Originally posted by: masamuneehs
2. Hanatarou helps Ichigo and Ganju.
I never accepted Hanatarou's proclaimed reason for aiding them. I know that he's supposed to embody the 4th Division and their benevolent nature, but for the guy to go and betray the Gotei 13 for a person he's known for only a few weeks? At that point in the story there wasn't any real division in SS over the execution. Even Renji, who loves Rukia, wasn't yet ready to go against SS. People were like 'Yeah, I don't like it', but none of them were ready to go against it, not even Shunsui and Ukitake.
Hanatarou is a nobody. It's another matter for a captain or a vice-captain to rebel against the order than for a lowly relief squad's noname member. He probably didn't feel a huge sense of responsibility and loyality to the SS and Gotei 13, but much more for people like her captain, and then Rukia, and lastly Ichigo. If you don't see the whole big picture of how a large organization works, it's easy to just look at individual components and be awed by them.

As a meak and weak member of 4th squad Hanatarou probably had never achieved anything, yet now was filled with the urge to do something to save Rukia. And with Ichigo an opportunity was given. That need to do something overcame his fear of repercussions (maybe he trusted Unohana wouldn't kill him) and his questionable loyalty.

And other than that he simply existed to give the script writers better opportunities to write more realistic combats as there was somebody to fix up Ichigo. And also allow Ichigo to travel quickly through the SS without tedious fights at every corner, like you would have otherwise expected.

And those guard guys clearly were pushovers for two reasons: They looked like bullies and no real fighters would have been given such a boring job.