Pennywise’s Dark Tower Connection: Stephen King’s Creepiest Villains Are Linked

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Pennywise, the dancing clown from ‘It’.

King initiated writing “It” in 1981, not much time having passed since he finished another one of his renowned works, “Pet Sematary“, which didn’t hit the shelves until autumn 1986. The initial manuscript of the book about a terrifying killer clown was voluminous, weighing in at approximately 1,100 pages, making it one of his lengthiest works. The narrative revolves around a gang of seven children growing up in Derry, Maine, who refer to themselves as the Losers’ Club, who confront an ancient, terrifying, cosmic form that transforms itself, emerging from the sewers of the town every 27 years to prey on the town’s children.

Pennywise isn’t just the central villain in “It”, but also plays a substantial role in Stephen King’s grand epic, “The Dark Tower“. This chilling character links up with King’s fantasy masterpiece, serving as the backbone for his multiverse. Here’s a glance at how this Lovecraftian figure intertwines with King’s fantasy series on a cosmic, narrative, and mythological scale.

Pennywise is a Glamour, Like Many Creatures in the Towerverse

In Stephen King’s novel, “It“, it’s revealed that Pennywise isn’t your typical circus entertainer. He isn’t simply a bogeyman causing harm in the dark hours. Instead, he is an incredibly terrifying entity. This menacing clown is actually a “Glamour”, which is a shape-shifting being that thrives on fear and takes form based on the most horrifying dreams of its victims.

In Stephen King’s novel, The Dark Tower, a Glamour, much like Pennywise, is an incredibly old type of being. They resemble creatures common in H.P. Lovecraft’s world. The story unveils that Pennywie is a being from another dimension called the “Macroverse,” which exists beyond the confines of time and space. Glamours make their way into King’s multiverse’s primary Earth-reality through “thinnies,” which are rips in the fabric of space and time, a concept also found in The Dark Tower series.

As a film enthusiast, I’d rephrase it as follows: In Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower,” the Macroverse is referred to as the Todash Darkness – a void that lies between different realms. This mysterious place harbors ancient beings known as the Prim, or the Old Ones. Interestingly enough, readers discover in the latter part of “It” that Pennywise, the terrifying clown from Derry, is one of these Old Ones. He slipped into our world through a ‘thinny’ (a gateway between dimensions) and picked the location where, eons later, the town of Derry, Maine would appear.

Maturin the Turtle is a Connection Point Between It and The Dark Tower

In a fascinating twist, Pennywise has a cosmic counterpart, or rather multiple ones, but Maturin, an ancient turtle, stands out the most. He acts as both a protector and a spiritual balancer to Pennywise’s terrifying powers of Glamour. Notably, Maturin is also present in Stephen King’s work, The Dark Tower. King portrays Maturin as one of the Guardians of the Beam, a group of twelve divine-like creatures that are responsible for maintaining the structure of the multiverse.

In the story, Maturin serves as a mentor to the Losers’ Club members as they strive to vanquish Pennywise using the Ritual of Chud. His function and the assistance he extends mirrors the help that Roland Deschaine, the central character in “The Dark Tower,” receives from guardians and destiny itself (ka).

Are Pennywise and the Crimson King Related?

Although it hasn’t been explicitly stated, some fans of the King universe have proposed theories that the antagonist from the Dark Tower series, the Crimson King, could be connected to Pennywise. Others have hypothesized that Pennywise might be one of the Crimson King’s minions due to their shared characteristics, hinting at a possible connection between the two characters.

The two entities embody disorder and interdimensional malevolence, with an unyielding intent to pollute, devour, and annihilate existence. These beings share ties with the Prim, a primordial chaos that lies beyond the Tower. It’s also plausible that Pennywise is a subordinate being forged from the same cosmic darkness that spawned the Crimson King.

The main antagonist, Pennywise, is not just a clown that triggers phobias and fears globally. He’s also not merely a sewer-lurking monster terrorizing kids in a coastal town. Instead, he embodies Stephen King’s mythos of chaos, stemming from the same essence as the cosmic perils in the world of The Dark Tower. This is what gives him the substance to create truly terrifying nightmares.

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2025-05-04 19:08