Bleach Hell Realm

[Knyght]

Rather than a specific story idea, this is a thread for any ideas concerning Hell in the Bleachverse. The realm that hasn't been explored in the manga at all and quite possibly never will. All we've got is a movie which apparently even Kubo didn't like and a promotional side story that may or may not be canon.

Everything we know for definite on the subject is that someone who sinned in life is sent to Hell through this gate:

So here's where you throw down any ideas you have on the subject: What kind of actions will get you sent to Hell? What kind of beings exist there? What happens to the humans? Why would our protags end up there? What is Hell like? What kind of stories would involve this realm? Etc, etc.

 

[Knyght]

Wow, look at that tumbleweed go.

Nevertheless, I shall continue my endeavors to inspire TFF. Idea time!

- Hell is a dimension of imprisonment and punishment; literally a prison in the form of an entire world. Whilst entering the dimension is relatively easy to those with the right know-how, escaping is impossible. The only way to leave is by passing through every 'stage' of the realm just like every other sinner.

- Hell is a part of the natural cycle that governs the souls within the four realms. Souls that have sinned are sent to Hell to be punished and the length of their punishment is proportional to the severity of their sins. Once they have lived out their sentence, the souls are sent to the Human World to live out the next life.

- Hell experiences time at a far faster rate than the other realms which are all more-or-less equal. It's a by-product of the dimension's entire purpose; for every second that passes in the other worlds, an hour/day/whatever of torment passes for the sinners in Hell. It also helps to keep the balance as the souls can suffer through incredibly long sentences and return to the main cycle without severely impacting it.

- Within Hell, sinners are immortal. Their lives are bound to the realm itself so that they heal from any injury inflict upon them. They also cannot sleep and the only sensation their body can truly feel is pain.

- The Sanzu River runs through every section of Hell and is the current that drags the sinners to the next stage of their torment.

 

[~NGD OMEGA~]

Hell is an utterly untouched concept, thus trying to nail down specific rules is futile since it could basically be anything with little issue. Souls could eventually be released by serving out their sentences, or their punishment could be eternal. And so on and so forth.

I mean the really interesting thing about hell would be how demons work/are created. Maybe the punished sinners eventually become monsters themselves, eternally suffering and being driven mad by their torment, or it's a completely separate breed itself, created and empowered via the emotions of those suffering but not actually humans themselves.

Hell, maybe it's a bit of both, and the distinction comes between those corrupted humans who are driven mad and become the chaotic 'demons' and the much more intelligent and generally more powerful 'Devils' who actually rule over the realm and keep things under a sense of order. Basically the distinction between Chaotic and Lawful evil. I believe Planescape does something along those lines, though I'd need to look into it to be sure.

 

[Knyght]

To be honest, I'm just going with whatever sounds most interesting and could provide good story potential. Hell being an open book may mean that you've got no guidelines to follow but it leaves a lot to the imagination.

I considered the human-turned-demon angle but I was thinking that that means they've changed roles and are doing the punishing instead of being punished. In some ways, it could be preferable to carrying on their sentences. Maybe becoming one of them means you're stuck down their forever instead of living out your sentence so there's no hope of salvation. Or maybe becoming a demon is an "It Gets Worse" scenario where they actually suffer more than they would as just a sinner just by existing.

 

[~NGD OMEGA~]

True, but then preference comes to the table. Who prefers what concept could easily vary, hence the story possibilities continue to be open for interpretation.

For example, one of the big things as I recall in that Dante's Inferno game was that once you get to the lower rungs of hell, you realize that all the previous ones were actually the bodies of giant titans, meaning hell itself is a prison in its entirety, with the original prisoners serving as the actual prison grounds for everything else. Whether or not such a horrifying scale appeals to the individual could vary to say the least.

Another possibility is the reuse of the hell chains, probably one of the more interesting aspects of the movie, the souls are literally bound eternally to hell. I'll openly admit this particular concept I find very intriguing, corrupting and enforcing the original chain of fate to binds souls to hell instead.

Also yeah, the corruption concept was meant to be even worse than the original torment. With the 'Demons' and 'Devils' idea the concept is that the devil torment the humans until they succumb to the nature of hell and become demons, which makes their suffering all the worse. The reason so few 'Demons' retain any intelligence at all is because the mere act of existing is agony to them, hence most are usually driven mad from the start.
[hr]
Also did they fix the smilies. :huh:

It seems they did. :snigger:

 

[Knyght]

The hell chains were what I had in mind for binding the sinners' lives to Hell. It was the only part of the world building involved that looked interesting.

Though it's a little strange considering that any sinner who was originally a hollow would already lost their chain of fate. That could end up leading to there being a significant difference between the two groups i.e. those who go hell with their chain and those who go there without.

Edit: And that reminds me that I need to watch the One Piece in Hell movie.

 

[~NGD OMEGA~]

I assumed that was what the giant stabbing was force, to bring them down and attach a new chain of fate that binds them eternally to hell, and what not.

Also they didn't really go to hell in One Piece, though it certainly felt like it. That one movie was horrifying on so many levels. It's the oh god why in their list of movie excursions. Basically what happened was they found this resort island that was more than it appeared in so many wrong ways.

 

[Knyght]

Close enough. ^_^

Some story openings:

1) Ichigo and the gang are finishing one of their nightly clean-up of the town. The last Hollow they're dealing with is a particularly tricky bastard and when they finally get him cornered and killed, they discover that he's a sinner with a one-way ticket to Hell. Cue the Gates of Hell appearing and yanking him in. Only this time the Gates don't close and before they know it, the gang finds themselves bound in chains and dragged through the doors.

So the opposite of the standard fare of breaking into another dimension to rescue someone, this time they've gotta break out to save themselves. The result of a cosmic fuck up? Or does someone or something want those powerful humans down in Hell?

2) Soul Society's starts detecting an anomaly with the souls when their appears to be an increased trend in the number of souls being sent to Hell. It's assumed that it's just a sign of humanity getting worse until the number starts rising at an unnatural rate without any known cause. It doesn't take long before they discover that every soul is being sent to Hell and they've got a potential apocalypse on their hands. So they decide to send a group to investigate what's happening in Hell.

Only way I can see this immediately involving Ichigo is that denizens of Soul Society and Hueco Mundo are incapable of entering Hell. Something that's never been a problem before they had no reason to. But now they have to get in there so they're forced to rely on the only people who can; the humans from Karakura Town.

Though that does mean that it's unlikely the Shinigami are going to show up, unless they figure out a way to access Hell themselves which seems plausible. Cue Big Damn Heroes moment.


To lessen the overall number of OCs, you could probably borrow from the side story by having the Arrancars appear. Only I wouldn't do it exactly like it shown there. Personally, I'd make so that dominant soul of the Arrancar is the only one sent to Hell whilst the other souls that composed them get to move on. The reason being their ascension to Vasto Lorde/Arrancar which saved them from regression and hunger but damned them as well. They wouldn't be Arrancar anymore but would still be empowered souls with abilities that are influenced by their former selves. And while it's probably too soon to do it justice, the Vandenreich could be used for an alternate Quincy arc.

 

[grant]

Well there was that movie... but I prefer to generally ignore 95% of Bleach movies.

Suggesting that we avoid 'Hell characters are so great and sexy and cool'. This is Hell. Even if it's a mix of Yomi and Hell, it's still clearly shown to not be a nice place.
Maybe, considering its shown connection with Earth, the people in charge have a contradictory hateful yet loving obsession with humans. Whenever they encounter a human, hollow or shinigami they try to keep them safe but at the same time are trying to make them do something wrong so they can have an excuse to keep them forever. Sorta like Ulquiorra but without that 'oh, now I can see your heart' thing at the end.

For ways to put them in a story, maybe some of their agents gave in a bit too much to their obsession and they've been following humans around, attracting the attention of SS?
Other idea. The alteration of creatures known as shinigamification or hollowification is a horrible alteration to what (in the denizens of Hell's eyes) is the natural state of a soul, either human/spirit (depending on whether they're living or dead), shinigami or hollow. So many happening so soon pushes the rulers to act. This idea seems a bit limited, so you might want to combine it with something else.
Similar to above, Hell's opinions on souls mean that Kon (preferably the Kon of the early Bleach and not the one who can only think about girls) gets chased by someone and Ichigo is trying to protect him.

Possible theme (if the writer thinks they can do it without seeming preachy) is how much standards have changed and how Hell might differ from humans, shinigami and hollows in what is supposed to be a sin.

 

[~NGD OMEGA~]

Like I said, how you integrate it in your story ultimately depends on how you want to spin the entire concept itself.

For example, one of the concepts I was spinning in my head for a while was to initially start off with a sort of entry arc to sort of ease into the concept. The intial threat is not at first the actual beings from hell, but those connected to them. Possibly another variant on empowered humans, mayhaps seeking other empowered humans to in some way boost their own potential or some other means. Either going into a Demon Possession to gain power sort of deal or a Demon Summoner route.

The later actually appealed more, though you could possibly spin both in a similar direction depending on how you set up the rules for how the powers worked. For the Demon Summoner route, perhaps set it up such that the more they start asking of their summons, the more they must 'give back' in return. Which naturally leads them to needing to track down other empowered humans to give them in order to keep their contracts without losing their own lives in the process. You could spin demon possessed in a similar fashion (hell, it's even possible to blend the two concepts together and just have it be a more potent version of demon summoning).

Use that as the initial framework the spark the first confrontations, and then put the big wrench in things to really set an actual 'Invading/Escaping Hell' plot rolling. Multiple ways to go about this too in fact. The first, and more contrived choice admittedly is to have some personal element to it. Maybe you have one of the summoned demons recognize one of the group in some way. Spin it off Chad's Right arm of the Devil, maybe go into the Chad's Grandfather plot that I've been dying for.

Another potential route that I had was a demon recognized Zangetsu from a long past fight thanks to the reincarnation concept. Which lead to his interest in Ichigo, constantly breaking out personally to try and entice a fight until he finally has enough and goes full in to stop this guy once and for all before someone else gets hurt as he tries to force him to fight.

Lately though probably the most interesting route is actually the Demon Mark concept. Similar to what I've heard Berserk uses in some fashion (Though admittedly I'm not terribly familiar with that series so I may be confusing something horribly), perhaps in the initial arc with Demon Summoners, though the group wins and manages to drive them off the demon summoners do succeed in phase one of their plan and engraves the members of the group with a demonic mark somewhere on their body. Not a curse specifically to the user in and of it self, it doesn't really affect their powers or has them become part demonic now*.

No instead the function if this mark is that allows demonic beings to continually break through from hell into their general area to attack them, basically making them living bait for hellspawn and in turn constantly put everyone around them in constant danger. Were that not bad enough, the only means for removing this mark exists deep in hell itself, where the vast majority of the creatures that desperately want to eat them now reside.


*Edit: Though this being said, you can again spin this multiple ways. Maybe Ichigo is the only one marked, and the rules are a bit different and instead it significantly weakens the one engraved and in turn makes it supremely difficult for them to use their powers effectively. Meaning he's now desperate and really needs the rest of the group to pull their own weight or they'll get destroyed. Maybe only those who have been marked can pass through the barrier to hell at all, meaning they can't get shinigami support here. Hell maybe the mark slowly drags the person into hell and the only way to stop it is to kill the demon who engraved it before the person eventually becomes a fallen soul, unable to ever escape from hell.

Lots of ways to spin it to service the plot, and in turn a lot of fun ways to develop the rather simple idea of a Demonic Mark being the plot device to have them go to hell, rather than another rescue arc or random adventure for the lulz.

 

[Knyght]

Heh. Demon stalkers.

In Berserk, those brands are a sacrificial mark and bearing them causes Guts to be continually hunted by evil spirits that appear at night. It also hurts like a bitch in their presence.

 

[~NGD OMEGA~]

Yeah, about what I remembered when someone went into a brief overview of what happened. Seems like a really good means to force them to search even in Hell for a means of removing it, and depending how you spin it can really make the story go in a lot of interesting directions.