#idk WHAT this post is!!! i just find these entities realllly interesting and i instantly saw how they connected to richie and eddie

[scoobiesminyard]

understanding richie and eddie’s characters and issues with their sexuality by examining their fears as one of entities from the magnus archives (basically a primal fear) using both the book and movie:

((just want to say im not the first person to say all this, this character analysis was particularly inspired by @dear-wormwoods meta posts, i just wanted to use this concept to analyse them!))

richie- the beholding (the fear of being watched or followed, having the truth exposed or your secrets revealed)

- even in the book, richie is afraid to be seen- pennywise manifests as a giant eyeball

- this is expanded upon in the 2019 movie, as richie is terrified of being outed as gay. its the secret he carries with him for 27 years because he wasn’t able to face the potential judgment- richie’s crippling fear of sexuality entirely revolves around thinking people will negatively react to it, especially after he showed a glimmer of affection to a boy in the arcade and was brutally treated. not only is richie aware of homophobia on a worldwide level,but he has personal experience that his truth will have consquences. pennywise continually uses this to taunt him, and this fear is so intense that he is the only loser to try to leave derry. even though richie is living in a liberal city in a country which is quite progressive, even though he is 40 years old, he is still completely trapped in the closer and hiding his secret

- we see further subtle hints of this fear of being watched like in Neibolt Street, as the clowns eyes follow him around the room and also with the missing poster, the fear of people literally looking for him after something awful has happened

- i think this is really interesting considering how loud and attention seeking richie is, he makes *constant* jokes- most people wouldn’t assume someone who puts themselvesout there like that is insecure or afraid of people’s judgment. but it seems to me that richie definitely plays up the role of the comedian, works hard to appear confident and heterosexual (nonstop jokes about sex with women)- he prefers to live a lie than be himself even to his best friends because he is so deeply afraid of being rejected.

- 40 years is a really long time to allow fear to prevent you from being yourself or exposing your true, flawed self to others. we can only hope richie came out after chapter 2, and gave himself a chance to receive acceptance and true happiness.

eddie: the corruption (the fear and disgust of corruption, disease and filth)

- when eddie was young, he became very ill shortly after his father frank passing away from cancer. her mother sonya was terrified, she learnt that sickness or risk = sure death. eddie’s mother induced hypochondria and a phobia of germs in him, until he just as scared as she was of him becoming ill or hurt.

- consequently, this conditioning led to eddie seeing himself as weak- he is not allowed to do PE, takes placebo medications and uses a dummy inhaler all to protect him from germs, disease, danger and life itself.

- by 12, eddie has developed a deep fear of these things so it is no surprise that IT manifests to eddie as the leper. in the book eddie sees a man who is sick with syphilis and is revolted by him. pennywise takes the appearance of the leper in both films, the exact man eddie is afraid of becoming. pennywise breaks eddie’s arm in the first movie and vomits all over eddie as a kid and adult, playing into what affects eddie the most- injury and disease.

- however, it goes slightly deeper- eddie has an odd fascination with the leper and his “illness”. he goes back to the house where he saw the infected, rotting hobo because he can’t forget about him, he identifies with him even though he doesn’t know why. when pennywise appears as the leper, he also makes sexual comments towrd eddie.... not only is the leper sick but also gay (at least in eddie’s mind. its important to remember the leper is not a real man but how eddie understood the original hobo to be, and pennywise created the leper based off eddie’s fear of him)

- a quote that really sums this up is when eddie play acts as the hobo, thinking to himself “I can feel myself turning bad like an apple that’s going soft, I can feel it happening, eating from the inside to the out, eating, eating, eating me.” this is really indicative of a secret eddie is struggling with - he feels revolted with himself, feels infected with SOMETHING. this is not something physical, that is just the only way eddie knows how to conceptualize his burgeoning sexuality. eddie is beginning puberty and “going bad” as he starts having feelings for boys. no wonder he finds himsef relating to the man who is not only completely sick but sick from sex, sick from sex with men, his sick actions leading to his body physically rotting

- eddie’s struggles with his sexuality are completely linked with his hypochondria. he believes homosexuality is a sickness and sickness is absolutely not okay, he needs to be safe and healthy and normal because that is the way he was raised. on the other hand, his sexuality is who he is and he cannot cleanse himself of it. although he feels a deep shame about it that keeps him repressed and in denial his whole life, eddie is gay and inherently “corrupted”- i think eddie is terrified of being gay but he is also drawn to men and the idea of being truly himself, although he never gets further than dancing around the idea. eddie marries a woman who continues the controlling role that his mother played, and he uses his inhaler and a lot of medication as a shield against his overwhelming fear of disease and i think also against his unhealthy desires

- eddie is terrified not just developing physical illness but what he believes is a mental sickness (being gay), while being unable to totally reject his sexuality completely because being gay is fundamentally who he is and what he wants

IN CONCLUSION THEY DESERVED BETTER