So let's talk about the Deadlights for a minute
Let's discuss them in relation to the novel specifically
The Deadlights are It, unmasked and without the human mind's protective shielding that normally gives It a shape that's within human comprehension.
Think of it like this:
You know what Freddy Krueger looks like and you would pee yourself if you saw him outside your window. It would be the scariest thing you could imagine, in fact.
Bada Bing Bada Boom Bob's yer uncle. When It targets you, It will be Freddy Krueger outside your window. You'll scream, It'll scream. Everybody has a great time and It has a lovely meal.
Compare that to The Deadlights, the form in which It cannot create fear because the mere sight of It literally shreds the human mind and renders the victim vegetative - assuming their body survives the shock at all. No hunt, no taste, no fun. It also requires much more psychic effort on Its part, as the prey has to be pulled into the Macroverse (the space beyond the universe) in order to fully observe the Deadlights.
The Deadlights are lethal 99.99% of the time with the one exception being Bill Denbrough's wife, Audra, who was spared by the Other (SK equivalent to God), or the last lingering trace of It/The Turtle's power, channeled through Bill's childhood bike, Silver.
Or because It did something that differed from previous exposures to the Deadlights - very likely when you consider how little time It would have had to do anything to Audra.
In the novel there's no proof that anyone else has ever been able to recover from exposure to the Deadlights, which tracks when you consider the reason people go catatonic in the first place - the Deadlights literally turns their frontal lobe into pudding but leaves all the automatic nervous system parts intact - so you end up with a zombie who can move around and be positioned or fed, but who is essentially soulless because their consciousness has been dragged across infinity and into beyond.
So anyway I:WTD is taking a different approach to the Deadlights, which is a lil cw SPN era of them, but you know what I'm here for it.
