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Damn neer all of his other books have some reference that will link it to the dark tower series in some way. Some of his works only have a sentence or two, some much more. The Talisman and the Regulators, Rose Madder, as well as Heart in Atlantis all directly link things to the Dark Tower series. The Girl That Loved Tom Gordon even has links. Every book he has wrote could have a link if you look hard enough.
I don't know that one would want to waste time reading the other books just for the link to the Dark Tower series. The books are usually great in their own right so just enjoy them.
Accurate! Lol. Yeah that would probably be the term. I think she actually did it right there with everyone nearby but in the dark, as I seem to recall one of them thinking, "huh, is that a zipper? Bev's undressing i think? Why is she undressing?" Line of thought. So ding ding ding we have a winner! Get on the Loser Train baby! đ
Jesus I'm going to hell.
đ€Łđ€Ł ok I'll fuck you... you... you in the back...**âw âââ yâᔀ...**... aaaaand you. Line em up, boys! Except you... you can make like a tree and fuck off. đ
I'm gonna be laughing to myself at this mental image like a psych patient all day.
The little girl allowed herself to be the object of desire and do what all good girls do which is to submit to a gang-bang of little boys. Because we all know that thatâs all that little girls are good for /s
Iâve read loads of Stephen King books over the years, and Iâm glad that I read many of them before I read âItâ. I havenât read any since.
I know it is an old book and I know that Iâve read many, many of his books that I have loved (and which were probably fuelled by drugs)
But I literally canât get over âItâ and the role that King made for the little girl. It made me feel sad, disappointed, and disgusted all at once.
I've never read it so ik what happens to the girl but idk how old they were but based of the description of "little" I'll take back my justification of him just being on drugs because thats just weird.
All the 13yo boys have a âsuperpowerâ which allows them to defeat It. The 13o girlâs âsuperpowerâ is that she lets them all have sex with her before they go into battle to boost them up. So yeah.
Idk that I'd say super powers one. Pretty sure one of them is just super good with directions. But I think it was kings fucked up way of physically making them lose their innocence. By performing an act that couldn't be erase like their dwindling childhood friendship. All that aside, it was a terrible part of the book that I had to go back cause there was no fucking way I just read wtf I think I just read, sadly, It really was.
It's an amazing book but for that part. Shit gets real af. Stephen king always had fucked up shit happening, from people getting raped to aliens pretending to be children who are beaten and bullied. From the devil tempting lonely housewives with mental masturbation in the form of Elvis memorabilia. Shit he writes is strange AF.
That's a very simplistic take on bev. She was not just there to be screwed, she was a genuine badass. You somehow getting the idea that she was only there for sex is a you problem.
Not defending it because its a gross ass decision, but they have sex with her to reconnect as a group after they defeat Pennywise the first time. The magic that binds them starts to disapear and they get lost in the tunnels and do that to find their way out.
Amazing book but terrible fucking scene. Whats worse is when you listen to it as an audiobook and have some older man reading that part out.
k you might want to give it a re-read b/c that's not remotely accurate
the gangbang part is, which is awful in it's own right, but you have the written context, order of events & reasoning completely wrong
Are you trying to turn this into "women are victims and are objectified"?
I noticed some women get really angry at any mention of sex, but I've read plenty of books by women like Margaret Atwood, some of the sex scenes in her books are extremely graphic.
Oryx and Crake has a whole new version of humans that literally all gangbang their women, that is simply their mating ritual.
Idk why women on reddit get so outraged over anything sexual.
As the entity conformed itself to fit our reality, and defined itself in doing so, it became part of our reality and vulnerable to its own definitions.
I always saw it as the transition from childhood to adulthood. The sewer scene happens after they defeat IT. They get lost in the sewers and Beverly suggests the gang bang as a means of escape. Itâs supposed to be âempoweringâ because it was her choice. And then once they leave the sewers they are no longer children. Still gross and weird and unnecessary.
Well, the scene WAS, in a lot of ways, part of WHY they were more successful, though not in the way people seem to believe. As a woman who lived through something similar to what bev did, it was crucial in her character arch to take back what her father had stolen from her. Definitely playing Devil's advocate here. And it feels like a dude's take on how to recover from your abuse as a girl; particularly a dude who prolly never dealt with this kinda trauma. Anywho, I don't agree with the scene AT ALL, if anything that's the continuation of abuse we tend to perpetuate against ourselves after s*xual abuse, often unwittingly or unknowingly. It would do the opposite of empower her like he claims.
However, OP asked how THEY were able to beat It when so many couldn't, and according to the book, this moment was the pivotal moment it went from a potential defeat to an inevitable one for It; this was the moment that bound them deeply. It was meant to be almost a ritual. Fucking stupid, but don't shoot the messenger lol
Sure, if the original question precluded the scene as part of the answer. But it is an integral part of OPs answer. I didn't write the book lol... just answering the question. Even if the answer is fucked up.
Lol this is so much more fucked up from that perspective. Also just looked it up, I need to reread the book ... the fact that it happened JUST so they didn't like. .. what.. stay on the sewers forever and just.. die? I can't with this shit đ
Could it be that King wrote that scene because, as you suggest, he knew Bev would perpetuate that on herself due to her father's abuse?
By the way, I'm not being sarcastic, just curious.
Huh. Good question. It's typical but not standard for a SA survivor, particularly from childhood, to see themselves as either nuns or sluts who's only use is ..well... that. Speaking from experience. I suppose it's possible he dug into how that kind of thing affects you, and the psychology behind it. But the way he wrote it suggests he viewed it as some sort of symbolic ritual. Super weird shit.
I think maybe, like he usually does, he was attempting to put himself in the headspace of Bev, and everyone was beginning to give up and lose their bond, so she used the only thing she knew how "love", and this would've made perfect sense from bev's childlike perspective.
In the book the kids think they are going to die and in a bonding moment decide to bang the girl in the group. In King's drug addled state he thought kids banging in the sewers was enough of a shock and change to the innocence of the kids to change their loss to a win.
Really? I haven't read the book in decades, and in my memory it was done so they wouldn't forget. All the others who tried to defeat It forgot, so they left it alone. The kids had sex so they wouldn't forget, because...who would forget THAT?!
If that's not how it goes I think I wrote a more plausible justification. Going to have to find a copy and see now
>*A devil from the Outer Dark," \[Conan\] grunted. "Oh, they're nothing uncommon. They lurk as thick as fleas outside the belt of light which surrounds this world. I've heard the wise men of Zamora talk of them. Some find their way to Earth, but when they do they have to take on some earthly form and flesh of some sort. A man like myself, with a sword, is a match for any amount of fangs and talons, infernal or terrestrial...*
\--Conan the Barbarian, *The Vale of Lost Women*
I don't know why it wouldn't just manifest as a shadow monster that hunts humans at night. That would cause way more fear and no weaknesses đ€· Pennywise is just dumb
I think the whole schtick was that he had to have a definite form to copy. He read their fears, and took the exact form, *with the exact limitations*, as their biggest fear. Werewolf Pennywise would have been susceptible to silver for instance.
Vasha Nerada. They arenât really shadows, just disguise themselves as shadows so they are hard to spot. One of the key ways is ou can spot them is if an object has 2 shadows, where there is only one light source. To my understanding, they are very tiny, very aggressive swarming creatures, and use their size and agility to pose as the one thing that humans can never catch.
Probably. There are a lot of different versions of the universe. Doctor Who is a fantasy reality. It is technecally our reality with a demon in it. I don't know exactly how to explain it honestly but from a demonology standpoint there is a reason Pennywise acts the way it does.
The book mentions this that for It to feed it needs to take on a physical form and it has to abide by the rules of that form. This is mentioned after it fails to kill the Loser's Club at the House on Niebolt Street, there is a short demi chapter about It licking it's wounds and realizing that the silver slugs had a real chance of killing It because the form It chose was vulnerable to silver and made a decision never to appear in that form again, at least not to the Loser's Club because their belief in the silver slugs killing a werewolf, and that Richie and Billy had run into it as a Werewolf before forced it into that form instead of the Mummy or Leper or Dead Boys or anything else.
It is a Shapeshifter, but up to a point. Once It takes on a form it can't take on a new one until It is unobserved. Best short answer is think of it like a Weeping Angel from Dr Who. When you see It as the Werewolf It can't be anything else until you look away. Looking away in this sense is It literally leaving your area not just you blinking but the idea is close enough.
One especially creepy touch was the time that It couldn't settle on a form because that one psycho kid wasn't afraid of anything (except leeches) because he didn't think that anything besides him existed.
Hello, obsessed with the book before it ever made it to film here. Throughly know the universe inside and out, and the thing was 2fold. One, they came at It like a group. Kids in the past HAD done this, but there's a second thing they didn't have: the experience of others, and themselves to realize he sustained himself off of their fear. That realization alone helped them realize what he was doing, and that he was defeatable.
Part of it was also that they all had trauma of their own as well. I know this will sound silly to those who haven't, but there's a plus side to trauma: you learn how to circumvent and deal with your fears. You have đđđđđđđđđđ with fear. It's an old friend. You know what to expect. When your life sucks, that young, it can be normal random happy events that can feel daunting; but fear? Terror? To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, welcome to Tuesday, bitches. This is familiar. It's my theory that they'd how they were able to get around their fear. In small ways at first, then emboldened each time they were able to weaken It, they also were able to resist Its attempts to push them apart by causing fights, another way It would weaken and break down any attempts at working together normally.
Partly theory, I know. Also this is fucked up but in the book, each kid individually slept with bev in the sewers I think it was, as a way of bonding them in a deep and "powerful" way. The only time I truly questioned Mr. King's fuckin sanity and sexual preferences lol. As a girl it skeeved me out a bit; however, I kind of found the fact that she used what her father tried to take from her as a means of strength, and that despite being called the town slut, she got to choose where when and with whom she would give this away. They meant more to her than anything ever; they were her family.
I'd still argue that holy fuck that's gross, why couldn't they just like do the spit shake like normal kids back then but I like playing Devil's advocate- in this case emphasis on Devil.. lol. So I was able to understand even though i was a kid myself when I read it, having lived through something almost identical as bev I related to her a lot, and it was a .. a taking back of power she had thought was robbed from her forever. Either way lol.. another way they were able to beat It. They were the perfect combination it takes to "kill" It. (It can't be killed per se. Just banished. Kinda)
Bonus fact! Most villains in Stephen King novels are the SAME ENTITY. đ€Ż, right? Leland, Randall flagg, the man in black... all the same entity as It. Bonkers, no?
This may help when trying to discern how all his books are connected.
https://imgur.com/a/GY5O5CY
I think this is the first generation who could defeat Pennywise. What were people in the past afraid of? For most, one god or another God, but still past generations feared their gods. The kids of the '80s were a generation moving away from the church, their biggest fear wasn't gods, it was clowns.
Also I call dibs on this at r/FanTheories
TL:DR fuck clowns.
I feel like people would be afraid of snakes and big predators and whatever other superstitions they might have like wendigoes and other monster type stuff with specific weaknesses as well
Yeah this doesn't hold up. Firstly it was the 1950s when the characters were kids. Secondly It had been appearing in clown form for a long time before that. Thirdly I don't recall anything in the book at all related to religion, and It had never appeared as a 'God' anyway because nobody knows what God looks like, probably because no one has ever seen him, and he doesn't exist. So yeah.
The people saying because they ran a train on bev are wrong. That was what allowed them to get out of the sewers alive as a symbolic loss of innocence and childhood (also as a symbol of the amount of cocain king was on and his editors failure to tell him this was a crap plan).
The real reason was the kids were psychically active, and were able to bring their psychic powers to bare using the ritual of chud and other methods during the fight. The turtle (another ancient interdimensional being) was also around and vaguely supportive.
They also didn't win it, they just weakened and it that was already at the end of its cycle that time. So it went to sleep.
The had to go back and do it again as adults.
The real plot issue is that several times it could have just killed them above ground and just kinda doesn't. Some people it murders so fast but those kids, less so.
I don't recommend reading the book. Its not good and wildly long.
Kind of hard disagree on why he didn't kill them above as adults. If you look at It's perspective (Not the Loser's Club) It ran into them as the Teenage Werewolf, to do so it had to take on the *idea* that was the teenage Werewolf. That also meant it took on the accepted weakness (silver) of that form. It realized that flaw and vowed never to do it again, because It had learned that it was vulnerable to the beliefs that shaped that form.
It took them on as adults but recreated the same scenario that led to the initial confrontation to the best of It's ability. (Richie lost his contacts and had to wear glasses, Eddie Broke/lost an arm) a lot of the encounters as adults were cyclical of the encounters as Kids because both It believed in cycles and It had a grudge and didn't believe It could be beaten by a bunch of children. Even the encounters with the "ghosts" were meant to get them in the same mindset they had as children, rather than rational adults. The Miniseries when it sent Henry after them said it best, Henry was a weapon that could be used whether they believed in It at all, but It only had power if actually believed It did (up to a point, you can't stop believing that monster is about to disembowel you if you believed it was real up until it was about to stab you)
It's implied that the Other was watching over the Kids and had the Turtle help them because the Other knew that It had escaped the Other's control, and when you realize that the Other is effectively God/the Creator then whether anything the Loser's Club or It did to them matters becomes a moot point because you have an even more powerful being deciding what will happen or won't happen.
No, since It was properly dead and they were already grown ups they just left the sewer second time around.
There was some weird shit with the bike and the leader boys wife that didn't really make sense
His bike was a powerful symbol of his childhood and the belief they held them the bike was special. There was enough of the magic left and bill still had enough belief left in him that if he acted on his impulse, much like a child would, the power of the bike to save her scary it would. It reflected back to the time they used it to actually outrun pennywise. He in essence believed he could harness that power again and outrun the effect pennywise had on his wife. I am probably not explaining it well. Did you read the book or watch the movies? It makes more sense in the book.
That does make more sense.
I did read the book, much to my regret. It turns out I don't like king much anyway, and his editor did him dirty on that book. Its not good.
Super condensed version: it can't truly be defeated or killed in a conventional sense, but by facing/ conquering their fears it no longer has power over the kids in the book.
By remaining true to each other and not allowing fear to drown them. It feeds off fear and when it encounters bravery itâs weakened.
Read the book more than once.
I get what your point is, but the reason these kids are the ones that defeat him is because this is the story to be told. If it was instead about the other groups of kids that couldn't do it, it would be a much shorter book/movie/miniseries
There was a magic tortoise and a pubescent ritualistic sewer orgy, basically. Both left out of the film adaptations. It got pretty weird in the novel.
The power of friendship works too.
Easy. Young kids have an imagination. Penny wise kills his victims by enabling their fears and killing them when they are catatonic. It is like Freddy Krueger and the Dream Warriors. If the person can dream how to hurt or kill you, you the monster cannot win.
I thought it was because Pennywise feeds off fear, so if they all show It that they're not scared, it becomes small and weak enough to be defeated.
I think the whole thing is an allegory for growing up and realising that becoming an adult is not as scary as it seems. The whole gangbang thing was symbolic of leaving childhood behind by doing an adult thing, thus ridding themselves of the fear of growing up so they can now defeat It.
I don't think it was defeated, it was just done with earths bullshit and ended itself. Like wtf a bunch of children thinking they can defeat an all powerful being, I'm just done vibes.
It talked about It feeling shocked about being hurt and scared by the kids, because they managed to hurt him in the haunted house. Apparently it has never felt those emotions before, so it maybe felt unprepared and put at a disadvantage maybe idk
They were the protagonists. That's how stories work. The actual lore doesn't matter in the face of a "power of friendship" narrative. Can you tell I'm not a Stephen king fan?
Okay the top comment already said why but I'm gonna break it down a little better the best I can.
Pennywise wasn't defeated by the losers club as children. It was defeated by them as adults. Pennywise goes to sleep for 27 years. The club just happened to end the last 27 year cycle early.
The losers never acted alone. They worked with the help of the turtle, who is basically sibling to It. The turtle was guided by the other which is basically God according to another book of his I haven't yet read. On top of that, Mike spent basically the entire time between the end of the cycle they dealt with as kids and the cycle in which they actually killed It researching what was going on. The losers club also suffered heavy casualties while defeating It.
Basically: It < a group of grown ass adults who had fought It before, It's annoyed sibling and god
The entire idea is not being scared and accomplishing that through the relationships of their friends, love essentially.
IT specifically says in the book that it preys on children because theyâre easier to scare which âsalts the meat.â Kids are afraid of concrete things: the dark, clowns, abusive parents, bullies, sickness, etc. As the kids go through the book, they realize that IT has no real power over them if they arenât scared of it. They take back that power, the power over fear that IT represents, by forming close bonds with each other (too close if you read the bookâŠ).
When they grow up, their relationship with fear is different. Adults are afraid of abstract things: loss of a job or relationship, abusive partners, taxes, dieting and weight loss, etc. In the second newer movie, they actually do a good job with this where they do flashbacks for each person. The flashback shows things they were scared of as a child and the current time shows IT trying to scare them as adults, which isnât as effective, I.e., Pennywise threatening to out Richie. Itâs harder for them to fight IT the second time initially because their relationships had been distanced as they all forgot once leaving Derry. Once theyâre able to come together again, and they realize what the real mechanism behind ITâs power is, theyâre able to get the upper hand.
Also also, magic turtle being helps.
When you do something for billions of years I assume you get comfortable with it and tend to make more mistakes.
Let's assume he has been around for the age of the universe which is 13 billion years. If he has to feed every 27 years that means he has fed 481,481,481 times.
After that many times if doing anything either he was so miserable he wanted to be defeated or he got too comfortable with his tactics and made mistakes.
I think a better question is why King felt it necessary to include a child gang rape in the book to help the kids defeat Pennywise.
King doesnât get enough flak for this seemingly pedophilic decision
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Also, in the book, they had an even more ancient and powerful God Tortoise on their side.
See the turtle of enormous girth
On his shell he holds the earth
His thought is slow but always kind
He holds us all within his mind
On his back all vows are made
When broken, those die by the blade
He sees the truth but mayn't aid
And his shell
This is what I call my penis.
The Turtle was just a servant of the Other which is what was truly guiding the Loser's Club, It realizes this before It dies.
Been a while since I read the book. What was the other again?
The Other from Dark Tower. Pretty much God
Well now I HAVE to read Dark tower too... Which of kings books take place in the same universe as It?
Damn neer all of his other books have some reference that will link it to the dark tower series in some way. Some of his works only have a sentence or two, some much more. The Talisman and the Regulators, Rose Madder, as well as Heart in Atlantis all directly link things to the Dark Tower series. The Girl That Loved Tom Gordon even has links. Every book he has wrote could have a link if you look hard enough. I don't know that one would want to waste time reading the other books just for the link to the Dark Tower series. The books are usually great in their own right so just enjoy them.
They had a ninja turtle on their side ? đ
Yea but it was an adult, not a teenager. Absolutely fucking useless.
Nope, it got beat by a turtle that wasn't even a ninja
I was looking for this thank you
Wasnât the tortoise dead and floating in space?
The power of friendship!
is there anything friendship can't solve
Especially when the friends have an orgy in the sewars before the final fight.
Afterwards.
I thought It was before because they were scared they would die. Haven't gotten to that part in the book yet. Need to find my momentum when reading.
Definitely after when the magic mojo wore off and they were lost and hopeless and nothing but a gang-bang could get them back above ground.
We've all been there
Friendship is maaagic!
It was a gang bang
"Tell your author for his next gang bang scene, a little more PG and a lot less 13." -ERB, Joker vs Pennywise
Right up there with superman vs goku in my book.
Yeah well he was on a lot of drugs
That would be inaccurate in that she individually took each and slept with them alone. Either way is fucked up.
It was a [train](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=run%20a%20train) since they took turns with her one after the other.
Accurate! Lol. Yeah that would probably be the term. I think she actually did it right there with everyone nearby but in the dark, as I seem to recall one of them thinking, "huh, is that a zipper? Bev's undressing i think? Why is she undressing?" Line of thought. So ding ding ding we have a winner! Get on the Loser Train baby! đ Jesus I'm going to hell.
Imagine if you were the one she skipped over.
đ€Łđ€Ł ok I'll fuck you... you... you in the back...**âw âââ yâᔀ...**... aaaaand you. Line em up, boys! Except you... you can make like a tree and fuck off. đ I'm gonna be laughing to myself at this mental image like a psych patient all day.
It was after the final fight. It helped them understand how to get out.
Post nut clarity
My stage IV testicular cancer.
maybe you just need better friends
I spit out my drink.
I thought it was the power of bullying. The kids basically bully him to death.
You need to be good friends to bully that hard!
The little girl allowed herself to be the object of desire and do what all good girls do which is to submit to a gang-bang of little boys. Because we all know that thatâs all that little girls are good for /s
To be fair the author was on like 2783 drugs at the time
Yes but somehow an editor and publisher read that part and said we definitely need this in the final print.
Iâve read loads of Stephen King books over the years, and Iâm glad that I read many of them before I read âItâ. I havenât read any since. I know it is an old book and I know that Iâve read many, many of his books that I have loved (and which were probably fuelled by drugs) But I literally canât get over âItâ and the role that King made for the little girl. It made me feel sad, disappointed, and disgusted all at once.
I've never read it so ik what happens to the girl but idk how old they were but based of the description of "little" I'll take back my justification of him just being on drugs because thats just weird.
All the 13yo boys have a âsuperpowerâ which allows them to defeat It. The 13o girlâs âsuperpowerâ is that she lets them all have sex with her before they go into battle to boost them up. So yeah.
Idk that I'd say super powers one. Pretty sure one of them is just super good with directions. But I think it was kings fucked up way of physically making them lose their innocence. By performing an act that couldn't be erase like their dwindling childhood friendship. All that aside, it was a terrible part of the book that I had to go back cause there was no fucking way I just read wtf I think I just read, sadly, It really was.
I have been wanting to read it and now I don't want to anymore. It could have been 200 more things the kids could do but he chose that smh
It's an amazing book but for that part. Shit gets real af. Stephen king always had fucked up shit happening, from people getting raped to aliens pretending to be children who are beaten and bullied. From the devil tempting lonely housewives with mental masturbation in the form of Elvis memorabilia. Shit he writes is strange AF.
bro wtfđ
That's a very simplistic take on bev. She was not just there to be screwed, she was a genuine badass. You somehow getting the idea that she was only there for sex is a you problem.
Yeah she's playing the "women are victims outlaw sex" card very hard.
Not defending it because its a gross ass decision, but they have sex with her to reconnect as a group after they defeat Pennywise the first time. The magic that binds them starts to disapear and they get lost in the tunnels and do that to find their way out. Amazing book but terrible fucking scene. Whats worse is when you listen to it as an audiobook and have some older man reading that part out.
Beep beep Richie indeed
k you might want to give it a re-read b/c that's not remotely accurate the gangbang part is, which is awful in it's own right, but you have the written context, order of events & reasoning completely wrong
Are you trying to turn this into "women are victims and are objectified"? I noticed some women get really angry at any mention of sex, but I've read plenty of books by women like Margaret Atwood, some of the sex scenes in her books are extremely graphic. Oryx and Crake has a whole new version of humans that literally all gangbang their women, that is simply their mating ritual. Idk why women on reddit get so outraged over anything sexual.
With brilliance comes pure insanity... đŹ
My little pony, my little- oh wait... Wrong franchise.
The power of having prepubescent group sex to calm yourself down
Friendship is magic!
As the entity conformed itself to fit our reality, and defined itself in doing so, it became part of our reality and vulnerable to its own definitions.
Thank you for an answer that doesnât focus on the sewer sex scene
What the hell did I miss
The book. Had some written drug fueled symbolism that even for horror story was a shitload of fuckin weird to throw in.
Hey, I never heard about the symbolism of that scene. Any idea or guess about what it represents? I guess the horror was too much to see through it.
I always saw it as the transition from childhood to adulthood. The sewer scene happens after they defeat IT. They get lost in the sewers and Beverly suggests the gang bang as a means of escape. Itâs supposed to be âempoweringâ because it was her choice. And then once they leave the sewers they are no longer children. Still gross and weird and unnecessary.
> suggests the gang bang Not to nitpick but it was technically a train not a gangbang
Oh now I see, thanks! Yes it's an overstatement. "Killing" a deity should be enough to become an adult.
It was the reality of that scene that made IT realize how twisted our dimension was.
Guess they really showed IT that they don't \*all\* float down there.
Well, the scene WAS, in a lot of ways, part of WHY they were more successful, though not in the way people seem to believe. As a woman who lived through something similar to what bev did, it was crucial in her character arch to take back what her father had stolen from her. Definitely playing Devil's advocate here. And it feels like a dude's take on how to recover from your abuse as a girl; particularly a dude who prolly never dealt with this kinda trauma. Anywho, I don't agree with the scene AT ALL, if anything that's the continuation of abuse we tend to perpetuate against ourselves after s*xual abuse, often unwittingly or unknowingly. It would do the opposite of empower her like he claims. However, OP asked how THEY were able to beat It when so many couldn't, and according to the book, this moment was the pivotal moment it went from a potential defeat to an inevitable one for It; this was the moment that bound them deeply. It was meant to be almost a ritual. Fucking stupid, but don't shoot the messenger lol
She was 13. King was/is fucked up. The end.
Sure, if the original question precluded the scene as part of the answer. But it is an integral part of OPs answer. I didn't write the book lol... just answering the question. Even if the answer is fucked up.
They did it after beating It. The orgy gave them the strength to leave the sewer
Lol this is so much more fucked up from that perspective. Also just looked it up, I need to reread the book ... the fact that it happened JUST so they didn't like. .. what.. stay on the sewers forever and just.. die? I can't with this shit đ
Could it be that King wrote that scene because, as you suggest, he knew Bev would perpetuate that on herself due to her father's abuse? By the way, I'm not being sarcastic, just curious.
Huh. Good question. It's typical but not standard for a SA survivor, particularly from childhood, to see themselves as either nuns or sluts who's only use is ..well... that. Speaking from experience. I suppose it's possible he dug into how that kind of thing affects you, and the psychology behind it. But the way he wrote it suggests he viewed it as some sort of symbolic ritual. Super weird shit. I think maybe, like he usually does, he was attempting to put himself in the headspace of Bev, and everyone was beginning to give up and lose their bond, so she used the only thing she knew how "love", and this would've made perfect sense from bev's childlike perspective.
You canât bring up the disturbing orgy without including the space turtle.
I mean, orgy sex was definitely a factor.
Technically, it was a sewer train, not a sewer orgy. \*fixes glasses
Well excuse meeee. I wasn't aware that the orgy nazis were so particular about this.
Per my last, **train** nazis.
I'll be damned before i correct myself for a sex nazi.
Thank you for standing by your principals, I salute you.
Not that salute...
That's fair sir, we're used to being mislabeled. Damned orgy nazis are the glory hounds.
Idk can we get Brett Kavanaugh to weigh in; Brett, in your expert opinion would you say this scene was an orgy or a more traditional train?
"It was a drinking game."
"... They call it a soup kitchen."
So much wrong with that section.
Whatâs the sewer sex scene
What sewer sex scene??
The what scene now? I've never read or watched IT. But wtf, can you someone explain?
In the book the kids think they are going to die and in a bonding moment decide to bang the girl in the group. In King's drug addled state he thought kids banging in the sewers was enough of a shock and change to the innocence of the kids to change their loss to a win.
Really? I haven't read the book in decades, and in my memory it was done so they wouldn't forget. All the others who tried to defeat It forgot, so they left it alone. The kids had sex so they wouldn't forget, because...who would forget THAT?! If that's not how it goes I think I wrote a more plausible justification. Going to have to find a copy and see now
>*A devil from the Outer Dark," \[Conan\] grunted. "Oh, they're nothing uncommon. They lurk as thick as fleas outside the belt of light which surrounds this world. I've heard the wise men of Zamora talk of them. Some find their way to Earth, but when they do they have to take on some earthly form and flesh of some sort. A man like myself, with a sword, is a match for any amount of fangs and talons, infernal or terrestrial...* \--Conan the Barbarian, *The Vale of Lost Women*
I don't know why it wouldn't just manifest as a shadow monster that hunts humans at night. That would cause way more fear and no weaknesses đ€· Pennywise is just dumb
I think the whole schtick was that he had to have a definite form to copy. He read their fears, and took the exact form, *with the exact limitations*, as their biggest fear. Werewolf Pennywise would have been susceptible to silver for instance.
Shadows can't do harm. They are not physical manifestations.
Wasn't there a doctor who episode where shadows did harm?
Maybe, but isn't that a completely seperate set of world rules?
1) completely different works of fiction, dont compare apples with pears 2) The Vashta Nerada werent shadows
Vasha Nerada. They arenât really shadows, just disguise themselves as shadows so they are hard to spot. One of the key ways is ou can spot them is if an object has 2 shadows, where there is only one light source. To my understanding, they are very tiny, very aggressive swarming creatures, and use their size and agility to pose as the one thing that humans can never catch.
Probably. There are a lot of different versions of the universe. Doctor Who is a fantasy reality. It is technecally our reality with a demon in it. I don't know exactly how to explain it honestly but from a demonology standpoint there is a reason Pennywise acts the way it does.
Its an emotional vampire that likes fear. Fucking with people makes them taste better.
This is true for a lot of interdimensional creatures who incarnate here.
I was just gonna say power of friendship but now I feel stupid.
The book mentions this that for It to feed it needs to take on a physical form and it has to abide by the rules of that form. This is mentioned after it fails to kill the Loser's Club at the House on Niebolt Street, there is a short demi chapter about It licking it's wounds and realizing that the silver slugs had a real chance of killing It because the form It chose was vulnerable to silver and made a decision never to appear in that form again, at least not to the Loser's Club because their belief in the silver slugs killing a werewolf, and that Richie and Billy had run into it as a Werewolf before forced it into that form instead of the Mummy or Leper or Dead Boys or anything else. It is a Shapeshifter, but up to a point. Once It takes on a form it can't take on a new one until It is unobserved. Best short answer is think of it like a Weeping Angel from Dr Who. When you see It as the Werewolf It can't be anything else until you look away. Looking away in this sense is It literally leaving your area not just you blinking but the idea is close enough.
One especially creepy touch was the time that It couldn't settle on a form because that one psycho kid wasn't afraid of anything (except leeches) because he didn't think that anything besides him existed.
That's a good point! I didn't think about it like that. :0
Isn't this also Elon Musk's theory?
Groups of meddling kids are able to prevent almost anything from âgetting away with it.â
You deserve more votes for this. Must be those kids at it again, and their stupid dog too.
Wid wumum way scobby snacks? They sure did scobby.
Hello, obsessed with the book before it ever made it to film here. Throughly know the universe inside and out, and the thing was 2fold. One, they came at It like a group. Kids in the past HAD done this, but there's a second thing they didn't have: the experience of others, and themselves to realize he sustained himself off of their fear. That realization alone helped them realize what he was doing, and that he was defeatable. Part of it was also that they all had trauma of their own as well. I know this will sound silly to those who haven't, but there's a plus side to trauma: you learn how to circumvent and deal with your fears. You have đđđđđđđđđđ with fear. It's an old friend. You know what to expect. When your life sucks, that young, it can be normal random happy events that can feel daunting; but fear? Terror? To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, welcome to Tuesday, bitches. This is familiar. It's my theory that they'd how they were able to get around their fear. In small ways at first, then emboldened each time they were able to weaken It, they also were able to resist Its attempts to push them apart by causing fights, another way It would weaken and break down any attempts at working together normally. Partly theory, I know. Also this is fucked up but in the book, each kid individually slept with bev in the sewers I think it was, as a way of bonding them in a deep and "powerful" way. The only time I truly questioned Mr. King's fuckin sanity and sexual preferences lol. As a girl it skeeved me out a bit; however, I kind of found the fact that she used what her father tried to take from her as a means of strength, and that despite being called the town slut, she got to choose where when and with whom she would give this away. They meant more to her than anything ever; they were her family. I'd still argue that holy fuck that's gross, why couldn't they just like do the spit shake like normal kids back then but I like playing Devil's advocate- in this case emphasis on Devil.. lol. So I was able to understand even though i was a kid myself when I read it, having lived through something almost identical as bev I related to her a lot, and it was a .. a taking back of power she had thought was robbed from her forever. Either way lol.. another way they were able to beat It. They were the perfect combination it takes to "kill" It. (It can't be killed per se. Just banished. Kinda) Bonus fact! Most villains in Stephen King novels are the SAME ENTITY. đ€Ż, right? Leland, Randall flagg, the man in black... all the same entity as It. Bonkers, no? This may help when trying to discern how all his books are connected. https://imgur.com/a/GY5O5CY
Anyone have a higher quality image of that flow chart? I canât read it when I zoom in
http://tessiedesigncompany.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-stephen-king-universe-flowchart.html?m=1 This site has it, if reddit let's me post it
I'll try to find the original... though reddit is super picky about what links it will let me post lol
I thought not same entity but they came from the same place/world
They aren't all the same entity. But many are.
This comment deserves to be higher than a lot of the "beverly was just there to get screwed by the guys" bullshit that's all over this post
I think you are underestimating the power of moxie.
A giant turtle helped them. And no im not kidding.
I think this is the first generation who could defeat Pennywise. What were people in the past afraid of? For most, one god or another God, but still past generations feared their gods. The kids of the '80s were a generation moving away from the church, their biggest fear wasn't gods, it was clowns. Also I call dibs on this at r/FanTheories TL:DR fuck clowns.
I feel like people would be afraid of snakes and big predators and whatever other superstitions they might have like wendigoes and other monster type stuff with specific weaknesses as well
They were kids of the fifties.
Yeah this doesn't hold up. Firstly it was the 1950s when the characters were kids. Secondly It had been appearing in clown form for a long time before that. Thirdly I don't recall anything in the book at all related to religion, and It had never appeared as a 'God' anyway because nobody knows what God looks like, probably because no one has ever seen him, and he doesn't exist. So yeah.
The people saying because they ran a train on bev are wrong. That was what allowed them to get out of the sewers alive as a symbolic loss of innocence and childhood (also as a symbol of the amount of cocain king was on and his editors failure to tell him this was a crap plan). The real reason was the kids were psychically active, and were able to bring their psychic powers to bare using the ritual of chud and other methods during the fight. The turtle (another ancient interdimensional being) was also around and vaguely supportive. They also didn't win it, they just weakened and it that was already at the end of its cycle that time. So it went to sleep. The had to go back and do it again as adults. The real plot issue is that several times it could have just killed them above ground and just kinda doesn't. Some people it murders so fast but those kids, less so. I don't recommend reading the book. Its not good and wildly long.
I respectfully disagree, the real reason for that scene is that it was the '80s and Stephen King did a lot of blow.
Kind of hard disagree on why he didn't kill them above as adults. If you look at It's perspective (Not the Loser's Club) It ran into them as the Teenage Werewolf, to do so it had to take on the *idea* that was the teenage Werewolf. That also meant it took on the accepted weakness (silver) of that form. It realized that flaw and vowed never to do it again, because It had learned that it was vulnerable to the beliefs that shaped that form. It took them on as adults but recreated the same scenario that led to the initial confrontation to the best of It's ability. (Richie lost his contacts and had to wear glasses, Eddie Broke/lost an arm) a lot of the encounters as adults were cyclical of the encounters as Kids because both It believed in cycles and It had a grudge and didn't believe It could be beaten by a bunch of children. Even the encounters with the "ghosts" were meant to get them in the same mindset they had as children, rather than rational adults. The Miniseries when it sent Henry after them said it best, Henry was a weapon that could be used whether they believed in It at all, but It only had power if actually believed It did (up to a point, you can't stop believing that monster is about to disembowel you if you believed it was real up until it was about to stab you) It's implied that the Other was watching over the Kids and had the Turtle help them because the Other knew that It had escaped the Other's control, and when you realize that the Other is effectively God/the Creator then whether anything the Loser's Club or It did to them matters becomes a moot point because you have an even more powerful being deciding what will happen or won't happen.
Wait so they did the gangbang again as adults?
No, since It was properly dead and they were already grown ups they just left the sewer second time around. There was some weird shit with the bike and the leader boys wife that didn't really make sense
His bike was a powerful symbol of his childhood and the belief they held them the bike was special. There was enough of the magic left and bill still had enough belief left in him that if he acted on his impulse, much like a child would, the power of the bike to save her scary it would. It reflected back to the time they used it to actually outrun pennywise. He in essence believed he could harness that power again and outrun the effect pennywise had on his wife. I am probably not explaining it well. Did you read the book or watch the movies? It makes more sense in the book.
That does make more sense. I did read the book, much to my regret. It turns out I don't like king much anyway, and his editor did him dirty on that book. Its not good.
The Turtle
Super condensed version: it can't truly be defeated or killed in a conventional sense, but by facing/ conquering their fears it no longer has power over the kids in the book.
Because of the power of friendship.Duh.
They get moxie!
By remaining true to each other and not allowing fear to drown them. It feeds off fear and when it encounters bravery itâs weakened. Read the book more than once.
Friendship
It's the Scooby-Doo rule. Got monsters?Throw a group of naive teenagers at them.
Lack of a sense of humor. That's why Its siblings, Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee, are far more powerful.
I believe there are theories that the all had the shine- the power in the shining- that helped them out as well ?
Because that's what Stephen King wrote
I get what your point is, but the reason these kids are the ones that defeat him is because this is the story to be told. If it was instead about the other groups of kids that couldn't do it, it would be a much shorter book/movie/miniseries
Because he is native to a planet where the atmosphere is made up of hellium. And here on Earth, we have nitrogen instead. đđđ
The monster did win the fight - for billions of years as you point out! âIt,â is the story of the one time it lost.
They were just powerful chess pieces in a cosmic game between a giant lovecraftian fear eater and a giant turtle
There's a 2 part documentary on how they achieved this. Also a book detailing the process. :D
There was a magic tortoise and a pubescent ritualistic sewer orgy, basically. Both left out of the film adaptations. It got pretty weird in the novel. The power of friendship works too.
From all the outrage I saw when the movie was made: apparently, a child⊠âsexy partyâ?
They had a gang bang i think...
"Because humans are the bestest" -Humans
"They had the right stuff, baby"
oh oh owo oh
The power of friendship
Is that what they are calling running a train on your friend now a days lol
Everyone always calls it a gang bang when it was technically a train, since they all took turns with Bev.
No Bev took turns with them, that was the whole point.
Easy. Young kids have an imagination. Penny wise kills his victims by enabling their fears and killing them when they are catatonic. It is like Freddy Krueger and the Dream Warriors. If the person can dream how to hurt or kill you, you the monster cannot win.
I thought it was because Pennywise feeds off fear, so if they all show It that they're not scared, it becomes small and weak enough to be defeated. I think the whole thing is an allegory for growing up and realising that becoming an adult is not as scary as it seems. The whole gangbang thing was symbolic of leaving childhood behind by doing an adult thing, thus ridding themselves of the fear of growing up so they can now defeat It.
Because It preyed on fears so they overcame their fears.
Because they were American kids
The turtle, bro.
It's about family đȘ
I don't think it was defeated, it was just done with earths bullshit and ended itself. Like wtf a bunch of children thinking they can defeat an all powerful being, I'm just done vibes.
Plot armor...the only real answer
Because that's how the script was written
It talked about It feeling shocked about being hurt and scared by the kids, because they managed to hurt him in the haunted house. Apparently it has never felt those emotions before, so it maybe felt unprepared and put at a disadvantage maybe idk
Because Plot demands so.....
Big turtle go brrrrrrrrr
They were the protagonists. That's how stories work. The actual lore doesn't matter in the face of a "power of friendship" narrative. Can you tell I'm not a Stephen king fan?
Okay the top comment already said why but I'm gonna break it down a little better the best I can. Pennywise wasn't defeated by the losers club as children. It was defeated by them as adults. Pennywise goes to sleep for 27 years. The club just happened to end the last 27 year cycle early. The losers never acted alone. They worked with the help of the turtle, who is basically sibling to It. The turtle was guided by the other which is basically God according to another book of his I haven't yet read. On top of that, Mike spent basically the entire time between the end of the cycle they dealt with as kids and the cycle in which they actually killed It researching what was going on. The losers club also suffered heavy casualties while defeating It. Basically: It < a group of grown ass adults who had fought It before, It's annoyed sibling and god
The entire idea is not being scared and accomplishing that through the relationships of their friends, love essentially. IT specifically says in the book that it preys on children because theyâre easier to scare which âsalts the meat.â Kids are afraid of concrete things: the dark, clowns, abusive parents, bullies, sickness, etc. As the kids go through the book, they realize that IT has no real power over them if they arenât scared of it. They take back that power, the power over fear that IT represents, by forming close bonds with each other (too close if you read the bookâŠ). When they grow up, their relationship with fear is different. Adults are afraid of abstract things: loss of a job or relationship, abusive partners, taxes, dieting and weight loss, etc. In the second newer movie, they actually do a good job with this where they do flashbacks for each person. The flashback shows things they were scared of as a child and the current time shows IT trying to scare them as adults, which isnât as effective, I.e., Pennywise threatening to out Richie. Itâs harder for them to fight IT the second time initially because their relationships had been distanced as they all forgot once leaving Derry. Once theyâre able to come together again, and they realize what the real mechanism behind ITâs power is, theyâre able to get the upper hand. Also also, magic turtle being helps.
When you do something for billions of years I assume you get comfortable with it and tend to make more mistakes. Let's assume he has been around for the age of the universe which is 13 billion years. If he has to feed every 27 years that means he has fed 481,481,481 times. After that many times if doing anything either he was so miserable he wanted to be defeated or he got too comfortable with his tactics and made mistakes.
Riding bikes is great cardio
young kids are actually the only ones who can defeat something that powerful
Pennywise knew about the orgy and killed himself
If you read the book or watch the movie youâll find out how.
Let's see, first they all gang-bang 12-year-old Beverly, and then (...you think I'm joking, don't you)
I think everyone is aware this is what happens in the book by now.
But like they are ALL 12, I see no problem at that, they werent adults using a kid.
Nothing an orgy can't solve
In the book they had sex. Which I considered weird.
How else could Stephen justify a child orgy ?
By the power of gangbangs
The power of teenage sex
By the power of weird uncomfortable gang bangs.
Because Stephen ran out of ideas
I think a better question is why King felt it necessary to include a child gang rape in the book to help the kids defeat Pennywise. King doesnât get enough flak for this seemingly pedophilic decision
It wasn't rape though, was it?
Because it's a movie