Most residential intrigue "big female lead" C-dramas tend to start the FL off at a position of disadvantage, and then have her work her way to the top. The Glory is no exception, but this drama pushes it to the utmost limit. The FL is sent away from birth after being falsely accused of causing the death of her grandfather, and grows up in an incredibly abusive home. She is beaten, starved, and basically treated as a nuisance and a slave, receiving very little proper education and no love from her adoptive or biological family. Even outside of her home life, she is regularly bullied by the other kids for being a bad omen. This is all well and fine for painting the FL as coming from a terrible background to make the audience immediately sympathetic to her plight and quest for revenge, except for the fact that none of her misfortune is realistically reflected on her character other than her physical wounds (that are just decoration as they don't have any impact on her at all). It felt like the writers purposely gave her the most tragic backstory they could think of, but didn't want to spend the effort of writing a story for a character that should have little to no resources and all sorts of problems as she's suffered since birth.
The show starts with her killing her adoptive parents, and running back to her birthplace which is miles and miles away. When she arrives, she is "close to death" and her family takes her in. From there, the typical residential intrigue plots start taking place, with the antagonists often being very obvious and no match for the FL.
I found it very jarring when the FL has advantages that even FLs in other shows (who start off in better positions than her) don't have, especially given her background. For example, she conveniently saved a master martial artist who would do anything for her, and this person just casually sneaks in and out of her place of residence every day so they can scheme together. She should be incredibly weak and have issues physically due to her past abuse and being beaten soon after she arrived, but for the most part she's walking around just fine. She was neglected and had little to no proper schooling, and yet she has medical knowledge well beyond what she should know. She regularly talks back to her family like someone who has had years of experience in these games of wit, even though she's just arrived and should have the lowest standing in the family. (And since this is a "big female lead" drama, a lot of leeway is given to her.) It would be one thing if after killing her adoptive parents she spent years honing her skills and preparing for her revenge, but that doesn't happen here. It feels like her backstory has no consequences, and was used as a lazy shorthand for why we should be feeling sorry and rooting for her.
Except even from the beginning, she makes some extremely questionable decisions like giving her martial artist friend permission to assassinate the ML (a deputy minister) to cover up her murders, even though the ML has done nothing wrong. She only felt bad after learning that her friend could have killed the ML's daughter by setting fire to the ML's home. (It's concerning that she and her friend had no care for anyone else who could have gotten hurt in the incident, as fires are notoriously unpredictable and hard to manage in this time period.) She then had the audacity to question the ML's intentions, when she herself was perfectly fine with having him assassinated if it meant she could get away with her secret.
The ML is a much more interesting character, being a single dad whose first wife (FL's older half-sister) died from poison that was meant for him. He is ruthless when it comes to clearing out corruption in the courts, and as a result has made many enemies that regularly try to have him killed. He gets involved when he is given the case to solve the FL's adoptive parents' murder, as the FL has made up a story about them being loving parents and was unfortunately killed by raiders to cover her tracks.
Unfortunately, the acting for the ML is wooden at best, and the actor often has just one expression in all of his scenes. The FL isn't much better, and pales in comparison to the actress who plays her mother, whose rage and seeming insanity is electrifying to watch at times.
Overall, I found this show to be pretty mediocre. There isn't a lot of chemistry between the FL and ML, and their limited acting abilities don't help uplift a lacklustre narrative either. Would recommend other residential intrigue C-dramas that are better instead.
