Pennywise the Clown is not a clown at all. The Pennywise the clown origin story sees an ancient, evil being that is perhaps as old as the universe itself. In the novel, however, the entity IT/Pennywise has a real name — Bob Gray. Bob Gray isn't human, however, and shares the same origin as IT.
In the novel, It's origins are nebulous. He took the form of a clown most frequently, Mr. Bob Gray or Pennywise, but his true form is an ancient eldritch entity from another universe who landed in the town that would become Derry by way of an asteroid and first awoke in 1715.
As many as billions of years old, Pennywise originated in a realm outside the known universe called the “Macroverse.” Though not confirmed, it's been suggested in the “Dark Tower” series that Pennywise was created by a being known as “the Other,” which may be the godlike figure known as Gan, who is also the embodiment ...
Almost certainly the most well-known evil clown (save for Batman¹s archnemesis, the Joker; more on him later), Pennywise is modeled after real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy, aka Pogo the Clown, a.k.a. "The Clown Killer." Gacy was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing 33 boys in 1980; he posed as a clown ...
And if his victim believes him to be powerless, he will become powerless. And so the group figures out that their best bet is, essentially, to bully the bully: They mock Pennywise, telling him he isn't scary. Humiliated, Pennywise begins to shrink, transforming into an almost Benjamin Button–like, melted clown-baby.
According to It, when humans got scared, "all the chemicals of fear flooded the body and salted the meat". This is why he prefers to feast on children -- their fears are simple, pure, and powerful compared to the complex, pathological fears of adults. Basically, children are delicious.
Throughout the book, It is generally referred to as male, usually appearing as Pennywise. The Losers come to believe It may be female after seeing it in the form of a monstrous giant spider that lays eggs.
There was a human Pennywise the Dancing Clown, but IT just takes his form. In the movie canon, Pennywise the Dancing Clown was a real person whose image IT decided was a terrifying enough basis for his child-scaring campaign.
Stephen King's IT introduced readers to a one-of-a-kind creature that can take any form, the most common one being Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and as menacing as it is, this creature has one big enemy it's truly scared of: Maturin, the turtle.
However, It must surrender the the laws of whatever shape It takes. Pennywise's strength is also his weakness. For example, if he were to take the shape of a werewolf (as he does in the novel), silver bullets would harm him.
IT (also commonly known as Pennywise) is an ancient alien/eldritch monster and the title character and the overall secondary antagonist of the Stephen King multiverse, serving as the titular main antagonist of the It Miniseries and it's two film adaptations IT and IT: Chapter Two.
Kersh is Pennywise's daughter. Or at least the daughter of the man who originally had Pennywise's face. Additionally, the trailer offers a first glimpse of Bill (James McAvoy), Ben (Jay Ryan), Richie (Bill Hader), Eddie (James Ransone), and Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) back together.
Regardless, she's one nasty beast and not alone due to the egg sack she's carrying. Unfortunately, King's imagination ran a little wilder than alluded to in the movies or earlier in the books, and the consequence of that is a pregnant Pennywise.
When the Losers' Club goes down into IT's lair for their final battle in Stephen King's book, they make a horrifying discovery: IT is female. Or the creature at least appears to be, as IT's been laying eggs underground.
The novel explains that IT landed on Earth during an asteroid impact and established itself under the land Derry would be later built on, and initially preyed on indigenous tribes. From that point of view, IT/Pennywise would be billions of years old, but his clown shape wouldn't be that old.
[Stephen King's IT] Why doesn't Pennywise go after adults the way he goes after kids? Pennywise's deal is that he strikes fear into the hearts of others before devouring them, as essentially fattening them up before he feasts.
In their final battle, the Losers' Club was able to kill Pennywise by reducing him to a child-like form as they overcame their fears. In the moments before Pennywise died, his fear is reminiscent of Georgie's own, therefore closing the cyclical nature of Pennywise's murders.
The spider-clown shrinks as the Losers hurl taunts at It, until it's tiny and weak enough that they pluck out its heart and squash it into nothingness. In the end, they defeat Pennywise by, uh, making him feel really bad about himself. It author Stephen King.
Georgie's death was unique in It. While Pennywise's later victims were composed exclusively of high school students, Georgie was only six when he died. The added horror of killing someone so young and innocent immediately established Pennywise as a terrifying villain.
Though there are some IT characters just as scary as Pennywise, the film's main villain proves to be its deadliest, with a kill count that actually reaches into the tens of thousands. Reddit user u/angelholme estimates that Pennywise actually took the lives of between 12,117 and 18,011 people.
It was said on page 1361 that the Spider being both female and pregnant was a symbolic interperetation. Its not literal, but a representation of whatever equivalent but inconceivable reproductive capability It actually has.
No, Stephen King's It is not based on a true story. King had the idea for It when looking at an old wooden walking bridge in 1978 near his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Pennywise offers Georgie his boat back, but when Georgie attempts to reach out to it, Pennywise grabs Georgie's arm and bites it off, leaving Georgie to bleed to death in the rain.
