This episode was so interesting and had so much important character psychology that I barely know where to start. I feel that almost every episode of Orb deserves at least one detailed discussion post on its own. Since this is a brief episode review, I’ll mention as much as I can that comes to mind, but it certainly won’t be an exhaustive analysis.
One important theme in this episode was “priorities” or “personal values.” Everyone is driven by these things. (Writing yours down and numbering them is an interesting exercise if you’ve never done it.) Draka’s priority is security, and the means to that end is money. Effectively, financial gain is her most significant personal priority. We also see the priority of survival driving Draka’s uncle. Anthony’s priority is to enjoy and maintain power over others. Now let’s take a look at some other aspects of this amazing episode.
Episode 17: I Could Make A Lot of Money With This Book… Maybe
Episode Rating: 10/10
The music in this series has always been excellent and the visuals, though a little odd, are addictive and often cinematic. Even so, the audio-visual quality of this episode was especially noteworthy. I enjoyed the music at several points and loved the colorful visuals of the skies, villages, and nomad camps. As for plot and character significance, this episode introduced Draka, a young woman bent on acquiring wealth for her tribe’s security. By sheer coincidence, she discovers the book written by Oczy – but we’ll get to that later. Let’s talk about Draka as a character.
Draka is completely awesome so far. She is young and immature in her thinking, and she has suffered major emotional trauma. But she’s also keenly intelligent, ambitious, and outspoken. It’s easy to care about her and want her to succeed. I love Draka just as much as I love Jolenta, though I empathize more closely with the latter. Her character design is cool as fuck. Draka might be the unexpected heroine of the show. Then again, things tend to go very wrong for ambitious characters in this anime. We’ll see.
When I saw her appear in the opening song, I mistakenly thought Draka was a boy. I can’t be the only one who was surprised by Draka’s gender. She is a woman and doesn’t object to being called such, using the professional and traditionally feminine pronoun of watashi to refer to herself. Still, it’s clear from her mannerisms that Draka is more masculine than most of the women in the tribe. This was fun for me to see because I absolutely love people and characters who are androgynous. Draka is very cool.
Then there’s Draka’s uncle. He’s anything but cool – a complete scumbag. I understand wanting to live, but I do not understand throwing a loved one under the bus. Anyway, the scumbag’s name is Dhruv. I’m a little pissed that Dhruv is such a bad person since he’s also the first explicitly atheist character in the show. I want better atheist rep, but on the other hand, most of the religious characters so far have been deeply flawed or evil, too. As long as the narrative isn’t painting the idea that atheists are evil and religious people are good, then it’s fine. Also, atheists IRL are not a monolith; some are caring humanists while others are morally backrupt.
I wanted to discuss Dhruv’s words to Draka about the three magic spells of survival. Despite Dhruv being a complete asshole later on, what he says in this flashback was not problematic for me. These are the three ideas paraphrased. 1) Don’t let religion rule your life because there is no good evidence of a God. 2) Use critical thinking skills and let yourself have a good education. 3) Develop confidence and firmness in your values over time. I see no problem with this besides the small complaint that Dhruv is a “hard atheist” while I am a “soft atheist.” That’s why I don’t assert that no gods exist. I just hold that I have no good reason to believe in them.
Let’s go back to Draka for a quick second. I’m interested in her psychology. As I mentioned, she suffered through emotional trauma when her father was killed. This trauma shaped Draka’s mind as she grew. Her logical but simplistic thinking led her to believe that comfort from trauma could only come from money. I feel bad for Draka knowing that she is so emotionally raw on the inside. While there’s nothing wrong with securing wealth (within reason), money can’t replace the support of a loving, human community with whom one can share trauma and heal. That’s my opinion, anyway.
Side note: You probably noticed that Draka and Dhruv are part of a nomadic tribe. Curious, I did some Googling and started learning about Polish tribes in real history. They were Western Slavic people who lived as nomads for centuries in the area we now know as Poland. If you like learning random history facts, browse the wikipedia article and check out some Google images of historical Polish Tribe clothing. It’s pretty rad.
Now we return to discussing the main events of this episode. To save his own skin from hanging, Dhruv offers Draka to Bishop Anthony. I dread to think what Anthony has in mind for Draka. But before the betrayal, Draka finds Oczy’s book, which was left behind by the Heretic Liberation Front. (It was titled Orb: On the Movement of the Earth.) Draka’s thoughts on the book are worth discussing, but I am too unmotivated to go over it right now. I’m sleep deprived and need to finish this article.
On a final note, I love the look Draka gives her uncle when she discovers she’s being sold off to a priest. If looks could kill, Dhruv would be dead several times over. That’s all for today, so thanks so much for reading and putting up with me.
~Thanks for reading~
Click for other posts about Orb
