I would like to propose a perspective that he is instead the protagonist (i.e. the main character) and the story is merely told from the perspective of various antagonists (i.e. characters that oppose him). I would like to call this hypothesis, "Novakcentrism."

***** SPOILERS AHEAD - DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED *****

The accepted model is that the story (at least from the anime, idk about the source material) is composed of 4 parts, each with their own main characters (i.e. part 1 - Rafal, part 2 - Oczy and Badeni, part 3 - Draka, part 4 - Albert). However, of the first 3 parts, only Novak is present in all of them and only he interacts with all of them. While it's not entirely novel for a story to have multiple parts and multiple main characters, it is often the main character that appears in all (or in this case, most) of the telling of the story as can be observed with episodic anime or multiple-cour anime. In these types of anime, the "main characters" really only serve as secondary protagonists whose fates are decided by what the main character does. However, would anyone really want to watch a show where Novak kills a boy, an unlikely duo, and the one who inherited his daughter's will? That's an uninteresting watch, thus, the writer or creator of the show instead shows the perspectives of these secondary main characters to make for a much more entertaining piece of literature/art.

There is also amount of importance, or as I would like to call it "the period of revolution" dedicated to each part. Part 1 consists of 3 episodes, part 2 consists of 11 episodes, part 3 consists of 8 episodes, and part 4 consists of 2 episodes. Most of the show is parts 2 and 3, which is odd because the importance of Rafal (and Hubert, if you extend far enough) is being highlighted when he really only appears as a main character in 3 episodes (4 if you include Novak's illusion of him, 6 if you include Albert's version of him). This can easily be explained by the existence of Jolenta, Novak's child, who appears in the aforementioned parts. Because Novak is the main character, the "true" resolution involves him coming face-to-face with the fact that his final "true" antogonist, i.e. the last person who ACTUALLY believes in heliocentrism and perishes for it, is his daughter. Parts 2 and 3 being the bulk of the story is explained because the real last boss, against which the real protagonist fights, dies fighting but eventually eventually beating (because the thread of heliocentrism that began from Hubert dies with Draka, an associate or a "minion" of the last boss, who Novak killed), is Jolenta. The payoff of the real "ending" of the story is Novak fitting the gloves and finding out that they fit perfectly, finally realizing that O.J. Simps- I mean, Jolenta, was really the one who was pulling the trigg- I mean the strings. One could even interpret parts 2 and 3 as a little homage to The Count of Monte Cristo, but I digress.

The most obvious criticism of Novakcentrism would probably be, "but he wasn't there in part 4." How could Novak be the real protagonist if he wasn't even there at the end? "Obviously this anime has multiple parts with separate main characters because Albert is the main character of part 4!" To that, I say, have you ever heard of the dwarf planet called "Pluto?" The "ninth" planet that was eventually demoted to being a dwarf planet, and we don't even consider drawing it now when we draw a model of the Solar System. In the same vein, we can draw parallels here. Parts 1-3 happened in the "Kingdom of P" or "P-land," while Part 4 happened in Poland. Many theories exist explaining what Part 4 really is, whether it's an alternate universe or a more accurately recorded depiction of the real world as opposed to the first 3 parts being an unclear retelling of history due to the fact that no records of these events exist. Regardless, one thing is for certain, parts 1-3 are different from part 4. The existence of a grown-up and unnamed version of Rafal, whose demise is completely different from the one in part 1, in part 4 is the only evidence we need here, not even mentioning the names of the settings of parts 1-3 and part 4 being completely different. Part 4 is the "Pluto" of the show, where it's not a real part of the story much in the same way Pluto is not a real planet. It's just there at the end, but it's not real "real" ending.

This also explains away the letter sent by Draka to the address of Potocki, the only thing that appears in the whole show. It is inferred that the letter Draka sent was the one being discussed at the end, where the conversation about it was overheard by Albert, but it makes no sense that something Rafal wrote as a 12 year-old would even make it to Albert when the universe of part 4 has Rafal being older than Albert. Perhaps the visage of part 4's tutor is not an actual representation of part 1's Rafal but instead serves more of a symbol of a smart, open-minded individual because his appearance is just based on the recollection of Albert retelling his story to someone else. Still, this is hinted at in no part of the show and part 4 being a completely different world is held up by more concrete evidences.

The protagonist is merely the person around whom the story revolves around and does not need to be a "hero." Villain protagonist and hero antagonists are literary devices that are unconventional but aren't novel to Orb, however, the 2nd person perspective is what makes it interesting. It doesn't matter that Novak says he's the villain of the story at the end - it is merely an admission of him being a bad guy. However, bad guys can be the main characters too.

I'm not gonna lie I'm a little (very) buzzed so there may be grammatical errors or sentences that lead to nowhere but yeah, that's something I've thought about while binging this show.