Quote Originally Posted by Kraco
They aren't dead... The real shinigami are souls in the SS. Who knows, when the high reiatsu quincies died, they might have still had those powers as souls, and some might have become shinigami.
I see what you're saying but when the Ichigo bunch went to SS to save Rukiaa a portal/gate separated their souls from their bodies to let their souls enter SS. So I would call them practically dead and no one of them (except Ichigo of course) turned into a shinigami in SS...