YMMV / It

• Angst? What Angst?: Discussed. The Losers are much more capable of dealing with all the supernatural horror as children than they are as adults; after defeating IT in the sewers, Bill goes home:
  After a block or two he begins to walk faster, thinking of supper... and a block or two after that, he begins to whistle.
• Broken Base: Readers are infamously a little divided on the sewer scene. Many people despise that scene due to it coming completely out of nowhere, adding nothing to the plot and just being very squick-y in general while others say that they needed to do it in order to re-power themselves.
• Can't Un-Hear It: Just try to read the book without hearing the characters' voices from the miniseries or movie (and its sequel).
• Catharsis Factor: Patrick Hockstetter's death. Considering he has a whole chapter dedicated to him which goes into great detail on how sadistic, uncanny and remorseless he is to where even Henry Bowers is horrified by him, his death is one of the only few in the book that actually feels satisfying.
• Complete Monster: IT is an ancient demonic being that awakens from hibernation every twenty-seven years to murder and devour the children of the town of Derry, Maine. Often using the avatar of a jovial clown named Pennywise to lure children into its clutches. IT prides itself on using its shapeshifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, preying on their phobias and acquired fears and likening the cultivation of their terror to "salt[ing] the meat". From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill Denbrough's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hockstetter alive while in the form of his greatest fear, leeches. IT also drove Henry Bowers to madness, then killed Bowers's friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers, drive Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights, and even manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat. Cruel, sadistic, and with a twisted sense of humor, IT stands out as one of the most vile creatures Stephen King ever came up with.
• Don't Shoot the Message: Stephen King has defended the scene of the prepubescent sex train in a sewer by questioning critics why they were fine with the gruesome and brutal child murders but children having consensual sex with each other (in technical, not legal terms) is not okay. While there are those who would agree that the censorship and social attitudes of extreme violence versus basic human sexuality are grossly uneven, you'd have some trouble trying to defend your view with a prepubescent sex train in a sewer.
• Fair for Its Day: The gay couple depicted in the beginning of the novel are stereotypically feminine. But the simple fact that a small time police officer is defending them from persecution was a pretty radical message when it was written in the 1980s.
• Fanon: The Losers' contact with the Turtle is because at least some of them have the Shining. Especially since a teenage Dick Halloran makes a cameo.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Much like the book's adaptations, there are readers who prefer to just completely ignore the infamous orgy scene, helped by it coming out of nowhere and adding nothing to the plot.
• Genius Bonus:
  • When the Losers go into the house on Neibolt Street to have their first confrontation with IT as a group, Richie finds a bunch of rats with their tails tangled up together. This what is referred to as a rat king, and it is considered a very bad omen.
  • IT's true form, or at least the part of it human can perceive, is a giant spider-like creature. This fits quite well with IT being an impossibly old Abstract Apotheosis of the concept of predation, as the top predators of humanity's - and other land-based vertebrates' - lungfish ancestors were prehistoric arachnids.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The homophobic teens repeatedly profess their love of Judas Priest. Rob Halford, the band's lead singer, came out in 1998, 12 years after the book was published.
  • Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will get a real kick out of Richie gushing over I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and naming The Crawling Eye as the only movie that ever scared him, and Ben thinking of Beginning of the End and The Black Scorpion at a loud insect noise (keep in mind the show hadn't even started at the time).
  • This wouldn't be the last time a younger brother named Georgie chases a children's toy through inclement weather, only for a seemingly ordinary but very supernatural person to pop up in an impossible place while holding it. Although the results are Lighter and Softer than here. The movie even ends with Georgie (and others) floating away on balloons.
• Ho Yay:
  • Richie is the last person Eddie talks to, and Richie kisses him goodbye after he dies. There's also several passages where Eddie's hero-worship of Bill is described as love, and on a couple of occasions Eddie muses that his younger self would have died for Big Bill. When they encounter IT as the Crawling Eye and Eddie is frozen, what spurs him into action?
    Bill screamed in the dark—a high, despairing sound that was followed by hideous squishings and slobberings.
    Eddie's paralysis broke wide open—It was trying to take Big Bill!
    "No!" Eddie bellowed—it was a full-blown roar. One might never have guessed such a Norse-warrior sound could issue from such a thin chest...
  • Richie's musings on Bill rival Eddie's in their admiration, especially as kids, where he describes Bill as being the most handsome, decides that he's 'strong and sure and perfect' as he watches Bill's 'broad' back, and willingly goes into numerous situations he absolutely does not want to go into because he won't let Bill go alone. When they face IT as adults, Richie's the one who takes up Chüd when IT takes Bill, facing off with IT and bringing Bill back from the Deadlights.
  • Mike and Richie are holding hands in the smoke-hole:
  Richie held his hand out, and although Mike was on the far side of this enormous room he felt those strong brown fingers close over his wrist. Oh and that was good, that was a good touch - good to find desire in comfort, to find comfort in desire, to find substance in smoke and smoke in substance -
  • In the fourth Interlude, Mike chronicles that Claude Heroux loved Davey Hartwell and followed him into unionizing because he would have followed him anywhere.
• Jerkass Woobie: Victor Criss was far from a nice kid, but he had far more sense than Henry, and over the course of the book starts realizing how far gone his friend really is, realizing it's only a matter of time before Henry goes "TOO FAR" and commits a crime that the police can't ignore. There's even a hint that at one point he tried to talk to the Losers about leaving Henry's gang and joining them (though we don't actually see it depicted). But at the climax of the 1950s story, he and Belch follow Henry down into the sewers only to be decapitated by IT, and it's implied that IT is temporarily brainwashing them to get them to go along with Henry.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • IT crosses the line before the book even begins. Not only does IT feast on countless children over the years, but IT deliberately traumatizes them before delivering horrific executions.
  • Henry crosses this when he begins to carve his name into Ben's stomach with a switchblade.
  • Patrick crosses it (at 5 years old, no less) when he smothers his baby brother.
  • Tom crosses it in the book when he beats Beverly's friend Kay nearly to death until she reveals where Beverly went.
  • Eddie Corcoran's stepfather crosses it when he murders Eddie's brother, Dorsey.
• Never Live It Down: Beverly has sex with the rest of the Losers Club after defeating IT. Whether it was evidence of Bev's abuse manifesting itself in questionable sexual development, a scene about the fears and uncertainties of adulthood, or Stephen King just being on drugs, it is an incredibly awkward scene and both adaptations cut it. The scene is quite infamous when discussing Bev and the story in general, and when the 2017 film came out, a number of King's more malicious critics tried to use it as evidence that he is or was enabling child predators.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • Throughout the book, It transforms into various licensed movie monsters. We see IT become the Gillman, Frankenstein's monster, Bruce, The Mummy, and even the Teenage Werewolf. Then Mike is frightened by Rodan, causing Pennywise to take the form of... a lawyer-friendly, generic giant bird. Given Toho's draconian copyright policies, it's impossible not to get the impression that even IT is scared of being sued.
  • French readers who are also fans of the Disney Ducks Comic Universe may initially find hard to take It seriously, as "Pennywise" is translated as "Grippe-Sou" (literally, "penny pincher"), which is phonetically identical to the French translation of Flintheart Glomgold's name ("Archibald Gripsou"). While both are villains, the latter is much sillier and much less dangerous than the former.
• One-Scene Wonder: Patrick Hockstetter only gets one fairly brief chapter from his POV, but by God, is it memorable.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: It's damn-near impossible to talk about this book without bringing up the infamous chapter in which the underage Losers all have sex with Bev (who is also underage).
• Paranoia Fuel: The novel and its adaptations show that IT, as long as it felt like it, is capable of appearing in many places close to home such as in your classroom, under your bed or jumping out of your toilet, meaning that Pennywise could strike anywhere at any time (in Derry, at least).
• Self-Fanservice: For a rare non-sexual example, despite being overweight to the point of it potentially being dangerous, fanart depicting Ben often has him as a bit less fat than he is in the book and (to a lesser extent) the miniseries and 2017 movie. The fact that he'd lose his gut as he got older definitely helps.
• Signature Scene:
  • The infamous chapter in which the Losers have sex with Bev one after the other while trying to find a way out of the sewers. It's usually one of the first things spoiled to new readers, due to being a major source of Squick, sparked countless debates online in regards to its plot significance and/or symbolic meaning, and generated so much controversy Stephen King himself had to step in and explain his reasoning for its inclusion.
  • Georgie meeting and being killed by Pennywise, who appears underneath a sewer drain. The image of a clownish figure in the sewers is often used to illustrate the book's cover or assorted promotional material, leading it to be cemented in observers' minds. Also, as one of the most famous and horrific instances of Death of a Child in any media, even non-readers are aware of its existence.
• Squick:
  • In the novel, the gang, drained of energy after their first encounter with It in Its lair in the sewers, re-power themselves by losing their virginity with Bev. Regardless of whether you believe it adds anything to the story, it's still a bunch of underage children having sex one after the other in a sewer.
  • The description of a stolen cocker spaniel puppy physically degrading after Patrick Hockstetter stores it inside an abandoned but operational refrigerator for three days.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: One of the highest-profile books from near the end of King's "addiction period," IT has a lot of the hallmarks of a "cocaine idea": it's an extremely scattershot book full of digressions, irrelevant asides, dozens of side characters, truly bizarre sexual politics, and a high page count.

---