Given how engaging the Rumble Town arc is and how much plot is clearly being packed into a few episodes, it’s hard not to be piqued that Radiant spent so much much screen time on original material in its first cour.  Parts of it were good, don’t get me wrong, but as a whole this manga material is better – and not only that, it possesses a clarity of purpose and commitment that the new material did not.  Especially in light of the fact that this is really a “one-and-a-half cour” show with a sequel very unlikely to follow, such planning decisions are rather puzzling.

So much went down in this episode – damn.  And so many players on the stage now, too – including one who I assume is going to extremely critical that we’d only met very briefly before.  What exactly is the “Red Room” that General Torquemada instructs his troops to imprison the other (non-Seth) sorcerers in after the fall of Rumble Town?  What is the traumatic “last time” that Melie flashes back to as she sees her friends falling all around her and is unable to help – and was it that trauma that caused her to develop her split personality?  And how the heck did that business with Doc come about?

That last one is kind of a biggie.  Glad that Doc ain’t dead?  Absolutely, but this was certainly an odd development.  And I guess that means he’s a sorcerer too, since he has a curse – which I’m pretty sure is new information, isn’t it?  And will Doc remain in Baby Doc (I apologize to any Haitian readers for that, but I couldn’t resist) form for good – or at least until he grows up (again)?  We’re certainly bombarded with questions, and there’s a lot more where those came from – and only five episodes left to answer them.

As the battle with Hameline rages on, Dragunov once again shows himself to be the one most perfectly balanced at the nexus point of these many competing interests.  He finds Seth, announces that he’s going to arrest him – but when the time comes, he lets Seth go to try and stop Hameline from destroying the island (it may already be too late).  And Grimm drops by to urge Seth and Melie to flee, as the Domitor is too strong for them – but when Seth refuses to stand down and let Grimm kill her, he agrees to assist with Melie’s plan to restrain her instead (which shows off some pretty impressive defensive magic).

The key moment in all this though, it seems to me, is the arrival of Piodon on the scene.  It was clear from his brief appearance with Torque in Episode 5 that he’s a major power broker, and now it looks as if he may be Seth’s father – he has the same horns, anyway, and refers to the boy as “my precious family”.  Why would a sorcerer, a cursed, be aligned with the Inquisition?  Again, it’s very clear that in Valente’s mythology, there are fuzzy moral lines dividing these competing forces.  And indeed Piodon lays it all out there for Seth – what throwing in with any of them really means.  Seth’s magic is obviously rare and powerful, but the key thing setting him apart may be his clear and straightforward moral compass in a land where the magnetic field is totally haywire – and his willingness to go it alone in order to go where it tells him.