It Is Actually An Ancient Cosmic Force Of Destruction 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.
For this reason, and others, Pennywise can be classified in the same category as The Great Old Ones of H.P. Lovecraft, including Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, and Cthulhu, which were later classified as Elder Gods.
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.
Literature. In the novel, It is a shapeshifting monster who usually takes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, originating in a void containing and surrounding the Universe—a place referred to in the novel as the "Macroverse".
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. A god of destruction, not just of our world, but of multiple worlds and even multiple universes.
In the novel, It's origins are nebulous. He took the form of a clown most frequently, Mr. Bob Gray or Pennywise, but his true form is an ancient eldritch entity from another universe who landed in the town that would become Derry by way of an asteroid and first awoke in 1715.
Pennywise has co-opted an entire town into aiding him through their indifference and cruelty, coupled with his immortal status and early head start from his more modern competition.
There was a human Pennywise the Dancing Clown, but IT just takes his form. In the movie canon, Pennywise the Dancing Clown was a real person whose image IT decided was a terrifying enough basis for his child-scaring campaign.
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.
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.
Elder God may refer to: Elder God (Cthulhu Mythos), a type of fictional deity added to H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The Elder God, a video-game character in the Legacy of Kain series. Elder Gods (Mortal Kombat), fictional entities in the Mortal Kombat mythos.
IT (also commonly known as Pennywise) is an ancient alien/eldritch monster and the title character and the overall secondary antagonist of the Stephen King multiverse, serving as the titular main antagonist of the It Miniseries and it's two film adaptations IT and IT: Chapter Two.
However, It must surrender the the laws of whatever shape It takes. Pennywise's strength is also his weakness. For example, if he were to take the shape of a werewolf (as he does in the novel), silver bullets would harm him.
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.
While this version of It is currently Pure Evil just like the novel and the TV miniseries incarnations, there's a slight possibility that this may change once Welcome to Derry, an upcoming HBO Max prequel show about its origins set in the 1960s is released, as the series will delve into its backstory.
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.
Also in the 2017 film, Georgie's death is changed. As well as having his right arm bitten off, Georgie is trying to crawl away but he was dragged into the sewers and devoured by Pennywise, with an unnamed older woman and her cat being the sole witnesses of the horrific scene, including before Georgie lost his arm.
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.
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.
Every 27 years, a shape-shifting entity known as IT crawls out of the sewers to prey on the children of Derry, Maine. IT plasters himself with an unnatural grin, takes on the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and wreaks havoc.
The Losers confront Pennywise on how they've overcome their fears, and are no longer scared of the entity, causing It to shrink to a small weakened Pennywise. Mike rips out It's heart, which he and the Losers crush with their bare hands, finally killing It.
And it is not totally true that adults can't see Pennywise because there are several incident in books where adult see Pennywise but adult don't find it as a threat because of the reason that Pennywise choose not to. Pennywise only attack children as they are easily manipulated and easily scared.
"And the moment you see her performing, you know this is a serious actor." Not only could Gregson bring the convincing warmth, but she turned on the menace as Bev figures out Mrs. Kersh is the daughter of Bob Gray, whose evil clown Pennywise is an incarnation of the shapeshifting creature referred to as "It."