Welcome to Stephen King’s Blink-and-You’ll-Miss-It Easter Egg from Derry is the Biggest Clue to Pennywise’s Ultimate Defeat

ahsan65@gmail.comNovember 6, 2025

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Welcome to Stephen King’s Blink-and-You’ll-Miss-It Easter Egg from Derry is the Biggest Clue to Pennywise’s Ultimate Defeat

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry.

In the modern era of television and film, the name of the game is interconnected universes. How large and complex can you make your fictional world, and how many spinoffs can you produce from a successful property? The MCU, the DCU, The boys, Star Wars, The Conjuring; the list goes on and on across genres and mediums. One of the greatest practitioners of shared universes is, unsurprisingly, one of the most prolific authors of all time: Stephen King. Despite writing more than 60 novels, several of King’s works refer to The Dark Tower series, which deals with King’s multiverse and his attempted ruin. While the HE The novel is strongly linked to this multiverse, the film adaptations presented them as contained narratives. That was until IT: Welcome to Derry hints at one of the coolest parts of King’s lore with a few little Easter eggs you may have missed, teasing a wild inclusion that could change everything about the horror series.

“IT: Welcome to Derry” refers to Stephen King’s God of the Multiverse

Image via HBO

One of the recurring visual themes of IT: Welcome to Derry that viewers were able to spot concerns turtles. In episode 1, Derry High School’s mascot is a turtle who tries to teach people about “nuclear safety”. Later in the same episode, Lily (Clara Pile) and Matty (Miles Ekhardt) opens a set of bracelet charms, with Lily trading for Matty’s turtle charm, which she says is “lucky”. This may seem Andy Muschietti is just a big fan of the creatures, but these scenes are actually nods to Maturin the Turtle, who is one of, if not the most powerful beings in King’s multiverse. Maturin is not a true turtle, but it is the form in which this cosmic deity chooses to appear most often.

Maturin is credited with creating the universe, after emerging from his shell and vomiting up the cosmos.. The deity is depicted as a kind and gentle guide to the characters in King’s multiverse, including the Losers’ Club in HEand one of the Guardians of the Rays that uphold the Dark Tower and, therefore, the entire universe. Due to this level of power and moral compass, he is generally considered the main protagonist of King’s multiverse, although several of his appearances in the text come from references, as in 11/22/63 And Insomnia.

Maturin the Turtle is the antithesis of Pennywise from IT

If Maturin is the creation myth, and therefore God, in King’s universe, then IT/Pennywise is Satan. When Maturin vomited the cosmos, he inadvertently released it from the Void, and the two have been at war ever since. The couple exists as a dichotomy between good and evil, creation and destruction.Pennywise even referring to Maturin as his “brother” in the HE novel.

This not only puts Pennywise at a near-God level of power, but makes Maturin one of the only beings capable of defeating the dancing clown. Although Maturin is not the type of deity to directly fight Pennywise, he helps the Losers’ Club defeat the entity from the noveland maybe he will do the same thing in IT: Welcome to Derry.

Could Maturin the Turtle appear in “IT: Welcome to Derry”?

This is the closest we get to seeing Maturin on screen, despite the plethora of Stephen King adaptations and other references to his existence in Computer science: chapter twobut whether it will be physically presented is another matter entirely. Previously, Muschietti had stated that the events of HE: Welcome to Derry will connect to The Dark Tower TV series currently being developed by Mike Flanagan. If this is the case, then including Maturin the Turtle would represent one of the most epic extensions of the King universe on screenAnd HE: Welcome to Derry could be the perfect property to do so.

Considering how Welcome to Derry would have taken an anthological approach to its narrative across different seasons, such a presentation of the more cosmic aspects of King’s universe would likely be more digestible for casual viewers. This would allow the next Flanagan Dark Tower series to take a more in-depth approach to Maturin’s real-life character and its meaning if its mere existence has already been established on screen. With the massive oscillations that HE: Welcome to Derry already takes, including a deformed demon baby and child massacres, perhaps a God-like turtle who represents goodness could be the balance needed for this disturbing world.