User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 599 - Too Early To Win, Too Late To Know/@comment-24153155-20141002220434/@comment-24153155-20141005115014

Not gonna argue that the Quincy weren't able to plan their attack for centuries. Not sure though if all of the Quincy actually are that much better informed, as I found it kinda weird when "the girls" started jabbering about the war potentials back in chapter 582 (they heard about the war potentials, but aside from Liltotto, none of the girls seemed to recognize Ichigo. Well, they don't seem to be Einsteins, but still). Just like others have said on this forum: the Sternritter kinda seem to be glorified cannon fodder. Whereas the Gotei-13 was never meant to protect the Soul Palace, they do not focus on training for it either. They know about the Royal Realms, they know about the divisions and Captains up there (at least the Gotei-13 Captains seem to know at least a little). The Quincy attack on the Seireitei was some sort of bait to get Ichigo up, and I can understand to a certain extend that the Gotei-13 was a tad unprepared in that department. However, the Royal Divisions were installed for the sole purpose of protecting the Soul King; they knew there was a good chance they would get attacked at some point (by Yhwach, I guess it would be unlikely they didn't know about Yamamoto not being able to kill Yhwach back then). They were to be thought of as super awesome Captains with skills to match no other down in the Seireitei. I don't really doubt that is the case, but first it seemed to be kind of a kids play to get into the Royal Realms (you would think it was protected in a better fashion), and then Kirinji and Sutara get seemingly beaten that easily. It kinda feels to me that some weird decisions were taken as to how to protect the Soul King. Almost as if they didn't take into account that the morals and background of the Quincy might be different. As if they thought that just because Yhwach may have been one of them once upon a time (which is still vague) once one of them, he would also act and preach the way they do. The fact that the Seireitei invasion was this successful only proves that the ones behind the tactics know very well how the Soul Realms work and how they act. That's why I think it kinda comes across that this is more a "mind-battle" than it is a "muscle-battle". To me at least.