King decided for IT to predominantly take the shape of Pennywise the Dancing Clown because he believes "clowns scare children more than anything else in the world." IT influences the adults of Derry to passively ignore it and not interfere with his attacks on Derry's children.
King stated in a 2013 interview that he came up with the idea for Pennywise after asking himself what children feared "more than anything else in the world", and feeling that the answer was clowns.
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
Another explanation is connected to the Turtle and the cosmic side of IT and Stephen King's Macroverse, suggesting the Losers as the “chosen ones” that were guided and thus protected to an extent by Maturin, the only creature IT is afraid of.
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.
Pennywise targets children instead of adults because they are easier to scare and manipulate. Their fears are often simpler, more direct, and easier for Pennywise to exploit.
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.
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.
Bob Gray, (Pennywise's alter ego) is IT'S human form. The thing is now is that IT was NEVER human. Bob Gray was a clown called Pennywise that travelled in the circus with his daughter, Kersh.
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.
Originally Answered: Why did Pennywise start on Chapter Two with attacking an adult? Pennywise thrives on fear. By killing him, Pennywise gets the town starting to fear others. Setting the stage for his return.
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.
IT is a shape-shifting creature known as a Glamour who is billions of years old. Although it lived on planet Earth for many years, Pennywise originated in a void/dimension outside the regions of space known as the Macroverse.
According the the Wiki set up to explain It and his powers, the red balloon is an illusion — one of many — that can be created to lure It's victims to their deaths .
Throughout the rest of the story, several of the bodies are found to have teeth marks and pieces that were bitten off, but Pennywise doesn't actually eat the corpses. 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.
Did you notice something off about Pennywise's eyes in IT? Other than just being really creepy, they actually change color going from yellow to blue. But why does he do that? He changes them to blue in order to lure Georgie.
Yup! He's a demon and the general idea is if you are not scare, it will only be harder for Pennywise to kill you as he needs to bait you. He can kill you if he wants to anytime and doesn't care. Although, if you are not scared, he will either leave you be for a little while or just kill you in the instant .
The cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's IT Chapter Two depicted the satisfying death of Pennywise while subtly hearkening back to Pennywise's first 1988 victim, Bill's brother Georgie.
Instead of living in the sewers, IT uses these as access points as it makes it easier for it to travel through town and go after its victims. IT's lair is described in the novel as a deep cavern beneath Derry and the sewers built around it.
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.
