kennikitty said:
Wasn't Rukia basically saying she can't sense fear, becasue she's dead? However, didn't we already see her experiencing all kinds of different emotions, including fear of death and hopefor rescue, when she was held captive during the Soul Society arc?
In other words, all this stuff doesn't make any sense at all.
There are two kinds of 'death' in Bleach. The first one is when a human die, they lose their physical body and become a soul. That soul will either become a hollow or will be found by a Shinigami and send to Soul Society.
Once in Soul Society, souls that hold high enough spiritual presences will be recruited by the Shinigami school while those that don't will live in Rukongai until they are reincarnated into the real world.
The second kind of death is when the soul die. When the soul die is when the real 'death' happen. People's soul are similar to how they looked when they were alive, it's just that instead of being made with flesh the body is made with spirit particle. Basically although Rukia died a long time ago in the real world, only her body died but her soul still live on. As a soul she can express her feelings and live like any normal human can in the real world except she cannot impact the real world because she does not have a physical body.
Now when Rukia said that she was dead she meant her actual body and not her physical body that she lost when she died in the real world. Her soul isn't dead but the body made of spirit particle that she possesses is and therefore she cannot feel any emotion.
The mistake a lot of readers do is forget that there are two level of life in Bleach.
Physical - Human, animal, etc.
Spiritual - Soul (Hollow, Shinigami, etc.)
Dying in the physical realm (losing your physical body) isn't what we know as death. Death happens when you lose your spiritual body.
So yes obviously every Shinigami (with the exception of Ichigo) 'died' as they lost their physical body but they are still alive as soul. Rukia obviously never intended to say that she was 'dead' from a human standard view of point but rather that her actual body composed of spirit particle is in a dead state.