfect” and gets overly glorified (ha ha).

To a certain extent I understand that. Her abilities feel like superpowers sometimes, to the point where she outclasses several members of her group, and she ends her arc in the most powerful and influential position out of all the arc 1 protagonists.

But I disagree with the notion that she has no flaws, or is generically perfect (a Mary-Sue, as some may describe it). The story, at the brisk pace it is told, may not always be interested in exploring them fully, but Glory does have significant shortcomings that cause friction in her life, particularly with her personal relationships. That she ends up in such a prominent position of power is to be expected from a character whose primary trait is that she is an overachiever, in a story that isn’t a tragedy.

But I don't think that's enough to make her generic.

Admittedly, I don’t know how widespread this sentiment actually is. It’s possible it was just a stray opinion I happened to witness. Perhaps beliefs like this would be less common if the story was more willing to rub Glory’s nose in it when she messes up, like I’ve mentioned with that Clay scene. At least every once in a while.

But despite all that, I hope it is evident that she is a well-rounded, three-dimensional character—one of the deepest out of all the arc 1 protagonists even. I can follow her thought process and understand everything she does because of how strongly she is characterized. And I can look up to her because of how much adversity she faces and manages to confront head-on. The place she ends up in (not necessarily all the steps that get her there) has always made sense to me.

And so, because I can’t think of anything else to do, let me conclude this wordy essay with a toast:

May we hence all stride onward, like our Glory, to our glory.