54 pages • 1-hour read
Glow
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of physical abuse.
Magical Abilities
The world of Glow is rife with characters who possess magical abilities. These various forms of magic become a motif that symbolizes power and agency. While characters other than royals, both fae and human, are capable of demonstrating magical abilities, those of high status are particularly prone to misuse their magic to dominate and control others.
On the fae side, Stanton exhibits the power to break. Although he is not a royal, he uses his magic in service to his king to break the bridge connecting Annwyn to Orea. Stanton rejoices when Slade first exhibits rot power at the age of eight. He assumes that his son will use it to amass more wealth and influence for the family, and is disappointed when Slade seems uninterested in domination. He tries to use Slade’s powers for himself, which represents Slade’s lack of agency in their dynamic. When Slade turns his magical abilities against his father, the moment represents a crucial break in which Slade claims his own agency for the first time.
Magical abilities also illustrate the power dynamics between political players. On the human side, Malina is treated as an outcast by her own father, the king, because she has no magical abilities. Instead, she must marry Midas, who passes Auren’s power off as his own in order to gain power he would not otherwise have. Meanwhile, Kaila rules Third Kingdom because of her power to collect voices. These magical abilities—or lack of abilities—therefore determine who wields power and who doesn’t, adding another potential form of corruption and hierarchy to the power games in Glow.
Drollard Village
Drollard Village exists in isolation from the other regions of Orea. It symbolizes The Impacts of Trauma by being a place frozen in time. Geographically, Drollard is located on the farthest border between Fourth and Fifth Kingdoms. In this respect, it is a no-man’s land that nobody particularly wants because it is cold and barren.
In Glow, the reader is introduced to Drollard during a blinding snowstorm. Cold and snow seem to exist perpetually in this bleak landscape that perfectly mirrors the mental state of its inhabitants. Everyone who lives in Drollard is a trauma survivor. When Stanton tried to kill his wife and servants, Slade accidentally created a portal that transported everyone from Annwyn to Orea. Though they are now safe from further attacks by Stanton, the survivors are bound to the rift and can’t leave the village, or they will die.
Metaphorically speaking, their plight resembles that of any trauma survivor who is haunted by the memories of past pain and unable to move forward in life. The Drollard villagers are frozen in time, which is only augmented by the frozen landscape that surrounds them. Elore is the most obvious example of their plight. She has lost the power of speech and isolated herself in a cave cottage. The novel suggests that, without adequate support and opportunity, trauma can become a type of prison that prevents people from moving forward.
Gold-Touch
Although Glow is filled with examples of all sorts of magic, Auren’s gold-touch is continuously referenced. It functions as a symbol of The Struggle for Personal Agency in her character arc. If magic equates to power in the world of the Plated Prisoner, then Auren’s difficulty controlling her gold-touch is indicative of her lack of personal agency. She is initially profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of wielding personal power after years spent as Midas’s prisoner. Her rage at being abused doesn’t awaken until the conclusion of Gleam and results in a rampage that terrifies even Auren. She fears awakening the beast within because it might kill the innocent.
The first half of Glow depicts Auren as terrified of her lethal new power, while the second half of the novel shows her gradually gaining control of it. Her growing confidence in wielding her gold magic mirrors the increased confidence she has in herself and her own worth. However, her magic is rendered useless when she is brought to the Conflux, and the conclusion of the novel still shows her lack of agency as Slade must rescue her from her predicament. However, the progress she has already made and her escape alone into Annwyn at the novel’s end foreshadow how she will step into her power and claim her independence once and for all in the final books in the series.
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