Well, thank goodness Tumblr is back to normal today, so I can tell you about another stupid thing from the Bount Arc that lies at the exact intersection of two of my Bleach special interests: telecom and Things That Are the Lieutenant's Job.
This is from episode #99: everyone has just finished running around from '''Renji's place''' up to Kusajishi and back down to the Seireitei again inside of three episodes. It's about time for the infamous captains' meeting where Kurotsuchi tries to throw Hitsugaya under the bus to distract from the fact that most of this is actually his own fault. Then the wildest thing happens: a hell butterfly shows up with the meeting notice, perches on Matsumoto's hand, and she proceeds to recite the message out loud to Hitsugaya, even though it's clearly for him.
This felt weird enough, but then they cut to Soi Fon, who is having her own butterfly read aloud to her by one of her ninja.
What the heckin' heck? What is the purpose of this???
The first thing that came to mind for me is that I wonder if it's possible to attach the shinigami equivalent of a computer virus to a hell butterfly; that receiving the message requires connecting to it in someway that opens a vulnerability to say, a Trojan kidou. It's just general protocol for a subordinate to receive an unexpected butterfly, especially when an emergency has been declared. There could be a similar explanation for why lieutenants open senkaimon for their captains.
I suppose this could also be why lieutenants always do tenteikura, but that feels more tenuous to me. The caster initiates tenteikura, it's a send rather than a receive. Maybe they're tapping into some persitant network of ley lines or something that could presumably be compromised. It feels like a stretch.
The other explanation is even stupider but it amused me, so I'm going to write it out anyway. Gotei captains are just stupidly powerful compared to everyone else in Soul Society, and also they tend to be Entire Personalities. It's honestly kind of hard to put any kind of checks and balances against them, and the best the Gotei could come up with is to set up their network permissions so they can't check their own email or open doors to other dimensions. This is obviously nonsense; we have seen captains receive hell butterflies many times. But! This would also explain one of my favorite Mysterious Early Bleach panels:
Why would he care?! Whether they have their adjutants with them or not!!?! Especially rich, considering Zaraki is the one captain you almost never see without his lieutenant (except this particular time). Lieutenants often feel like some sort of sidekicks, but maybe they're really tools of the administration meant to keep captains from getting into too much trouble.
