Now, King doesn't offer an explanation as to why Pennywise is named like that, and the name doesn't seem to have any cultural significance except for the old English saying “Penny Wise, Pound Foolish”, which refers to being stingy about less expensive things but not so much on big things.
The Pennywise moniker has direct origins with the old English phrase Penny Wise and Pound Foolish, which denotes someone who is careful with the spending of small sums of money but careless and wasteful with larger amounts.
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 ...
In IT, is Pennywise the clown a demon from hell? No, Pennywise is just a form that 'It' takes. 'It' is actually an ancient being that's been around since the creation of the Universe/Universes. These beings are mentioned in Stephen Kings 'The Dark Tower' series.
Pennywise was always evil - or, more accurately, he never really existed. He was just a creation of IT to lure in children so they could be terrified and then eaten. Or so that IT could create chaos, incite riots and spread fear.
Pennywise/IT preys on the children of Derry because their fears are easier to manifest into a physical form and harvest. 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 describes that it prefers to kill and devour children, not by nature, rather because children's fears are easier to interpret in a physical form and thus children are easier to fill with terror, which It says is akin to marinating the meat.
At some point in the novel, King explained part of IT's backstory but left enough of it untold to raise many questions about it, and everything about Pennywise's origins is a bit confusing, as it's connected to the macroverse and the turtle Maturin, who's the only being IT is afraid of.
Pennywise is female. In Stephen King's book, in the end, Pennywise's true form is a spider that lays eggs to reproduce itself. Throughout the book, It is generally referred to as male due to usually appearing as Pennywise.
Pennywise is just a mask, an act that It uses when convenient. It is the real monster behind the monster. 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.
It says on the novel, Pennywise's daughter is Mrs Kersh. Mrs Kersh happened when Beverley Marsh visit her old home in Derry. Mrs kersh said : My father used to work in a circus. His name was Mr Robert Gray aka Mr Bob Gray aka Penywise the dancing clown.
The presence of courage and heart are Its main weaknesses. This appears to have a phycological effect that installs fear and enables it the inability to function properly in its physical form. Given that it feeds on fear, it makes sense that courage and heart can overcome it.
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.
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. Georgie's death was unique in 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.
He is also a mentioned character in 11/22/63. He was the youngest of the seven members of The Losers' Club, and the only member Pennywise is afraid of.
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.
Alucard - Hellsing Ultimate. Considered the most destructive weapon in the Hellsing Corporation, Alucard is an omnipotent, immortal manifestation of Dracula. Since he cannot be killed, he would destroy Pennywise with this wide array of supernatural skills.
Coulrophobia is no laughing matter. This irrational fear of clowns can cause panic and nausea. Although it's a rare phobia, many people find clowns creepy if not downright scary. Why? The answer lies partly in the prevalence of evil clowns in popular culture—think Pennywise in Stephen King's It (1986).
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.
Throughout the novel (and its adaptations), IT kills many, many people, mostly children as their fears are easier to represent (as explained in the novel, the fears of adults are more complex and abstract, making it more difficult for IT to take a specific shape), but it never got to the Losers (at least not when they ...
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.
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.
