The Erosion of Trust and the Failure of Institutions in How Bad Things Can Get

The Thematic Claim

In How Bad Things Can Get, Darcy Coates builds a sustained argument that institutions—cults, corporations, the justice system, and the media—routinely sacrifice truth and safety for self-preservation. The novel traces how this institutional failure erodes trust at every level: between citizens and authorities, between employees and employers, and between intimate partners. When no institution can be relied upon to protect the vulnerable, individuals are left isolated, and violence escalates unchecked. The book's central claim is that negligence is not passive—it is an active choice that enables catastrophe.

The Historical Precedent: The Secret Door Movement

The novel grounds its theme in historical precedent through the story of the Secret Door Movement. Stephan Moore, a self-proclaimed High Priest with a history of fraud, built a following through cobbled-together religious teachings. When a follower died during a Peacekeeping Ceremony, police interviewed Moore and his wife Martha for approximately three hours—and released them. The following night, Moore fled the country with his most devoted followers, taking them to Prosperity Island.

The journal of Eleanor Beresford, one of the followers, documents what happened next. The community's initial euphoria collapsed within eleven days. A storm destroyed their shelters. Sickness spread. Food ran out. When six followers demanded they return to the mainland for help, the yacht was found consumed by fire—and Beresford's journal notes, with emphatic underlining, that Martha Moore wasn't involved in the argument. The community was stranded, and the journal's final entries describe deaths from starvation and the chilling question of what to do with the bodies.

This backstory establishes the novel's central pattern: authorities who fail to act decisively enable violence to escalate. The police had Moore in custody and released him. They had evidence of a suspicious death. Their failure to connect the dots allowed a cult to form, isolate itself, and descend into murder and cannibalism. The original Petition massacre—in which Ruth's family died from poisoned honey—was the direct result of this institutional failure.

Eton's Deliberate Negligence

The novel's present-day plot repeats this pattern with a modern twist. Eton, the island's wealthy owner and internet celebrity, confesses to Petra in Chapter 30 that he created the festival as a distraction. He had been involved with a girl who was nearly fifteen and feared the scandal would destroy his career. Rather than face consequences, he used Petra's own PR strategy—if bad news is about to break, create a distraction—to bury the story.

But Eton's negligence was not passive. He admits to Petra that he deliberately created dangerous conditions: he ignored her recommendation to appoint a safety officer, he announced the witch's grave when it was dark, and he told bar staff not to cut off drunk guests. When Petra asks if he wanted someone to get hurt, he doesn't respond. The festival was designed to produce a spectacle—and Eton was willing to let guests be harmed to achieve it.

Petra's role here is crucial. She is the institutional conscience who fails to act. She has spent her career cleaning up Eton's messes, and she taught him the distraction technique. When she learns the truth, she initially believes they can patch this and repair it. She is complicit through inaction—the same failure the police made with Stephan Moore decades earlier. The novel draws a direct parallel between the authorities who released Moore and the project manager who enables Eton.

Zach's Betrayal and the Failure of Protection

The erosion of trust extends to the novel's most intimate relationships. Zach, Ruth's boyfriend, has been secretly obsessed with Petition for years. His podcast Unmasking the Cult was entirely devoted to the subject. He applied for inquest transcripts to be unsealed, tracked down lawyers, and even visited the compound where the cult had lived. Most disturbingly, he found a caseworker named Leslie—whose identity was supposed to be protected—and spent months visiting her in a long-term care facility, prying information from a woman with Alzheimer's.

Ruth's realization in Chapter 34 is devastating: Zach gave away her identity in the submission form for Eton's festival. He traded her secret for four tickets. She understands that he was playing the long game—dating her, building her trust, waiting for the moment when she would voluntarily share her story. The institutions that should have protected Ruth—the courts that sealed the records, the caseworkers whose identities were supposed to be private—failed her. Zach exploited those failures.

This betrayal is particularly painful because Ruth had already been failed by institutions. She survived the Petition massacre as a child, hid under a table while her family died from poisoned honey, and spent her adult life trying to escape her past. The one person she trusted with her nightmares turned out to be mining her for material. The novel suggests that when institutions fail to protect the vulnerable, even the most personal relationships become suspect.

Symbols of Broken Trust

The novel's symbols reinforce this theme. The painted rocks distributed at the festival appear to be a random game mechanism, but Ruth realizes the selection was rigged—the booth attendant reached deep into the crate for her bag. The rocks symbolize how institutions manipulate outcomes while presenting them as fair. The honey that poisons the cult members in both the original Petition massacre and the present-day festival represents how trust can be weaponized: the substance that should nourish becomes the instrument of death. The lamb and the cannibal witch, recurring symbols throughout the novel, further suggest the tension between innocent appearances and the monstrous truths that institutions conceal.

The Collapse of Authority in Real Time

Chapter 37 shows the institutional failure happening in real time. When Ryan Sherman's body is displayed on stakes at the beach, the crowd initially assumes it's a prank. Guests look to Eton for reassurance—they still believe he is in control. But Eton is frozen, and Petra is powerless. The staff who were supposed to be under her control have been replaced by cult members. The emergency preparedness briefings were given to a team she no longer has authority over.

Eton's response is telling: he still thinks any problem can be solved with a conversation. He asks to chat with the staff member, believing he can make the world his friend. This is the ultimate failure of institutional thinking—the belief that charm and negotiation can fix what negligence has broken. The novel shows that institutions built on image management rather than genuine safety are hollow at their core.

The Aftermath: Institutions Continue to Fail

Chapter 52 presents a montage of media coverage following the massacre. The failures continue: police are only now investigating claims that Eton sent inappropriate messages to a minor in 2019—years after the fact. A VR game company apologizes for letting players experience the massacre. Internet sleuths spread misinformation about Ruth's involvement. DNA testing continues for unidentified remains, with one mother describing the pain of having no body to bury.

The media coverage itself becomes a form of institutional failure. Ruth, in her letter to Logan, notes that she found widespread misinformation online—fabricated survivor videos, conspiracy theories, and a false claim that she had spent her life in a psychiatric hospital. She believes media outlets would edit her interview to emphasize shocking details. Her solution is to share the mundane reality of commune life—Barom's drunken sermons, the daily labor of pulling weeds and skinning rabbits—in an unedited conversation with Logan. She wants to reclaim her story from the institutions that have distorted it.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel complicates its theme by showing that institutional failure is not always malicious. Petra genuinely believed she was helping Eton. The police who released Stephan Moore likely thought they were making a reasonable judgment. Zach's obsession with Petition was driven by a genuine need to understand cultural trauma—Carson notes that Zach couldn't accept Petition without first understanding it. The novel suggests that the desire for truth and the desire for exploitation are often indistinguishable.

Ruth herself perpetuates a false narrative. In Chapter 50, she confesses to Zach's body that she wasn't the true prophetic child—it was Barom's son. Mother Aama overheard her sightings and let authorities believe Ruth was special. Ruth never corrected them because she wanted to feel like her family had loved her. Even the survivor of institutional failure participates in the distortion of truth.

Study Questions

1. How does the novel use the Secret Door Movement backstory to establish its thematic claim about institutional failure? The backstory shows police releasing Stephan Moore despite evidence of a suspicious death, allowing him to flee with followers who eventually died from starvation and possible cannibalism. This establishes the pattern of authorities failing to act decisively, which repeats in the present-day plot.

2. In what ways is Eton's negligence active rather than passive? Eton deliberately ignored safety recommendations, announced the witch's grave in darkness, and instructed bar staff not to cut off drunk guests. He admits to Petra that he wanted someone to get hurt, making his negligence a calculated choice rather than an oversight.

3. How does Zach's betrayal of Ruth connect to the theme of institutional failure? Zach exploited failures in the system—unsealed records, unprotected caseworker identities, and the lack of oversight for a woman with Alzheimer's—to extract Ruth's secret. His personal betrayal is enabled by institutional failures that should have protected her.

4. What role does Petra play in the novel's critique of institutional complicity? Petra taught Eton the distraction technique and spent her career cleaning up his messes. When she learns the truth, she initially believes they can repair the damage. She represents the institutional conscience that fails to act, drawing a parallel to the police who released Stephan Moore.

5. How does Ruth's confession in Chapter 50 complicate the novel's treatment of truth? Ruth reveals she wasn't the true prophetic child and never corrected the authorities' false assumption because she wanted to feel loved. This shows that even survivors of institutional failure participate in distorting truth, complicating the novel's critique of institutions.