In both the book and the films, It is an ancient alien creature, older than civilization, and in King's novel, older than our universe. It feasts on the flesh of humans simply because our fears are easy to manifest and they make us taste better.
Stephen King actually references this later in the story, mentioning that Pennywise does this as part of the fear. Pennywise doesn't eat human flesh. It eats something more metaphysical. The biting is more like how a lion might nuzzle a delicious meal while drunk off the pleasure of filling its belly.
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.
But, the film makes clear, It (sometimes written as “IT”) isn't just a clown. Oh no. As detailed in King's novel, he's an ancient, cosmic being, described in the novel as an “Eater of Worlds”, who is able to adopt a variety of nasty guises.
As the other posters mentioned, IT does seem to thrive in an environment of fear and bad feelings, so it is possible that IT was toying with them like a cat would with a mouse to elicit these feelings, figuring it could finish them off later. Killing them right away would ruin the narrative and there would be no book.
In the novel, it's explained that Pennywise targets children because their fears are less complex than those of adults, allowing It to easily take the shape of whatever its victim fears.
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.
Movie! Flashback of the past of Pennywise and his. Daughter Kersh 🤗 Of when IT became & took over. Pennywise the Dancing Clown better known as Bob. Gray.
The backstory of Pennywise is tied to an ancient cosmic entity referred to as the "It" or the "Eater of Worlds." This entity is from another dimension and has existed for an extremely long time. It comes to Earth approximately every 27 years to prey on the children of Derry.
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.
A neighbor witnesses his disappearance, but the fact his body is never found gives Bill hope Georgie somehow survived. Pennywise prays on this in the film, using that hope to lure Bill in the finale. Bill later finds the tatters of Georgie's coat and finally accepts his brother is gone.
While playing Pennywise in IT and IT Chapter Two, Bill Skarsgard wears a set of prosthetic teeth, for times when the dancing clown really needs to show off his razor-sharp chompers. The problem is, these teeth caused Skarsgard to drool, and not just a little. The teeth caused full-on torrents of slobber from the actor.
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.
They reach the conclusion that Pennywise has all of the adults under some sort of spell that prohibits them from seeing him. The adults of Derry are shown to be villainous in their own right as well. The adults of Derry are shown to be true villains of the story in the same way as Pennywise.
Twenty-seven years after their first showdown with the murderous clown, the now-grown members of the Losers' Club converged on Derry to defeat Pennywise forever. 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.
[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.
It can manipulate weak-willed people, making them indifferent to the horrific events that unfold, or even serve as accomplices. In the novel, It claims that its true name is Robert "Bob" Gray, but decided to be named “It”. Throughout the book, It is generally referred to as male, usually appearing as Pennywise.
Pennywise pretty much made Derry the perfect place for a creature like itself to live, and with the whole town under its control and with a lot of children (and adults) to feed from, IT didn't really have reasons to leave Derry.
IT arrived on Earth through an event similar to an asteroid impact, landing in what would later become Derry, Maine. Once there, IT adopted its usual pattern of hibernation that lasted between 27 and 30 years, awakening to kill and eat and then going back to sleep.
Throughout Stephen King's It, Pennywise is referred to as a male, but author Stephen King pulled a fast one on readers in the It book ending by revealing the creature's true form was a pregnant spider, implying that it is, in fact, biologically female.
Answer and Explanation: 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.
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.
In both the book and the films, It is an ancient alien creature, older than civilization, and in King's novel, older than our universe. It feasts on the flesh of humans simply because our fears are easy to manifest and they make us taste better.
If you want to get technical, It is an alien, but It's origin goes well beyond that. It is actually an ancient cosmic deity. A god of destruction, not just of our world, but of multiple worlds and even multiple universes.
In IT, Richie (played by Finn Wolfhard) admits to his friends that he's terrified of clowns, which is coincidentally the default form that Pennywise takes on. However, in both the book and the 1990 miniseries, his greatest fear is a werewolf, and cutting this from his battle with Pennywise was a mistake.
