You know, for as hard as Bleach went? Fanns were still left a little conflicted with its climax. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great ending to a beloved series, but there are some questions that never really got answered properly. One of these involved Yhwach, who we were convinced was the ‘Big Bad’ of the entire story. But the problem was that Yhwach’s goals were just too vague and we never really learned why he did what he did. 

I mean, we know what Yhwach’s goals technically were. From the beginning, it was about killing the Soul King and replacing him in order to ‘destroy all world and death itself’. Which, okay? Perhaps it’s better to say that Yhwach wanted to achieve complete immortality, and one of the only ways he could do this was to take over the ‘Cycle Of Death’, creating a realm without it and therefore, being alive indefinitely. But then comes the question of what motivated him to do this at all. 

And fellow Bleach fans, that’s where things get a little more complicated. Bleach has always been a pretty cohesive story with a ton of worldbuilding and the character roster to go alongside it, but sometimes things did tend to get lost in translation. But Yhwach was always clear cut. I mean, the man is literally known as Shinigami Hater No. 1, and his origins tie him very closely to the Soul King. It’s only natural that he’d want to do something that hurts Soul Society where it matters. 

But still, Yhwach’s goals and his entire motivations for the things that transpired in the Thousand Year Blood War arc are still a little convoluted, according to a lot of fans. Some even went as far to say that his entire reasoning for being in the manga at all was ‘a waste of manga panels’, alluding to his supposedly underdeveloped characterisation. But I’d like to differ. So, in today’s Lore Analysis, let’s discuss Yhwach’s past events in order to understand his future goals.

Yhwach: Born As A Void Into Adoration

To understand Yhwach’s present, we need to take a closer look at his past. Yhwach was born to the Soul King, making him his son. How? Well, we don’t quite know. What we do know is that he was born from nothing, as nothing. He had no limbs, no appendages, no control of his senses nor the ability to speak. Hell, he didn’t even have a name. 

But despite his abnormal status, those around him quickly grew to adore every fiber of his being. Why? Because despite not having anything for himself, he did have an amazing power, which allowed him to grant his soul to anybody who was missing something themselves. Whether it be limbs or a personality, the son of the Soul King could help replace it by mere touch. 

But another thing was happening simultaneously. The more people touched the prodigal son, the more he grew himself. From an abstract being to an actual person, he grew a body similar to those around him and his own senses started developing too. That’s actually how he heard what people were calling him, and adopted it as his true name. This is where the Soul King’s son became a corporeal being, who became Yhwach.  

Yhwach’s Goals Are Immortality And Revenge

Okay, so how did the Soul King’s son go from being beloved by all, to wanting to kill his own father? Well, for that we need to understand the Soul King himself, and his relationship with Yhwach. After all, just like the Soul King, Yhwach also commands respect and adoration from a group of people that he has imbued with his Schrift aka the Quincies. It’s why Yhwach is referred to as the ‘Father Of Quincies’.

In a way, Yhwach is a very ‘pure’ being. He saw the Soul King as this all-encompassing entity, a deity that was supposed to be above corruption and wrong doings. The Soul King is equivalent to a God in Soul Society, so this makes sense. However, it turned out that as powerful as he was, a messiah to those tormented by the Hollows, he was causing an imbalance in the world order. And so, the Shinigami locked him away, with his body parts being dismembered and becoming their own independent beings. 

This was too much for Yhwach. The Shinigamis were responsible for this action against the Soul King, and it was called the ‘Original Sin Of Soul Society’. Yhwach thought it was unnatural to lock away a being of pure power, and took it upon himself to set him free. He decided to destroy the Shinigami, the ones that managed and mastered death, by creating a world where death wouldn’t exist at all, thus eliminating their need.

Yhwach’s goal is to free the Soul King from his binds and end those that put him in said cage in the first place. Thus his goal also became the ending of the three realms a.k.a Soul Society, Humanity and Hueco Mundo, and building a new realm from their ashes where death would cease to exist. 

Of course, all of that would result in a complete downfall of life as we know it. But for Yhwach, the sacrifice was worth it, as it would mean he would finally have what he had always wanted: Immortality and revenge against those who ruined his people. And in a way, he ended up achieving one of those goals. 

But thanks to Ichigo Kurosaki, our protagonist and his lineage of being human, Shinigami and Quincy, Yhwach was sealed off much like his father and became the new Soul King. Talk about poetic justice!