Forum:The Flow of Souls

I was thinking... Humans that die are sent to the Soul Society, but they can sometimes go hollow. People who die in the Soul Society are reincarnated in the living world. Shinigami 'purify' hollows, who then go to the Soul Society or Hell correspondingly. Does that mean former hollows can be shinigami, and former shinigami can be hollows? Did the Espada that were killed get sent to the Soul Society? And when a hollow turns into an arrancar, is their form similar at all to what it was in life? Is their personality similar in any way to what it was in life? Has the Soul Society been around long enough for the shinigami/hollow crossover to have occured? Also, if there is a flow of souls between the Soul Society and the world of the living, does that mean there are never any new souls? What about those that go to Hell? Wouldn't that eventually disrupt the 'balance' that the shinigami were trying to keep when they exterminated the Quincy? Just some of my ponderings. Haven't refined and clarified them. Yume-Li 20:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Eh, I don't know what I did on that last post! Here it is again:

I was thinking... Humans that die are sent to the Soul Society, but they can sometimes go hollow. People who die in the Soul Society are reincarnated in the living world. Shinigami 'purify' hollows, who then go to the Soul Society or Hell correspondingly. Does that mean former hollows can be shinigami, and former shinigami can be hollows? Did the Espada that were killed get sent to the Soul Society? And when a hollow turns into an arrancar, is their form similar at all to what it was in life? Is their personality similar in any way to what it was in life? Has the Soul Society been around long enough for the shinigami/hollow crossover to have occured? Also, if there is a flow of souls between the Soul Society and the world of the living, does that mean there are never any new souls? What about those that go to Hell? Wouldn't that eventually disrupt the 'balance' that the shinigami were trying to keep when they exterminated the Quincy? Just some of my ponderings. Haven't refined and clarified them.

Hell is where hollows are sent if their former lives where evil. A shinigami's zanpakuto can only cleanse the spirit of a hollow for what was done as a hollow, but not what it has done as human. If a human or hollow (before they became a hollow) did something horrible as a human they go to hell and not soul society. So its hard to say if shinigami may have been hollows in a previous life or vise versa. As for the Espada that were killed its hard to gauge with them, as their sins as hollows have been cleansed with their death but who knows what their human life was like. hollow have to evolve and in that evolution comes intellect and individuality so its unclear if the arrancar personality is any reflection on their human personality. Soul Society is most likely a ever present part of the cycle of life and death so its been around from the beginning most likely. im not sure what u mean by crossover. Soul Society and the real world is based on the concept of reincarnation, its pretty deep to question whether there is ever new souls, thats a good question but i would guess you'd have to ask a buddhist for the answer to that one. As of yet we dont know what happens with those that go to hell. The quincy question is kinda rhetorical, the quincy by their very actions where disrupting the balance so their extermination was required for the balance. Somewhat of expectable loss, as the shinigami work for balance so if they disrupt it as humans they might be considered wicked and end up in hell when they die anyhow. Salubri 22:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)