Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26830922-20180315020522/@comment-957629-20180413182644

Sigh. TITE Kubo never stated that anyone in the series were "the good guys". In fact, this site and users don not take that view and when I say users I mean people who contribute consistently to the site and its upkeep, not fluff forum theorists. We have and the series has always been clear that Shinigami are not "the good guys" but their purpose is to preserve the balance of souls in the realms to ensure their stability. It doesn't matter what the Soul King was, he is and was stated as the literal linchpin that held the realms together. When he was killed, those realms started falling apart and everyone would have died had Ukitake not sacrificed himself in that moment and forced Yhwach to do something else.

You really are looking at the series through Rose Tinted Glasses if you ever thought it was done in a "good guys versus bad guys" way. Otherwise Ichigo would never have had to fight against the forces of the Gotei 13 initially at all. They were always imperfect and portrayed as such but what they need to do has been about keeping the realms together. The only "good guys" were Ichigo and his friends wanting to protect their loved ones.