Horror master Stephen King’s universe is expansive, which makes a lot of sense. The prolific author has crafted a total of 66 novels, with 63 under his real name and three under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman. What a lot of folks may not know is that these works of terror and fantasy are intertwined with each other in subtle ways, most of which reveal themselves inThe Dark Towerseries. One of his masterpieces, however, has a much deeper connection toThe Dark Towerthan others: Pennywise, the Dancing Clown fromIt.
King first began craftingItin 1981, not long after he completed another of his classics,Pet Sematary, which wasn’t published until the fall of 1986. The original manuscript of the book about a savage killer clown was massive, clocking in at 1,100 pages. It’s one of his longest books. The story follows a group of seven kids growing up in Derry, Maine, who call themselves the Losers' Club, who go head-to-head with an ancient, horrifying, cosmic shape-shifting entity that emerges from the sewers of the town every 27 years to feed off the town’s children.
Pennywise is not only the main antagonist ofIt, but is a significant figure in King’s magnum opus,The Dark Tower, which serves as the spine for the author’s multiverse. Here’s a look at how this Lovecraft-inspired entity is connected to King’s fantasy series on a cosmic, narrative, and mythological level.
Pennywise is a Glamour, Like Many Creatures in the Towerverse
In King’s novel,It, which has been adapted into a hit miniseries and a smash duology on the big screen,readers find out that Pennywiseis no ordinary clown. Nor is he just another boogieman that goes bump in the night. He’s something so much more terrifying. The creepy clown is a “Glamour,” which is a shape-shifting entity that feeds off of fear and will manifest itself according to the worst nightmares of its prey.
InThe Dark Tower, a Glamour like Pennywise is a class of extremely ancient beings, much like the creatures that populate the world of H.P. Lovecraft.Itreveals that Pennywise is an entity that originated in another dimension outside of time and space, called the “Macroverse.” Glamours enter the main Earth-reality of King’s multiverse through “thinnies,” which are tears in the fabric of space and time, another element that features prominently inThe Dark Tower.
InThe Dark Tower, the Macroverse dimension is known as the Todash Darkness, a void that exists between worlds. It is home to beings called the Prim, or the Old Ones. As readers learn in the third act ofIt,Pennywise is one of the Old Ones. He entered the earth’s dimension through a thinny and chose the area where, millions of years later, Derry, Maine would be established.
Maturin the Turtle is a Connection Point BetweenItandThe Dark Tower
Pennywise has a cosmic opposite — several, in fact. But his most prominant one is Maturin, an ancient turtle who serves as a sort of guardian and spiritual counterbalance to the horrifying Glamour. He’s also featured inThe Dark Tower.King describes Martin as one of the Guardians of the Beam, a group of twelve godlike animals that have been tasked with upholding the multiverse’s structure.
Maturin provides guidance to the Losers' Club in the novel, when they are attempting to defeat Pennywise through the Ritual of Chud. His role and the aid he offers is similar in nature to the aid that Roland Deschaine, the main character ofThe Dark Tower, receives from the guardians and by ka.
Are Pennywise and the Crimson King Related?
While it’s not directly confirmed, many fans of the King universe have created theories to suggest that the big bad inThe Dark Towerseries, the Crimson King, might either be related to Pennywise. Others have speculated thatthe shape-shifting entityis one of the Crimson King’s servants. The two characters have plenty in common to suggest a link.
Both characters are representative of chaos and interdimensional evil, and are determined to corrupt, feed, and destroy reality. Both beings are connected to the Prim, which is the primordial chaos that exists beyond the Tower. It’s also possible that Pennywise is a lesser entity that was created by the same cosmic darkness that gave birth to the Crimson King.
It’sprimary villain, Pennywise, is more than a clown, which is already the subject of many phobias and fears across the world. And he’s not just a sewer-dwelling beast terrorizing children in a small town on the East Coast. He’s symbolic of Stephen King’s mythology of chaos, born from the same substance as the cosmic threats in the realm ofThe Dark Tower.That’s what makes him the fabric of what nightmares are made of.
