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In Tite Kubo's Bleach (the manga), what exactly was the Soul King? What was its function within the metaphysical arrangement of the Bleach world?

The Bleach wikia page says:

The Soul King is the king of Soul Society

Not really - it didn't rule soul society. Also, don't you have to be a person to be a king? Also, the same page says:

The Soul King is not involved in governing Soul Society, having given the full control of its government to the Central 46

It's not clear that the Soul King actually has actually "given" anything to anybody. Was it a proper king earlier, then? And is it an eternal entity, or some guy (well, spirit) which closed itself away?

The Soul King's sole purpose is to regulate the flow of souls into and out of Soul Society and keep the flow stable.

What does that mean? Is it controlling death and birth rates in the real world?

Without the Soul King, the balance is lost and everything that is linked to Soul Society or made in it, as well as the Dangai, Hueco Mundo and the Human World will fall apart

That's a rather vacuous statement, considering how strongly Aizen and Yhwach feel about the Soul King.

So what's the deal with that thing?

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Spoilers!

The Soul King is more of an "it" or a "thing". It is the glue that holds the dimensions of Bleach (Earth, Soul Society, Heuco Mundo) together. He/it is also a symbolic King.

The Soul King has the ability to regulate souls; I believe there was an episode where Rukia explained how the souls travel between the dimensions; She says something about if too many souls pile up in the Soul Society then the world will become unstable. So, I guess the Soul King does regulate how people are die and reincarnate; but it's never clearly stated AFAIK.

Without the Soul King; the worlds will fall apart, literally. The Soul King also used to rule but he/it had those responsibilities removed by the Soul Society somehow and Central 46 does the day to day governing. The Soul Society achieved this by placing the Soul King in a special barrier.

If memory serves, Aizen stated that he will take over all the worlds and the throne of heaven will be empty no longer. So, Aizen doesn't like the fact that the Soul King doesn't rule the universe anymore. Aizen feels he could do a better job.

Yhwach on the other hand, wants to kill the Soul King and recreate the 3 worlds as one. Life and death combined will create a world without fear, without conflict. This is standard super villain utopian nonsense.

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  • You're just repeating text that I essentially already quoted. That doesn't explain anything.
    – einpoklum
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 20:55
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Answers to this question are obviously SPOILERS.






According to this post on Reddit, explanations and context are given in other media - light novels.

An extremely short and terribly lacking summary:

  • The world used not to be split into the Human world, Hollow world (Hueco Mundo), Soul Society and the Precipice World (Dangai); there was just a single unified world.
  • In that world there was no death (?) and it was paradise-like in various aspects.
  • That original world had a god.
  • The ancestors of the Shinigami noble houses performed an "original sin" which involved splitting up body parts / powers of that and splitting the single world into its current configuration. They kept the husk of that old god and called it the Soul King.
  • The split state of the world depends on the stability of the Soul King as it is. (Although it may be possible to replace/fix it with Mimihagi.)
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