Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-35233810-20180406192057/@comment-27565137-20180412142643

The Bleach novel Can't Fear Your Own World, basically answered that!

In the novel we learn that the Soul King didn't ruled Soul Society, but rather the 4 royal families. The Zero Division were tasked with keeping the Soul King sealed in that crystal prison.

We are also hinted that there was once a Soul King, but the Soul King we saw in the manga was not him, but rather the vessel of the power of the original Soul King. It had something to do with what was called the Sin of the Five Royal Families. Something they did that made what Soul Society became.

Aizen obviously being Aizen he found out what that sin was and what the Soul King was. That's why he called the Soul King "...that thing". He knew that the Soul King didn't govern Soul Society. He knew the four (four ever since the fall of the Shiba clan) royal families were the ones actually ruling Soul Society and that the Chamber of 46 were nothing more than tools of the royal families.

So Aizen's goal was basically to take the Soul King power for himself. And destroy that sham, that facade, that was fooling everyone.

For example. In the novel we also learn that Yhwatch wasn't really defeated, not permanently. When Ichigo cut him in half, Yuha was already regaining the power he had stolen, and thus he became the new Soul King. And before he could revive himself the Zero Division appeared and used the Soul King Seal. Trapping Yuha in the crystal the previous Soul King had been. If I'm not mistaken they even cut off some of his limbs and spread them in different parts of the different worlds in order to make the seal more efficient. But we are also told by Uryuu that the seal will only hold Yuha (Soul King) for one hundred years at best, but he would eventually break out. We are not explained how Uryuu knows this only that he knows it.

Regardless. If half of what was in the novel was something Tite Kubo was actually gonna explain if he had had the time, then we can say that Aizen was not really the villain we all thought he was. That Soul Society were far worse! Seeing that if Ichigo hadn't been delayed by his training then he would've been tricked by the Zero Division into taking the power of the Soul King to defeat Yuha and then the Zero Division would've sealed him and did the same to Ichigo. They would take away his limbs and spread them so he couldn't free himself. As for the Soul Tickets, Shunsui gave Ichigo's friends to go and visit him if Ichigo became unable to come back to the mortal world, apparently they too had already devised a way to somehow trick Ichigo's friends that he was alright and when in fact the real Ichigo had suffered a horrible fate.

So yeah. If this had been revealed in the Manga then Aizen would go from villain to anti-hero really fast.