Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

Episode 23

Under no circumstances do we have to hand it to Nowak, but I can't help feeling inclined to do so on the heels of Orb's grand not-quite-finale. Maybe I'm just tickled to see him stick it to Antoni, whose detached arrogance made him arguably even more loathsome than his executioner's rough, bloodstained hands. Maybe I'm feeling persuaded by Rafal, whose undeniably biased argument still makes a solid case for how we perceive and learn from history. Maybe the Catholic dogma etched into me as a youth makes me susceptible to the emotional power of a deathbed confessional. No matter the circumstances swirling in my head right now, one thing is certain: Orb would not be the same story without Nowak.

I'm curious to know if Orb was always written with this conclusion in mind, or if the story evolved alongside Nowak. Its opening act is lurid with the grotesque violence of the Inquisition, as Nowak seems to take perverse joy in explaining the instruments of torture to his victims. While bloodshed has never strayed too far from Orb's eye, it's become less sensational and more purposeful. For example, despite the surface similarities, this week's climax highlights the fundamental difference between Jolenta's self-sacrifice and Nowak's immolation of the church. Nowak does so in anger and retaliation. Jolenta blows herself up to give the future a chance. She leaves a literal piece of herself with her father. In his last moments, Nowak finally understands a fraction of the significance of that.

Draka and Nowak's final argument is one that we've heard recapitulated throughout the story. Draka summarizes her side well: “Even if God disappears from society, God can't be erased from humans' souls.” It's a classic question in the philosophy of ethics. Does human morality stem from the divine, is it intrinsic, or does it not exist in the first place? Organized religion has a vested interest in divine origins, as that makes religion both the vehicle for and arbiter of morality. Even relatively unreligious people will laud religious education for providing a better moral baseline as if that is a given. However, if we look at this from another angle, it's a profoundly pessimistic belief because it does not trust people to be moral of their own volition. In other words, it's a fitting belief for a person like Nowak. He knows only his savagery and projects that onto the rest of humanity, so he believes religion to be the only thing capable of keeping that evil—his evil—in check.

At least, that's what Nowak used to believe. Rafal appears to him not as a specter, but as the splinter of rational optimism that has been poking into his brain ever since the boy committed suicide. Nowak has always been intelligent enough to realize that these heretics weren't throwing their lives away for nothing. He had first-row seats to the way they managed to preserve the study of heliocentrism despite his best efforts. He could quell the doubt in his mind but never fully silence it. Instead, he subconsciously accepted that he was the villain.

There's so much nuance in Orb's parting scene with Nowak that it's honestly too much for me to fully unpack here. He's neither fully exonerated nor fully punished. He earns a modicum of closure regarding Jolenta but burns knowing that she died opposing him, because of him. Parts of his penitence are pathetic, and parts are sympathetic. It's also interesting to think about whether the hallucinatory Rafal speaks for Nowak, the author, or the real Rafal. He's a fascinating amalgam of all three, assuaging Nowak while also wryly commenting on how we flatten history into dates, theories, and events. What I can say for sure is this: Nowak may not be the heart of Orb, but he's the blood pumping through it. This is how you write a compelling villain.

Draka, thankfully, receives a gentler bit of closure. Unfortunately, each of our protagonists has been uniquely cursed by the thrall of heliocentrism, but none of them have died with regrets. And it's difficult not to be touched by the symbolism of her final moments. By releasing the pigeon, she passes history's baton to the next person, whoever it will be. It doesn't even matter that we don't see who it is. We know that part of the story already. More importantly, she dies as the sun rises. While Nowak received one last view of the heavens, beaming their unfaltering truths to him and the rest of humanity, Draka made good on Schmidt's one wish for her. The night only lasts so long before we greet the sun again. The Earth's movements guarantee that.

Naturally, Orb has one last curveball for us. According to the title card, we're no longer in the “Kingdom of P.” We're in Poland proper. I'll be eager to grapple with the intentions and implications of this shift in setting when the final two episodes air. I'm half-hoping that Copernicus will show up at the end, Nick Fury-style, to “put together a team” to model the solar system once and for all. For now, I like to think the burning of the wooden orb necklace ended this experiment in historical fiction. That bubble universe will truly never be known to history. However, that doesn't mean its struggles, lessons, and warnings were all for naught. As the episode title indicates, these characters are literary comrades telling a story that's timelier than ever.

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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.