Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28096256-20160413001736/@comment-27565137-20160511145337

The reason Starrk and Lilynette had so little in the way of masks in pre-arrancar time...

I found this to be particularly interesting. Especially the "pre-arrancar time". When Aizen found Starrk and Lilynette they were both Arrancars at that point. Most likely meaning, that the original hollow was a Arrancar himself that at a specific point decided to split himself in two. That's why when we see them talking before Aizen arrives, they're not sure who was the original personality. And as far as we can tell, maybe none of them were the original.

Also it is my opinion that Starrk was the only Espada on which the Hougyoku wasn't used. Starrk and Lilynette both hinted that it was the original hollow immense power and loneliness felt that drove it to split into two beings. So if anything Starrk wouldn't want to have the Hougyoku used on him. And seeing that the Hougyoku power only works if the person it's used on has some power to be developed, most likely if used on Starrk it wouldn't have had any affect whatsoever.

As for the inner world falling apart, the truth is that we don't know what really happens when it totally falls apart. In Ichigo case, his horizontal inner world turned vertical, and the buildings started to collapse into small boxes, and finally Ichigo ended in a seemingly endless empty ocean. Maybe the empty ocean his the natural state of all the hollows inner world. And in the case of Gillians and Adjuchas, that ocean inner world is filled with the remnants of the other personalities that failed to rise above all the others. Like if they were chained to different deapths of the ocean. The weaker personalities being chained down on the bottom and the strongest ones closer to the surface. Either way we got no way of knowing.

It might very well be that both methods are valid. Killing and devouring shinigamis, is like the easiest way to reach Vasto Lord level. And facing each individual remnant of the other personalities being the longest and hardest method, but in the end the most effective, in terms of power growth.

See. It is small stuff like this I wished Kubo had taken the time to explain. He could've have done in like one chapter or two, and at least the fans would know the how and why. He left a lot of things not explained. Like for example the exact level of each Espada. We know number 9 and 8 were definitely not Vasto Lordes because, number 9 said he was the only Gillian among the Espadas and number 8, when Nnoitra was number 8, Szayel who would later become number 8 wasn't even among the Espadas. The only one's we know for sure were Vasto Lords were Starrk, Barragan, Harribel and Ulquiorra. Those four match every aspect of what a Vasto Lord should look like. Yammy on the other hand didn't. In both his resurrección forms, he didn't looked anything as a Vasto Lord should look like. He was simply huge and looked more like a Adjucha. Maybe just like Aaroniero (Numero 9) he too had a special power that simply elevated him above all the rest. But again it's something we can only speculate about.