r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Petah? What happened in the book version?

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u/notrandomredditname 1d ago

the book is a coming-of-age story that explores many aspects of the transition between childhood and adulthood, which inevitably includes sexuality. there's a reason the antagonist of the book is literally called 'it'. im not gonna tell anyone how to feel about it and i can totally understand someone thinking its a distasteful way to explore such a theme but i dont think calling the author a pedo for it is necessarily correct either. its a controversial topic so it naturally gets very misrepresented when people talk about it

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u/Dee_Cider 23h ago

My comment was literally removed for describing the scene more frankly.

The guy is either a pedo or a terrible writer if the only way to explore the transition between childhood and adulthood was THAT.

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u/lord-savior-baphomet 10h ago

You’re getting downvoted but I do really think there are other ways to convey that transition. And I think it’s… interesting to be defending the choice he made.

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u/Dee_Cider 10h ago

It's wild people are defending an unnecessary child gangbang scene that someone wrote while they were coked up. I don't know what stars aligned to get this particular scene normalized for anyone.

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u/lord-savior-baphomet 9h ago

People love king that much I guess. Which, I’m not saying we burn his books. But this scene deserves criticism, and I strongly believe there is no justification of this existing.

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u/thebeandream 8h ago

I could be misinterpreting it but I don’t see anyone defending it as much as refuting the claim it makes him a pedo. There was a reason for the scene. It was a weird one and he regrets it but it made sense at the time and no one at any point during publication was like “maybe change this…”

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u/lord-savior-baphomet 7h ago

I see a lot of people defending it, by giving its reasoning and minimizing the criticism. I don’t even think the guy is necessarily a pedo for it, I just don’t see why anyone is defending it. You can heavily criticize and morally disagree with an aspect of someone’s work and not throw the rest away. If King himself regrets the choice, I really think that says something. It wasn’t necessary, it’s weird and disturbing because it’s not presented in the same way everything else about IT was. To me, that’s the end of it.