Analyzing Evil: Pennywise From IT

hello everyone and welcome to the 53rd episode of analyzing evil featuring pennywise from it fear-made flesh the other worldly being known as pennywise is a horrifying representation of a creature engineered to feed off of our innermost fears an alien monstrosity feasting on human souls seasoned with utter terror in this video we'll be exploring everything we're given about pennywise in the novel comparing the information we're given within to pennywise as portrayed by stephen curry and bill skarsgard in the miniseries and films respectively it is a giant in the horror genre and though it isn't without its faults it more than deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest works in the genre one that brought to life a character that would come to embody the very definition of a monster clown however it is far from alone in that genre and if you're a fan of horror there's no better place to get your fix and catch up on the other classics in the genre than our sponsor for this video 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account to watch all the horror you can handle for free for 30 days thank you shutter for sponsoring this video now without further ado let's begin pennywise is an extraterrestrial and extra dimensional entity whose true physical form and name will likely remain unknown to us forever in the book it refers to itself as robert gray at certain points but this was likely a reference to the notorious serial killer albert fish who was reported to have used the same name at the end of this story pennywise chooses to take the form of a monstrous spider and this could possibly be its true form but again we'll never truly know however this form does tell us one thing that's quite interesting and that's that pennywise is likely female and there are two things in particular that indicate this the first is the fact that when audra sees the deadlights she remarks oh god it's female and the terror she feels at this realization is odd that is until you take into account the second indicator towards its gender the multitude of eggs that the losers club finds incubating in its makeshift home indicating that it can reproduce asexually and that there's potentially other creatures just like pennywise out there in the world which is a terrifying thought indeed regardless of whether or not this spider is its true form beneath the surface of whatever form it chooses to take lies a species akin to an energy source known only as the deadlights these glowing orbs of eldritch power are what fuels the creature known as pennywise their power so vast and macabre that any human who sets their eyes upon these dreaded lights will be driven insane pennywise's origins are largely a mystery as well we know it originated from a dimension known as the macroverse which is a dimension that surrounds our own universe a dark realm devoid of any life and that it may have been created by the god of stephen king's universe gan but otherwise we know precious little about pennywise's existence before he became the terror of derry maine and that's where the story of pennywise begins for us at its cataclysmic landing onto that land millions of years prior to the establishment of the town that would one day come to be known as derry after its arrival pennywise lay dormant beneath the earth until the arrival of mankind which due to his location ended up being until the year 1715. though pennywise would awaken that year it would bite its time until darry had built up a sizable enough population and 27 years later it would emerge to murder the over 300 inhabitants of the newly formed town of derry after such a long slumber i'm sure pennywise was famished which explains why it chose to devour the entire town and i imagine during the time it was sleeping is when pennywise began to learn from the inhabitants of derry peering into their minds to find the fears that humans held within them finding that if he struck fear into the mind of a person they became exponentially more delicious children especially but to poison a mind with fear you first need access to that mind and in order to do so pennywise turn to preying on a person's desires and memories to lure them in adopting a sickly sweet facetious personality one that it uses to taunt people with memories of loved ones or a promise of giving them what they desire and if your target is children what better way to lure them in than to appear as a harmless circus clown with the information we're given it would seem that this innovation on the part of pennywise has been a part of its method of hunting for centuries the thing about an entity like pennywise and as far as we know formless creature is that it needs to emulate creatures and objects in order to transform into these things so how did pennywise the alien entity haunting the colonial town of derry in the early 18th century come across a clown clowns aren't a new phenomenon and they've been around in one form or another for centuries however as far as i know clowns weren't a common sight in colonial america so it stands to reason that pennywise found the image of a clown within someone's mind after they emigrated from england this is just a theory on my part so let me know down below if you know another way he could have adopted this image but it seems like a plausible way for it to discover clowns so how is pennywise's clown form described in the book it's described as being clad in traditional clown makeup white with a smile drawn across its mouth red tufts of hair coming out of the sides of its head he wears a white silk suit one with big orange buttons on the front a bright blue tie laid over the top of them with hands covered in cartoon gloves that are reminiscent of mickey mouse its eyes can turn blue when it's attempting to converse with someone in a normal manner but they turn to a menacing yellow once it's given into its true form sharp teeth accompanying this change in eye color in the miniseries its appearance is more whimsical its makeup seems to be much the same as it is in the book with a slight variation in how its hair is styled its suit however is much more colorful and this iteration of pennywise at least in this form is the least scary of them all however the pennywise we see in the films by far invokes the most terror a dingy silk costume with frills and orange buttons worn under a face with erratic orange hair one that's painted in much more angular clown makeup this iteration of pennywise barely manages to invoke the happy demeanor of a clown at all instead almost exclusively appearing as a horror show even when it's attempting to draw a person in with kindness though this might be its preferred form what pennywise excels in is terrifying people by tapping into their insecurities and fears and throughout each iteration of this story he transforms into a number of different beings and depending on what you're reading or watching what it transforms into varies due to the differing time periods these stories take place in there's dozens of different forms that it takes throughout all of these mediums but i won't be covering all of them individually and that's because each and every one of them serves one purpose and one purpose only assisting pennywise in its hunt no matter if it takes a kind form or a horrifying one each one is tailor-made to corral pennywise's prey and then terrify them to enhance their flavor though this might be pennywise's primary tool in achieving its goals it has a multitude of other powers to assist it in its endeavors like telepathy mind control invisibility telekinesis psionics and the creation of illusions and physically pennywise is incredibly strong agile and invulnerable to almost all forms of physical harm however it does have its limitations it must follow the rules of the form it currently occupies so if it were to manifest itself as a fish it would need to stay in a body of water because it's an entity who feeds off of fear a natural counter to it is courage and bravery and with the help of a ritual this is how it's ultimately defeated by the losers club coupled with the fact that a belief in something being able to harm it can make it vulnerable like when the losers believe that silver will bring it down but what are this creature's goals well there's only one goal for pennywise satisfying its hunger and it does so by going on a rampage for a year before going into hibernation returning in 27-year cycles to feed its hunger preying on children in particular due to how easily he could capture them and instill them with fear a fear that enhances the flavor of his prey between his awakening and the start of our story pennywise murdered hundreds of people over the course of the last two centuries the entire town of derry in 1742 the family of a man named john markson in 1851 a group of lumberjacks in 1878 108 people at the kitchen are iron works after causing it to explode in 1906. members of a group of robbers the bradley gang in 1929 multiple people at the black spot an african-american social club that was burned down by the main legion of white decency in 1930 georgie when it awakens in 1957 after murdering georgie pennywise would go on to commit 25 more murders in the book six in the miniseries and nine in the films but for all this misery and horror the terror and the death i think we need to ask ourselves a very important question before we establish just exactly what this entity is and that question is is pennywise evil now i bet you're asking with all of the evil things we see it do throughout this story why would i even bother to ask this question well because of pennywise's motivation to kill as i said before the only reason that pennywise kills is to satisfy its own hunger if that's the case would it not be true that pennywise is more akin to an animal trying to survive rather than a malicious entity intent on committing evil we don't fault the lion for killing the gazelle because it needs to do so to survive so with that in mind isn't pennywise doing the same thing i think that it might be the case that when pennywise was first formed it was more akin to an animal trying to survive and it was only eating to keep itself alive however at some point this creature realized that if it instilled utter terror into its prey it could make its food taste better and after realizing this it evolved from a simple predator into a sadistic monster that unnecessarily tortured people in order to enhance its culinary experience and somewhere along the way it found out that it quite enjoyed sowing this fear and that's why the answer to whether or not pennywise is evil is yes because torturing one's food to enhance its flavor is wholly unnecessary for survival and extremely cruel and if a human were engaging in this sort of behavior with their own food the answer would be the same in the end pennywise would meet its undoing at the hands of the very beings it tormented the predator becoming the prey answering for the many crimes he committed in pursuit of its meals and at this end what was pennywise it was a being of unimaginable power one who was thrust from another dimension into an alien universe filled to the brim with delectable eats once coming into contact with people this predator would transform into a beast one that was hell-bent on instilling the utmost fear in its prey savoring the meat of its kill that had been seasoned with the horrors it had driven into its flesh in order to achieve this it would develop a horrid personality taking on the persona of a demented circus clown luring in its hapless victims with fond memories and stated desires before it terrified them to the core ravaging their minds before devouring their bodies though it may have originated as a creature not unlike the predators we find in the wild this entity evolved to encompass a ravenous horror that cannot be excused a cosmic manifestation of everything we fear lurking in the darkness of our minds and in eldritch representation of evil thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and i hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on pennywise did i miss anything let me know down below and while you're at it leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured in a future episode if you enjoyed this video hit that thumbs up button and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already a big thank you to all of my subscribers and to my patrons and a most vile thank you to those whose names you're seeing on screen now join the channel's discord server and reddit to interact with myself and the community and follow me on the social media platforms listed below to keep up with the channel as always thanks for watching and i'll be seeing you soon

Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 260,657

Keywords: Stephen King

Id: ITuQbO39g8k

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 31 2021