Alien, demon, or dancing clown: what exactly is Pennywise?
It’s extraordinary to think that no one had come up with the evil clown trope before horror and fantasy writer Stephen King.
There was some precedent. The Joker started life as a grinning murderer for his 1940 debut in the Batman comic series before his lapse into eccentric prankster further down the line, and serial killer John Wayne Gacy chilled the American public when it was discovered he was entertaining children’s parties as Pogo the Clown while burying bodies in his home crawl space, despite never committing his crimes in costume. Yet, coulrophobia hadn’t been gifted such an enduring example as 1986’s It.
Awakening in the Maine town of Derry every 27 years upon the spark of local violence or tragedy, a supernatural clown that primarily calls itself Pennywise the Dancing Clown lurks in the sewers and preys on children. Able to manipulate reality, it seemingly takes on many forms, adopting the manner of one’s deepest fears, as well as orchestrating material danger and controlling the town’s bullies and abusive authority figures.
Alternating between the 1950s and contemporary 1980s, the novel explores the trauma that follows It’s reign of terror across Bill Denbrough and his childhood friends, and It’s reawakening evil into their adulthood as they all fulfil an honour to return to the town to kill the demonic clown.
It stands as King’s defining book, the author initially toying with abandoning his fictional monsters and “Bring on all the monsters one last time…and call it ‘It’”, describing his opus as the “final exam on horror” with the multitude of incarnations It can inhabit across the pop-cultural horror canon. While pedestrian otherwise, ABC’s TV movie adaptation in 1990 features Tim Curry’s fantastic turn as Pennywise, the series’ only redeeming feature, and genuinely creepy.
In 2017, Bill Skarsgård would step into the role of Pennywise, offering a more unsettling child-like portrayal of the sewer-dwelling menace, a two-part project that has also led to HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry show.
Yet, while everyone knows Pennywise the Clown, the exact nature of the child-eating entity can remain lost to those who haven’t immersed themselves in King’s hefty lore.
So what exactly is Pennywise?
Alien, demon, and dancing clown all apply, as uncovered by the ‘Losers’ kid characters during a smoke hole ritual in the Native American tradition. In a moment of hallucinogenic vision, It’s foundational essence is revealed to be billions of years old, originating from a cosmic ether known as the macroverse. Forming an elemental counterpart to the benevolent Turtle under the deified watch of the master ‘Other’, It was figured to have arrived on Earth via an asteroid, lost in a deep slumber for millions of years until humanity appeared, at which point It began to feed on fear, developing a taste for children as they were easier to scare.
It’s true form is never clearly gleaned. Later in the novel, it’s deduced that It’s best approximation that the human mind can understand is that of a giant female spider, yet when casting aside its arachnid veneer, It’s proper form is the glowing spectral Deadlights, a form of evil energy so dangerous that one is driven mad should they ever look directly into it.
You keeping up? It comes from outer space, shapeshifts between dimensions beyond our understanding, and routinely deploys the moniker of Pennywise the Dancing Clown to ensnare his desired child prey. An interstellar force of destruction and paramount evil older than time, King never wanted It to truly be understood, but simply feared. It just is, and always will be.
