Inside the Deadlights: How It: Welcome to Derry Finally Shows Pennywise's True Shape

From key trends to fundamental details, understand everything about Inside the Deadlights: How It: Welcome to Derry Finally Shows Pennywise's True Shape in our latest feature.

To understand what Pennywise actually looks like, one must discard the concept of anatomy altogether. The creature, often referred to simply as "IT", originated before the creation of our universe within a primordial void known as the Macroverse, an infinite expanse also referred to across Stephen King’s shared universe as the Todash Darkness. This cosmic entity arrived on Earth millions of years ago via a cataclysmic asteroid impact, settling beneath the geographic coordinates that would eventually become Derry, Maine.

IT does not possess organic organs, cellular reproduction, or genetic structure in its native state. It is an immortal, feminine-leaning consciousness composed entirely of chaotic psychic energy and hunger. When the creature hibernates, it sleeps for roughly 27-year cycles, awakening only to feed on fear-saturated human flesh before returning to torpor. The clown disguise, modeled after an early-twentieth-century carnival performer named Bob Gray, was selected because human children carry simple, raw fears that taste better to an extradimensional palate. Fear operates as a biological tenderizer. As the monster openly boasts in King's text, frightened meat tastes distinctly sweeter.