Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-39522398-20190519202509/@comment-5398287-20190926202723

Oh man, TvTropes and Deviantart, bastions of intellectualism that they are.

Really this isn't a contradiction, Ichigo ACCEPTS the Old Man and his inner Hollow as being Zangetsu together at the end of 542, but the revelation that the Old Man was actually his Quincy powers masquerading as his Zanpakuto and repressing his real Shinigami powers fits in quite neatly with the idea that the inner Hollow was almost always being controlled unless Ichigo was in mortal danger.