Thursday, May 18, 2017

The IT Spot: Rereading part 9

Eddie's childhood self has arrived!

This is another section that is significantly different from it's mini-series counterpart. You may remember Pennywise accosting Eddie in the showers.


The scene, while wonderfully showing off Tim Curry has zero resemblance to the book. The only similarity is the 'won't do any good to run' bit. That is cribbed from IT's book counterpart. However there...

SPOILER

 ...IT chases Eddie in the form of leprous a hobo offering  blowjobs.


When Eddie can't find someone (IE Bill or Ritchie) to play with, he often ends up by the train yards. One day he sees a hobo with syphilis, and a rotting nose. Eddie, a budding germaphobe thanks to his overprotective mother, thinks the man is a leper. Said leper/hobo offers to blow Eddie, first for a quarter, then for a dime, then for free, eventually chasing the boy down the street.


That brings us to Eddie's encounter with the house on Neibolt street. You'll remember me freaking out about that house during my last few trailer reviews, as it plays a big part in what the kids do to defeat IT.

It's also why I think this is Eddie.

Some time after the hobo incident, Eddie is drawn under the house, very unwillingly. This speaks back to when Mike was unwillingly drawn to the place he saw the bird: IT exudes some sort of lure. Using fear, or fun masking the stench (much like with Georgie) IT draws children. And when Eddie crawls under the porch, spotting debris from former hobos, he also sees IT peering from the cellar.

Here IT is a half-rotted corpse hobo that causes plant life to die. He introduces himself to Eddie as Bob Gray (you may recall this is also how he introduced himself to Georgie in addition to the Pennywise moniker), and stated he'll blow Eddie as well. Eddie manages to get away, but is of course terrified.

We find this out as Eddie is hanging with Ben, Bill, Stan, and Ritchie. Bill relates the story of the bleeding pictures, which brings out Eddie and Ben's tales. Stan freaks out, insisting he's seen nothing (as usual, Stan has the hardest time believing, and spends more time in denial), and Ritchie seems genuinely baffled by the stories (seems being the key word).

SAFE

 The main difference between the book and the miniseries here is that in the book IT is legitimately trying to get Eddie. In the series IT seems more interesting in warning Eddie and his friends off: almost as though IT can sense the Ka-Tet forming, and is reluctant to touch any of the members, for fear of the power they already hold. There's more evidence of this later (which I'll go into), but it's really weird.

The concept of the Ka-Tet/group power is barely even referenced elsewhere in the miniseries. Why create this dynamic for IT (aside from not wanting to show a rotting leper offering a kid a blowjob)? IT isn't afraid of the kids. Not yet.

Join me next time Ritchie is brought in on the horror.

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