[Aigirl]

I hope the series ends with a serious re-vamping of Soul Society, and all its horrible bureaucracy.

I don't blame Urahara, Tessai, Youroichi, Isshin or the Vizards for not wanting to have anything to do with the place (or Ryuken for hating it all!)

The "Government" is completely corrupt, the justice system sucks, and apparently the words "democracy" and "equality" never reached the afterlife.

We have the hints all over the place: the people in the Rukongai are treated like garbage, the nobles are worshiped, genocide is sanctioned (as are ridiculous death sentences); and people are always guilty 'till proven innocent.

I think this is ultimately what the Vizards and Aizen and co. are fighting for (using very different methods, of course).

I want the Vizards and the Ryoka to win the war and Soul Society to start anew.

[yasiru89]

Isn't that what most governments do (and probably will continue to do)? Democracy and equality are just useful foils. They help hide the tough decisions that may or may not be mistaken, but have to be made.

Aizen certainly isn't fighting for 'change'; and I don't think the Vizard care for it either. However we did see Soul Society 'opening up' somewhat after the original ryoka incident with Ichigo trying to save Rukia. Change on a grander scale may only be achieved slowly as I see it; but as you say a war with everyone giving their all will most likely be conducive!

[TrisakAminawn]

Yes! Soul Society is a pretty sick society, and that fact is at the heart of the story. It doesn't help that the rulers are kept intensely secret and have too much power, or that the governing body is militaristic, or that they seem to have more types of secret police than Soviet Russia, or that the government actually feels no responsibility to govern outside of Seireitai, or to provide anything to the ordinary citizens, even threats. But most of all, the problem at the heart of their existence is that it is their job to maintain the status quo. Souls coming in, souls going out. Homeostasis. They said back during Ishida's debut that that was why they existed. And they eliminate threats to that balance.

That means that they are devoted to everything staying the same, forever. That is Seireitai. People age, very slowly, but everything else, ideally, goes on as it has ever been, and if it threatens to change unacceptably, you dispose of it. Urahara, Ichigo, and Aizen are all 'agents of change' in this static world. Urahara, in the name of knowledge or truth, keeps stepping over lines (this would have gotten him into trouble sooner or later even if Aizen hadn't framed him), and is the most suited to bring about benign paradigm shifts, if Soul Society would let him. (Not that he always makes good choices.) Ichigo just changes things by accident, by being a powerful irregularity. And Aizen represents the most vast and brutal change of all, because he wants to remake the entire world.

Superheroes normally fight to maintain the status quo, aka save the world; villains want to change it to their own benefit or occasionally just its detriment; Urahara doesn't belong as a major player in a superhero comic. Hah. Which I guess means Bleach pwns Spider-man, who didn't doubt it?

So...if the world changes at the end, that'll be good. If most of the Soul Society old guard get killed off and the remainder are brought to a point of decreased closemindedness, that would be good. But how far can they go, and still hold together? I mean, they still have to make sure the world doesn't explode from homeostatic imbalance, and kill hollows, and they still need an organized way to run this outfit, and a war-gutted elite isn't exactly in the best position to try to start beneficially administrating the biggest slum in the universe.

[ZERO PHOENIX]

Excellent post Trisak. I especially liked your, "agents of change." Takes me back to my Sociology classes.

[Dioschild]

It does reperesent how our government woks. the governing body of these days is much like Seireitai and konoha. sorry for invovling naruto in this blog but both share a similar way of running a corrupted goverment. least to say that they both hold alot power and even though its pretty much like out goverment. take from the weak and keep it for themselves. this holds true to almost every goverment run today. the thing with the bleach universe is that keeping everything the same will eventually crumble but to much change will imeaditially will destroy all balance. i agree with what you all said. the way things are in seireitai are almost the same if not the same with our world today. nothing much has changed in the afterlife in bleach. there are still rich and the poor. pretty much thats how our world is. everthing is run by corruption these days and i guess it always will be some way or another. even if u get rid of the old someone or something new will come along the way and destroy the new and again the cylce of life will keep repeating till the end of time. what goes around comes around.