#fullbringer quincy

[distinguishedshoeduckdonut]

My inner self taking a certification shot before Bleach...

[zurakuraworks]

/The DeathBerry/

Date finished: 14/01/2024

Follow me on:

Instagram

X(Twitter)

pixiv

DeviantArt

[worldofreapers]

Write in the comments why! ^_^

[epraim1992]

Yhwach's Origin

Yhwach created the Quincies but his own birth is still a mystery.

Yhwach claims to be the son of the Soul King. But he was seemingly born around 1200 years ago in the human world and Soul King was sealed in his crystal the Soul Society.

Also we can't take what he says literally. He considers himself Ichigo's true father calls Isshin a stand-in.

I have a theory that Yhwach is the reincarnation of a member of the the Shihoin Clan.

The three worlds used to be one and in Can't Fear Your Own World it was revealed that splitting life and death was the idea of the ancestors of the five noble clans.

It was the Shihoin Clan ancestor that came up with the reincarnation cycle. "The Shihoin clan’s ancestor believed that an even greater cycle of circulation was needed to progress the stagnant world forward." I think it would be significant and ironic for a Shihoin to put end to that cycle.

I think it will be a twist similar to Hollows being revealed to be fallen human souls.

Yhwach was born without his senses which I think is influenced by the Three Wise Monkeys and the Sanshin. I think this is a clue on how Yhwach got his Quincy powers.

The Sanshin are evil spirits believed to live in people and try to hasten the death of their host. They record the sins of the host to report to the gods so they would be punished. I think this is the inspiration for Yhwach power sharing ability.

The Sanshin are believed to reside in three dantian "energy centers", respectively located within the head, chest, and abdomen. This correlates to the saketsu and hakusui which are located in the chest and abdomen.

I think the third eye of Aizen and the Llyod twins hint at a pressure point existing in the head.

Uryu regained his Quincy powers by being struck with a Heilig Pfeil in the chest.

In the spot where the saketsu or Chain of Fate would be. I think this is a hint on how Yhwach gain his Quincy powers.

The Soul King split the primordial world into the triplet worlds.

He used a sword.

And three arrows to do it. EDIT: I think he pierced his saketsu, hakusui and "third eye" to transform into a Quincy.

The Shihoin Clan are the guardian of heavenly weapons and tools bestowed unto them by the gods/heaven which I take means the Soul King. I think they had the sword and three arrows.

Tools have souls in the name and Fullbringers can boost their power with their own souls. The Soul King in Can't Fear Your Own World was said to have countless abilities like the Fullbringers. I think the Soul King boosted the arrows with his soul.

I think the arrow had spirits in them similar to Shun Shun Rikka.

Orihime's hair clips were compared to Zanpakuto.

I think these spirits were incarnation of the Soul King and will be inspired by the Sanshin.

As opposed to Shinigami Quincy extinguish the souls of Hollows.

It was explained as being out of revenge for the Hollows killing their loved ones.

Mayuri pushed back on the that idea and hypothesized it was because Hollows are deadly to Quincy.

Urahara cosigned this and explained that Quincy had no antibody against Hollows. This makes me think that it being out of resentment is true.

Urahara is not a reliable narrator. He is a fierce defender of the status quo so won't reveal the true reason Quincy seek to kill hollow.

The Shihoin lead the Onmitsukidō who act as scouts against the Hollows. Sui Feng lost all 5 of her brothers so I see that how the would breed resentment against Hollows. Also they assassinate lawbreakers so maybe the Yhwach's past life believed the Shinigami deserved punishment for mutilating the Soul King.

I think it could be why Chika Shihoin joined the Gotei 13, out of a sense of familial obligation to stop the Quincy since they were born from his family.

Old Man Zangetsu looks like Yhwach from a thousand years and interestingly enough Yoruichi met him. It's unclear if Yoruichi knows Ichigo is a Quincy but I think she could bring it up in the anime. I have feeling Urahara knows the truth and that Yoruichi will get it out of him.

[the-narwhals-awaken]

Bloody Hearts Bingo Day 4

Prompt: First Kiss, General | Becoming friends with a physically affectionate person and growing accustomed to being touched

Ichigo was well aware that he was, psychologically, messed up. Normal people- especially teenagers- were not so comfortable with violence as to get jittery every time five days went by without getting into a fight of some kind, were not quietly thrilled with the scent of blood and the feeling of punching somebody and the sensations that came when your blade was singing in the air and everything was aligned properly to let you keep whirling through all who dared stand in your way in a bacchanalia of violence.

More importantly, most people his age were just fine with casual touch, not thinking at all about the sensation of skin on skin and remaining aware of the lingering scent for hours afterwards. Ichigo was well-aware about the hazards of touch-starvation, and while he wouldn't admit to dragging out a few fights for a bit longer than he strictly needed to to be able to touch somebody without worrying about any consequences he wouldn't deny it, either.

The biggest upside of what Urahara was doing- besides the food, besides the training, besides the way he actually answered questions without treating him or any of them like idiots for not knowing and just shared all the details they needed to understand properly, besides the total acceptance of the violence that had made its home in his soul- was the way the others were so much more relaxed now. Ichigo knew he'd settled significantly after settling in the Shouten as a second home, and it was clear in the others- Ishida looked less like a porcelain puppet, Inoue's masks were less manic and felt more genuine, and even Chad seemed more comfortable existing behind the sliding doors.

Touch was the biggest factor in that. Inoue and Chad were very touchy as a matter of being, and it hadn't taken long for Ichigo to lean into whatever they offered, and not much longer for him to figure out when either of them wanted or needed touch but wouldn't ask for it. Ishida had taken a bit longer to coax out of his shell, if only because he needed a bit more direct invitation, but soon enough he'd settle against Chad's side and the pair would spend an afternoon sitting in silence.

The thing was, Ichigo wasn't stupid. He knew Urahara was planning more than he let on- the 'supplements' he gave Chad, and eventually the rest of them, weren't the only thing he was putting in their food, and there was far more to his lab than he let them see. It just didn't seem as important- whatever he was planning, it was the cost for keeping him and his friends safe and sated and happy, and thus it was a cost he was happy to pay.

It wasn't just that that had him reaching out- mostly it was sheer unconscious habit to settle against whoever was closest, combined with the rattling hum of his spirits (there was something there that neither would tell him, but Ichigo was patient) whenever he made sure his scent was all over his people. Urahara's reaction was worth it to keep it up- the first genuine startle he'd seen on the man's face, staying put for long enough that Ichigo had been half-tempted to poke him to see if he was still alive before his mask had gone back up and the cheerfully irreverent shopkeep was in place again.

Ichigo was very pleased with how things were working out. Slowly but surely, Urahara was being folded into their group- mostly without his notice, either, if the way he still startled at casual touch was anything to go by. Whatever the scientist was planning, he was one of Ichigo's now, and everything else would sort itself out.

[magicgurljhonnie]

Ichigo Kurosaki ⚔️💀

Substitute Soul Reaper/Vizard/Fullbringer/Quincy

[snowddeong]

It's super stuck in my brain now so bleach tybw inspired Ryeji based off of haschwalth/bazz

Coincidentally the night they escape and hide out in the forrest is also the night Yhwach attacks and burns down the whole village. Ryujin swears revenge and Yeji swears to be by her side and support her any way she can. The plan is basically to enlist into the knight order, get close to Yhwach and kill him so they train with that in mind for like 5 years and keep getting closer but shit goes south when they head for conscription.

These are some of the slightly more detailed changes I wanna make but basically Ryujin is the daughter of their village's noble family and Yeji's a poor kid with a horrible home life. They meet in the woods, Yeji's really struggling to hunt and eventually after befriending Ryujin she learns about Quincy stuff, gets stronger and eventually can hunt on her own and starts bringing back more than a single rabbit. Her uncle gets suspicious and stops her from going out anymore so Ryujin helps her gtfo.

Yhawch is there and he realises Yeji is able to give and take away power just like him. He offers her a position as his advisor but before she can even consider Ryujin panics for her sake and tries to kill Yhwach. She fails and goes to try again but Yeji stops her cause she knows how powerful this mf is and that he WILL kill Ryujin. So for Ryujin's sake Yeji joins the Order and abandons Ryujin.

Ryujin does eventually also join the Order and rises in the ranks super quick but her motivation now is she hates Yeji for betraying her and wants an explanation wtf happened. Yeji meanwhile is doing everything for the sake of keeping Ryujin alive. Also they're gay

[variablejabberwocky]

oh so byakuya's new bankai is yumichika's true shikai but turned up to 100000x

thats not FUCKING TERRIFYING or anything

ok I need elaboration on pretty much all of those bankais that you haven't already talked about but for now i'm probably most curious about ichigo and hanataro? please, a measly few crumbs of context

The short version of Ichigo's sword situation is that he is D'artanigan to Zangetsu's Three displaced-during-the-fuckery-surrounding-his-parent's-meet-cute-slash-manslaughter-thing Musketeers. We got his dad's half-starved family Zanpakuto, The Family Ghost from his Mom's side, and a guy made in an evil instapot that wandered in here on accident and precipitated the whole enfuckening. They are untied in their goal of "Keep Ichigo Alive" but unfortunately they also have a collective IQ of Negative Four.

Reader: Gee Ichigo, why does the author let you have THREE Zanpakuto spirits?

Ichigo: That's nothing! Orihime has SIX!

Ichigo and Orihime's nonsense is connected to how The Almighty operates:)

Meanwhile, short summaries of Unohana and Byakuya's Bankai under the cut:

Minazuki is a sword primarily about the manipulation of flesh- healing injury, making better fighters by pushing the flesh to it's limits- This is a spirit that is distinctly VISCERAL in nature. It has mass. It has a very distinct body.

Unohana:

So it follows that, in order to supply injured patients with blood and drugs and new flesh and everything else, Minazuki is giving up some of her Mass. Consequently, the Stingray form of Minazuki is the SECOND one- she cannot create her elixirs and make new flesh from nothing. First she must FEED.

Which is why Minazuki's liquid format is acidic blood that devours anything organic. It's why Kenpachi!Unohana's bloodthirst was so bloodthirsty: she was literally starving for biomass to complete her sword's two forms and finally put her Soul in Balance.

Senbonzakura has been with the Kuchiki family for generations, passed from one head of the clan to the next in a sacred ritual that allows the Zanpakuto to bond to its new weilders and grant them the power accumulated with generations.

In the fic, Ukitake is one of a handful of people old enough to remember "Yachiru" Unohana, and until Zaraki's arrival, probably the closest to understanding her. That Unohana and Retsu both understand the horrors of the flesh he lives with every day more intimately than anyone else in his life, and it's the basis of an almost sacred friendship between them. He knows perfectly well where the emergency transfusions and drugs she creates come from, and they have a standing agreement that if he predeceases her, she is to feed his body to Minazuki so he can pay forward at least some of the debt given to him.

He will not be the first of Unohana's friends that have been willingly devoured by her sword.

Byakuya:

But for course, everything has it's cost.

Byakuya was not the head of the Kuchiki clan when his father Sojun died prematurely and make Byakuya the orphan heir apparent as an adolescent. He was not the head when he met Hisana in a grove of cherry trees in the middle of harvest, and fell in love with her He was not the head when he had a terrible row with his grandfather Ginrei and the rest of the clan elders about his elopement. He was not the head five years later, when on a cold spring morning before the plum trees had blossomed, Hisana died of a miscarriage.

One week later, when the plum trees bloomed and the cherry trees had budded, Byakuya came to his grandfather, head bowed and heart broken, and agreed to take up the mantle of Clan Head. His soul had already been torn in half, what was another half?

Everything has it's cost, and the price of Senbonzakura's power is the sacrifice of the weilder's own original Zanpakuto spirit, and by transference, the imminent death of the previous head.

He had known this day was coming, ever since his own native Zanpakuto spirit failed to awaken at the academy. At the time, he'd thought it a mercy that the poor thing wouldn't awaken and be aware of being devoured. But now, as he held the tiny, warm body of the spirit out to Senbonzakura, he could only think of the child he never got to hold.

...with Senbonzakura, at least, she'd be at rest with something beautiful that loved her.

Because Senbonzakura loves it's family, and in particular it adores Byakuya. It has, ever since Byakuya fearlessly climbed it's branches as a small boy, since he partook of the sword's fruits as a young man, and now, when Byakuya offered the most precious parts of himself to the sword with a sense of peace and profound trust. And Senbonzakura repays that trust in kind.

The sword's shikai release is the same, or at least similar for all it's wielders, but long-term friends of the family note that that is a LOT MORE blades than the sword ever summoned for Ginrei or any other head.

The Bankai is different every time. Senbonzakura is ready to give Byakuya whatever Bankai he wants immediately, but it's not until after he adopts Rukia and sees her fooling around in the family orchards when she thinks he isn't watching that he realizes the shape it should be.

It's name is "Senbonzakura: Sakura no Kaju-en" and it is beautiful and terrible.

Sakura no Kaju-en requires only that Byakuya pierce the flesh of his enemy or the terrain around him with one or more of his petal-blades. Once in the ground or embedded in flesh, the blade is transformed into a seed and an entire magical cherry tree grows from it, converting the Reishi and spiritual energy around it into its own mass. Since Byakuya is effectively wielding somewhere around 10,000 petal blades in his shikai alone, he can summon up to 10,000 devouring cherry trees, which will radically alter the landscape of battle and blossom into millions and millions of new petal-blades.

That is, unless his foe is unfortunate enough to have the blades penetrate their flesh. Then the trees will devour them as they grow. Even a truly massive opponent like Yammy can be mulched in minutes.

The trees initially blossom almost white, but as his enemies are felled and Senbonzakura drinks, the blooms grow pinker and then redder until they transform into deep crimson fruits.

It's a brutal Bankai, but a beautiful one. When Byakuya looks out upon the blooming landscape and tastes the sweet fruits of his efforts, it brings him peace to know the small, sleeping spirit he had to sacrifice is playing somewhere within, they way he saw Rukia playing in the family orchards that day.

[distinguishedshoeduckdonut]

Are You The One Who Destroyed Soul Society

[kaibutsushidousha]

What are your thoughts on orihime?

Ichigo's little group of friends exist to be basis of Bleach's arcs. The Soul Society arc is envisioned as Rukia's arc, which is a no-brainer because Rukia is a Shinigami. The Lost Agent is envisioned as Chad's arc, and even if it fails that role, the choice is understandable due to Chad being a Fullbringer. The Blood War is envisioned as Uryuu's arc, obvious again because Uryuu is a Quincy. But Orihime is a Fullbringer, so realizing what makes her fit at the center of the Arrancar arc requires a little more thought.

Well, I'd say the answer can be found about as early as possible. Orihime simply isn't like any other character in the good side. A whole lot of characters in Bleach have tragic pasts, but only Orihime is shown having a tragic present. The other Karakura people have comfortable houses with providing families. The Seireitei is a high class place directly contrasted with the poor Rukongai. The Visored and Xcution are united communities. Unclear about the Quincies in Silbern because we never the status quo there before the times of war.

Meanwhile, Orihime lives alone thanks to cutting ties with her parents at age 4 and losing her brother at age 12. She survives out of part-time jobs and financial support from distant relatives who determine how much money she gets based on her grades. The status quo of Bleach is pretty rough on her, and if I'm not forgetting anyone, her alone. She's doing what she can to survive under a constant threat of hunger, which is something Bleach otherwise only portrays as the lifestyle of a Hollow. I'll get back to this later.

The point here is that Orihime's life sucks. But that's not a thing that ever shows. Orihime in public is just a silly airhead constantly presented as the most cheerful person around. Her screentime in normal school situations is marked by her filtering her unpleasant reality with outlandish imagination. Her antics make her look really stupid, but we're shown that she isn't as she has 3rd best grades in their school. Intentional as her silliness is, she can't afford to be a bad student because that affects how much bread she gets to every month, as mentioned above.

And Bleach wastes no time explaining why she's like that. Still in volume 1, it's already established that Orihime spent her whole life being protected by others. First Sora, then Tatsuki, and now Ichigo. And because she grew up like this, her greatest wish is to not be a problem.

She let Sora bite her because life going on without him was being a problem to him and having to protect her was being a problem to Ichigo. She puts on a smile at school and keeps her conditions a secret to avoid being a problem to anyone who could care about her living situation. She let Ulquiorra take her because she didn't want to be a problem to anyone willing to fight Aizen for her sake. Her experience in Soul Society should have told her that this last one would backfire tremendously, but in her moment of weakness, she couldn't fight against her ingrained habit of avoiding being a burden.

Another key point of her early characterization is obviously her relationship with Ichigo. He was just a cool funny guy at first, until Sora's incident made him interesting, so she asked Tatsuki about him, and only really started caring after hearing about Masaki's death. This happens in a volume where she takes the cover and her opening poem is "If I were the rain [...] could I tie hearts together?". The rain is the symbol of Ichigo's grief, and Orihime falls for Ichigo by associating the lost of his mother with the loss of her brother. She connects best by relating to suffering, which shows later in the many, many, many times she's shown healing Arrancars after years practically living like a Hollow when in the world of the living.

This is kinda of a sudden change of topic, but things are sorta moving in chronological order here and the next big checkpoint is Orihime's first fight, so I'll conclude the talk about her position there and now talk about her powers.

Orihime gets Shun Shun Rikka, a Fullbring centered around rejection of events. Like Bleach abilities tend to do, this power goes incredibly well with Orihime's established characterization. Reality sucks for her but she keeps things by rejecting it through her filter of imagination. She can attack with this power, but it's best suited as a shield (preventing causing problems for others) or healing (making people forget their problems).

She then proceeds to not do much in Soul Society, then early into the Arrancar arc, she loses to Yammy and gets to negatively compare herself to Rukia, who did well in her first on-screen fight ever. Her feelings of uselessness pile up and compound into the 5 lives scenes, which as I already told you before, I consider the emotionally powerful dialogue Kubo has ever written. Not much to comment on it, the moment speaks for itself.

For Orihime, the bulk of the Arrancar arc is spent interacting with Ulquiorra. It's a really challenging experience for her because Ulquiorra has zero emotional depth. He was an ancient Hollow with no eyes, ears, nose, or mouth, being unable to perceive the outside world until Aizen broke his mask. Starrk, Barragan, and Grimmjow's backstories establish that Arrancars inherit experiences from their Hollow selves. Breaking their masks didn't change who they are. But Ulquiorra has no experiences because his Hollow life was spent entirely in the nothingness of himself.

Orihime has always been engaging with people through a smile-shaped web of lies, social conventions, and bravado, but Ulquiorra still haven't experienced humanity enough for that to work on him. He responds only to cold truths, so Orihime's typical conversation strategies are proven useless. It forces her to change her ways. She can only teach him about the heart by being honest and direct. Arrancars are about literal broken masks, but Orihime makes herself part of their story by having her metaphorical mask broken.

After that, we have the Lost Agent arc, which doesn't really take Orihime further (and doesn't really need to since Arrancar was her main focus arc) but does an amazing show of progress for post-Ulquiorra Orihime by introducing Riruka, a tsundere who hangs with Orihime a lot. While Riruka is as full of walls and bravado as Orihime originally was, this Orihime gets to be effortlessly vulnerable, recapping her horrible backstory to her new friend, being called creepy for her apparently fake smile, and clarifying that she actually can smile for real because she was already saved from her past.

The final arc doesn't do much with her aside from putting her in the final boss battle, so I guess I'll use this space to talk about how her progression in combat participation feels really well-paced. She goes from being squarely away from major action in Soul Society to not interfering with the fight but making a point to stay near the battle vs Grimmjow to start tactically throwing shields vs Ulquiorra to getting Ichigo actively ask for her help vs Ywhach.

Ok, that last is probably more about Ichigo himself having learned to ask for help 10 minutes ago after cringing at Uryuu's inability to rely on his friends and taking him as an antithesis model (pun intended).

But still, I love this kind of step-by-step character growth model, it reminds me of how Yugi and Atem's dynamic grew from Yugi unaware to Yugi aware to them starting to talk to them working together vs Pegasus to Yugi dueling alone to Yugi defeating Atem. Always great to see an author commit to a flowchart of development like that.

[worldofreapers]

Check our recent blog for the Shinigami race and our differences between the show and our site. How have we made it more accessible for the RPers under this race. Create an account of your own and leave a comment to let us know your thoughts!

[animelga]

one of my biggest qualms with Bleach TYBW that the anime hasnt rly been able to fix is that the factions other than Soul Reapers and Quincy barely get anything to do despite being very much part of whats happening. i got SUPER excited seeing Harribel and Nel return on my first read and I already knew Grimmjow was returning, and I was kinda shocked seeing the Fullbringers again, but they all basically do . nothing. Mayuri even brings back some Arrancars as zombies (including Luppi!! Ex-sexta Espada!!! He should be a huge asset!!) yet they basically do nothing with it. not to even mention the nothingness that the Vizard and humans get to do.

I get why the Soul Reapers and Quincy are the focus - its their rivalry established since the beginning - and that stuff IS done really damn well, but I feel like at least the hollows/arrancar really deserved more of a spot in the conflict given the Quincies' relation to them. also let Chad do something pls

[linkspooky]

Hey friend, beautiful metas, you are great at this. I would like to hear your opinion on the one who is the second best antagonist in Bleach for me, Yhwach. It's my favorite manga and I would like to hear the opinion of someone who could understand the message of his character and the final arc of TYBW which for me is also the best of the manga.

Yhwach's philosophy about a world without the fear of death has great value in the work for me and one of the things that makes it so interesting is how he somehow contrasts with Aizen in the arc of the arrancars. Both of them were wrong in their ideologies, and only realized it when they achieved exactly what they wanted. Aizen becoming an infinite existence, and Yhwach becoming a stagnant existence.

So, fun fact Ywach is my second favorite Bleach Antagonist now (not counting Ulquiorra because he's just a precious misunderstood little baby) but when I first read TYBW I didn't like him at all. It really took the anime for me to understand how plot important Ywach is to the story. I usually don't like saying this, but if you think Ywach is a badly written antagonist then you really just don't get him.

The thing is everyone says they want to have nuanced villains but it's okay to have antagonists who are just symbolic forces of nature. The true antagonists in Bleach aren't the bad guys, it's the inability of the ensemble casts to overcome their personal issues, or work together as a team. Bleach has really strong character conflict, it really feels like every character who gets screentime is on a journey that's symbolized by the progression of their powers, whether they be quincy, fullbringer, or Shinigami.l

Therefore it is okay for Ywach not to be a character with a backstory as deep and human as Shigaraki, because he's symbolic of the force of FATE that the main characters are fighting against. Which is why the best way to understand Ywach is by comparing him to Aizen, Bleach's best antagonist. More on that under the cut.

The Fraud vs. The Real Deal

So ironically just like the best way to understand Aizen is also by comparing him to Ywach. Everything Aizen tries to be, a force of fate, the controlling force in the narrative, the one who has everyone dancing on the palms of his hands Ywach just naturally is. Aizen tries to become divine through schemes and plots, Ywach was literally born divine. He doesn't need to call himself a god, everyone already calls him a god. The quincy gave him the name "Ywach."

Before we get deeper into their comparisons, I'm going to give an example of just how Aizen is a fraud. The reveal of Misaki's backstory in thousand year blood war really did salvage Aizen's character for me after I started to dislike him towards the end of Arrancar Arc.

There's a fine line to walk with mastermind characters. You have to ask yourself is the character genuinely smart, or is the author just moving things around in the plot and letting the villain have plot armor and plot convenience in order to make them appear smarter than they already are.

Aizen claimed that he'd had everything in the palm of his hand since Ichigo was born, and that was what made me officially call bullshit. Then, the Misaki backstory reveals that Aizen was in fact just bullshitting the entire time.

Aizen didn't actually engineer Ichigo's birth as he claimed. One of his experiments just happened to attack Ichigo's mom, and Aizen decided to stay back and observe the situation. Then he kept monitoring Ichigo to see if he would be useful later. Which is what Aizen does in general, he puts his fingers in a lot of people's pies and then is clever enough to push situations into his favor.

He claims to be an omniscient planner, but he's really just clever and good at improvising when random things like White attacking Ichigo's mother happen so he can turn those situations into his advantage. When Aizen claims "I had everything planned from the beginning" it's just another illusion he's using to try to control you, and characters who buy that are easy to manipulate.

Because Aizen is a fraud. That is literally his zanpakuto, making illusions that control the senses. Everything down to his zanpakuto the literal reflection of his soul is fraudulent. Aizen makes claims at godhood but he doesn't even believe what he's saying.

Aizen yells at Ulquiorra that people shouldn't accept the way the world is, that they should try to be gods if they have the ability to while at the same time Ichigo called him out that his true desire was to be just another soul reaper.

However, in the world of Bleach godhood isn't all it's cracked up to be. The closest thing to a god, the Reio, the lynchpin of the unvierse is a limbless being, sealed in a crystal, that was not only betrayed and backstabbed and brutally massacred by the shinigami who supposedly worshipped them he's also like completely helpless.

He's eternal and all powerful and the very being that holds the world together, and also all he can do is passively observe reality. Destroying the soul king is a mercy because it releases him from his eternal suffering.

This is where we finally reach Ywach, who is what everything Aizen pretended to be. Aizen had to rely on the Hogyoku entirely to give other people power, whereas Ywach naturally can gift the quincy with his power. Aizen wanted to become the soul king he was a mortal who tried to ascend to divinity.

Ywach is heavily implied to be the soul king's literal son. Unlike Aizen he can actually claim to be a divine being, and he's worshipped as one taking the name of the christian god.

Aizen claims to be behind Ichigo's every fight in the manga, while Ywach actually is behind Ichigo's every fight because he's been there all along, pretending to be Ichigo's zanpakuto spirit. Ywach as Zangetsu even admits this, he was limiting Ichigo from his true power while also convincing Ichigo he was an ally because he never wanted Ichigo to become a full fledged sorcerer since he's not only a fragment of Ywach but the embodiment of his quincy powers.

Ywach is responsible for ichigo's desire to protect others, because his decision to terminate all impure quincy killed Ichigo's mother. Ywach has been with Ichigo since birth, since all quincies carry a fragment of Ywach's power in them. When Ywach calls Ichigo his son, he's not bullshitting either, because Old Man Zangetsu the fragment of Ywach inside Ichigo was in a sense a mentor and a father figure to him.

Ywach is a force of nature, in this case he's fate. The same fate that Ichigo wanted to shatter with his sword. Unlike Aizen's claims to be in control he can actually back this up. He controls Ichigo to slay the soul king, and his literal ability "The Almighty" is to rewrite the future to bring whatever future he wants into being. He can peer into every possible future and see millions of possible variations fo the future like grains of sand and then just make the one he wants happen. He literally, creates fate.

However, as I said it's not actually a good thing to be god in Bleach. Ywach because he is divine, can't live in the world with everyone else because of his fear of death. He's terrified of death probably for two reasons, one because he existed in a world without death, he watched his own father get butchered in the worst way possible, and he was basically stillborn. He fears returning to the state he was at birth unable to itneract with the world. A state ironically that was much like his father when he was sealed in the soul palace.

He's also experienced the deaths of every quincy he gave his power to over and over again. So Ywach is the force of fate itself, but just like fate which cannot be controlled, Ywach is an entirely stagnant entity.

The exact opposite of Aizen who was someone who wanted to be just like every other soul reaper. It's why even though Aizen's a fraud, between the two of them Aizen is the ideological victor in the end.

Since Aizen was saved by Ichigo in a way. By giving him the worthy opponent that he always craved, Aizen was knocked back down by the pedestal he always stood on. He became just another soul reaper as he always wanted to be. That's why he was able to believe in humans in the end and give up his notions of becoming a god.

[aurora-313]

Ichigo, staring blankly: ... you're gonna need to be loooooooot more specific.

the society made up of millennia old death gods who constantly yap about how their 'true power' would cause the entire universe to implode: "Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy, little teenage boy, could you pwease help us? Pwease? 🥺👉👈"

[troius]

What we learned from the war

"Endings are hard" is a something of a truism, but it's borne out in Bleach, where every story arc besides after the first two stumbled at the finish (even the endings of the first two arcs don't really "end" so much as continue into a new story). In the Arrancar arc, the number of characters and plotlines got so overwhelming that an ending that had to be rushed if it was to arrive at all. In the Lost Agent arc, the characters were pared down, but the ending wound up thematically inconsistent with the story anyways, possibly due to real-life circumstances. And the Thousand-Year Blood War somehow managed to have both problems.

The change in direction from "tightly focused character drama" to "sprawling cast of soldiers" meant that it was unlikely to ever give us the development of our protagonist that we craved, and that lack of focus was only aggravated by the widely-reported health problems of the author. And yet, perhaps because we don't get that, because so little of this arc is filtered through Ichigo learning about himself, we get a much clearer statement of the values inherent in the work.

This is most evident in our antagonists for this Arc. Yhwach and the Wandenreich don't really have the relationship with Ichigo that previoius antagonists had. He never knew his Quincy heritage, never identified with their ideals, and so feels very little conflict about opposing them. He doesn't ever develop his Quincy powers, at least beyond integrating them with his already existing powerset. And he doesn't take much of a personal interest in Yhwach, who in turn, doesn't seem to think much of him when he's not directly in front of him.

But for all that Ichigo doesn't end up having much of a dynamic with them, the Wandenreich still manages to maintain a unique character. Every antagonist has a priority, something that they are willing to do great evil for. For Soul Society, it's its own existence, the continuation of the system they've built. For Aizen, it's his own self-aggrandizement. For the Fullbringers, it was simply living another day, screwing over others so that they can't screw you first. But the Wandenreich has no such priority. They simply want it all to end.

That's most obvious in Yhwach's ending monologue, but you can see it from the very beginning as he kills Yamamoto, the man who tried to move on from his bloody past being slaughtered by the man who would absolutely not let it go. Yhwach shows more emotion towards the skeletons of Argola and Huberdt, his dead soldiers from a war long lost, than he does towards any of his living subordinates. And his subordinates follow his lead in showing no love to one another, happily stabbing each other in the back without even the Arrancars' uneasy level of camaraderie. Their movement has no future, and neither do they, so nihilism is the only recourse.

Most of the time. I think it's important to note that every time a member of the Wandenreich expresses positive feelings towards one of their comrades, it's immediately followed by them turning on Yhwach. Liltotto, Bazz, Giselle, eventually, in her own twisted way…even Jugram, at the very end. Sure, Yhwach kills them for their impertinence (he is the bad guy), but he also massacres the Wandenreich faithful en masse. There's no salvation, only death, and he'll enforce that state on his followers rather than allow them to discover any alternative.

I imagine the lesson, and the general attitude of the Wandenreich, was not lost on Uryu Ishida. Even in his relative paucity of appearances, it's he who is at the moral center of the arc. His culture, which he had thought was nearly entirely dead, turns out to be alive, and out for vengeance against the people who exterminated them. It's something he probably fantasized about growing up, and I don't blame him for joining. How could he not?

But at the end, he makes the very easy choice. Calling it a matter of "life and death" is a little on the nose, but it's morally quite black and white. Yhwach has no hope for this world, or for his people within it, or even himself. He lost a war for the nature of existence to a monster a thousand years ago, and never got over it. But Uryu has the strength to look at the horrors of this world and yet hope for better. Because he has people he loves in life, and who love him in return, he can dream of a better tomorrow.

And that's what the ending is all about. Yhwach loses to Ichigo, and it is very much "good guy beats bad guy". But he also loses to Uryu, and to "I hope to have a family with my girlfriend who I love so much" Renji Abarai, and to "I have a tremendous amount of hope to eventually make myself king of everything" Sosuke Aizen, and eventually (in a way I'm still confused about mechanically) to the child Ichigo and Orihime will eventually have, the literal embodiment of the potential of the future.

The final villain of Bleach is not society's tendency to preserve itself at any human cost. It's not individual selfishness, or manipulativeness, or any of the many vices we saw embodied in the hollows throughout the series. It's despair, the idea that life might not be worth living even through all the struggles and horrors our protagonists have endured. Sure, it will always raise its head, sometimes at the most inconvenient, or ill-fitting times. But having its reincarnation be blown away by the supernaturally normal lives of our cast…well, that's as clear of a message as I can imagine.