Ye of terrible governmental implications! The replacement Dragonet of Destiny, her Majesty of the Rain Forest, and who knows what else. There’s a lot to be said about Glory, a victim of abuse, a part in the cycle of violence, and the child who knew better than an entire queendom of dragons. Glory is an unfortunate character, both personally and in the story as a whole.
I have a lot of opinions about Glory. Bless yourself upon them if you deserve so.
Design Headcanon
Despite appearing colorful and bright, especially among her fellow dull scaled siblings, her scales are much plainer than a traditional RainWing’s. Most of which tend to have terribly neon scales correlating with their emotions. Glory tends to have disgusted green and irritable red scales reflecting her mood. The yellow is simply an accent, but mistaken by her subjects as muted amusement. Her scales easily flinch along to her emotions, but she finds that showing these colors gains the respect of her subjects, rather than lose it like she did with the guardians, who never truly did pick up on what these colors meant.
Glory has inspiration from a few different animals. Chameleons are out of the way. She also has a similar “beak” to a swan, a dark area on her face that she simply can’t change the color of. She also has dexterous claw talons, excellent for gripping onto trees or delicate dexterity. And the oddest thing about RainWings is that they initially appear wingless, similar to a draco lizard. RainWing ribs expand and and glide rather than the intense flying that most dragons do, which made her appear weaker than her fellow dragonets of destiny. She always keeps her wings flared, which is risky and makes her underside vulnerable, but it was better than being called a wingless serpent by her guardians.
Glory is a very cautious individual. She doesn’t walk until she knows where she’s going. She won’t begin to walk until she’s sure she can get there confidently. Glory is surprisingly prideful and avoids not to waste her breath, even if she chooses the wrong battles to fight.
Implication of Heritage
If I were to write Glory, I would completely boot out the idea that Glory was biologically destined for the throne. The whole moment where Grandeur spills her guts and explains the whole narrow-minded royal blood idea, that was stupid. Because it implies that all overcoming of adversity will be rewarded with the fact that all those who deserve it will be rewarded with their desires, not for hard work they used to achieve those goals, but simply because they’re supposed to.
Instead, I would make Kinkajou a convenient character in the scene to have a moment of importance, but it doesn’t mean she’ll be the new queen. But I’ll get to that later on. Grandeur will recognize Glory’s selfless and initiative as the prime reason she is more deserving to be queen. The idea that she’s fighting so desperately to help the NightWing prisoners, and that’s reflected by how she puts away the chance to win the Queen Competition for the life of this little dragonet.
Glory should have been Queen through initiative and new perspective, not the idea that she was “smarter” than the RainWings or that the RainWings were too “lazy” to have a functioning leader. She should have been a respectable character who overcomes her biting remarks to be truly selfless, put aside her needs and desires to help this tribe. Be the leader that Sunny would look up to.
Miscellaneous Thoughts
Glory doesn’t honestly get the proper respect as a grumpy character considering the trauma she’s went through and considering her entire life has been ruined as those who raised her repeatedly told her she shouldn’t exist and that they ought to kill her. Not as an empty threat! The acceptance of her situation seemed so understated (until it was revealed she had a plan) and no one really respects that she had the shortest end of the stick compared to the other Dragonets of Destiny.
Along with that, I feel like it’d be interesting if Glory had an innate distrust or fear or SOMETHING of SkyWings. After being berated by a SkyWing guardian, being meant to be a SkyWing her whole life, Clay unintentionally claiming Peril as the missing SkyWing, and being prisoner and biggest prize of Queen Scarlet of the SkyWings, I don’t see why she wouldn’t be a little more afraid or hostile in a scenario with one.
One headcanon of mine is that Glory has narcolepsy, a byproduct of not getting enough sun as a sun dependent tribe. She frequently lost control of her muscles during sparring practice with Kestrel, leading her to slither helplessly and worsen her image. She pardoned her sleepiness through consistent naps Under the Mountain, but it became harder to excuse after they left the mountain. Once the sun hit her scales on the marble tree in Scarlet’s clutches, she finally gave in and slept for a majority of that time, otherwise overwhelmed and unable to move. Unfortunately, along with classic form of narcolepsy, Glory also has hallucinations. She often interprets her hallucinations as Kestrel or Queen Scarlet, long after their deaths. Despite denying special treatment as the RainWing Queen, she does give into sun times to satiate the urge in her to rest.
Narcolepsy is also described as being triggered by high surges of emotion. Another reason why Glory does her best to suppress her emotions, to stay in control of her consciousness.
It can negatively affect relationships with other people by being triggered during these surges of emotion and as a result, Glory is not quite as emotionally connected to her siblings as the others are. As the consequences of the war subsides, she wishes to try making up for lost time and finally respond to her narcolepsy instead of be frustrated and angry with it.
Glory’s reign of the Rain Forest Queendom is characterized not by her inherent intelligence over the other RainWings. In fact, a majority of the beginning of her rule is learning the rich history and important traditions of RainWings from Duke Handsome. Due to her unfamiliarity with oral history, her first order is to try and record as much history and as many orders as possible to keep the RainWings’ respect and learn about her own culture.
As well as that, Glory steels herself, with the sympathy of her siblings, Prince Jambu, Duke Handsome, and the other Queens, when ruling the NightWings. So easily could she take out her anger on these innocent victims of their own actions. But in the end, she learns it’s more important to be the bigger person and move forward in peace, not dwell in hatred.
Despite that, Glory is still apprehensive before directly meeting with SkyWing figures such as Queen Ruby.
Glory and Tsunami probably have the closest relationship out of any of the other Dragonets of Destiny. Tsunami looks up to Glory as a queen and Glory makes fun of her lack of royal blood for it. Tsunami, after apprenticing with General Shark, also assists in the disciplining and order in the Rain Forest Queendom. Tsunami, Sunny, and Glory are the main royalty figures establishing a fairer justice system in the Rain Forest so there are no more Chameleons and that individuals like Mastermind have a place to go.
LGBT+ Headcanons
Glory, for a large part of the story we see her, is probably questioning her orientation. She’s never felt the right to be loved and never been able to emotionally connect with anyone enough to feel worthy of affection. Eventually, she comes out as a lesbian! Proudly leading her two tribes with acceptance and understanding. The Rain Forest proudly leads the largest Pride Parades with the SandWing queendom following closely behind. (Which means Deathbringer x Glory is not canon in my headcanons! He can ROT.)
Glory is also a trans woman! She did not embrace it easily with the role models she had growing up. She had always been told she was born incorrectly (for OTHER reasons, but it’s for the metaphor), but with the unconditional support from her siblings, especially her solidarity with Starflight, she was able to come to terms with her identity and be even more prideful because of it. Fully taking her destiny and her life into her own talons has empowered her more than anything after the events of the SandWing War of Succession.
