>>279678074 (OP)
Read Nietzsche and Jung to grasp this. Both will give you 2 different views of self-actualisation which Ichigo's (inner world) journey represents.
The Jungian reading would be
king=consciousness;
horse=the subconscious, and I'd rather avoid getting further into this as another anon already did indepth.
>>279682710
In a Nietzschean reading, Ichigo is becoming the Ubermensch through his inner journey, or rather, as he's already one, he needs to accept it and embrace different parts of his soul and thus find and accept his own values. As he does, he starts enforcing and manifesting those values upon the world, changing it to shape his vision. At first it seems pretty basic as his "vision" boils down to "Tasukete/Omamoru", however despite seemingly being the "pawn" in centuries old schemes and plans, Ichigo is actually the original agent of change and the point of them going off rails. It's not really conveyed the best in the story, but it is often brought up how much Ichigo changed the Soul Society with his actions. That's also why his main antagonist and motif through most fights is despair/overcoming despair. It's the absolute refusal and rebellion against the meaningless, forcing the world to yield to your ideals and forcing meaning upon it. Ichigo fucking kills the personification of nihilism(Ulquiorra) which is as Thus spoke Zarathustra as you can get in an anime format!
You could also argue that the fact Ichigo goes through the more or less same character arc again and again throughout the entire story is a brilliant idea by Kubo thus referencing Nietzsche's idea of the eternal recurrence but that's stretching this whole thing too far as we must remember he is both a hack and a genius, which makes him that much more interesting to armchair-analyse.
