#adnyeus

Putting aside Yhwach’s villainy and heinous acts. He really is the world’s first and biggest victim.

His personality and actions become more and more understandable (not excusable) the more you dig into his backstory.

Because he has been victimized again and again by world and the shinigami in power for as long as the 3 worlds have existed.

I’ve joked in the past that Adnyeus lowkey dgaf about his son but the more info we get the more it feels like the truth.

Think about it, Yhwach was stripped of his mind, his memories (for a time), his body, his powers but most importantly the world he knew and understood (the world he was seemingly raised in).

All without a single explanation or look from his parent. (Honestly it is no wonder why he treats his “children” like he does if that was the example Adnyeus gave him)

Then he was trapped in a body that was unable to move or speak for who knows how long until people found him and began to use him to cure their ailments (and isn’t it at least a bit sad? That Yhwach was used for what he could provide since he was a baby?)

Only to then find out he could only keep a functional body and mind by KILLING, a concept that didn’t even exist in his previous world. Can you imagine the toll it must take on someone? To know your continued existence in a body that can move depends on killing the people that came to you for help?

It is no wonder he is so desensitized to the murder of his own people by the time we see him in TYBW.

Personally, I lowkey don’t begrudge Yhwach his absolute hatred and abhorrence of Ichibei. Because (correct me if I am wrong) all his tragedies and pain can be traced one way or another to the monk.

Even after all that, he was to reckon with the fact there is not place for him and his people in the new worlds. They don’t fit in, and it is not a simple mistake. The world was CREATED in such a way they would never fit in. By his father and the shinigami.

It is no wonder he hates them so much his hated poured down to his people.

Not to mention he feels everything from the souls he absorbs. Their pain, their joys, their fears, etc. (So he wasn’t only stuck with a shitty ability he was forever stuck living with the fears of an entire nation lodged in his soul)

Again and again he gets screwed over not by coincidences or unpredictable strikes of fate, but by a carefully calculated and curated design created by forces beyond him (Adnyeus, The Noble Houses, Ichibei)

And then Ichibei has the gall to come down and scold and demean Yhwach because the Quincy are killing hollows as if he didn’t have a hand in creating the world as is. As if he didn’t play a hand in creating the problem he was now scolding Yhwach for.

Then he uses Yhwach’s father’s mutilated arm to seal Yhwach’s greatest power. Leaving essentially crippled in a way, because the Allmighty is not just a cool power, it is a part of his soul.

All of this is not even mentioning the OG Blood War.

Is this whole post me saying Yhwach is a saint who has done nothing wrong ever? Absolutely no. But people are complex. Some can be both a victim and a perpetrator. Which is precisely what Yhwach is.

So the soul king has an actual name now and it's apparently Adnyeus(?*)[アドナイェウス] which at a glance I thought was some kind of weird mashup of Hebrew Adonai[אֲדֹנָי] and Latin deus as a kind of play on Yhwach's name being based on the tetragrammaton. But actually it's just the name Aidoneus[Ἀϊδωνεύς] which was an old epithet for the Greek Hades, supposedly meaning "The Unseen" which somewhat superficially fits for the Soul King as a king of the dead/underworld.

*(I have no idea where anyone is getting these romanizations I see flying around...)

It's actually not the first time the name has come up. some eagle eyed fans caught that what appears to be "ADNYEUS" was shown back in episode 6 of TYBW in Ryuuken's notes, above the illustration of the castle Silbern. And then at the end of the previous season the anime added a chant to Yhwach's Auswählen that ran:

Kakageyo Gin no Monshou, Haiiro no Sougen, Hikari ni Uzumoreta, Enkan no Michi, Menou no Gankyu, Ougon no Shita, Zugai no Sakazuki, ADNYEUS no Hitsugi. Kakageru mono wa, Omae no Shinzou: AUSWÄHLEN [掲げよ 銀の紋章 灰色の草原 光に埋もれた円環の途 瑪瑙の眼球 黄金の舌 頭蓋の盃 アドナイェウスの棺 掲げるものは お前の心臓 聖別(アウスヴェーレン)] "Raise up Crest of Silver, Ash-colored(gray) Meadow, Circular Road hidden in (the) Light, Eye(s) of Agate, Tongue of Gold, Grail* of Skull, Coffin of Adnyeus. That which is Raised up is Your Heart: Auswählen."

*notably in one of Uryuu's German chants, the Japanese word for a [杯]:"sake cup" was paired with the German word Gral:"Grail", and [盃] and [杯] are alternate kanji for the same word. At the most literal the chant in Japanese just uses the word for "sake cup" like the one he uses for the schrift eucharist, but I feel like the more implicitly western imagery evoked by "skull Grail" or maybe "...chalice" is more in line with the ongoing aesthetic of Quincy spells

I'm not actually in a position to go doing a real deep dive on this but it does seem like at a glance there are associations with that alternate title with a specific incongruous variation of the god of the underworld--that is to say: characterizations of him under this epithets are not consistent with other more common interpretstions-- where he's actually got a lot of strong sun iconography. This of course maps almost perfectly with a bunch of stuff I've ranted on about a few different times in my Bleach ramblings.

Incidentally it is also the scientific namesake of the Papilio aidoneus... a black butterfly... In the first place Bleach's hell-butterflies were already a play on the real world association of butterflies and death, often either as psychopomps or themselves the souls of the dead. That they tie back in to the Soul King himself isn't too big a stretch.

As for this "triplet world" thing... We were already told that Hueco Mundo isn't actually it's own formal realm, it's the interstitial realm that just naturally exists in the space between one world and the next. So it kinda annoys me that this feels like it's really only being acknowledged because after the fact it's just where a big chunk of Bleach's plot happened, rather than actually being cosmologically on par with the other two.

Anyway the translations going around I notice are a little sloppy, mostly in that a few are clearly just machine translated and so ignored the use of Bleach specific terminology, like "reishi" and "kishi" so here's my quick breakdown of it (thank god it's short...)

原初の海から分かたれた尸魂界,現世, 虚圏の三つの世界。 The Three Worlds of Soul Society, This (the mortal) World, Hueco Mundo divided* from the Sea of Origin. 遍く魂魄の流れを司る礎であり, かつ世界の楔たる存在によって, The universal flow of spirits is the foundation to control, as well as the lynchpin of the world which is due to existence, 霊子の世界,器子の世界,砂の楽土の三世界が分離され, the Three Worlds of The World of Reishi, The World of Kishi, The Paradise of Sand are detached*, 『生』と『死』が隔てられた。 "Life" and "Death" were isolated*.

*so interestingly all three of these different words could be translated into english as "separated" but seem to be fairly distinct contextual differences: the first means like cutting one big thing up into smaller things the "A came from B" dynamic being the focus, the second means to be separated out almost like being categorized, and the third is to be isolated or alienated.

So first it's saying the three worlds came from one sea of origin, and that the flow of spirits between those three worlds is the key to existence being what it is, which is to say three distinct realms where death and life are these things that can never coexist. All of which is stuff we really already knew.

Also we're supposed to have just completely forgotten about Hell since it's not the current plot line, I guess? If anything the Three Worlds should be Soul Society, the Material World, and Hell, with Hueco Mundo as the interstitial void/aether, like it was originally defined as. That would at least map more sensibly onto the buddhist 3 realms of

Form(Humans & animals: those bound by their physicality)

Formless(Deva & Asura: those who exist in a hightened mental/spiritual state)

Desire(Preta & those in Hell: those defined by their strong need for what they lack)

Maybe that only real point of interest is the reference to Hueco Mundo as suna no rakudo[砂の楽土], a "paradise of sand." In this voice I think the idea is that if life and death being separate realms is a bad thing that Yhwach seeks to rectify, then by being an inbetween realm, Hueco Mundo is a paradise, because it's a place of neither life nor death? But if it is a place of rest and comfort then I wonder if that doesn't validate my thoughts on the Vastolorde being the natural path of development for a soul in reincarnation afterall?

With the anime expanded the story I am hoping we get more from Chad, especially with the reveal of Fullbringers' powers come from the Soul King. I think his Right Arm of the Giant and Left Arm of the Devil are allusions to the Soul King's left arm and right arm.

I was surprised that Chad's Object Affinity was his skin. While I loved the sentiment.

I assumed it would be the Mexican coin his grandpa gave him. It seems like it was the inspiration for his tattoo. I always found them interesting because it symbolizes duality which ties back to the Soul King.

In the incantation of Auswahlen Yhwach mentions the name Adnyeus. I think he is Adnyeus and that he was a Shinigami in his previous life.

I think there could be a twist to the Quincy origin similar to hollows being humans. I think there are hints.

I think the Sokyoku was Adnyeus zanpakuto.

I believe it is based on the Ame-no-Nuboko from Shinto religion which was used to create the first land mass. The Soul King created the three worlds and Yhwach's connected to him.

The Sokyoku's true form is a gigantic firebird named Kikōō.

The guard on Yhwach's sword is shape like a bird which I think is a hint at a connection. I think it could relate to augury which is observing birds to tell the future which I think relates to the Almighty.

I think Yhwach was a Shinigami that was born with a Soul King fragment and I think made him a Soul King candidate.

I think Adnyeus went through the  Irazu Sandō ceremony and died reincarnating into a Quincy.

Yhwach has powers that are similar to Shinigami which I think is a hint to his past life. Yhwach is the sole Quincy with the opposite power to the Quincy the power to share his soul.

Which is reminiscent of the Quincy and Shinigami having opposite powers.

Haschwalth is Yhwach's other half which to me is similar to the Shinigami relationship with their Zanpakuto.

Haschwalth's Schrift is The Balance.

I decided to make 2 versions, with and without translation.

Well, I hope you like it.

Ну надеюсь что вам понравится

(And yes is Adnyeus