I first read It a long time ago. I remember enjoying the story, but feeling unsatisfied with the ending. I didn’t really understand what had happened. I just re-read it. I was looking for some light reading, but I also wanted to see if I could get a handle on that ending. I still don’t get it.
The main points that I don’t understand are:
How exactly did the kids defeat It? How did the adults defeat It? I know there was something about the “ritual of Chud” which involved biting tongues and telling riddles. But did that happen? How did Bill’s reciting the tongue twister help defeat It?
What was the dealieo with the turtle and the macroverse?
What the heck are the “deadlights?”
How did the kiddie gang-bang help them find their way out of the sewer?
Also, I’ve never seen the TV movie. How did they deal with the ending?
It’s been a while since I’ve read It, but here goes:
Since It feeds off of the kids’ fears, when they faced their fears and gained self-confidence, that knocked It out of commission. (I’m not sure why, maybe because It expended all that energy and wasn’t able to replace it by feeding off the kids. Just a theory.) Since they didn’t finish the ritual, they weren’t able to kill It. Later, as adults, they finished the ritual, weakening It enough to also physically kill It. Bill reciting the tongue twister without stuttering was the manifestation of his self-confidence. Maybe.
Not sure about the turtle thing. Just SK existential wierdness.
I’m not sure how to explain what I thought the deadlights were. I think the Chud ritual involved a telepathic confrontation, and the deadlights are actually It’s mind, a little like the Matrix, where your mind projects what you think everything should look lilke.
That bit was disturbing to me, but here goes. Throughout the whole book, the kids are bonding, maybe some empathy is involved. After defeating It, the bond starts to break down. Mostly, it comes down to believing in something will make it real. Beverly believes that doing this will bring them all together again.
This is just what I thought, someone else may have a better explanation.
I have blocked out the movie, so I can’t help you there.
The kids beat It the first time by believing in the power they themselves had. The point was made earlier in the book (when the whole gang went to the house on Neibolt Street) that if the kids saw It as a particular monster, It became that monster – in that case, the Werewolf. While it was the Werewolf, though, it was vulnerable to silver.
When you boil it down, the whole book is about power. It (the monster) had power over children because it could be any monster that frightened them. The Losers had power over It because they could harness the power of their fear and fight It, due to their love for each other.
If you’ll remember, each of the Losers had a specific weapon they could use against It. Bill could recite his tongue twister. Eddie had his aspirator. Stan had his birds. Mike had … I think the knife his father had given him, maybe? Richie had his Voices. Beverly had grackles (which I never understood, frankly). Ben had his love for Beverly, which would make him fight anything.
The ritual of Chud was a way the Native Americans (I think) fought a monster. Bill and It didn’t actually bite down on each other’s tongues; that happened existentially (or on their soul-level, if you want). It was a test of wills. The first time, Bill essentially willed It to bring him back from the macroverse. That injured It severely, because it wasn’t accustomed to having its will dominated. The second time, Bill’s will wasn’t strong enough (due, most likely, to his growing older), so Richie had to step in and help. Once they both proved their wills were stronger, It once again was in bad shape. This time, the adults took the further step of killing Its physical body.
Dunno. There was an ancient belief that the world was supported on the back of a giant turtle. King also uses a turtle in his “Dark Tower” series as a symbol. Either he’s incorporating that ancient belief into his works, or the turtle is a symbol of something in King’s works that I don’t know about. The deadlights would seem to be a play on words with “headlights,” but I don’t know that for sure.
My least-favorite scene in the whole freakin’ book. Keeping in the context of my earlier explanation, though, the gang-bang reaffirmed their love for each other. It cleared their heads, in other words. They were freaked out by killing It (or at least, they thought they’d killed It), and they lost their focus.
Beverly shot It with the slingshot while it was engaging Bill in the Ritual of Chud. It slunk off, and they followed It and killed It. I don’t recall it having eggs that Ben had to destroy, though.
And on preview, I see thi6 said most of this already, and in a more succint form. Damn.
1.The ritual and chanting didn’t matter per se, it was only a way for the kids and adults to focus their emotions and willpower and control their fear. IT doesn’t feed on flesh really, it feeds on emotions and fear. They had to face IT psychically before it would be weak enough to defeat physically. Their bond allowed them to persevere where a single person would have failed.
2. IT was a being from another dimension or plane of existence, many of King’s stories are about beings or objects crossing into “our” reality like Tommyknockers.
He had been developing this theme for decades, and finally tied it into his Darktower series where we see gateways and connection points between the dimensions and realities and that is what the macroverse and turtle is related to. In other words they have no relevance to the story of IT besides explaining where IT came from to begin with.
3.The dead lights are some aspect of IT possibly its true form. Amorphous blobs of cold light basically.
4.The gangbang somehow got them to reconnect emotionally enough to pull it together and escape, I hated that sequence. I believe in the TV movie they just kiss or something.
OP: You not getting the book isn’t so much because of the complexity of its intricate plot as it is that Stephen King was tripping balls when he wrote it.
There’s no outright explanation. However, in the world of the Dark Tower the Turtle is named among the Guardians of the universe. Children are taught the following poem:
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;
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.
