| Glory's(Gloriana) Reminder: All primary references
are
to the real Dawn and her circle in the 'Buffy-is-real' dimension. Do not confuse them with the similar, but not identical, 'Buffy-is-TV' dimension, or the actors/ actresses portraying them. |
Postscript 8/25/01
It wasn't until almost 4 months after the following was posted
that we found the old
Toronto Sun - By Claire Bickley - November 7, 2000 telephone Interview
with Clare
Kramer that specifically touched on t the topic of Glory's age-of-maturity.
At the actual time of the interview (11/7/2000) Clare had only completed
the first 3
Glory episodes, through conjuring up Snakey-Wakey), Portions of that
interview
are below simply to illustrate the value of internal script
episode critical analysis
to arrive at the proper answer in this case.
( "The Gift" analysis also on this site is a similar analysis from the same time period)
It should be noted that in one of the latter Glory episodes, she refers
to being trapped
in Ben for 25 human years. This was obviously simply a fact, because
she told Dawn early
on that she was older than the Key, which was ancient. Still she was
essentially not much
older than Dawn maturity-wise, regardless of her apparent
physical appearance
and power.
Clare Kramer - 11/7/2000:
"Oh my God, I walked in for the first fitting and they were like Prada
dresses.
I love the clothes," the giggly, personable Kramer enthused on
the phone
from home.
So far, Buffy viewers know little about Kramer's character Glory,
who makes
her second appearance on tonight's show. [ed: i.e., 11/7/2000]
Glory is a rare villain who
can best Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy in
hand-to-hand combat. She's 18
(Kramer owns up to being "a little bit older
than that" herself), apparently invincible, strikingly
impatient ...
...
"We don't even know what she is," said Kramer, unsure of how much
she's
allowed to say and also not very in the know herself.
"They keep the scripts pretty tightly under wraps. Typically
I get it right before
we start shooting," she said.
"I think that you will find that she's not human. She's very powerful
but I think
she's kind of frustrated. She really can't be bothered with
mortals, and
hanging around, and going through the little daily routines has
zero interest
or her.
"It's kind of like the way we all wish we could be in life. 'Do it my
way or get the
hell out.' Fortunately, that's the beauty of acting -- you can say
stuff and act
ways that you can't in life."
So far, she's shot three episodes and expects to be on the show all season.
Which makes it a fortunate fact that she's now in the best shape
since she
was a high school runner back in Ohio -- the result of training
for this
summer's cheerleader flick "Bring It On" -- because 'Buffy'
tends to get physical.
Stunt doubles only go so far.
Free time is what's been limited since Kramer moved her home base 18
months ago to L.A. from New York, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine
Arts
from the Tisch School of the Arts. Back in Ohio, her father is a petroleum
geologist, her mom a kindergarten teacher.
Since moving south, she's mostly been away on location -- in San Diego
making "Bring It On", in Nantucket filming the upcoming indie
feature Ropewalk,
and in Vancouver for a failed UPN series pilot called Dodge's City.
"It was really cheesy," she said of that last effort. "It was trying
to be a cop
show for young people. It was about this guy Dodge. He was on probation
or
something and he opened up this secret spy business. It was crazy.
I played
a witch."
When the Buffy opportunity arose, she'd never even seen the show but
was
advised by her friend, Bring It On co-star Eliza Dushku, who had played
Buffy's rogue slayer Faith, that it was a great place to work.
"I think I prefer films because it's new stories each time," Kramer
said. "But
with TV, you can really involve yourself with a character. My character
on Buffy
is perfect because I'm going to come in, do my thing, create something
and I'll
probably be killed off by the end of the season."
Yeah, but in great wardrobe.
Reprinted from Toronto Sun - By Claire Bickley - November 7, 2000
This is the original that became a post in June 2001.
Glory v/s the god Polly - Was Glory really not an adult ?
On thought that came to mind after noting the several strong
links between Barbara Massie's 1999 Buffy novel of the god Polly,
before Glory ever appeared on TV, was
whether Glory, too, was
intended to be an adult or not ?
Looking back over her portrayal by Clare Kramer, one sees:
- her often childish tantrums: pulling her hair out over Ben's
actions
- her glaring mistakes: believing Tara was the Key
- her neo-valley girl-GlorySpeak mannerism: her constant
insults
- her intense infatuation with clothes/shoes outside her
main mission
- her snap decisions: starting to brain-drain Dawn in the hospital,
poking a hole in Spike's chest to search for a Key
she knew wasn't there
- her bizarre comments to Buffy when she visited her home
- her immediate resort to killing only where men/knights
were involved
but not Buffy----the hospital guard, Gregor the
general, the knights)
- her strange hot/cold attitude toward Dawn when she had her
captive:
one moment wiping her face with spit like
a mother, the next starting
to strangle her on the spot
- not really having a plan, but making it up as she went along
- constantly threatening to kill her scabby morons/minions who
were her only
constant helpers (by the
way why 'were' they with her ?)
- being physically sensual and adult-like, but totally
asexual throughout
- being unable to conceive of a plan where she might go to Buffy
and
try to use their resources/magic to come up with
a plan to get herself
back home without all the violence and without
killing the Key.
- the list is endless ...
The above examples pretty much describe a mentally
immature god,
probably not yet an adult, yet ancient in human years
with immense
powers that are but a shadow of what she had only 25 human years before.
They also accurately portray, in many parallels,
the way the Muse god Polly
acted in Massie's novel of 1999. And Polly
was presented as Buffy's age in a
high school setting.
It is now difficult not to conclude that Glory was intended:
- to be physically like an adult,
- but was actually still a minor in
god-maturity.
She was more like Dawn than Buffy in the way she was written
and portrayed.
She was a lot like the Muse god Polly Buffy fought in the 1999
novel.
If so, one possibility that comes to mind, again a link with the god
Polly, is that
the 2 gods Glory fought before her exile may have been her parents.
That would
make her exile in Ben's body more a 'god-like grounding by angry
parents',
than a 'death sentence' as Gregor believed.
Does that mean Glory's purported parents will come a'calling about their
rebellious
daughter's treatment at the tower in the fall ?
Update: Later information in 'Dawn the Last
Slayer's' works is that they were
apparently not Glory's parents, but her 'brother' and
'sister' gods
who 'made' her incrementally over uncounted thousands of years.
She first became an individual as a little girl and was never a baby.
She was motherless and fatherless, a 'key' factor in her behavior.
Glory (Gloriana)
(GloryGlory)
All
things identified as being from the 'Buffy-is-real' dimension are derived
from the
original
works of that Dawn Summers, not the fictional Buffy character:
These
are copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
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