Bleach

Isshin' and Ryuken's line of thought is basically: "If Aizen can be beaten by the Shinigami, then what's the point of wasting energy?"

Once everybody's been beaten, then and only then will they get off their seats and enter the stage.

I've been giving this:

Some thought, and Aizen is more of a bastard than I realized.

At the beginning of the arc, we're led to believe that he captured Orihime for her power, this, as you know, is absolutely true. The thing is that while everyone assumed he wanted to use the power himself, the real goal was actually to defuse it, so that it couldn't be used against him. Looking at it like this, his attitude towards her makes more sense: he was aiming to break her, leaving her in an emotional state in which her power is unusable.

Of course, there was another reason to kidnap her. Trusting her friends' Chronic Heroism, he ensured that the three people who hadn't seen his release were trapped inside Hueco Mundo, alongside with the reinforcements Soul Society sent. It would seem that the entirety of the Hueco Mundo arc was a Batman Gambit by Aizen to ensure that the conditions of his invasion of Karakura were optimal.

Of course, everything could go to hell if his treatment of Orihime ends up resulting in her going all Yandere on him.

Well, she does seem to be passive/aggressive. Those kind of people can be very dangerous.

@K*SPAM: Thank you. Do you think I should add this to the Bleach WMG page?  ^*

Now, on the topic of those Karakura-bound fighters who haven't shown up yet: I think Urahara, Yoruichi and Tessai may be working on some complex, "new"  ^*

kidou spell of a design and purpose so as to provide some advantage over Aizen (remember, Yoruichi is highly proficient in Kidou - I'd say master-level, if Shunkou is anything to go by...); perhaps by interfering with his Complete Hypnosis, since it is a "Kidou-type" ability.

@Noimporta: ... Now I really, really hate Aizen. And grudgingly respect his utterly ingenious cunning. But wouldn't it be cool if Orihime goes apeshit on him? That reminds me of her first Crowning Moment Of Awesome in Panther King of the Shinigami, in Chapter 5.  ^*

edited 21st Feb '10 9:14:57 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I have this image of Ori showing Aizen why Barrier Maiden is not a 'soft' power by going Gaara on his arse - *crunch*. Would require some serious Character Derailment,though.

Or enclosing him in a barrier and de-aging him into infanthood. BABEALITY!

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

@Marq: Yes. And certainly. Imagine you had a childhood friend that you met again after not seeing them for a number of years. Due to the amount of time you spent apart, you wouldn't quite now how to approach the situation and would just end up picking up where you left off. Same mannerisms, same behavior, with a few minor differences. This rehashing of old behavior helps ease the transition until you both feel comfortable with the modern day you. I'd imagine the same applies to rapid re-aging.

^I can just imagine how awesome that would be. Now all she needs is to throw the character for love somewhere and the transformation will be complete! HEART!*boom* HEART!*boom*

edited 21st Feb '10 9:55:43 AM by K*SPAM

@Noimporta: wow. Up until this point, I never understood why bothered to use that subtle Mind Rape him did if he didn't want to use her power and was just using her as bait. Now...

I actually have a lot of Fridge Brilliance rattling around in my head about the current arc. I'll need to dump it somewhere at some point.  ^*

edited 21st Feb '10 10:16:59 AM by Gilphon

(reads Gilphon's hottip)

Oh. My. GODS. That actually made perfect sense to me.

I hope you get tiny bits of eggshell in all your omelettes for the rest of your life!

So Gin must be... what now?

I'm still of the opinion that Gin is too obviously evil. I'm not saying he will pull a Heel–Face Turn, but I believe he has a hidden agenda.

How about here?

edited 21st Feb '10 2:04:09 PM by Noimporta

He is going to have to make one heck of an apology to Hiyori if he ever does do a Heel–Face Turn.

edited 21st Feb '10 2:04:08 PM by Galeros

Honestly, Gin is one of the few major antagonists I haven't thought of anything interesting for.

Though any suspicions I had about him being a Fake Defector died when he cut Hiyori.

@Noimporta: Sure, I guess I'll dump it once I find myself in the mood to write it up.

edited 21st Feb '10 2:13:13 PM by Gilphon

I wryly notice that no one has made any comment in relation to my personal hypothesis on Urahara-tachi's current activities, nor to the Fan Fic that I had mentioned. Then again, perhaps you're postponing any comments until after you finish reading all five chapters.

For those who have not yet started reading, it starts directly after Ichigo finally defeats Grimmjow in Hueco Mundo - and starts veering away from Canon right around the time Nnoitra's zanpakutou makes its Dynamic Entry.

@K*SPAM: Right. The whole "knowing each other form childhood" thing confused me as to how that relates to Nell, and so I was trying to think how it would fit in with Orihime, or Rukia, or... well, you get the idea. Man, I need to stop obsessing about details all the time.

@Gilphon: <laughing at my own obliviousness> I can't believe I didn't notice that at all! It was right in front my eyes! XD

edited 21st Feb '10 2:17:05 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Is it possible that Gin is working for someone from Hell?

edited 21st Feb '10 2:15:44 PM by melloncollie

I was thinking less Fake Defector and more The Starscream... or The Mole for another faction

Ninja'd

edited 21st Feb '10 2:16:52 PM by Noimporta

I could so see Gin being a The Starscream.

Whatever he is, I want to him do something else soon.

Marq FJA: great logic. You're probably right.

The way I see it, the abilities listed so far that are reasonably capable of beating Aizen are:

• Orihime's rejection
• Uryu's Quincy type spirit particle mastery
  • Aizen's probably the mastermind behind the quincy genocide for this very reason. Why did they all die out when aizen started making his first moves and not before, anyway?
• Chad's concentrated awesome.
  • What appears to be him lying in a pool of his own blood is actually him concentrating on who he's gonna eff up next. kind of like a caterpillar in a cocoon.
• Kido interference

Note, the first 3 are friends of ichigo. Hopefully he won't pull some BS "All Your Powers Combined" crap.

as a rule, I don't read fanfic stuff

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

edited 21st Feb '10 6:47:46 PM by K*SPAM

I gotta ask...is this meme supposed to be affectionate, derogatory, or neutral?

I'm confuzzled.

^In my case, affectionate. I love Kubo and his manga, trolling and all. In fact, I dare say my life wouldn't be as amusing without it.

And yes, expect these when I raeg. Which, due to the recent Fridge Brilliance, increasingly likely death of Momo, and the hopefully inevitable return of the remaining Hueco Mundo fighters, won't be for a good while.

edited 21st Feb '10 7:43:24 PM by K*SPAM

I think Aizen and Gin are at opposite ends of the pathological spectrum.

Gin is a Complete Monster, but he's able to Pet the Dog on a whim, but that's all it is, just what he felt like doing at the moment, but it doesn't really mean anything.

While Aizen has suppressed everything to the point where emotions are almost lost on him. He doesn't recognize them anymore. When Hinamori first showed up in FKT, he reacted for just moment (which Gin picked up), but said it doesn't matter. Then he goes out of his way to hurt Hinamori and Hitsugaya in the worst way possible.

True.

And recently, I've begun to develop some suspicions about the nature of their "relationship"; anyone else think that Aizen's belief that Gin's completely under his thumb is sorely mistaken, and that it's actually the other way around? After all, Gin's a child prodigy, while Aizen, however extraordinarily intelligent he may be, has not displayed any actual genius beyond inventing new ways of crossing the Moral Event Horizon time and again. (See Section 14: "High Intellect? Not good enough surely?" of Sousuke Aizen's talk page on Bleach Wikia  ^*

for a more in-depth look at the topic).

edited 22nd Feb '10 7:14:01 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Gilphon made me remember the "Espada are stronger now" bit from the Nnoitra fight and that got me thinking. There is no way this guy isn't full of shit. So, I have attempted to form a timeline of events in Hueco Mundo, piecing together the bits with logic and a bit of guessing.

100 yrs. ago-I suspect that at this point, Aizen's plan still hadn't been put into effect. He was still experimenting at this point.

75-50 yrs. ago- This is when I believe Aizen made his move. Gin and Tosen were both captains at this point, as we observed in Barragan's flashback. He conquered Hueco Mundo and began making natural Arrancar without the aid of the Hogyoku. Barragan, being the "god" of Hueco Mundo, was of course, one of the strongest natural Arrancar. I suspect he was originally first Espada until Aizen found Starrk, who became an Arrancar on his own. We won't include Grimmjow, Nel and Nnoitra, because their power levels are significantly higher than the third, fifth and seventh Privaron Espadas, so we can assume they came later with the Hogyoku. So, taking this into account, the Espada at this time must be:

• 1.Starrk
• 2.Barragan
• 3.Dordonii
• 4.?
• 5.Cirucci
• 6.?
• 7.Frocar
• 8.?
• 9.Possibly Ruffles
• 10.?

Soul Society Arc- This being when he obtains the Hogyoku. Having already conquered Hueco Mundo and built Las Noches, Aizen wastes no time in using his new toy. So, we now subtract Privaron Espada and we get:

• 1.Starrk
• 2.Barragan
• 3.Neliel
• 4.Ulquiorra
• 5.? (not quite sure)
• 6.Grimmjow
• 7.Zommari
• 8.Nnoitra
• 9.Probably Ruffles
• 10.Szayel (soon to be demoted, later reinstated)

This would mean that if the Soul Society Arc ended in July, the Espada as we know them had been around for 5 months. When they invade Karakura for Orihime, it's fall, as evidenced by the orange leaves. That would mean that in 5 months, the fight between Nnoitra and Nel that resulted in her removal from Las Noches occurred. This would probably take a period of incubation for tension to grow, about 3 months. This would eman that between the removal of Nel and the Hueco Mundo Arc is two months. Which, leads one to conclude, Nnoitra's lying. He tried to play mind games to get the upper hand, knowing that despite his promotion, he was still two positions away from Nel's former seat.

Major question answered: Timeline

Minor question answered: The Espada could have possibly changed that much in that span of time. Ergo, that little remark of his was bull.

edited 22nd Feb '10 7:54:09 AM by K*SPAM

I have a few things to add to your little analysis, K*SPAM. During Starrk flashback, Aizen had already switched to his current outfit and hairstyle, making it probable that he didn't discover Starrk until after the Soul society arc.

Also, Zommari commented that Aaroniero was 'the last of the original Espada.' This comment is difficult to reconcile with the history Barragan gave, unless the Espada existed before Aizen took control of Las Noches. However, his rank (and Yammy's) makes sense in light of this. It seems likely that at some point in the past, Aaroniero was #1, but since then Aizen has perfected the art of making Arrancar, so his rank has slowly slipped. It seems to me that Aizen allowed Yammy and Aaroniero to hold their ranks among the Espada not because of their actual power, but because he recognized that their potential was high, and was reluctant to discard that.

Nnoitra's power had definitely grown since he last saw Nel (he had more blades on his sword, he seemed to do better than Nel excepted) and unless something happened to the Arrancar ranked higher than him (the only one of the current four Espada higher than him who we know existed at the time was Barragan, but Starrk is the only one we know didn't... no, Starrk may have been discovered before Nel left but after soul society; probably simplest to assume that's the case.) then this boost in strength was what boosted him to his current rank. Assuming none of the other Espada at the time have disappeared since, the Espada before Nel left were:

• 1.Starrk
• 2.Barragan
• 3.Nel
• 4.Harribel
• 5.Ulquiorra
• 6.Grimmjow
• 7.Zommari
• 8.Nnoitra
• 9.Aaroniero
• 10.Yammy

If you believe my conjecture about #9 and #10 being a lot more static than the rest, then the it becomes obvious that Szayel was reinstated in order to fill the gap Nel left, giving:

• 1.Starrk
• 2.Barragan
• 3.Harribel
• 4.Ulquiorra
• 5.Grimmjow
• 6.Zommari
• 7.Nnoitra
• 8.Szayel
• 9.Aaroniero
• 10.Yammy

the closeness in rank between Ulquiorra and Grimmjow is nicely consistent with the fact that Grimmjow seemed to consider Ulquiorra his rival before meeting Ichigo. I'd also like to add that as Aizen was unaware of Ulquiorra's second release, his ranking is lower than it should have been. But Nnoitra would've still had to increase his strength by enough for him to overtake Grimmjow and Zommari before the current timeframe.

Conclusion: While K*SPAM was correct in saying that the Espada had not increased in power, Nnoitra's own strength had increased considerably.

edited 22nd Feb '10 8:52:55 AM by Gilphon

@Gilphon: You forgot to account for the Privaron Espada, who were once Espada themselves. Also, there's no way for us to be sure that there aren't any other previous Espada who were simply killed by lower-ranked members in the latter's ascent to power.

edited 22nd Feb '10 9:06:31 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.