Aahana Swrup
‘Exploding Kittens,’ the animated comedy show, presents the story of an unconventional, catty battle between heavenly good and hellish evil. As God’s negligence toward his creation grows, Heaven’s board comes to a decision to banish him to Earth so that he can work on his empathy. Thus, God finds himself assigned to fulfill one human’s drunken wish to save her dysfunctional family— while he’s forced to remain confined in the body of a cat. Worse yet, as God-cat attempts to save the Higgins family from drifting apart, another entity— Beelzebub, the CEO of Hell, also arrives on Earth, stuck in a similar situation as her feline nemesis.
Consequently, the leaders of Heaven and hell’s attempts to influence the same human family to different ends stoke the fires of their rivalry. However, as God-cat and Beelzebub’s time on earth stretches on, a different plot seems to be afoot in their respective homelands, carrying grave implications for the real reason behind their exiles. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Board’s Ploy to Kick God Out of Heaven
Initially, when the board of Heaven floats the idea of God’s exile on Earth, it appears as if the realm is simply sick of their CEO’s consistent dereliction of his duty and hedonistic utilization of his powers. Since his glory days, God has all but given up on maintaining control over his creation and eschews his leadership role over Heaven. As a result, one of his latest stints almost burned down a chunk of the realm— causing great destruction, including the accidental annihilation of unicorns. Consequently, Cherubs Aslaneus and Craig, along with the rest of the board members, inform their leader that until he regains his sense of empathy, he can’t take back his Almighty position.
The path towards achieving the same starts with performing the most basic of his duties— answering prayers. For the same reason, the cherubs pick out the first prayer they can find of Abbie Higgins asking God to save her family and banish their boss to Earth. Of course, the catch remains that he must now take the form of a cat rather than retain his godly body. They believe that by surrounding himself with his creation, God-cat would be able to understand humans better and work towards their benefits. Although the logic remains relatively sound, Heaven’s actions seem rushed and desperate enough to suggest they’re really only off-boarding God to get rid of him long enough to get their affairs back in order, away from his careless rule.
Nonetheless, God-cat remains steadfast in his mission to bring the Higgins together regardless of their protests. Eventually, he finds a way for Abbie, her husband, Marv, and their kids, Greta and Travis, to bond through a magical board game with fatalistic stakes. Even so, Aslaneus and Craig inform him that Heaven has extended God’s stay on Earth. Furthermore, the arrival of his rival, Beelzebub, whose board stole Heaven’s idea and sent their own incompetent CEO to Earth to make her more evil, also poses a convenient distraction that makes God-cat forget about his realm. Nonetheless, Heaven and Hell’s true conspiratorial intentions come out in the open after Beelzebub spots her demonic advisor scheming with God-cat’s heavenly cherubs.
Heaven and Hell’s Joint Venture
God-cat and Beelzebub develop a frenemy relationship during their time on Earth due to their complimentary personalities but antithetical missions. Therefore, the latter learns about the real reason behind their banishments; she decides to take advantage of the situation and selfishly keeps it a secret. As it would turn out, the two entities’ simultaneous arrival on Earth wasn’t a coincidence. While Heaven was sick of God’s devil-may-care attitude, Hell struggled with coaxing truly evil ideas of their previous leader’s daughter. Therefore, both realms decided to collaborate in secret and combine their worlds to have one joint afterlife for humans.
However, doing so would require them to fire either God or Beelzebub from their CEO positions to establish one leader. Furthermore, they expected considerable pushback from both parties about their decision. As such, Heaven came up with the idea to exile God under the ruse of their concern for humanity. In turn, Hell follows in their footsteps. In actuality, neither of the realms cares about their current relationship with humanity and simply wants to change the power structures around their establishments. After God or Beelzebub finds out about the same, they decide not to fight the new change and agree to participate in a competition to determine the leader of the joined realms. However, it is only after the brutal competition that Heaven and Hell reveal their true intentions.
Humanity’s Ultimate Destruction
In tune with their penchant for secrets, Heaven and Hell reveal one final truth after the God Games end, and God becomes the new leader of the two realms. So far, the general perception had been that the merger was a result of issues with the relocation of soul. However, it was only a lie fed to the two entities to bring them to the finishing line. Heaven and Hell’s true motives actually lie in the complete annihilation of humanity. The demonic beings and angelic creatures both believe that since God’s negligence of the humans, the species has become more trouble than they are worth.
As such, they want their new CEO— God— to commence the destruction of humanity to bring about a new age. Heaven and Hell believe that starting over would be the best bet for everyone involved. Therefore, once God refuses to follow their wishes, they force him out of his position and hand it to Beelzebub. Ultimately, she tricks them into believing she’s on their side to catch the board members off guard and incinerate them to pieces. Just as God’s time on Earth changed his perception of humanity, so did the Devil’s understanding of the species. Thus, while Heaven and Hell had exiled their leaders to Earth to ensure they could destroy humankind, the same decision ends up becoming the catalyst for their survival as God and Beelzebub fight the cosmic forces to save their beloved humans.
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