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You're looking at this all wrong.I specifically said “ significantly “ I’m basically saying what dismisses the possibility that he didn’t grow , become strong enough to be considered barragon’s level let alone base aizen’s who out scales barragon the comparison made in the novel is already questionable the difference between the espada and aizen was already demonstrated in the primary canon.
Considering menos can peak consuming thousands of hollows they could literally consume thousands more and not gain anything. him training and devouring hollows is completely irrelevant. Though the scaling to Ginjou is interesting is it not stated that he can unleash a getsuga that rivals ichigo’s strongest getsuga?
Ginjou scales to full bring ichigo in which both have valid scaling that suggests there above (dangai) barragon has no such scalingit’s not my intention to derail the thread but it’s important and you did bring him up after all
Hollows like Szayalaporro, Ikomikidomoe, Starrk, Barragan, Halibel and Nelliel (they're relevant to this topic) were already "Vasto Lorde" before they met Aizen, and depending on their nature, they raised their own fracciones or kept to themselves.(this point ties into why Halibel couldn't have gotten stronger after fighting Yhwach because she had already peaked). A "vasto lorde" doesn't typically get stronger, they're literally the peak a hollow could ever reach. Ichigo's Vasto Lorde never got stronger, it was Ichigo who had to adapt to it's true power over time.
Most of the other Espada we saw, including the "failed" Espada that the gang had to fight while climbing the floors of Las Noches, were all created by Aizen using the hogyoku. At one point, THEY were "the strongest" in Hueco Mundo. As Aizen got significantly better at using the hogyoku, he then made better pawns.
This includes Grimmjow and his goons.
What's the point here?
Point being, Grimmjow had peaked as a jaguar looking hollow. He yearned for power, enough to overthrow Barragan and become King but he literally peaked and couldn't grow any further no matter how much he consumed.(you referenced this)
Aizen used that fact to make him his subordinate... basically, "I'll grant you the capacity to evolve further and you'll pay this debt by helping me take down the soul society."
So, Grimmjow can evolve and get stronger (just like Ulquiorra's "secret" 2nd form, and Yammy's "true" rank) because he was essentially genetically modified by the Hogyoku just like most of the Espada.(again, mind you, Aizen created some of the Espada we see during the war within a span of 6 months, when it normally takes natural born Espada/vasto Lorde centuries to reach such heights)
That's where all the supposed "contradictions" or "inconsistencies" comes from.
Zommari claimed to be the fastest because he was given that "growth spurt" and simply assumed that the natural born Espada couldn't be faster. Funny thing is, Starrk literally just casually teleports and grabs Orihime from kilometers away whiles Ichigo and Kenny couldn't even react to his base speed.(I think this was after the Nnoitora fight, I might be mistaken tho).
Another example of the modified Espada overestimating themselves was when Luppi became Sexta Espada after Grimmjow had lost an arm(basically, he lost half his power by losing one of his reiatsu vents located in his wrist) and was stripped of his rank.
The moment his arm was regenerated by Orihime, he literally one-shot Luppi who "supposedly" was his equal and was chatting shit prior.
The hogyoku and Aizen are seen as godly(he recruited Barragan afterall), so whatever actions Aizen took were assumed to be absolute by the "modified" Espada. Zommari thought he was the fastest because Aizen said so, and Luppin thought he/she was stronger than Grimmjow after getting a rank up.
As for the Ginjou and Fullbring Ichigo scaling, it doesn't take away from Barragan being somewhat relative. It's consistent when you factor in the way Barragan fought and died.
He was essentially, the Gremmy of the Espada... in his case, he was too prideful and ego driven to the point where he didn't even consider his possible defeat. He was mostly boasting about how GREAT he was and so on, he didn't acknowledge the captains as foes but mere warm ups.
And that was his downfall, his "sheer f*cking hubris" lead him to being killed by his own hax.
The fact that his own hax killed him, and that Kubo wrote it that way, means that he would have logically won otherwise. So while he doesn't have the feats that Ginjou does, he doesn't have any anti feats that prove he's lesser than either, since his own hax did him in.
Put simply, there are statements to back up his true strength and no anti feats to disprove them, it's logical to say that he's at least relative to Grimmjow.
When you put into perspective that certain Espada had peaked and others were granted to ability to grow, you'll quickly realise that the Espada 1-3 (since Ulquiorra apparently has his own bubble of scaling), were stronger than we thought.
Why are we so willing to accept that Urahara, Unohana, Ukitake, Isshin and so on were ALWAYS as strong as they appeared in the final arc even though they never gave their all against Aizen? Yet we can't accept, even with canon statements, that the natural born Espada were also more than we thought at the time?
