User blog:Shinitenshi/Has Aizen Ever Lied?

As I am trying to avoid work again, I will write another essay. This time, it will be on an interesting topic. That topic is "Has Aizen ever lied?" It'll be the most fun you can have without an athletic cup, I promise.

Now before we begin, we must first understand what we mean by lying. Now I know that we know what a lie is (or at least I hope we do). But bear with me.

There are two types of lies. There is a lie of commission and a lie of omission. A lie of commission is a direct lie. When you tell your mother that you will be going to the library to study and instead you go the arcade, this is a lie of commission. This is a direct lie. Now, say you are going to a party. Your mother asks you if there is going to be alcohol at the party. If you know that there is going to be some alcohol and you don't tell her, this is a lie of omission. This is an indirect lie.

Are lies bad? This is subjective. Let's go back to the lie of commission example. This is a bad lie. You are lying because you say one thing and are doing another. But here's another example, the question that men dread. When your wife/girlfriend asks you "Do I look fat in this?" You may lie to get a favorable response. This would probably be a neutral lie. And finally, this example. I knew a friend who worked in a hospital for children with terminal diseases. The mortality rate of these children is very high. Many times, he told me that children ask him if they are going to get better. Rather than tell the truth, my friend tells them that they will get better if they believe they will get better and believe in the doctors. Now he may lie, but is this lie bad? Again this becomes subjective.

So now that we have laid the foundation of what a lie is and are lies bad, we can now begin the fun journey of discussion if Aizen lied or not.

Aizen Sosuke probably spent his Shinigami career in the 5th division. Whether his ambition to "stand at the top of the world" started before he was a Shinigami or it was something that came about as he was moving up the ranks is unknown. We do know, however, that a Zanpakuto's abilities is wholly dependent on a Shinigami's personality. So perhaps it is the former rather than the latter. (I'll discuss Kyouka Suigetsu in another section.) We do know that Shinji recognized that something wasn't right about Aizen and chose him to be his lieutenant at that point. What he suspected we don't know because the focus of the TBtP arc is Urahara. But we do see a "lie". He has someone pretend to be him and changes his appearance via Kyouka Suigetsu. Now did he lie? Well, it wasn't a lie of commission. Shinji didn't ask the doppelganger if he was actually Aizen. Instead, he allowed Shinji to believe that he was actually behind him. Is this a lie of omission? This is more subjective.

As for his plan already considering the Hyogyoku is unlikely. You get the sense that there is dearth of information that doesn't move from captains downwards (i.e. knowledge of the Zero Squad). It is highly likely that whomever told Aizen about the fate of his former captain left out the fact that Shinji and Aizen's other victims had escaped their death sentences. (Such information would have been very embarrassing to Central 46).

After the incident 100 years ago, what would have happened to Aizen? Well, he probably bided his time. As he was the highest ranking officer of the 5th division, he probably didn't shoot for captaincy immediately following the event. More likely, he would have waited until someone put his name up for consideration as captain. He would have taken the taishu test because he would need to hypnotize Unohana (if he didn't already), who was most likely one of the three captains at his test. But he would have passed the test with flying colors, setting the second stage of his plan.

After his captaincy, he would appoint Ichimaru as his lieutenant (What happened to Tosen is a totally different story.) He would have portrayed the picture of the ideal captain (His personality is already covered in his main article so there's no point of repeating it). Very likely, he would been a frequent visitor to the Shinigami academy. From there, he would probably have demonstrated Shinigami powers to the students by releasing his Zanpakuto (We know from Isane that he has done this at least to the current lieutenants). This helps Aizen in two ways: It hypnotizes any potential Shinigami who would challenge him once his ruse is revealed and it also gives him a good image to further obfuscate his deception.

Now that we covered the TBtP arc and his (probable) history, let's focus on the Soul Society arc.

When we first meet Aizen Sosuke, he calls to Renji and tells him that he finds it strange that Central 46 has shortened the grace period of execution from 35 days to 25 days and that the method of execution highly unusual for someone like Rukia. This is the truth. Aizen gives Renji bits and pieces of the truth and allows Renji to make his own conclusion, knowing that he would start to question the judgment of Central 46. But to what ends? Why bother with this? Well, I doubt that he's trying to deflect suspicion. (It is the last thing on his mind) It is more likely that he wants Renji to challenge this judgment, perhaps even challenge his captain, the brother of Rukia who doesn't use his influence to save her. As he tells Hitsugaya later on "The first step in battle is to disperse the enemies' forces."

The hardest "lie" that I could possibly write of as double meaning is Aizen's letter to Hinamori. In it, he describes why all of the events are happening. It's goes like this:

''The real goal of this execution isn't to execute Kuchiki Rukia, the scheme is to take control of something and it was planned before Rukia's capture. That something is Syokyoku. Only during an execution will the seal on Syokyoku be lifted. ... The conspirator plans to use that power to destroy Seireitei and all of Soul Society. The name of that cursed man is Hitsugaya Toshiro.''

First off, here's the part that bugs me. Let's go CSI for a minute. When you have investigated a crime scene of a person, especially one as respected as Aizen was, what is the first thing that you do? You search his effects. You investigate everything before letting the general public know the totality of what has happened. Now the letter that Matsumoto gives to Hinamori is very suspect to me. Why is it that Hitsugaya and Matsumoto never read the letter before giving it to Hinamori. Then they would have never been surprised that she makes these claims. Maybe a disguised Aizen, via Kyoka Suigetsu? There is no basis for this but it makes me wonder.

Anyways, back to the letter. Let us parse this letter. ''The real goal of this execution isn't to execute Kuchiki Rukia, the scheme is to take control of something and it was planned before Rukia's capture. That something is Syokyoku.'' This is the truth. Killing Rukia is secondary to getting the Hyogokyu inside of her. To do it, Aizen and crew need to take control of the Syokyoku. The conspirator plans to use that power to destroy Seireitei and all of Soul Society. It starts to get tricky here. While a normal reading would have one to believe that Aizen is talking about the Syokyoku, Aizen is able to obfuscate the truth in a double meaning. The Hyogokyu inside Rukia is able to destroy Soul Society by creating Shinigami/Hollow hybrids. Finally, we come to the crux of the letter. Aizen names his assailant, Hitsugaya. This is a direct lie. No bones about it.

Now we come to my favorite part. Kyoka Suigetsu.

We know what Kyoka Suigetsu does so there's no point to explaining it. What I will do is ask whether or not his using it is indeed considered lying.

First, let us begin with Isane's description of Kyoka Suigetsu. She was told by Aizen herself that it "is a flowing-water type zanpakuto. It distorts the sight with reflections in the fog to confuse the enemy, causing them to fight amongst themselves." As hard as it may be for the readers of this to believe, Aizen told the truth. When Aizen cast Kyoka Suigetsu's spell on Soul Society, it did just that. Aizen cast a fog on the Gotei 13. He has everyone believe he was dead during a time when Seireitei was already being "invaded" by the Ryoka. This action divided the Gotei 13 into factions, creating infighting. This allowed Aizen to manipulate them into doing what he wanted. This isn't a lie. This is puppeteering at its perverse finest.

(As a side note, I do find it significant that Tosen was there when Unohana perform the autopsy on "Aizen". Most likely, he was sent there by Aizen to make sure that Unohana fell for the spell and report otherwise.)

So when at long last his ruse is revealed, we see Aizen as he is, a cold-hearted manipulator. As he himself said, "I never meant to deceive. It's just that not one of you knew my true face."

So ends my discussion on Aizen (I decided to focus more on before he was revealed to be a traitor as it is more significant to look there than later on in the series). Comments would be fine.