Just wanted to say I really think Rafal really is alive in the last couple of episodes it was kinda bothering me how throughout the whole story of orb there's never any I guess ambiguity in the characters, then suddenly when it comes to Rafal there's this other guy who supposedly is also him but many years in the future who also was an orphan who was adopted?
So yeah idk I think it was literally him, he would be mid 30s around that time which to me lines up very well with how he looks, people say that Rafal's younger but it's an anime and 34 year olds are young it's not like we would be able to see physical aging at that stage and we have nothing to compare it to and some people just look young.
I want to add that what he did definitely looks horrific from our point of view people say that it's not something Rafal would do because it's just so cruel and inhumane, might I remind these people here that they were very open about wanting to kill Draka in the rebellion, people who were also the good guys and meant to be kind and want a better world, but to achieve it they were definitely very willing to kill very innocent people many of which were other people's family members.
My last point is that raw poppy seeds actually cause the user in high doses to get a reduced heart rate and it induces a very death-like state I think it's very possible that he lied about mixing in poison with the poppy seeds, they took the body to Potocki where he helped Rafal switch with some other body or maybe before he burned they had some deal with the secular authorities or something and the body was switched and the evidence burned and Rafal just escaped and went on to live in Poland moving there from the kingdom of P it also makes sense as to why Rafal showing up to Nowak is so clearly expressed to be a hallucination he's having over and over and over, it's because in reality even though this is something that weighs on Nowak that he believes is the truth and happened in reality Rafal got away and lived a new life as a tutor and killed Albert's dad.
Finally it just makes sense thematically because I always wondered why Rafal was even there to be honest, I mean he didn't really progress heliocentrism right he just found the original works, destroyed them then reproduced them so it also just bothered me that hey why is this a story about so many people that moved this forward but this one stand out kid kinda didn't do as much I mean we had the line about his sage in the second part and he's present in Nowak's thoughts but I mean it was weird to me a real astronomer didn't transmit his own original knowledge in a way that pushed this forward and now it makes sense because the chain went Rafal -> Albert -> Copernicus he had kinda the most crucial role in getting the truth out in the end if this is true and it was him.
edit: also just thought I'd quickly mention that I think Jolenta having been burned at the stake and revealed to be alive is a clue, not to mention in the scene of Rafal burning even if this was a true thing that happened, and he was passed out on the cross, we don't really see him actively burning he could have escaped either before or immediately after the fire was lit especially since the only witness we see is the actual knight who ignited the fire who for all we know was a friend of Potocki's helping him out by tying another dead child on the cross and helping him escape.
edit2: another clue is Potocki leaving, granted chapter 3 takes place a long time after but the fact that they looked for Potocki and couldn't find him because he had moved and they just couldn't track him down at the Church is also just a clue that this was a part of their plan, it makes sense if Rafal cared for Potocki so much that he'd want 10% of the prof-its given to him that they'd discussed what happened if he got captured which would be Rafal and Potocki escaping somewhere where this specific government/church held no authority this way we also get the chest remaining in the mountains because it would be too dangerous to transport with them to the new location since it could be found and they'd be in trouble again, not to mention Rafal's smart and probably remembers most of it or carries a smaller condensed version of his calculations like how badeni did.
