I love IT that movie has been my all time favourite movie since it came out when I was a kid [it was also the first real horror movie i watched]
But out of everything in all the movies and the book Ritchie’s biggest fear is what has always been up for debate. I dont get why because its obvious
It’s clear that Ritchie always lied about his biggest fear. He always jumped to the closet thing that was deemed as regular fears. In the first movie and the book when he is asked what his biggest fear is he says werwolf’s obviously he picked that fear because of the werewolf horror movie he watched about a week before and when he is asked the same question in the 2017 movie he turns around sees a clown then says his biggest fear is clowns. If he was actually that scared of werwolfs why would he sit through that movie? And if he was actually scared of clowns why would he be close enough to see one? Better argument that it’s 10000% not clowns is that penwise would have been targeting Ritchie specifically if it was since his main form was a clown and i don’t believe it was targeting him.
There is the theory that his biggest fear is being missing because he has a panic attack at the thought of it but be real imagine your 12 and everyone from school is going missing and you keep getting attacked by a clown of course in that moment you would be scared of going missing.
So what is his biggest fear. Literally being outed?
We know this because when Richie has one of his first encounters with IT alone penwise repeatedly says he knows Ritchie’s secret to make him increasingly more scared.
But what if thats not actually his biggest fear but it’s the fear of being perceived? Ritchie gets scared at penwise even knowing he is gay not that penwise will tell people.
He can’t even admit to himself he is gay and forces himself to like Beverly in the book he doesn’t want anyone to know he is gay because he is scared of how people will view him if they knew. I think this ties into the fact when he dose comedy he doesn’t even write his own material because he is worried people wont like what he comes up with. Also i dont think he was scared of going missing but the fact people would see his face on the missing posters and think of him
This is definitely reaching but it makes sense in my head