#any creature that comes close to our level of intelligence is known for their sadism

[hussyknee]

I've never been able to touch Beloved after finding out what happens in it. Especially the fact that it's based on a real incident. Which was a common occurrence among enslaved Black women.

Thinking about enslaved women killing their own children to save them from the horrors of slavery; the only way they had left to save their babies from being subjected to the kind of unthinkable brutality that left the mothers themselves seeking death as release. Thinking of Margaret Garner slitting her own toddler's throat while the slave catchers hammered at the doors, and then turning the butcher's knife on her remaining terrified, pleading little children. Thinking of her hurling her baby daughter off the slave ship and, though her own attempt at drowning herself failed, greeting the news that her baby had gone to a watery grave "with frantic joy". Remembering Eman Basher, running with her children from end to end through Gaza, watching them run out of food, water and shelter, seeing their friends and family and neighbours murdered every which way, tweeting hysterically whether she should kill her children because it was the only way she had left to "keep them safe".

The horrifying depth of a mother's love and tenderness, dear God. The unimaginable brutality and cruelty that forced their hands.

That quote found scrawled on the wall of a cell in a Nazi concentration camp is never far from my mind: "If God exists, He will have to beg my forgiveness."

[wahbegan]

A brief life history/biology of It

NERD ALERT posting this shit again since the trailer just dropped

The actual nature of IT: So It is an extradimensional entity, similar to H.P. Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones. It originated in something King refers to as “The Macroverse”, a sort of universe outside our universe. It is one of two opposing entities, It and “The Turtle”, a cosmic creator entity. Unlike The Turtle, Its only real biological imperative seems to be destruction. It’s implied that both entities were created by some sort of force/God more powerful than either, simply referred to as “The Other”, but that’s not elaborated on much. The most common theory is that The Dark Tower entity Gan and “The Other” are one and the same.

It is referred to as Pennywise and Bob Gray while in human form, and The Spider, Consumption (vs. The Turtle’s Creation), or The Deadlights in Its true form. The Deadlights seems to be an ambiguous term, and at various points is used to reference to Its true form, Its eyes, and the space outside the universe that It inhabits, it’s all kept kinda vague and intentionally hard to grasp.

Anyway, Its true form exists outside the universe and physically cannot be processed by human minds. Those who see Its true, undisguised form are immediately driven irrevocably insane or killed. The closest approximation Ben Hanscom can come to describing Its true form, which he briefly sort of catches a peripheral sense of, is “an endless, crawling hairy thing” made of “dead” orange light

Its motivation: As mentioned above, it seems to have been created as a force of consumption first and foremost. The “writhing,” lights that comprise the creature seem to be destructive in and of themselves, consuming whatever they come into contact with. It is deeply intelligent, however, and doesn’t run purely on instinct. It is shown to have a sadistic streak, although it probably isn’t sadism in the same sense we think of it. It sees humans strictly as prey animals and sources of amusement, believing them so vastly inferior to Itself as to be negligible. It claims to eat worlds and reality, a statement seemingly corroborated by the effect of The Deadlights on Its surroundings, but the only things It seems to go out of Its way to consume are human children , apparently Its main source of sustenance. It can eat any human, but It prefers Its food terrified. Once again, it’s unclear whether It really understands the full moral ramifications of this, It simply thinks of it as “salting the meat”. Therefore, It usually goes after children because they’re the easiest to scare. Based on what little we know about how It interacts with human beings, and The Dark Tower character Dandelo, whom Stephen King has confirmed is of the same species as It, we can assume that the entity is feeding on the emotion of fear itself as much as, if not more than, the actual flesh of Its prey.

Powers/abilities and weaknesses: In Its own realm and form, the Deadlights, it can be assumed to be nigh-omnipotent. However, in this universe, It is both empowered and limited by whatever physical form It takes. Its main power, of course, is shape-shifting, which It refers to at one point as “putting on airs” and is likened to wearing various masks. Its most common tactic is to appear to children as a clown (Pennywise) to lure them close enough to strike, before transforming into something said child is terrified of. Additionally, It (or at least the part of It that can manifest in our world) came to the land that later became Derry, Maine millions of years ago and seems to exert a certain amount of God-like control over the immediate area. Violent deaths and mysterious disappearances are quietly hushed up or swept under the rug, and the citizens are all apathetic to them for reasons they don’t fully understand themselves. Additionally, It can cause nasty hallucinations in Its targets and exert a level of psychological control over people. Now, as i said before, Its greatest strength (shape-shifting), is also Its ultimate weakness. Once It’s locked into a form, It has to abide by the “rules” of that form as dictated by the imagination the form was drawn from. When in werewolf form, for example, silver can severely injure It, enough to make It retreat. The only way to truly defeat It that we see is the Ritual of Chüd, a mystical battle of wills where the child’s imagination is essentially pitted against the creature. Just as childhood fears and trauma make It stronger, imaginative childhood beliefs and the bond between friends can weaken It. Yes, it’s all very Care Bear(TM) after-school special, but it fits in very well with the themes and message of the novel. 

Forms It takes: -Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Implied to be Its favorite form) -Corpses of Its victims’ loved ones in various states of mutilation and decay (also a reliable standby for It) -Two young drowned boys with orange pom pom fingertips -The Teenage Werewolf -The Mummy -Dracula (with razorblades for teeth and eyes resembling blood clots) -A giant bird (twice, once with a silver tongue with orange growths resembling pom poms on it, and once with several balloons tied to Its wings) -A swarm of flying, flesh-colored leeches -A school of orange piranhas -Jaws -The Creature From the Black Lagoon -The Crawling Eye -Syphilitic homeless man (the disease advanced past the point that he should be dead) -Bev’s abusive father -Frankenstein’s Monster -An 8-foot tall were-doberman -The Witch from Hansel and Gretel -A massive uncanny valley statue of Paul Bunyan (based on this real statue in Bangor, Maine)  -The moon with Pennywise’s clown-face, with ragged holes where the eyes should be -A gigantic, unnatural black spider. (Its “final form” the Losers face, this form is unique in that it isn’t drawn directly from the viewer’s imagination. It only appears this way in Its own lair, stating that It “does not dress at home.” It is not, however, an accurate depiction of Its appearance, but is instead the human mind trying to make sense of what it’s seeing without going insane. The Losers repeatedly state they can almost make out Its true form moving behind the image of the spider their brains have created, but don’t want to as they know what will happen. The second time they face the spider, it appears to be pregnant, indicative of Its state as about to reproduce. It’s not stated how exactly It does this beyond that It appears to lays eggs, but due to Its nature, i assume It reproduces asexually.

NOTE: No matter what form It takes, It usually retains some elements of Pennywise, usually the orange pom pom buttons on his clown suit in one form or another. This is probably because the orange pom poms themselves are reflections of the "baleful orange glow” of The Deadlights. There are often other cracks in Its masks, so to speak, clues pointing to Its true nature as not a natural part of this universe, such as Its defiance of conventional laws of physics (leaning so far out of a window that It should have been overtaken by gravity and fallen, holding balloons that float against the wind, etc.) and the fact that It never casts a shadow. 

Its life-cycle: It hibernates for about 27 years and then awakes, almost always coinciding with a horrific, brutal act of violence. It then preys on the town’s children for anywhere from 14 months to a few years before another tragedy or act of violence, which must be greater than or equal to the event that woke It up in terms of brutality, sates It and It goes back into hibernation. This is only interrupted once, during the First Ritual of Chüd. The second one is implied to kill It for good, or at least Its earthly manifestation, but it’s left ambiguous.

Its history (as known to the protagonists):  -Millions of years ago: It came to Earth in an event similar to an asteroid crash and began to exert control over Derry, influencing it and helping it grow as Its personal killing and feeding pen (At one point, the entity states that It created Derry “In Its image”). -1740: It awoke for unknown reasons and preyed upon the town’s children for 3 years, only going back into hibernation when the entire town of over 300 settlers disappeared without a trace. Local histories chalk the disappearance up to an Indian massacre, but only one building was burned, and no bodies were ever found. -1851: It awoke when a man poisoned his entire family and then committed suicide by ingesting a copious amount of Amanita phalloides, and went back into hibernation for unknown reasons -1879: A group of lumberjacks found the remains of another lumberjack camp that had been snowed in for the winter. All 9 of their bodies were in pieces. It’s unclear how directly It was involved with this atrocity, but judging by the timeline, one can assume the event awakened It. -1904: It awoke when a lumberjack massacred 4 men in a bar, in full view of all the patrons, who seemed strangely unaffected by the violence happening in front of them. The lumberjack was later lynched by crazed townsfolk, many of whom were present during the massacre and did nothing to stop it. It was present on the periphery of these events but took no direct part in them. -1906: It went back into hibernation after an ironworks exploded, killing 108 people, 88 of whom were children on an Easter Egg hunt. One of the victim’s heads was found several days later and several blocks away in a woman’s apple tree. -1929: It awoke when the infamous (in-universe) Bradley Gang were gunned down by a vigilante mob. It appeared and participated during the massacre as some sort of clown, though details of Its appearance varied depending on who was looking at It. Most notably, It always appeared to be wielding the same kind of gun that whoever was looking at It was holding.  -1930: It went back into hibernation after popular club The Black Spot was burned down by a white supremacist group with several people trapped inside. It appeared at the end of the event as a giant bird with balloons tied to Its wings, carrying away one of the white supremacists in Its talons. -1957-58: It awoke when Dorsey Corcoran was beaten to death by his abusive stepfather. There is no mention of It being present at the murder, and It has no confirmed kills for this cycle until several months afterwards. For these reasons, it’s not even 100% clear that this is what woke It up, but given the absence of any other inciting event and the stepfather’s behavior being consistent with other people who committed atrocities under Its influence, it’s generally assumed to be by fans. This cycle is the most fleshed out in the novel, during which It murdered several children including George Denbrough, Betty Ripsom, Dorsey’s older brother Eddie Corcoran, both Victor Criss and Reginald yes I said Reginald “Belch” Huggins, and Patrick Hockstetter. It was eventually forced back into early hibernation by the First Ritual of Chüd.  -1967: Interesting side event, It’s unknown to what degree or where It can manifest while in hibernation mode, but Richard Macklin, Dorsey’s stepfather and murderer, committed suicide in Falmouth, MA, leaving a note which simply read “I saw Eddie last night. He was dead.” Given Its proclivity towards taunting victims with dead loved ones, one could reasonably guess It appeared to Macklin and drove him to suicide. However, this behavior would be “out-of-cycle” and is never confirmed or elaborated on. -1984: It awakened after a young man, Adrian Mellon, was beaten nearly to death and thrown off a bridge in a homophobic hate crime. It was present as Pennywise at Mellon’s assault and began feeding on him in front of both his boyfriend and his attackers. It then went on one final killing spree before being defeated and seemingly killed by The Losers.

HOPE THIS HELPS any additional questions just ask

Oh yeah and uh here’s what i think personally is the best artistic depiction of what Its true form might be like