Stephen King’s the town of Derry, Maine, for many, many years, but if IT is so powerful, why doesn’t it ever leave Derry? For decades, Stephen King has terrorized generations of readers and allowed them to explore a variety of fears and meet different creatures and monsters, and one of his most popular (and scariest) ones is IT/Pennywise, the antagonist of the novel IT, published in 1986.
Like many other works by King, IT is set in Derry, Maine, and follows a group of kids self-named “The Losers Club” who come across an evil, shape-shifting entity that lives in the sewers. The Losers refer to this creature as “IT”, as it takes the shape of its victims’ deepest fears, but its preferred and most common shape is Pennywise, as clowns are a common fear among kids and adults. The Losers return to Derry 27 years later to confront the creature one last time and finally defeat it, and in the process, they learned more about IT’s backstory and nature, and discovered that it has never left Derry, raising the question of whether Pennywise can leave Derry or if it simply has decided to stay there.
Why Does Pennywise Live In Derry?
First off, IT/Pennywise is an entity that originated in a void outside the regions of space, known as the Macroverse. IT’s species is known as Deadlights, but its real shape is quite complex to describe, and the closest to its true form that the human mind can comprehend is a giant female spider. IT arrived on Earth in a cataclysmic event similar to an asteroid impact, landing in North America, in the region that would eventually become Derry, Maine. IT began to terrorize Derry in the 1700s, and since then, he adopted his usual pattern of a 27-year hibernation, and every time it woke up, it was to kill and eat, with each awakening and return to hibernation marked by a violent or tragic act, such as the burning of The Black Spot and the attack on Adrian Mellon. Due to all this, Derry is a cursed town in Stephen King’s universe, not just because of IT’s presence from the beginning but also because Derry exists in a “thin spot” of the universe, which allows creatures from other dimensions to slip through.
Due to how powerful Pennywise is, it’s unlikely it was “stuck” in Derry, so it had the power to leave town – it just didn’t want to leave. Because it had been living in Derry since the very beginning, Pennywise had a strong influence and control over the town and its residents (so much so that adults hardly ever came across IT and they never paid attention to the many tragedies involving the town’s children), which allowed it to awake, kill, and eat for centuries without drawing much attention to itself. Pennywise pretty much made Derry the perfect place for a creature like itself to live, and with the whole town under its control and with a lot of children (and adults) to feed from, IT didn’t really have reasons to leave Derry.
Other Stephen King Stories Pennywise Has Appeared In
Although Pennywise technically can go to other places as it isn’t attached to Derry, the creature hasn’t been seen outside of Derry, and even his appearances and references in other Stephen King stories are linked to Derry. Pennywise, in its Deadlights form, might have first appeared in Gray Matter, a short story published over a decade before IT; Pennywise was seen by Tommy Jacklin in The Tommyknockers; another shape of IT was mentioned in Insomnia; Pennywise was implied to still be around in Dreamcatcher; and Pennywise was mentioned in 11/22/63 and Elevation. It’s unclear if Stephen King will ever explore the possibility of Pennywise leaving Derry and if this could happen in the Pennywise TV series, but for now, it’s understood that IT can leave Derry but chooses not to as it’s more convenient for it to stay there.
