Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

Episode 20

Death is the refrain ringing throughout this week's episode of Orb. It's an unavoidable concept when people start asking big questions about their existence. The fear of death likely gave birth to religion in the first place. It's a paradox: a universally understood endpoint, yet a complete mystery. It unites us, but at the same time, we each have a unique relationship with it. To drive home that point, Draka has three conversations with three different members of the Heretic Liberation Front, and each one offers their own perspective on where they came from and what they're doing. Unsurprisingly, there's not a lot of overlap between them.

That divergence, however, is the main thrust of this episode's message. If death drives us to religion, and each of us views death differently, then it's no wonder that churches fracture. A single set of beliefs can't cover everyone. Schmidt's lackey, for example, is driven by his desire to accept death. It's important that he's the first person to have a dialogue with Draka, because she's the complete opposite. Her entire conviction is about denying death as surely and broadly as she's able to. She can't get over the loss of her father, so she obsesses over not repeating it. Frosted Tips (I can't recall his name at the moment, but you know who I mean), on the other hand, wants to accept death so his memory of his sister will no longer be marred by the hesitation he showed her in her final moments. As such, he's open to religion, but not to the Church as it currently exists. I love his use of the word “rot” here, because it feels just as apt today. I think any institution of sufficient size, power, and longevity suffers from rot in the end. People like him have to help put it down.

A single instance of death doesn't inform Schmidt's conviction. He's more acutely aware of its general malaise hanging over humanity. This informs his misanthropy, which in turn causes him to reject human institutions outright. While he's a radical, it's easy to see where he's coming from when he argues with Draka. With the context of five additional centuries of history, we can quickly confirm the relationship between war and technology that he derides. Technology didn't create war, of course, but it pushes war towards new and innovative horrors inflicted on people and the environment. It's possible that all the technological progress in the world won't ever make up for all of that harm. And Schmidt, to his credit, acknowledges his hypocrisy in “using technology to overcome technology.” Although he doesn't say it as directly as Jolenta, he, too, counts on a future generation reaping the fruits of his current violence.

Draka's parting argument with Schmidt reveals that she's definitely kindred spirits with Jolenta. Paraphrasing Aristotle, she tells him that technology also has the ability to complete the things that nature alone can't finish. She doesn't think it's worth trying to put that lid back on Pandora's Box. Still, Draka is young and can't fully understand where Jolenta is coming from. Jolenta bears the kind of optimism that can only come from a lifetime steeped in the worst of humanity. Draka wears her distrust on her sleeve, while Jolenta spares her life because she knows firsthand how difficult it is for a bright and spirited woman out there. She can't bring herself to make Draka's path any more difficult. She has to support her.

Jolenta's conviction relates to history, literacy, science, and religion, but it ultimately stems from the totality of human existence. She's the opposite of Schmidt; she believes humans are an extension and manifestation of God's will. Although she acknowledges our tendency towards regression, she sees the overall arc of humanity as one that gradually bends further and further towards an ideal. This is why history and literacy are so important to her. Any one person's experience will vary greatly, and that variance produces equally divergent interpretations. Draka's conversations throughout this episode are perfect examples of that. However, by removing oneself from the equation and considering the past, present, and potential future, Jolenta believes she can achieve a more objective and useful perspective on how humanity can continue to improve itself.

I agree with Jolenta, but her solution isn't perfect. A part of me agrees with Badeni's misanthropic view on mass literacy—that if everyone can read and write, then the quality of what gets written cannot be guaranteed. We have so much evidence from the past century of bad actors and hucksters using all branches of media to propagate falsehoods, cons, and (ironically) religious orthodoxy. Dan Olson's recent documentary “Mantracks” shows how the trappings of science can be manipulated to support blatantly unscientific conclusions. Reading and writing are miracles, but they're not enough. Institutional religion didn't crumble after the invention of the printing press. It adapted. The Bible is the most published book of all time.

Nevertheless, I admire Jolenta and respect where she comes from. She, too, can't fully escape the influence of her individual past. She has to find a way to remove her personal feelings from the equation, because otherwise she knows she might hesitate to oppose her father and, by extension, the Inquisition. Standing on that hill, holding the torch over the pile of explosives, she wants nothing more than to let the long arc of history guide her hand into martyrdom. However, in her final moments, all she can see are her memories—her struggles, her friends, her father, and her love. Jolenta is human in the end. She weighs all her experience, locks eyes with Nowak for an instant, and drops the torch. Human history still relies on human conviction. It can be fallible, but that's what makes these moments of strength all the more potent.

Jolenta is just the latest in a growing line of people dying for the sake of heliocentrism, and I'm more impressed than ever at Orb's ability to weave drama together with its lofty themes. This is one of the most thematically dense episodes yet, and it also contains the harrowing image of Nowak holding his daughter's disembodied arm in the same hand that he had been holding her glove. He killed her by swearing to avenge her, and he either doesn't know or is choosing to be willfully ignorant of what he saw in the instant before the explosion. This could come across as over-the-top, but it instead feels understated and haunting. I'm ridiculously pleased with this adaptation, and it's on its way to becoming one of my favorite period dramas. Period.

I also want to shout out Brad Plumb's localization work, as credited on Netflix. This has to be a difficult series to translate, with its large cast, wide scope, and constantly growing bank of scientific and philosophical ideas. Still, his scripts have been consistently easy to read without sacrificing the necessary depth. Orb's appeal could have quickly fallen apart with an artless translation that didn't bother to do the research. Thank you, Brad.

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Orb: On the Movements of the Earth is currently streaming on Netflix.

Steve is on Bluesky now, and he's okay with that. He is busy pondering the orb. You can also catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.