Tuesday 11 November 2014

Digging Up Old Theories - Discussion of the Ouken

The following is a part of a series of blog posts that involve me digging up old theories and archiving them here on Bleach - Beyond the Pages.

It is so that more people can look at these theories, and so I don't have to go back in time to find them again.

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The Ouken was one of the major plot-points relating to the Arrancar saga. Aizen sought to create it in order to reach the Royal Realm and kill the Spirit King, and the price for creating one was the destruction of Karakura Town and its 100,000 inhabitants due to the Jureichi (Important Spirit Ground) the town rested on.

Until then, we all assumed that it was an inanimate object (specifically a special key), but it was not until the recent arc that we learnt what the true nature of the Ouken was - the Ouken is a living being. With the Royal Guard members, it was the Spirit King who 'manifested' the power of the Ouken into the bones of the Royal Guard members, allowing them to open the door to the Royal Realm for themselves and anyone they choose to allow.

In Aizen's case, creating an Ouken with his spiritual power would involve re-creating a member of the Royal Guard - creating life, as Shutara put it. In all likelihood, a normal Aizen would have never been able to succeed in such a process, adding another explanation for why Aizen sought the power of a "Transcendental Being" - the power of one is required to create a living Ouken.

This gives way to a number of possibilities - what would the powers of a living Ouken be? Knowing what we know now, the Ouken would not have only been made from the "souls" of 100,000 Humans, but also the "souls" of all the "matter" within the Jureichi. A possible way for figuring out the power of an Ouken would be to look at the Royal Guards themselves.

However, there is one other detail that should be worth considering - the fact that the Great Spirit Library contained the information on the method Aizen intended to use.

Information on such a method would not have existed in the Spirit Library's records unless the process had been done in the past. In other words, a living Ouken was created at some point in the past. It is not among the Royal Guard because Ichibei said that all of the Royal Guard had the power of the Ouken "manifested" into their bones by the Spirit King, which in itself raises the question as to who created the Ouken, when did they do it, why was it done, and where is that Ouken now.

For that, I believe Yamamoto may have given us the answer to three of the four questions:

1) Yamamoto said that the knowledge of the Ouken's location was passed down only through successive generations of the Gotei 13's Captain-Commander via oral tradition. Yamamoto had been the only Gotei 13 Captain-Commander since he created it 1000 years ago before his death, meaning only he knew the location of the living Ouken.

2) The above statement would peg the living Ouken's creation at 1000 years ago during the Shinigami-Quincy War the Gotei 13 fought against Yhwach and the Quincy, given that we know the Gotei 13 was created 1000 years ago.

Now, the answers to the who and why are currently theories at the moment, so I will number them in order of "who" and "why":

3) It was the Gotei 13 who created the living Ouken 1,000 years ago. Yhwach said so himself that the original Gotei 13 were a group of cold-hearted killers, and that Yamamoto was a demon of the sword in those days. This also ties into why it would only be Yamamoto who knew the living Ouken's location for the past 1000 years - as the one either responsible for its creation or the one who ordered it, he took it upon himself to watch over and protect the living Ouken as part of his atonement for his sins.

As to the answer of "why" it was created, I believe Yhwach was the one who gradually gave us the answer, culminating in the addendum to the Kaiser Gesang he revealed in chapter 546 - "...And in the span of nine days, he will reclaim the world":

4) The living Ouken was created to reach the Royal Realm and overthrow Yhwach. The addendum to the Kaiser Gesang would only exist if Yhwach had once been the King of Soul Society. If this were to be proven true, it would have great ramifications for the story's future, and bring into question much about Soul Society. More importantly, it would give further in-sight into the nature of the war that took place 1000 years ago.

The one thing that is not fully clear is "where" the Ouken is. Yamamoto is the only confirmed individual who knew where it was, but he was killed by Yhwach. Given Yhwach's power, it is possible he absorbed Yamamoto's soul upon his death and gained knowledge of the Ouken's current location, so one of Yhwach's future goals could be related to finding and acquiring the living Ouken.

After all, Yhwach will likely not be able to reach the Royal Realm without the aid of the Ouken to open the doors - even if he was once the King of Soul Society.

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Well, those are my thoughts on the Ouken that I will share at the moment. Here are some questions to consider:

1) What are your thoughts regarding the Ouken?

2) What powers do you think the Ouken would possess?

3) Who do you think the Ouken could be? A new character? Someone we already know? If so, why do you think it could be that character?

4) Do you believe what we learnt about the "souls" in "matter" in "The Lost Agent arc" affects the nature of the Ouken's creation?

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P.S. I have another post that discusses the nature of the various Ouken we know of so far.  I'll see if I can dig it up and post it here later.

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