The Weaponization of a Traumatic Past in How Bad Things Can Get

Defining the Theme: Trauma as Leverage and Blueprint in How Bad Things Can Get

In Darcy Coates's How Bad Things Can Get, the central claim about trauma is that a survivor's past is never fully private. Ruth Phillips's childhood inside the Petition cult—and her survival of its massacre—becomes a resource that others mine for content, leverage, and control. The novel traces three distinct modes of weaponization: intimate exploitation (Zach's obsessive pursuit of Ruth's identity), ritual reenactment (the new cult's recreation of Petition's horrors), and public spectacle (Eton's festival and the media's aftermath). Each mode treats Ruth's history not as something to respect but as something to use, and the novel ultimately asks whether a traumatic past can ever be reclaimed once it has been turned into a weapon.

Zach: The Intimate Weaponization

The most devastating betrayal comes from Zach, Ruth's boyfriend, whose love masks a years-long campaign to uncover her identity. Through Carson and Hayleigh's confession in Chapter 32, Ruth learns that Zach ran a podcast called Unmasking the Cult, devoted entirely to Petition. He wanted to be the definitive voice on the subject, applying for unsealed inquest transcripts, tracking down lawyers who worked on the case, and even traveling to the demolished compound site with Carson and Hayleigh.

But Zach's obsession crossed into predation. He narrowed down the identity of Ruth's former caseworker, Leslie, by comparing inquest dates to an employment register. Leslie, who had Alzheimer's and lived in a long-term care facility, became his target. Carson describes how Zach would visit her, chat pleasantly, then pressure her for Ruth's name: Hey, remember that child from Petition? What happened to her, again? He brought Carson along once, hoping two people would apply more pressure, and continued visiting her alone afterward. He impersonated lawyers and law enforcement to obtain court records. He only stopped when threatened with legal action, and even then, Carson suspects he kept visiting Leslie.

The cruelty is layered. Leslie was the woman who fought for Ruth like she was fighting for her own child—the fierce legal guardian who secured Ruth's protections and stared down judges. Zach weaponized Leslie's vulnerability (her cognitive decline) to extract Ruth's identity, turning the one person who protected Ruth into a source of information against her. And he did it all while being Ruth's loving partner—the man who made her blueberry pancakes and stroked her hair after nightmares. The novel makes clear that the most intimate weaponization is also the most painful because it comes wrapped in affection.

The Cult: Recreating the Trauma as Ritual

The new cult on Prosperity Island doesn't just know about Petition—they recreate it. In Chapter 41, Ruth watches staff hang a victim and drain his blood into a tub, and she recognizes the ritual: It was Petition. The staff's game of hide-and-seek, the stakes with body parts on the beach, the poisoned honey—all of it mirrors the original massacre. The cult has studied Petition so thoroughly that they can reproduce its horrors with precision, forcing Ruth to relive her trauma in real time.

The island itself is the site of her nightmares; she recognizes it from her dreams before she even arrives. The cult's leader, Barry, fails to complete his final speech as the poison overwhelms him, just as Barom, the original leader, escaped the first poisoning by sealing himself in his room. Ruth, who had spit out the honey, walks through the carnage untouched—again. The second Petition destroys itself like the first, and Ruth survives again.

The most devastating moment comes in Chapter 50, when Ruth reveals the truth about her past: she wasn't the prophetic child. It was Barom's son. Mother Aama overheard Ruth's sightings and let authorities believe Ruth was special. Ruth never corrected the record because she wanted to feel like my family had loved me. Even if it was just pretend. The cult's mythology—the very thing that made Ruth famous—was built on a lie she chose to maintain. The weaponization of her past extends even to her own complicity in the false narrative.

Eton: The Distraction

Eton, the island's wealthy owner, weaponizes the island's dark history for a different purpose. In Chapter 30, he confesses to Petra that he dated a girl who was nearly fifteen—actually fourteen. When her parents threatened to go to the media, Eton decided to create a distraction: a massive festival on an island with a dark history (the cannibal witch, the cult). He deliberately avoided appointing a safety officer, announced the witch's grave at night, and told bar staff not to cut off drunk guests—all to ensure something dramatic would happen.

Eton's weaponization is different from Zach's and the cult's. He doesn't know Ruth's history; he doesn't care about Petition specifically. He simply recognizes that a festival with a horror theme would generate enough noise to drown out his scandal. The island's traumatic past becomes a marketing tool. When the cult takes over, Eton's distraction becomes a catastrophe, but his original intent was the same: use trauma as cover. Petra, who had used distraction techniques to mask old mistakes, realizes she never would have agreed to use it as cover for an actual crime—especially one involving a child.

The Media: The Public Weaponization

The final layer is the media's post-massacre exploitation. Chapter 52 presents a montage of coverage: a two-and-a-half-hour podcast episode, a model's memoir, internet sleuths linking Ruth to the cult, a Petition Child profile revealing her secret double life, a VR game about the massacre, conspiracy theories, fabricated survivor videos, and a false claim that she had spent her life in a psychiatric hospital. Ruth's trauma becomes content.

Ruth's response in Chapter 51 is telling. She writes to Logan about removing the filters that blocked mentions of Petition for most of her adult life. She finds misinformation and truth mixed together. She wants to share the mundane reality of commune life—Barom's drunken sermons, his contradictory teachings, abandoned projects, and the daily labor of pulling weeds and skinning rabbits. She proposes an unfiltered interview with Logan, the entire conversation shared without cuts or edits. This is her attempt to reclaim her narrative from those who would weaponize it.

Complexity and Contradiction

The theme contains a central contradiction: Ruth's trauma is weaponized by others, but she also participates in its weaponization. She maintains the false identity of the prophetic child because it gives her a sense of belonging. She tells Zach the truth only after he's dead, in the ocean thick with bodies. The novel suggests that the weaponization of trauma is not just something done to Ruth—it's something she perpetuates, however reluctantly.

There's also the question of intent. Zach's podcast began, perhaps, as a genuine attempt to understand a cultural trauma. Carson says, Maybe he felt like he needed to understand it? The line between understanding and exploitation is thin. Zach crossed it when he started pressuring Leslie, but the novel doesn't let us forget that his obsession began with something like empathy. Similarly, the media's fixation on Ruth is born half from trauma, half from morbid curiosity—a mixture that makes it impossible to cleanly separate genuine interest from exploitation.

Study Questions

1. How does Zach's podcast Unmasking the Cult represent the weaponization of trauma, and what specific actions cross the line from curiosity to exploitation?

Zach's podcast was devoted entirely to Petition, and he wanted to be the definitive voice on the subject. He applied for unsealed transcripts, visited the compound site, and tracked down Leslie, Ruth's former caseworker with Alzheimer's. He impersonated lawyers and law enforcement to obtain records and pressured Leslie for Ruth's name during visits to her care facility. The line is crossed when he targets a vulnerable person—Leslie—to extract information, using her cognitive decline as leverage.

1. How does the new cult on Prosperity Island weaponize Ruth's past?

The cult recreates the original Petition massacre in detail: the hanging and blood-draining rituals, the stakes with body parts, the poisoned honey. Ruth recognizes the island from her nightmares before she arrives, and in Chapter 41 she realizes It was Petition. The cult has studied the original massacre so thoroughly that they can reproduce its horrors, forcing Ruth to relive her trauma.

1. What role does Eton's confession to Petra play in the theme?

Eton admits he created the festival as a distraction from his relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl. He deliberately avoided appointing a safety officer, announced the witch's grave at night, and told bar staff not to cut off drunk guests—all to generate drama that would drown out his scandal. He weaponized the island's dark history as a marketing tool, showing how trauma can be used as cover for personal crimes.

1. How does Ruth's confession in Chapter 50 complicate the theme?

Ruth reveals 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 the record because she wanted to feel her family loved her. This shows that Ruth herself participated in the weaponization of her past, maintaining a false narrative for emotional reasons.

1. What is Ruth's strategy for reclaiming her narrative in Chapter 51?

Ruth proposes an unfiltered interview with Logan, the entire conversation shared without cuts or edits. She wants to share the mundane reality of commune life—Barom's drunken sermons, his contradictory teachings, the daily labor—rather than the shocking details the media would emphasize. She believes this will counter the misinformation and fabricated stories circulating online.