Warning: Spoilers for Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode #24Episode #24 of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War opened with a brand-new scene that was not present in the manga, offering viewers their first glimpse at Yhwach's true motives and his past, something that remained largely unexplored in the manga, giving fans yet another reason to watch this new anime adaptation.
Since Thousand-Year Blood War began, the Quincy king Yhwach has been a true enigma. He has been responsible for both the first and second assaults on the Soul Society, but his reasons for doing so haven't been entirely revealed. Given the genocide of the Quincy by the Soul Reapers several hundred years ago, revenge seemed like a solid motive at first, but considering how powerful Yhwach is, the story still hasn't explained how he was defeated and sealed in the past. Manga readers also know about Yhwach's mostly unexplained connection to the Soul King and were hoping to see these elements clarified in the new anime. The flashback at the start of episode #24 does just that.
Yhwach Wants To Return The World Of Bleach To Its Original State
The first scene of episode #24 of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is set in the distant past, before the first war with the Quincy that took place 1,000 years before current events. It begins with Ichibe Hyosube, the current leader of Squad 0, offering a non-aggression pact to the Quincy king Yhwach, who however refuses the offer, seeing it as a deception. He then questions Ichibe on the state of the world: how did it come to be separated into three realms, and who introduced the concept of death? Yhwach clearly resents the state of existence as it stands, and hopes to return things to the way they once were: a primordial world where the Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, and the World of the Living are all ed as one, with no distinction between life and death.
Yhwach also refers for the first time to the Soul King as his father here and seems to resent the condition the Soul King is kept in, with his body parts separated from him. There's an implication that the Soul King's body and the separation of the world into the three realms are somehow connected, but while Yhwach has the truth revealed to him by Ichibe's hand (which is actually the Soul King's), the audience merely gets flashes of images. Yhwach seizes the hand, but at a price, seemingly sealing his own divine power. This actually offers an explanation as to how Yamamoto defeated Yhwach 1,000 years ago - as the Quincy King wasn't wielding the Almighty at the time - while in the present the Soul Reaper commander was easily defeated.
Bleach Explains How Yhwach Was Defeated In The Past
Yhwach's motivations actually make some sense now; this information wasn't really revealed in the manga until much later, and in a very hasty way that left many questions unanswered. The whole history of the Quincy was mostly an enigma, as well as the nature of the Soul King and his connection to Yhwach. Revealing Yhwach's past and his true goals at this point of the story surely helps the narrative, and it also makes clear that, despite all the evil he has done, Yhwach is not a one-dimensional character. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has done a great job until now in clarifying and expanding some aspects of the story that remained sketched in the manga, and this new flashback helps fans understand Yhwach and the history of the Bleach world a lot better.
