the Retromancer
#2: Apr 22nd 2022 at 3:50:23 AM
Done, everything now needs to be reviewed, including spoilers and pre-commented ZCE. I've moved tropes that are on the subpages separately because I don't know what to do with them.
Edited by Amonimus on Apr 22nd 2022 at 1:51:51 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
the Retromancer
#3: May 15th 2022 at 6:07:10 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Cloning the example that would go to subpages so I can clean them up independently.
Overlap with subpages and needs merge
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Ichigo's hero complex. Is it because he truly cares about his friends' safety, or has his trauma from his mother's death fueled his need to save people comes from his own perceived inability to save his mom? The story itself argues that they're both the same thing (his desire to save those precious to him motivates him to get stronger), but fans have debated this point.
- Orihime's crush on Ichigo, prior to the Lost Agent arc. Was it innocent and sincere, borderline obsession, or her way to actually strengthen herself? After she gets over the Hueco Mundo debacle, she shows more affection towards Ichigo than normal; is it because she's more open about her feelings, is it because she's back to being her Genki Girl self (and is naturally more enthusiastic), or is it because she's more comfortable about showing it since he's still clueless?
- Yoruichi Shihoin. Is she cruelly playing fast and loose with Sui-Feng's obvious feelings and leading her on for her own sense of fun, is she aware and simply does not wish to return the feelings but also does not want to burden Sui-Feng with rejection, or does she love her but is merely torn between different obligations which cause her to feel she must keep Sui-Feng at arm's length?
- Minazuki from Unknown Zanpakuto Tales Arc. Never had any dialogue, barely had any screen time, and we don't even know what Minazuki's gender is, much less its appearance and personality. Therefore, this leaves fans the opportunity to come up with their own ideas about what Minazuki is; some fans think that Minazuki is an Eldritch Abomination that embodies the aspects of Unohana's personality that so many people seem to fear, while others think that Minazuki is apathetic, cold and mute, or that Minazuki continues to be the mysterious enigma that we've seen in the actual arc. Either way, anything goes, since there's not much shown/known about Minazuki in general.
- Unohana claims that she took up her medic role because she wanted to use it to fight more. Given that she changed her name to Retsu and refused to fight even in the face of an invasion, how much of it was truth and how much of it was a lie? She's supposed to train Zaraki, but it really seems like an attempt at Suicide by Cop. Note that she was the first Kenpachi, and thus was the one who laid the foundations for all Squad 11 stands for, including the Klingon Promotion between Kenpachis. In the middle of a war, when Zaraki clearly does not want her to die (and thus defies the Kenpachi Way), there's a strong sense that she's being incredibly selfish here.
- Fans debate whether Suì-Fēng's affection for Yoruichi is meant to be implicitly romantic, or if she just greatly admires her.
- Momo Hinamori.
- What are her true feelings regarding Hitsugaya? Kubo claims that it's platonic, but it's more than often portrayed as romantic.
- Her feelings towards Aizen are just as ambiguous. Is it infatuation, Undying Loyalty or More than Mind Control? According to Aizen's own words, it's the third option - one could argue that his claim is false, but considering the circumstances ( he told that to Hitsugaya right after stabbing Momo to almost death, and before almost killing him), there would be next to no reason for him to not tell the truth.
- A rare case where this is intentional on Shunsui's part. He freely admits that he prefers to keep his motives and mindset ambiguous and unpredictable. He could be interpreted as Obfuscating Stupidity whenever he can get away with it.
- His strategy to get Unohana to train Zaraki so the latter can take a level in badass. Was it a needless case of sacrificing the second strongest captain after Yamamoto (and the best healer) in an attempt to make Zaraki even stronger? Was it actually another case of Kyoraku recognizing that Unohana was too much of a pacifist and that Zaraki is a more valuable asset on the battlefield? One crack theory is that he recognises that Unohana is stronger than he is, and with Yamamoto gone, there's no one able to keep her in check. So, given her closeted instability, she now presents a threat, is he just using Zaraki as a convenient excuse to get rid of her?
- Why did he go to the living world, on his own, to relay a message to Ichigo's Muggle friends when he could've sent Nanao? Was it because he's more concerned about other peoples' feelings than Yamamoto, was it his way of showing proper gratitude towards Ichigo, or was it because he's willing to take the blame from Ichigo's friends over whatever happens to Ichigo? Perhaps it's all three? Maybe, he was lying to them about the nature of the Soul Tickets and plans to use them for something?
- Does Nemu truly take her abuse from Mayuri in stride, or are there lingering feelings of resentment towards him?
- Is Aizen actually planning everything out to the letter, or is he exaggerating his involvement by taking credit for stuff that happened outside his sphere? Maybe he's trying to psyche out his opponents with absurd rants and random Ass Pulls? Does he really believe things are due to the will of the Hogyoku, or is he attempting to deflect that he's actually improvising? Hell, maybe he's a complexity addict who's so narcissistic that he thinks everything that happens is because of his will. His Complexity Addiction can be attributed to being his way of buying time for the Hogyoku to finish evolving him... or it could just be Complexity Addiction.
- Yukio claims that he enjoyed driving his parents to suicide, but when someone insinuates that he abandoned them, he completely flipped his shit. There was also a scene where he was crying, bringing to question whether or not he regrets his parents' deaths.
- Is Isshin a well-meaning man who did what he could to prepare Ichigo for the kind of life having spiritual powers would bring him, and who only held back on telling him about his past because he might not be ready to hear it? Or has him keeping so many secrets from Ichigo done nothing more than cause him undue pain, especially since Ichigo usually ends up hearing it from the villains instead? Does he treat his son more like a weapon than a person, encouraging him to put himself in harm's way and only getting involved in his struggles when he absolutely has to, and putting a lot more faith in Urahara's complex and morally dubious plans than he really should? Even a couple of the characters (including Isshin himself) have said that his parenting skills kind of suck. In fact, Isshin suggests that, of the pair of them, Ryuuken is the better father, because at least he's been honest and consistent about what he wants for Uryuu.
- When giving Ichigo a speech on how he had failed, was Gin trying to motivate Ichigo to regain his resolve as a backup in case his own plan to kill Aizen failed, or was he just doing it for his own amusement? Hell, was his messing with Rukia out of random sadism, or was he actually trying to delay the execution (since Ichigo appeared almost literally at the last second)? Knowing Gin, it could very well be both.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Ulquiorra's final moments are of some contention. Was he trying to ask for forgiveness by reaching out to Orihime? Was he trying to get one final chance at touching someone before he died? Was it his way of symbolizing that he understands what a human bond is?
- Nnoitra clearly has an inferiority complex, but there's enough ambiguity in its execution that this crops up as a result. Some would say his sexism is just a ruse to cover up his insecurities. Nelliel was the only one he displayed sexism towards, but he wouldn't been admit it to her face, not even when she asked him why he wanted to fight her.
- There's also a camp that believes Nnoitra was such a rat bastard to Nel because he was attracted to her and wasn't able to handle that well.
- Given that he's past the Despair Event Horizon in some form, his Don't You Dare Pity Me! attitude might have resulted in equating that to someone looking down on him.
- Another reason for his utter hatred of her could be that, during many of their fights, Nelliel would never finish him off, which Nnoitra, as a Death Seeker, took as the ultimate insult and kept trying to provoke her into killing him off. That, and she was rather condescending towards him, going so far as to belittle his entire mindset as primitive and unworthy of a warrior.
- Is Grimmjow a genuinely sadistic Blood Knight, or is he a just bully who's trying to assert himself as "the king" due to an inferiority complex? Did he seemingly abandon his ambitions to be King of Hueco Mundo after witnessing Aizen's downfall personally, seeing where such lofty ambitions get you, or does he still intend to rule it once he's dealt with Ichigo for good?
- Was Nelliel babysitting Nnoitra to stick it to his chauvinist beliefs, or was it due to her feeling obligated to protect a comrade (even if he was a prick)? Seems to extend to Grimmjow now, as of the Blood War.
- Since the animation of Loly's scenes with Orihime called special attention to the Foe Yay Shipping between them, a growing interpretation of Loly as a Depraved Bisexual has started to crop up. Also open to interpretation is the reason that they decided to go after Orihime a second time after she had gone through the trouble of healing them, once they were mauled by Grimmjow. Much fan wank ensued (see below), but it should be remembered that these two Hollows, spirits born from death, despair and fear, were faced with a being that can literally rewrite reality so that events do not occur (i.e. revive them). Taken in this context, Orihime is less like an angel of mercy to these two and more like an Eldritch Abomination from their perspective - a being whose nature and abilities are so alien that they outright defy explanation. Considering this, it's understandable that they would react less than pleasantly to what happened to them.
- Yhwach's final claims of having been trying to create a world without fear of death, complete with a Single Tear. Was the narrative trying to evoke a genuine Alas, Poor Villain moment, or was it simply the ramblings of an Ax-Crazy Unreliable Narrator trying to paint himself in a positive light? Consider that Yhwach has been portrayed as extremely self-centered, believing that everything in the world exists for him to take. Furthermore was it rather poorly done or a rather understandable motive? Especially once Fridge Logic kicks in and one realises that Yhwach's Eden among other things would have solved the Hollow-Problem, as Hollows cannot exist without humans dying.
- Is Ryuuken a genuinely emotionally abusive father who either doesn't understand or even worse doesn't care what his merciless criticism is doing to his son, or is he being harsh only because the spirit world will be harsher and if Uryuu is determined to stay involved in the face of Ryuuken's opposition he has to be ready to face it? On the one hand, Ryuuken has said some egregiously horrible things to Uryuu ("I have no interest and you have no talent" being kind of the standout example, given how young and impressionable the kid was at the time), to the point where (generally polite and dutiful) Uryuu can't stand to live under the same roof with him. He's also tried to police who Uryuu is friends with, which is a major red flag for abuse in real life. On the other hand, Ryuuken's apparently got a lousy track record at actually preventing Uryuu from sneaking off to see Souken or Ichigo and Company, and the Final Arc suggests Uryuu really is in over his head and going to need to be crazy-tough to make it out alive. The middle-ground position (especially post-"Everything but the Rain") is more-or-less that Ryuuken acted out of love and concern (and accepted that his relationship with his son was collateral damage) but took dissuading Uryuu a LOT further than he should have...the Despair Event Horizon might have something to do with that.
- Kisuke's morality is probably one of the longest-running debates in the Bleach fandom. Is he wholly benevolent and only concerned with stopping the bad guys? Or is he a Manipulative Bastard who's only differentiated from Aizen by having a lot less ambition? Do his plans involve manipulating people because they're the best he can think of? Or does he not care about their well-being enough to think of better options? Does he feel guilty when his plans fail and people get hurt because of them? Or is he unconcerned as long as the endgame is successful? It doesn't help that none of the people who have been hurt by his plans have ever called him out on it, and he remains as guarded to the reader as he does to the other characters, making it hard to determine if he's even supposed to come off a particular way. It has been implied a couple of times that Ichigo doesn't truly trust him (he hesitates when Ginjo asks him if he truly knows anything about Kisuke, and he outright admits near the start of the last arc that Urahara doesn't tell him anything).
- Die for Our Ship:
- Primarily by the Ichigo/Rukia side to the fandom, often targeting her obsessive crush on Ichigo, the Stripperiffic outfits she wears later in the series (usually at another character's suggestion), and the time she tried to kiss Ichigo while he was in a coma.
- Despite only appearing in Bleach: Memories of Nobody film, Senna's chemistry with Ichigo provoked a lot of attacks from shippers of both Ichigo/Rukia and Ichigo/Orihime, but since she's never featured in any other Bleach-related media, outside of the first movie, a video game and a cameo in episode 204, the hate for her (thankfully) isn't as frequent or heated. The fact she dies after her debut helps.
- More than one Urahara/Yoruichi rabid fan has been caught twisting Suì-Fēng into a Psycho Lesbian to make Urahara a better "suitor" for Yoruichi.
- Being a divisive character to begin with, Hinamori is often killed or otherwise mischaracterized to prop up other Hitsugaya ships: specifically, Hitsugaya/Rangiku.
- Renji being paired with Rukia is one of the more polarizing choices of the series, not only from Ichigo/Rukia shippers, but from the Unfortunate Implications of his treatment of Rukia during her imprisonment.
- The Woobie:
- Orihime. She already suffered from a broken family. Aizen specifically intended to weaken her resolve when he captured her, and two of his Espada make her watch as the man she loves is nearly killed.
- Senna from Bleach: Memories of Nobody. The poor girl goes through the emotional wringer over the course of the movie, finding out she's not a real person but instead the Memory Rosary, nearly arrested by Soul Society, kidnapped by the Big Bad so his plan can be Powered by a Forsaken Child and to top it all off she literally dies as Ichigo carries her to where her grave is.
- The Expanded Universe shows that Gremmy Thoumeaux is actually kept in a cage and only released when Yhwach has need of him. No matter his broken Antagonist Abilities.
- Hinamori, you poor girl.
- First, there’s what happened when one of the people she trusted the most ends up betraying and almost killing her in the Soul Society Arc. Then, poor doesn't even begin to describe it when your childhood friend who swore to protect you with his life impales you with his sword from behind during the Fake Karakura Town Arc... and the one to blame is Aizen. AGAIN. It gets worse too. During the final arc, an army of Quincies invade and destroy Soul Society(which basically means they destroyed her home) and end up killing a lot of her colleagues, some of which were people she personally knew as friends.
- If the anime’s filler arcs are taken into account, her anime counterpart has it even worse than her manga counterpart, because not only does anime Momo have to go through everything manga Momo did, but then there’s the cherry on top: She gets betrayed by someone close to her again and that someone even goes as far as to try to kill her, but it’s not Aizen. Rather, she got betrayed by someone who was even closer to her than Aizen: Her own Zanpakuto. Granted, they reconciled later, but still...
- Rangiku was an orphan who had almost starved to death before she met Gin. In the present story she has to deal with her oldest friend joining up with a man who wants to overthrow the Soul Society.
- Starrk's basically Lonely at the Top and I Just Want to Have Friends to the point he joined Aizen and saw the other Espada (who aside from Harribel aren't really pillars of moral character) as the closest things he had to friends. The entire reason he fights and dies for Aizen is because he's just that grateful to him for averting his loneliness. It's hard not to want to give him a hug.
- Lilynette's hasn't really hurt anybody until she became Starrk's weapon after his resurreccion, and she shares his Dark and Troubled Past every step of the way. So did she really deserve to die?
- Arisawa has to be saved by her friends multiple times, and as she never gains powers she can't fight alongside them, no matter how much she wants to help them.
- Memetic Mutation:
- Komamura's reaction when Tosen says he's ugly. It's been used for a variety of other serious lines to inject a bit of comedy, like "I am your father."
- Memetic Mutation: The items Aizen usually uses to play up his Faux Affably Evil status like his tea and his couch.
- His frequent use of Xanatos Gambits and incredulous statements has fans making him behind all sorts of devious plots in other series, including writing the manga itself.
"Since when were you under the impression I wasn't writing the script?"
- As of the Vandenreich arc, his return has him still bound to a chair, observing everything. Said chair has also taken a considerable amount of abuse and is still standing intact. As a result, he gains the nickname Chair-sama from the fanbase.
- His frequent use of Xanatos Gambits and incredulous statements has fans making him behind all sorts of devious plots in other series, including writing the manga itself.
- Yhwach's hilarious reply to Luders prediction is quite popular in the fandom. "Luders Friegen, are you perhaps a prophet?"
- Ho Yay:
- Haineko is the most frequent offender, despite her insistence that she prefers guys. Incidentally, these instances can raise quite a few eyebrows about what her real sexuality might be. She gets a lot with Rangiku. Her second act on-screen was to leaned her face closer to Rangiku, puckering her lips up, before shoving her Shinigami out of the way. After slashing cloth from Rangiku's chest area, Haineko licked the corner of her lips and admitted that she wanted to make Rangiku sexier. Later, she hung around the human world with Rangiku and Orihime in schoolgirl uniforms, taking pictures of them posing together and showing them off to the guys at Urahara's shop. Finally, she let a drunken Rangiku literally brush their faces together in a party and exercised with her on a treadmill. She seems to enjoy hanging around Tobiume; Haineko even groped Tobiume to tease her flat chest and defended her from Kirikaze. Way back, there was the time when Haineko and Tobiume were bound together by Kido, but they didn't seem to mind much about it later.
- Rangiku holding a "How to Be Sexy" lesson to Nemu, Yachiru, Isane and Soifon in an Omake. Once Nanao shows up, everyone has a heart floating around their heads.
- A drunken Amagai hugging Ukitake.
- Muramasa towards Kouga.
- Hozukimaru and Ruri'ro Kujaku, just like their Shinigami wielders.
- The first noted instance is Rukia with Yoshi, from the Bount arc.
- Rangiku hugging Isane around the shoulder and getting her to join a party in the Bount arc.
- There's an anime-exclusive hug scene between Rukia and Orihime in here.
- Rukia expresses a lot towards Sode no Shirayuki.
- Nanao gets quite a bit with the ninja half of Katen Kyokotsu.
- Ichigo and Kokuto get some in Movie 4.
- Moment of Awesome: Yeah, the Invading Army arc was utter crap. But, Komamura VS Reigai Soi-Fon
was pretty awesome.
the Retromancer
#4: May 15th 2022 at 6:07:32 PM
Found YMMV.Bleach Movies and merged with the sandbox. Also, I've adjusted according to any changes to the target page.
Not sure what else to do here, I'd like feedback if it's okay to move.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
(she/her)
#5: May 16th 2022 at 5:42:53 AM
I think you are good to swap the sandbox in.
Macron's notes
the Retromancer
#6: May 16th 2022 at 5:55:54 AM
Did that and turned the movies' page into a redirect while moving examples, since the main page also talks about the movies and that page doesn't have a parent page to begin with.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Total posts: 6
Part of this ATT
.
YMMV.Bleach has assorted YMMV's for each character additionally grouped by faction, which isn't okay.
I've started Sandbox.Bleach YMMV to ungroup them and sort examples alphabetically, but at this rate it may take me a week and I have better things to do, so anyone interested can help out. Also, some of these needs to be checked for bad writing and spoilers. Note that some examples are duplicates with subpages, and I'm not sure how to rewrite them.
Edited by Amonimus on Apr 16th 2022 at 3:18:19 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup