Forum:Life in Las Noches

"Aizen's Court"
-- "I think you are assuming too much about the ranking system. Most people seemed perfectly satisfied with the rank they had and there was no desire to get something higher."

It seems to me that this statement runs contrary to the Manga and almost every major arrancar interaction we have seen. Most major power plays we saw involved violence and intrigue. The arrancar are regularly aggressive, envious, and contemptuous toward their peers in everyday conversations. When an arrancar's authority was threatened they tended to respond with extreme violence. There is no surprise here...they are still Hollows ruled by a renegade shinigami who takes joy in manipulating them into violent confrontations. These kind of actions were expected.

I'm not so sure about your interpretation of Ulqiorra's statement regarding his second release state. It would of been pointless to even mention that he had never 'shown' it to Aizen if Ulqiorra didn't mean Aizen was unaware of it. It is more logical that Ulqiorra meant it was a secret power that not even Aizen knew about. Great Cthulhu 06:28, November 27, 2009 (UTC)

The fact that that arrancar are violent is a given. Because they are violent they snipe at each other and because of Aizen's preaching of "self reliance" and "not putting their trust in anyone", it is clear that the Espada didn't think of each other as comrades as Soul Society does. The only exception was Starrk. Even the majority of the Faccione didn't care about their peers. You make it sound as it's some sort of "Court" were ministers and courtesans are always plotting and scheming and trying to gain the favour of the King, forming alliances and committing betrays and playing all sort of political games etc. Perhaps it's just me but "politics" and the "espada" are two words I would not associate with each other. To me they are just tools of war and tools of war will wage war within if they are not given something to fight from without. That doesn't mean the fighting has any purpose other then fighting. "Politics" require ambition and only person who demonstrated ambition was Barragan, who wanted to return to being king of Heuco Mundo. Grimmjow didn't want anyone looking down on him and Nnoitra had massive issues with women having higher rank then him and could be interpreted as having a desire for power but Nnoitra was only interested in fighting power. He didn't want to topple Aizen or become his right hand man or anything. So I don't think either Grimmjow or Nnoitra were playing games of politics. The other seven espada showed no discontent with their ranks and apart from Yammy and Ulquoirra, most of the other seven didn't interact all that much with their fellow Esapda. Only Starrk thought of then and he considered them friends and people who would get serious to avenge. Loly and Menoly were jealous of Inoue but because she was a human that Aizen favoured, Dordonii expressed a desire to return to being an espada and Luppi expressed a desire to remain the sixth espada. However, those are hardly evidence to support the notion of "Aizen's court"!
 * In addition, even with "Aizen's court" factor, what possible reason could Ulquoirra have to not reveal is second stage to Aizen? He didn't want a higher rank? He could have just asked Aizen not to promote him or say anything to the other espada if that's was the case. He wanted to keep it a secret so he could fight Aizen if he had to? If anyone knew that he was under hypnosis, it's Ulquoirra! He would have known that no matter how many secret powers he has, as long as Aizen has hypnosis, Aizen would win. Plus there is a perfectly logical explanation for why Ulquoirra said "Even Aizen hasn't seen it" that has nothing to do with it being a secret. Ulquoirra just recently got the second stage. That would explain why Ulquoirra seemed not entirely comfortable in his second stage and didn't seem to be able to use his lance thing properly. So yes, I don't think Ulquoirra actively kept secrets from Aizen. Besides which, Aizen has shown that he is mysterious aware of all that happens in Heuco Mundo and so even if Ulquoirra didn't tell him, chances are Aizen knew. Tinni 07:11, November 27, 2009 (UTC)