In the
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 influences the adults of Derry to passively ignore it and not interfere with his attacks on Derry's children.
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 ...
Pennywise is Older than the Universe Itself
According to the novel, Pennywise existed long before The Big Bang in a dimension known as Macroverse. After crash landing on Earth, he entered a state of hibernation and awoke in early 18th century America to sustain himself on human victims before returning to his slumber.
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.
In the novel, It claims that its true name is Robert "Bob" Gray, but decided to be named “It”. Throughout the book, It is generally referred to as male, usually appearing as Pennywise. The Losers come to believe It may be female after seeing it in the form of a monstrous giant spider that lays eggs.
Kersh is the daughter of Bob Gray, whose evil clown Pennywise is an incarnation of the shapeshifting creature referred to as "It."
According to It, when humans got scared, "all the chemicals of fear flooded the body and salted the meat". This is why he prefers to feast on children -- their fears are simple, pure, and powerful compared to the complex, pathological fears of adults.
This proves to be its undoing; Eddie nearly chokes it when it takes the form of a leper and is small enough for him to do that. When sufficiently weakened, the Losers kill It by crushing the heart it must have in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
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.
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.
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.
Fear acts as a sort of seasoning to It; the more scared someone is, the better they taste. This is why It takes so much time and effort to scare the Losers before actually trying to kill them. Sure, he could just eat them right off the bat, but if probably wouldn't taste very good.
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.
If you are talking about the science when Georgie dies, Pennywise was thinking about his first meal in 27 years, and in Pennywise's words, fear in a kid is like “salting the meat.” So, when Georgie was laughing, Pennywise knew Georgie was not scared so he stopped laughing to make sure he was still fearful.
Image via Warner Bros. Finally, Pennywise is beaten into submission. He scurries away, utters the word "fear," and partially disintegrates before falling into the void. It's a powerful defeat of a powerful monster, and it's satisfaction enough were IT to remain a single film.
The spider-clown shrinks as the Losers hurl taunts at It, until it's tiny and weak enough that they pluck out its heart and squash it into nothingness. In the end, they defeat Pennywise by, uh, making him feel really bad about himself. It author Stephen King.
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.
This fierce fear demon gorges itself upon that which terrorizes its victims, using said fear as a weapon before killing them. Of course, the entity's most common form is that of Pennywise, the Dancing Clown. Due to this preferred diet of adolescents, It comes back every 27 after feeding to consume a new generation.
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 fact, the balloons are considered in the fan theory to not only represent the deadlights – but that they also carry the souls of all the children Pennywise has devoured.
This is one of the most interesting Hollywood couplings we learned about in quite some time. Apparently, Pennywise and the Babadook are dating. In fact, they're in a long term committed relationship.
It was said on page 1361 that the Spider being both female and pregnant was a symbolic interperetation. Its not literal, but a representation of whatever equivalent but inconceivable reproductive capability It actually has. Pennywise didn't become pregnant.
However, despite all that, there's one thing IT doesn't feature, and that's Pennywise devouring a baby. King doesn't go quite that far, although babies aren't safe from violence in the book completely, thanks to Patrick Hockstetter.