Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28096256-20160413001736/@comment-27392440-20160507223246

Wri-El wrote:

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 resson that he would have an extensive knowledge of them.

Seeing as there's no manual for being hollows there's no reason any would know of one or more ways unless a vasto lorde told them and hollows in general don't look like a generous bunch. Starrk is a bad case by the way, he openly admitted to not even remembering what he looked like as a hollow pre-arrancar let alone anything about shinigami plus it's never been confirmed he was the original of the 2 so by all accounts he may have just been born.

note: I don't think eating hollows was Starrk/Lillynette's path to vasto lorde, my going theory (and another path to vasto lorde I believe) is that one of them was the original that figured out there was an inner hollow spirit (as the vizards have shown this is a real thing) that could be their friend and bonded with it the way a shinigami and zanpakuto spirit do until they reached their thresh hold for getting stronger evolving. My idea may have holes I'm not seeing but it sounds like an idea worth considering for another possible vasto lorde path.