Sigh And some of my arguments have once again been ignored...
Anyways, let's begin.
The problem with Arc's impression of the opposition's main arguments
The following is Arc's introduction:
The two major points that are championing the Ritter not scaling to the stolen Bankai are: A) anti-feats and B) Yhwach's statement and everything associated with it.
No, those two aren't the only arguments. More on this later.
The problems with Arc's points concerning the Sternritter getting one shot
My premise against the anti-feats is as follows: the regained Bankai Captains are stronger than they were when they had their Bankai stolen, thus defeating the Ritter is not an anti-feat for the Ritter, and rather proof that the Captains training bore fruit.
And right off the bat, we are introduced to some basic
circular reasoning.
Why did the Sternritter get defeated?
- Because the captains trained and got stronger.
Why would the training give them a relevant boost to power?
- Because they one shot the Sternritter.
But anyways, let's let him explain further.
First off, nobody
denied that the Shinigami trained and nobody
claimed that they didn't get any stronger at all.
The issue for Arc's stance is that the training boosts are completely unquantifiable and we have other, more solid reasons for why the Sternritter got one shot and why their base forms shouldn't scale to the Bankai.
Additionally, the Byakuya point is irrelevant, as he didn't just train but also
got stronger from bathing in Kirinji's hot spring.
Right before regaining their Bankai,
Kisuke explains the mechanism behind the process. Kisuke notes that his method of regaining Bankai has two advantages: 1) it weakens the Quincy and 2) it poisons the Quincy.
The statement used "poisounous to Quincies" as a general term for the deficiencies hollow energy causes in Quincy.
"Weaken their spiritual powers" was one of the deficiencies listed, the others being "decay of their souls" and "ultimately death".
So 1) is one of the effects of 2) which is a more general term. They aren't two different things.
Meaning that by recovering the Bankai through the hollowfication pills, the Ritter will become damaged and be nerfed at the same time.
Not true.
As Nodt, Bambietta and
BG9 weren't damaged when the Bankai was recovered.
Only Cang was, and the only discernible reason for that was because he was the only one out of the four who was using the Bankai at the time.
Which isn't the same as being damaged. It also doesn't mean his durability was nerfed, as that is like saying a human's body becomes less durable is their blood flow slows down.
then while he's weakened and
off guard he gets blasted by Soi-Fon's Bankai.
He wasn't off guard. He realized that the Bankai had returned to her and saw she was about to shoot him with its missile.
Toshiro's Bankai beginning to hollowfy is not
actual full hollowfication and is unquantifiable.
Cang was only caught off guard by the initial hollow reiatsu damaging him. After that,
he continued fighting Toshiro while fully on guard yet
he was still frozen without being able to do anything about it.
The point being that the Quincy that lost were caught off guard, poisoned, and were nerfed by Kisuke's ploy.
For reasons I already pointed out, Cang and BG9 weren't off-guard, they just couldn't defend themselves in any way and them being weakened is still unquantifiable and not the most definitive reason for why they lost.
The problems with Arc's points regarding the minor, partial, temporary hollowfication of the Bankai
Finally, regarding the temporary Hollowfication of Bankai and why it is a boost, and how it may be more of a boost than one thinks.
Nobody denied the temporary
partial hollowfication being an amp. It's just unquantifiable and very minor
going off visuals. Therefore, it's not fair to just assume it gave them a relevant amp. We know it gave them
an amp, but there's nothing which can be used to prove it was an amp high enough to make a real difference.
Here's why this is completely irrelevant:
Kaname was referring to the
full, proper Hollow Mask. Not the
small ice covering one eye which Hitsugaya had.
As for Ichigo's unstable half hollow mask, there are multiple core differences between it and Hitsugaya's small ice:
- Ichigo's hollow mask was progressively forming itself over a short span of time unlike the ice over Hitsugaya's eye which wasn't developing or changing in such a manner after it appeared.
- Ichigo was possessed by a powerful hollow spirit while Hitsugaya was not.
- Ichigo's eyes changed (like the Vizards when they're using proper full Hollowfication, which indicates Ichigo was close to that state) while with Hitsugaya that didn't happen.
Trying to compare the two in terms of what level of a power boost they gave makes no sense.
So Toshiro and Soi-Fon receiving Hollow powers at all means they got some sort of amp, albeit unquantifiable.
Which is exactly why we can't just assume it was the reason why the Sternritter were one shot. There are other reasons for why it most likely isn't, but I'll get into those later.
The point here being that while the amp might be incapable of being pinpointed to precise accuracy, it is an amp nonetheless.
Funnily enough, Arc himself states why these vague amps cannot be used as a justification for the Sternritter getting one shot, especially when there are other potential reasons holding more objective weight.
The problems with Arc's "wrapping up"
To wrap this up, the Captains that won with their Bankai had been training since they lost their Bankai and had their Bankai partially Hollowfied
Two unquantifiable power amps, whose existence nobody disputes (like Arc seems to think for whatever reason) but whose relevance is based solely on headcanon assumptions.
and the Ritter that lost were weakened by those same Hollow powers and caught off guard.
The Sternritter being weakened is unquantifiable, doesn't necessarily reduce their raw durability and I already went over why they weren't caught off-guard but just couldn't do anything.
So, we have two amps for the Captains (Hollow powers and training) and two nerfs for the Ritter (off guard/surprise and Hollow poisoning).
*Two vague amps which give a
completely unknown power boost and only one nerf (because they weren't actually off-guard) which gives them a
completely unknown nerf.
For the anti-feat point to be valid, the Ritter would have had to lose to Bankai Captains who were equals to their Bankai selves at the start of the war, but as I've shown that's simply not the case.
Nobody claimed it was the case and you couldn't prove the unknown differences in power were relevant enough to be the reason for why the Sternritter were defeated.
We have Bankai Captains > first invasion Bankai selves defeating Ritter < first invasion selves.
Which proves absolutely nothing.
Thus there are no anti-feats.
Especially not that^
The opposition also are under the impression that the amps and nerfs being unquantifiable means that the anti-feats are still valid.
There are other reasons for why the anti-feats are valid besides the fact that the training and very minor hollowfication are unquantifiable and that arguing with them is the same as arguing with the unknown.
However, that is blatantly incorrect and not how we scale on this site. I'll pose this question: if character X trains and becomes stronger than he was yesterday, is his yesterday self equal to his current self? The answer is no.
Strawman. Nobody claimed that the captains' pre-training selves were equal to their post-training selves.
I'll pose another question: if character Y is weakened due to some mechanism, are they as strong as their peak selves? The answer is still no.
Strawman once again. Nobody claimed that the Sternritter weren't weakened at all. Just that it didn't necessarily make them as weak as Arc makes them out to be and there's no way to prove that the hollow energy poisoning/weakening was the reason for why they were one shot.
So saying that weakened Quincy being beaten by stronger/post-training Shinigami means that the peak Quincy can't scale to weaker versions of the Shinigami is blatantly false.
*Weakened to a
completely unknown degree Quincy being beten by stronger to a
completely unknown degree Shinigami
To steelman the opposition before I move on to the next point: let's say that the partial Hollowfication didn't amp the Captains at all, would it make a difference to my premise? Well, as proved above, the Captains still trained and got stronger, and again as proved above, the Quincy were weakened in their moment of defeat. So, even without Hollow amps, the Captains in Bankai during the second invasion would be stronger than themselves in the first invasion, and the Ritter in the second invasion that lost would be weaker than their first invasion selves. So, regardless of if I win the Hollow amp point or not, the anti-feat point is still debunked.
This argument may
seem persuasive to someone who's not paying attention, but in reality it's just a
trick.
All Arc is
really saying here is that instead of trying to argue with two completely unknown power boosts for the shinigami and one completely unknown power nerf for the Sternritter, he can also try arguing with one completely unknown power boost for the shinigami and one completely unknown power nerf for the Sternritter.
Needless to say, it doesn't debunk the anti-feats as in both cases Arc is
only arguing with complete unknowns.
After this, he goes on to argue about Yhwach being comparable to Zanka no Tachi, which I could agree with for reasons that I'll go over later.
However, in the
Conclusion part of
his post, he mentions two completely irrelevant points.
To back up my points one last time with a narrative argument: both
Shunsui and
Renji flat out state that they cannot hope to fight the Ritter without Bankai.
Renji was saying that in reference to As Nodt, who is stronger than Renji. So I don't see any reason why it should generally apply to most captain level shinigami.
The Sternritter being stated to be equal to or stronger than Captain class characters as well. I don't think I need to say much more, but with all these beyond Captain level characters, scaling to Bankai doesn't seem so far fetched does it?
The accepted bar for being considered captain class during the TYBW arc is
Large Island level based on
these three profiles.
All four Sternritter who stole Bankai are at least one tier above that in base. So even if their base states were downgraded by a tier, it would still be consistent with the statement and therefore Arc's point is completely irrelevant.
Arc later says this
which isn't entirely valid for comparison with the TYBW captains, as Ichigo during that stage of the SS arc had only recently acquired his powers and was still rapidly developing and getting used to using them. Meanwhile, the captains have been captains and have had their powers for many decades or even centuries.
Now for the points I mentioned earlier which support the base Sternritter being weaker than the Bankai they stole and them getting one shot being anti-feats. Most of these have been presented earlier but Arc completely ignored them.
Why Urahara wouldn't want to give the captains any sort of significant amp
We have reason to believe that Urahara would avoid trying to give them any kind of significant amp. In past instances of Hollow and Shinigami powers mixing, the results have been quite more noticable than some ice over one eye and Shinigami gaining hollow powers in particular has lead to them becoming very unstable initially, something which Urahara is aware of and isn't stupid enough to risk causing to captains during a conflict such as the second invasion of Seireitei.
BG9's statement and dichotomy
BG9 strongly implies that using Soifon's Bankai would give him power above his base state.
Arc's counter to this was interpreting it as BG9 saying Soifon's training wasn’t enough to match her Bankai. However, that's missing the point of the statement, as BG9 sets a dichotomy between his base being enough to handle Soifon and him needing to use her Bankai if she was strong enough for him not to be "
disappointed". Since BG9 thought her Bankai would be needed to fight a stronger Soifon and thought his base would be enough to fight a weaker Soifon, it means there's a power difference between him in base and him using her Bankai.
No tactical advantage of stealing Bankai if Arc's stance is correct
A Sternritter in base needing to be equal to a Bankai captain in order to steal the Bankai completely devaluates the entire point of stealing Bankai, as the Sternritter would be able to easily overpower the Bankai captain by just going Vollständig.
There is no tactical advantage in stealing Bankai if the Sternritter must be equal to it in base.
Someone might try to claim the medallions with their ability to steal Bankai were made because Yhwach wants his enemies to feel even more powerless while they're being killed by the Sternritter.
However,
that goes against Yhwach's character and is therefore not a valid argument.
Sternritter are capable of handling/controlling power on a higher level than their base due to how their Vollständig works
A Vollständig is stated to be an
upgraded version of
Letz Stil as it doesn't have the drawbacks of the Quincy losing their power when they use it.
Unlike Bankai and Resurrección, Vollständig doesn't release the full version of a Quincy's innate power but instead
grants them power absorbed from an outside source (Reishi in the environment) just like using a Medallion (Bankai from a captain). Since the Vollständig power boost doesn't come from the Sternritter themselves yet they can control it, it's fair to say they would be able to control a Bankai stronger than them as long as its power falls within the range between a Sternritter's base and their Vollständig, which is the limit to how much Reishi they can absorb i.e. how much power they can control.
Sternritter who have stolen a Bankai have been
stated to be unable to go Vollständig, which supports the idea that their power handling/controlling limit is reached.
This is also why Yhwach can be comparable to Yama's Bankai while the Sternritter in base aren't comparable to the Bankai they stole. It's because Yhwach doesn't use a Vollständig, meaning his base is already at his max power in terms of how much Reishi he can manipulate and therefore represents how much power he can control, while with the Sternritter it's different.
In Summation:
The arguments for Arc's stance (Sternritter in base are comparable to Bankai) are all unquantifiable unknowns:
- The Shinigami got stronger to a completely unknown degree due to their training and that could be enough to make a relevant difference.
- The Shinigami's Bankai were temporarily partially hollowfied and amped to a completely unknown degree and that could be enough to make a relevant difference.
- The Sternritter were weakened to a completely unknown degree by the hollow energy from Urahara's pill and that could be enough to make a relevant difference.
The arguments for the opposing stance besides the anti-feats (Sternritter in base are not comparable to Bankai but likely are comparable in Vollständig) are all more definitive:
- Urahara, the smartest person in Soul Society's history, wouldn't want to hollowfy the captains to a relevant degree as in the past that has resulted in them initially becoming extremely unstable, which is something we know as a matter of fact.
- BG9 makes it clear that his base is enough to fight a weak Soifon, but he would have to use her Bankai to fight a strong Soifon. That is a clear dichotomy stated by the Sternritter himself.
- Sternritter can control power on a higher level than their base due to how their Vollständig is explained to work.
- Sternritter in base needing to be equal to a Bankai captain in order to steal the Bankai devaluates the entire point of stealing Bankai and would not give any tactical advantage that isn't gained by just going Vollständig instead.
