Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28096256-20160413001736/@comment-28096256-20160506032245

Wri-El wrote: I can see one major flaw in your theory sticking out like an alarm signal. If I understood it currently, your theory goes somewhere along the idea that Vasto Lordes have shinigami powers. And here your theory completely crumbles.

For all we've seen, hollows and only Arrancars have only one shinigami aspect. A zanpakutou. Nothing else. They can't use Kidou. They don't have a shikai or a bankai. And their power doesn't seem to increase with training, just devouring other beings. So in some aspects at least the Vizards were better. They didn't lost any shinigami power and also gained some hollow powers as well.

I can accept that maybe the crucial ingredient for a Adjucha to become a Vasto Lord is that he needs to change his or hers feeding habits. Maybe instead of hunting for other hollows they need to hunt, kill and devour shinigamis instead. Maybe the shinigami food regiment is the key trigger. Maybe... But we still have no way of knowing. It might equally all come down to simple latent potential. Some hollows have more, others have less.

Of course there's a few set of problems with shinigamis being the right kind of food to trigger. It would make sense that if not all at least most hollows would know about this, and every Adjucha would naturally start to hunt for shinigamis. But again we see no evidence of that being the case. Even Starrk that had become a Vasto Lord and a Arrancar on his own without any aid, didn't seem to know that much about shinigamis. So if shinigamis are essential then it would stand to reason that he would have an extensive knowledge of them.

Thanks for the honest input! I have some answers for your concerns, but a few of your points are also really good.

The first thing is, when I say that Vasto Lordes have Shinigami powers, I guess I can't really say it is truly Shinigami abilities they possess so much as a shell of them.

As you said, when Arrancars gain their powers, it is largely unlike Shinigami powers exluding the fact that they have a "zanpakuto" which is kind of a sad excuse for a zanpakuto anyways considering that it, as you said, has no bankai or shikai or anything of the likes. But to be honest, the Vizard's powers are kind of sad excuses for hollow powers too... just reiatsu boosts and ceros, and that's pretty much it. But as I said earlier, saying that Vasto Lordes have shinigami "powers" isn't quite right, it's just that the harmonizing aspects of the shinigami powers increase the development of existing Menos evolution.

Here also comes the next part of my theory, which I didn't publish the first time, which is my idea on Arrancar Zanpakuto. First off, I don't really even consider them as Zanpakuto, as they have too many problems and inconsistencies. First off, what happens when an Arrancar defeats a hollow? I'd be surprised if they were "purified" and sent to the soul society, as that makes no sense for a hollow to do that. Also, they can't perform Konso, as that wouldn't make any sense either... unless they really like sending souls to the soul society, which I doubt. In fact, their swords (or axes, people, appendages or spinning wheels) are simply just not anything like soul reaper swords as you said.

Also, how the heck did Arrancars even become Arrancars in the first place? I mean, hollow masks are supposed to reform when removed or broken, right? The reason, from what I can see, is the impurity of the hollow. After all, if you are a hollow who has enough soul reaper energy, it would make sense that the mask wouldn't simply reform... after all, you're not really a full hollow so you don't get a full mask back either. Therefore, the remaining hollow energy which doesn't return partially or fully compresses into an Arrancar Zanpakuto, leaving you with you Arrancar powers.

This also explains why nobody ever noticed soul reaper power in Vasto Lordes... Vasto Lordes are simply advanced hollows who were boosted by the natural properties of the large amount if shinigami potential that harmonizes their body, while Arrancars are hollows whose mask didn't reform due to an excess of non-hollowness, which then compressed the same way Vasto Lordes are physically compressed in order to create greater strength.

As for knowing about shinigami, I don't have a good reason for that being the case, other than that if one shinigami with enough power is enough to take over a Gillian, that Menos will inherently be far more soul reaper-like as a hollow than any other by logic, and they wouldn't have to interact with a Shinigami ever again as long as that soul remained dominant.

Also, with that note, I have another pointless theory for SE that is unrelated but you may choose to read nonetheless.

It seems likely enough that a soul reaper, if eaten by a Gillian, would also have a possibility of having their Zanpakuto eaten. In that case, since developed Zanpakuto spirits are intensely powerful beings, such that only a select few Shingami ever fully subjugate them, it stands to reason that a Zanpakuto spirit could also take over a hollow's body. Therefore, its hollow powers would be reminiscent of a Zanpakuto's powers, and therefore it stands to reason that as an Arrancar, it could have two releases.