User blog comment:Mrlmm0605/Let's Talk Bleach! - Part 2: Hollows and Arrancar/@comment-25065646-20150612212212

This was an extremely insightful article and a pleasant read.

One of the things I always liked about Bleach was that it was not 'painting things black and white' all the time - I never even once have viewed a character as purely 'evil' or purely 'good'. Kubo knows how to present his antagonists in a way that you will somehow begin to undestand their motives, their ideals, and start to relate to, or even sympathize with them. On the other side, he never misses to show that even the allegedly rightful 'protectors' and balancers that are the Shinigami may exercise cruelties that cannot be considered 'good' by ethic standards. As opposed to the trend of building your characters around certain inflexible archetypes or key attributes, in my opinion most of Bleach's cast (or at least the figures the author got the time to elaborate on) does have a fascinating and complex personality which even changed over time in some cases. Back to the issue of Hollows, I think that Kubo's view on them and therefore the way he wants them presented to the reader did actually change over time to some degree. At first, they were meant to be the main force of evil that needs to be fended off or eliminated completely. Kubo showed us abominable, sadistic individuals like Grand Fisher which clearly weren't only acting purely out of an animalistic instinct of hunting their prey but truly reveled in malevolence. Over time, the focus of evil shifted to the Aizen faction and the original Hollows began to play a progressively smaller role (not least because of their limited battle power and threat relatively to the Arrancar). I think at that point Kubo started regarding the primordial, unevolved Hollows more and more as mere animals, while he wanted to reserve the ability to reason (or even feel) for the Arrancar. In this sense, I do believe true Hollows in the end are nothing more than beasts following their natural drives or needs (as they in fact do require to feast on other souls to stay alive). During encroachment or contamination by other Hollows they lost what Kubo calls The Heart and what may correspond to conscience or rather 'the ability to choose not to follow their blind instincts/whim in favor of any kind of moral or pseudo-moral sense. As they evolve towards Vasto Lorde, they gain human intellect and understanding. But I would argue that it is a purely cognitive intelligence or rational thought without any emotional facet to it, designed only to improve their survival/hunting chances, while their objective stays limited by instinct (notice how most of the Arrancar that previously were Vasto Lordes tend to have very cold/detached/unemotional personalities). The only time a pre-Arrancar Hollow might show non-egoistic behaviour is when hunting as a group, this could probably be compared to the kind of loyalty towards the leader which is practiced e.g. in a pride of lions. So in a sense, a Hollow can not be held responsible to the things it naturally does, just as you can't accuse a snake of poisoning you or fire to burn you. Proof of this in my opinion is presented in the fact that slain Hollows normally are 'absolved' from their sins and sent to Soul Society regardless of their misdeeds (unless they were evil before the turend Hollow).

This however changes when a Hollow Arrancarifies (not sure if that word exists though): Although the hole in their chest may not close, they are stripped of their mask and monstuous form confining them to follow their feral instincts, and they are given the human privilege of knowing of both good and evil and being granted free choice between both. So what happens now? As they are nigh human now, the Arrancar will, like most humans, most likely naturally stick to their prevalent habits. Meaning, as they were bloodthirsty pathologic homocidal maniac beasts before, they will be pathologic homocidal maniac persons now. This way they won't make use of the chance of awakening their humanity presented to them via their humanoid form and only abuse the power of it for further and even greater mindless rampage. Only in some extremely rare instances, the Arrancar may use their potential to start reflecting on their behaviour and begin to differentiate between more categories than 'prey or threat' when looking at their surroundings as well as fellow beings (look at Starrk or Halibel - they're so close to an actually human psyche that they are nearly indistinguishable from a Shinigami). In that case, they then may even get a faint glimpse of or at least develop a kind of curiosity towards concepts like social relations, or the thing most opposite to the existence of a Hollow - emotions (see Ulquiorra). The one question that remains for me is the following: What about Arrancar when they are killed? Are they still considered Hollow-like and therefore given a 'second chance' in Soul Society? Or do they count as human spirits and transmigrate? Or do they go to hell by default becauso of violating the 'laws of existence' by becoming unnatural hybrids?