As a victim, the abuser becomes your entire world--you remember their face, their expressions as they hurt you, and the torment you suffered. School bullying is not only a reality for many across the world but a deeply rooted issue in Korean schools. The extent of school bullying, in The Glory, was truly an eye-opener. The Glory delves into how one case of bullying becomes a deeply rooted seed that grows and rots within a person, affecting the individual’s life completely.

With the metaphor of the game Go as the background within the plot, we as the audience are given a foundation of Dong-Eun’s revenge--surround your enemies and tighten your boundaries around them, in a battle of silence. Once you’ve completely surrounded them you can close in on them. In essence, Go, and Dong-Eun’s revenge is to surround her abusers before they even know that they’ve been surrounded. A strategy that is meticulous and clever.

One of the main plot elements that the drama delves into is that a bully, after all the trauma they’ve committed towards an individual, can move on with their lives in blissful and willing ignorance. The show questions the justice system and how to deal with corrupt authorities at all levels. Dong-Eun was not only failed by the police, but she was failed at every institutional level: by her family, her teachers, her school supervisors, and the police. So, when those authorities, that are supposed to keep justice in check, fall apart, then what’s to stop bullies from doing harm?

While the abusers move on with their lives, Dong-Eun is forced to live a life where she is stuck within her high school era where she was physically and verbally abused. The show wants the audience to understand that in a world where there is systemic corruption on all levels, how can one simply forgive their abusers and allow them to continue their cycle of violence?

Dong-Eung was abandoned by everyone, society failed her--as it does for many victims. Societal justice is in favour of the abuser rather than the abused. In Dong-Eun’s school, her friends can’t speak up because they’ll be targeted. There are no repercussions, from authority figures, towards the abusers.

If society will not keep them accountable, nor the police, nor the people around them, then who is left to stop these cycles of violence?

If Dong-Eun had not gone through with her revenge then each of the abusers would have continued to bully those around them. We can see this in the way Yeon-Jin treats her co-workers, Jae-Joon treats those below him, and Myeong-oh treats his employees. Every one of the abusers does not mature and continues to spread their violence--hurt people, hurt people.

My favourite aspect of The Glory is that it portrays revenge from a different perspective, where forgiveness is not the answer. Forgiveness doesn’t solve everything. If Dong-Eun forgave those around her they would’ve continued to hurt others, just as she was hurt.

One scene that really articulates this thought is when Da-Yeong and Yeo-Jeong are playing Go. Da-Yeong asks Yeo-Jeong if he genuinely wanted to help Dong-Eun, why does he not encourage her to forgive? Yeo-Jeong responds that for some people taking revenge is the only way for them to begin the next chapter of their lives and finally live for themselves. To reach their own Glory some victims must take revenge. The way I interpret this is that without a sense of rightful justice, individuals are stuck within their trauma. The helplessness that a lack of justice create stunts an individual's ability to move on with their lives and so they must turn to their own means of pursuing such justice, for Dong-Eun that is in the form of revenge.

The ending is one that makes the show truly one of my favourites. It is a satisfying ending that is well deserved, After all the turmoil and abuse Dong-Eun has been through we as the viewer desperately root for her to win. Dong-Eun uses the selfishness and narcissism of those around her to create the downfall and domino effect of revenge toward her abusers. Dong-Eun puts the foundation into play, controlling the pieces on the board, and effectively commits to her plan.

Dong-Eun spent a decade planning her revenge and acquiring the funds to see it through, she used the weakness of her abusers to take them down and found a partner in crime, her executioner, for her revenge. It is a harmonious ending that gives me hope that Dong-Eun will finally be free from her high school years and begin to find her own Glory in life.