The characters of In a Glass Grimmly embark on a quest to find the lost Seeing Glass, believing doing so will get them everything they’ve ever wanted. However, while on this quest, they learn that everything they want has been inside them all along, showing how the ultimate quest is internal rather than external. Through the character arcs of Jack, Jill, and the frog, the novel explores how we will find what we seek only when we look inside ourselves.

Jill’s arc shows that true beauty comes from within. Sitting alongside her mother day after day while the woman applies makeup and obsesses over her appearance has led Jill to believe she will be respected only if others see her as beautiful. Jill’s perception that the people love her mother reinforces this belief, but Jill does not see that their love is superficial until the goblins show her a similar type of “love” in Chapter 8. When the goblins tie her to the throne and compliment her appearance, Jill enjoys it at first, believing she is finally appreciated for her beauty. As the goblins continue, however, their compliments become boring and trite, and “by the twenty-eighth goblin, Jill did not care what they thought of her” (186).