Derry's Deception: What Stephen King's 'It' Teaches Us About Ignoring Today's Monsters

Dismissing a current problem with a vague promise that 'it will get better' is a common but destructive logical fallacy. As the haunted town of Derry, Maine, reminds us, some monsters don't fade with time; they just wait for us to forget they're still there.

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The Derry Contract

In Stephen King’s epic of cosmic horror, It, the town of Derry, Maine, is built on this very premise. Every 27 years, a shapeshifting entity emerges from dormancy to terrorize and feed on the town’s children, often appearing as the malevolent clown Pennywise. For the adults, life seems to simply “get better” between these cycles. They are wrapped in a comfortable apathy, an inability or unwillingness to see the pattern of violence that defines their home. The horror is an acute, present-day problem for the children, but for everyone else, it’s a bad memory they are supernaturally compelled to forget.

Forgetting as a Solution

This collective amnesia is the town's coping mechanism. When the self-proclaimed “Losers’ Club”—a group of seven outcast children—first confronts the creature in the summer of 1958, they do what the adults cannot. They face the immediate threat. After a brutal battle in the sewers beneath Derry, they wound the creature and force it into an early hibernation. They make a blood pact: if It ever returns, they will too. Then, they grow up. Six of them move away, becoming wildly successful—a famous architect, a wealthy fashion designer, a popular comedian. Their lives demonstrably got better. They forgot the sewers, the fear, and even each other. Forgetting, it seemed, was the ultimate solution.

When 'Later' Arrives

The fallacy of the “it gets better” defense lies in its irrelevance. A future improvement doesn’t negate a present-day hardship. For the Losers' Club, their adult success was built on the shaky foundation of a forgotten trauma. The problem wasn’t solved; its clock was just reset. Twenty-seven years later, the killings start again. Mike Hanlon, the one Loser who stayed behind to be the town’s watchdog, makes the phone calls that shatter their comfortable lives. He is the voice that breaks the spell, the inconvenient party pooper insisting that an old, buried problem is, in fact, a current, deadly crisis.

The past isn’t dead. It’s not even past.

While that quote belongs to William Faulkner, it perfectly captures the Losers’ predicament. Their return to Derry is a brutal refutation of the idea that time heals all wounds. Instead, time allowed the wound to fester. Their memories come rushing back, not as distant history, but as visceral, present-tense horror. The monster they fought as children is still there, and the promise of a better future they all achieved is no defense against it.

The Fallacy in the Flesh

The adult Losers cannot defeat It by referencing their successful careers or their comfortable lives. Pennywise is the physical manifestation of a problem that cannot be outrun or out-earned. It must be confronted on its own terms, in the here and now. Their final battle is not just against a monster, but against the very human tendency to defer, dismiss, and forget.

Beyond the Sewers

This is the story’s enduring power. The “It Gets Better” defense is deployed constantly in the real world to shut down conversations about systemic issues.

  • Entry-level workers complaining about low wages are told to “pay their dues” because their salary will eventually increase. This ignores the immediate crisis of making rent today.
  • Activists pointing out environmental damage are told that future technology will solve the problem. This dismisses the need for immediate, difficult changes in behavior.
  • Individuals struggling with a toxic environment are advised to just “hang in there,” invalidating the real harm being done in the present moment.

Like the adults of Derry, those who use this defense choose a comfortable ignorance over the difficult work of confronting a problem. It’s a way of floating—of being carried along by the currents of the status quo while ignoring the predator lurking just below the surface. Stephen King’s tale serves as a powerful, if terrifying, allegory. Ignoring a monster doesn’t make it go away. Telling someone their problem will eventually resolve itself doesn't fix it. The only way to truly make things better is to pick up the phone, return to Derry, and walk back down into the dark.

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