Something I didn't quite understand about "IT"

Question

SPOILERS INBOUND

I have only just started rereading Stephen King's "IT" for the umpteenth time, but there's a small something that keeps bothering me that is pertinent to the creature - IT itself.

We eventually learn that It is female and is pregnant. What has bothered me...

1. How did It become pregnant? Asexual reproduction?

2. If it did reproduce asexually, then it could have sooner, yes? So then didn't it attempt to procreate sooner, before the Losers' Club could destroy It's offspring? Talk about a bad time to try bringing young into the world.

3. Even if It's children had survived, if any of them did, would this even be of some consequence? Would they inherit the same abilities/power as It? Or would they just be some basic spiders that are perhaps bigger than average, but otherwise the same?

4. Are the children of It even really independent beings, on that note? Or is it perhaps some other part of It, like how it was able to be all of the leeches that attacked Patrick Hockstetter?

Answer 1

1. IT's an alien creature somehow projecting itself across the galaxy and it has literally nothing better to do than torture and kill children. IT could very well be parthenogenic, and perhaps killing children somehow gets it in the mood.

2. We have no idea for how long IT was pregnant. Perhaps that species required millennia of gestation.

3. Remember, IT wasn't an actual spider, IT was projecting itself as a spider to tap into their fears. As a result, IT also took on the weaknesses of the form. Since the original alien is the one actually pregnant, anything IT spawned would presumably have the same powers and children-killing urges.

4. You're asking on the state of independence of unborn creatures in a fiction book. There is absolutely no way to know unless someone asks King directly and gets a response. However, there is absolutely no evidence that IT would be able to control its spawn, given that we never hear about IT being controlled in turn by IT's mother.

Answer 2

so... It was created before the beginning of the universe (in the macroverse), along with the Turtle who would vomit out our universe. It would travel from planet to planet, feeding on the fear of lifeforms/on those lifeforms until it landed on Earth. However, It remains trapped frozen underground due to the ice age until the 1700s. Then it surfaces and because it's extra hungry from its unusually long nap, kills all the first settlers of the town... then begins feasting every 27 years - with children being It's preference, as their imaginations could produce an unlimited amount of fear (compared to any other species It had encountered), often using the form of a Clown to lure them close - and after feeding had to sleep until it's next cycle.

We don't know how many planets It had been to before Earth and how many times It fed but we do know that human children satiated it much more than any other lifeforms. Assumingly, it required a certain amount of food or energy before it could become pregnant or give birth and never reached that amount until coming to Earth where it could feed considerably more than it ever had before. That's why it hadn't become pregnant or given birth before arriving to Earth (though we don't know it hasn't done this before and there's not lots of Its running around the universe) and likely a coincidence that it's pregnant now as opposed to the 1700's - it just took this long for It to have eaten enough food to support giving birth.

Interesting fact, some female species on Earth can reproduce without males e.g. certain sharks and lizards through unfertilized eggs (parthenogenesis)

Answer 3

It is something very long lived, though It's no more Eternal than the Turtle we do know that It doesn't need to eat, having lived without food for most of It's existence, but eating does bring It pleasure. So what is pleasure for? A creature without weaknesses, or in a form without weakness doesn't need fear or anger or hate, but how does it use hunger or pleasure if food doesn't provide it anything?

If the loser's club was given power to kill It in order to prevent it from spawning then It had probably only begun spawning recently, Also, It had only begun eating recently, on the scale of It's existence. Perhaps consuming consciousnesses was how It produced additional consciousnesses? Or maybe eating triggers reproduction, like a resource rich environment would trigger a bacterial spore.

No idea if they would be It like or remnants of what It ate or what.

Since It has a gender the book should really be called "Stephen King's She" Shouldn't it?

Answer 4

It's millions of years old and IT is a demon entity beyond our human reasoning. I always assumed it reproduced asexually and that the gestation period was thousands and thousands of years. I also assumed that the unfortunate timing for IT and It's run-in with the Loser's Club was predestined. The Turtle decided enough was enough.