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valmoraYes! It is the magical entry in which Val compares certain events in Bleach to gay rights! Crackpot theories ahoy. Feedback and edits more than welcome.
All right, so. Aizen Sousuke. Crazy guy, no denying that, yeah. Fakes his own death, comes back, nearly kills a few people, brings his former vice-captain and another captain with him to the middle-world of the Hollows, and is currently trying to create Hollows who are also Shinigami, and is making a lot of them.
So I was talking to Gali at three in the morning and decided that Aizen is doing this because of his sublimated desire to join "normal" -that is, heterosexual - society.
I would like at this point to reiterate the phrase THREE AM, and continue from there.
In a very real sense, the Arrancar - all of them - are Aizen's "children". Not biologically, but ideologically and symbolically. The fact that Ulquiorra, the first Arrancar that we are exposed to, is physically drawn as a child reinforces this theme; their impetuosity and the idea of "maturity" (a phrase used in the chapter where Ulquiorra is first drawn, by one of the shinigami) reinforces this.
Aizen left Seireitei - "normal" society - to create and care for his children. With Ichimaru.
We know from canon that Ichimaru used to be Aizen's vice-captain before becoming a captain himself, and that Aizen and Ichimaru still have a very strong connection to the point where it is clear that Aizen does not view his actual vice captain (Hinamori) as his vice-captain because that privilege/psychological position is still reserved for Ichimaru. Who follows him without question, who helps him in this endeavour, who is his partner in crime - and who is undoubtedly male. This is someone who has followed Aizen literally to the ends of the earth and beyond, and regardless of whether their bond is truly romantic or not, the subtextual implication is of a functioning relationship of equals between two men. Regardless of the actual status, sexual or not, of that relationship, it does resonate with a homoerotic bond.
"Normal" society in virtually all cultures frowns upon, and has historically frowned upon, homosexuality. In Tokugawa-era Japan, the era on which (I am told) Seireitei is based, male homosexuality, while considered acceptable in the warrior classes, was not the basis for a family and has never been in any society. Men, regardless of preferred genders, were expected to marry and have children by those wives.
Now. Apply that attitude - that their relationship cannot be officially acknowledged and is not taken seriously, that they cannot have a family based on the two of them but are socially required to have a familial involvement with an outside woman - to the symbolic relationship between Aizen and Ichimaru. They have a homoerotically-resonant relationship in a society that will not take that family-unit seriously.
Furthermore, the choice of timing for their plans as symbolic is significant: Aizen 'borrows' the confusion resulting from the invasion by the main character and uses it to completely destroy the governing council of Seireitei. Earth inhabitants, representing new ideas and the rejection of traditional methods of teaching and training, are a threat to the security of Seireitei, which represents established authority and the ideal of normality. The entire point of that arc is that established authority kind of sucks in some respects and that it isn't perfect (c.p. Byakuya and oaths). Aizen is dismantling that authority, forcibly, in the interest of showing the flaws of that "normal" society even as he begins to operate outside it - having children. With Ichimaru's assistance.
On the surface of this interpretation, Tousen's involvement doesn't seem to make sense. Why would Tousen help destroy "normal" society when he has no stake in what is very much, symbolically at least, Aizen and Ichimaru's "family"?
He is obsessed with justice, reinforced by the fact that he is blind. On the surface, it seems that he is supporting nothing just at all, and it is hardly clear what he is fighting for or against. Given the above symbology, however, it is entirely possible that he supports - despite having no reason to support - Aizen and Ichimaru's subtextual endeavour, that is, domestic bliss. The injustice of making the symbolically homoerotic bond between them unacknowledged may be what offends Tousen.
And obviously this is not at all what Kubo Tite intended to convey in any way, shape or form. However, on a subtextual level, the conflict may be read in the above manner: that Aizen and Ichimaru are at least symbolically homosexual partners trying to raise a family despite social conditioning that their circumstances are inappropriate.
Besides, there's just something entertaining about the idea of Gin as a soccer mom.
All right, so. Aizen Sousuke. Crazy guy, no denying that, yeah. Fakes his own death, comes back, nearly kills a few people, brings his former vice-captain and another captain with him to the middle-world of the Hollows, and is currently trying to create Hollows who are also Shinigami, and is making a lot of them.
So I was talking to Gali at three in the morning and decided that Aizen is doing this because of his sublimated desire to join "normal" -that is, heterosexual - society.
I would like at this point to reiterate the phrase THREE AM, and continue from there.
In a very real sense, the Arrancar - all of them - are Aizen's "children". Not biologically, but ideologically and symbolically. The fact that Ulquiorra, the first Arrancar that we are exposed to, is physically drawn as a child reinforces this theme; their impetuosity and the idea of "maturity" (a phrase used in the chapter where Ulquiorra is first drawn, by one of the shinigami) reinforces this.
Aizen left Seireitei - "normal" society - to create and care for his children. With Ichimaru.
We know from canon that Ichimaru used to be Aizen's vice-captain before becoming a captain himself, and that Aizen and Ichimaru still have a very strong connection to the point where it is clear that Aizen does not view his actual vice captain (Hinamori) as his vice-captain because that privilege/psychological position is still reserved for Ichimaru. Who follows him without question, who helps him in this endeavour, who is his partner in crime - and who is undoubtedly male. This is someone who has followed Aizen literally to the ends of the earth and beyond, and regardless of whether their bond is truly romantic or not, the subtextual implication is of a functioning relationship of equals between two men. Regardless of the actual status, sexual or not, of that relationship, it does resonate with a homoerotic bond.
"Normal" society in virtually all cultures frowns upon, and has historically frowned upon, homosexuality. In Tokugawa-era Japan, the era on which (I am told) Seireitei is based, male homosexuality, while considered acceptable in the warrior classes, was not the basis for a family and has never been in any society. Men, regardless of preferred genders, were expected to marry and have children by those wives.
Now. Apply that attitude - that their relationship cannot be officially acknowledged and is not taken seriously, that they cannot have a family based on the two of them but are socially required to have a familial involvement with an outside woman - to the symbolic relationship between Aizen and Ichimaru. They have a homoerotically-resonant relationship in a society that will not take that family-unit seriously.
Furthermore, the choice of timing for their plans as symbolic is significant: Aizen 'borrows' the confusion resulting from the invasion by the main character and uses it to completely destroy the governing council of Seireitei. Earth inhabitants, representing new ideas and the rejection of traditional methods of teaching and training, are a threat to the security of Seireitei, which represents established authority and the ideal of normality. The entire point of that arc is that established authority kind of sucks in some respects and that it isn't perfect (c.p. Byakuya and oaths). Aizen is dismantling that authority, forcibly, in the interest of showing the flaws of that "normal" society even as he begins to operate outside it - having children. With Ichimaru's assistance.
On the surface of this interpretation, Tousen's involvement doesn't seem to make sense. Why would Tousen help destroy "normal" society when he has no stake in what is very much, symbolically at least, Aizen and Ichimaru's "family"?
He is obsessed with justice, reinforced by the fact that he is blind. On the surface, it seems that he is supporting nothing just at all, and it is hardly clear what he is fighting for or against. Given the above symbology, however, it is entirely possible that he supports - despite having no reason to support - Aizen and Ichimaru's subtextual endeavour, that is, domestic bliss. The injustice of making the symbolically homoerotic bond between them unacknowledged may be what offends Tousen.
And obviously this is not at all what Kubo Tite intended to convey in any way, shape or form. However, on a subtextual level, the conflict may be read in the above manner: that Aizen and Ichimaru are at least symbolically homosexual partners trying to raise a family despite social conditioning that their circumstances are inappropriate.
Besides, there's just something entertaining about the idea of Gin as a soccer mom.
