Board Thread:New on Bleach Wiki/@comment-957629-20151213135550/@comment-5398287-20151213205246

Character development, not OOC. It's pretty clear that getting rekt by his own Bankai was meant to be the last hurrah for him - he openly expressed emotion for probably the first time in the series, he outright begged Ichigo to save Soul Society in his stead with tears in his eyes, and he apologized to Rukia and Renji for not being strong enough to save them. Just because he's been the stoic to end all stoics up until this point doesn't mean he's somehow incapable of expressing emotion, especially after undergoing a personality shift due to the events of the Soul Society invasion. That death scene was done wonderfully, and yes, I'm saying it was a death scene because Byakuya himself said he was close to dying - I'm pretty sure he'd know better than anyone else, especially given all the injuries he's survived over the course of the series. As for him openly expressing fear during his fight with As, it was made quite clear in the manga itself that that was a natural reaction - he had been resisting the effects of The Fear better than anyone else ever had up until that point, but succumbing to it was inevitable, just like Baraggan's power was inevitable. He eventually overcame it, but only after rebuilding his pride as a combatant and as a man from the ground up in the Soul King Palace, where he took a damn good look at what he was protecting and fighting for; same thing that Rukia eventually used to overcome As after the whole "I'm dead lol" thing didn't quite take.

Now, as for why Byakuya survived even if he was supposed to die, it's pretty simple: publisher pressure. You'd be surprised at how the story, characters, fights, etc. of a manga can be handled or altered based on pressure from the mangaka's publishers and editors, who are in turn influenced by the public. There are probably lots of minor examples in Bleach, but two major ones are the sheer length of the Arrancar arc (because the publishers wanted all the Arrancar to get their own fights for a while because of how popular they were) and the Shinigami showing up in the Fullbring arc (because of the fan outcry over the lack of Shinigami up until that point). Fans drive a lot of the series because they're the ones financially supporting it, and in this case enough people were whining about Byakuya's death that Kubo was forced to bring him back - the exact same thing happened with the character Muhammed Avdol in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, where the author was forced to bring him back after having him get literally shot in the head due to how popular he was. It's not a matter of "oh Kubo's a lazy writer", it's "the fanbase can't accept any major shakeups".

And Kaido, you'll have to forgive me for getting a bit heated when two people are steadfastly refusing to listen to me.

/drops mic