@thystarlord This Is So True And Im Gonna Talk About That A Little More In This Post From My Point Of

@thystarlord this is so true and i’m gonna talk about that a little more in this post from my point of view, but first, stan actually represents anti-semetism specifically so let’s remember that. he doesn’t represent any other religious discrimination, since anti-semetism is unique and religions are oppressed differently, and especially Jews experience a certain sort of oppression, but yes i agree at a core level.

eddie is so heavily gay-coded and chock-full of evidence that he IS gay that it’s crazy. he literally “hero worships” and “would die for” bill denbrough (exact! quotes!) and the sort of admiration he holds for bill is so intense that it basically IS a canon crush. he’s adoring and implicitly trusting of bill, with almost zero wavering of his faith in him. he admits openly that he loves bill and would absolutely sacrifice everything for him, and that simply isn’t the CASE with eddie and the other losers. he loves them, sure, but more than anyone else in the world he follows bill. bill’s his only friend and eddie considers him above all others, praising his intelligence and looks multiple times in the book. eddie, in other words, has a massive gay crush on bill denbrough. secondly, there’s all the things about eddies character that i find suspect. eddie is feminine and sensitive and the stereotypical gay boy. he’s weak and anxious, another two common tropes in gay youth. he’s also very repressed in all areas in life, from his speech to his sexual desires to his mannerisms, having been taught to be by his over-protective mother. in the miniseries, she even goes as far as to forbid him from showering with other boys. the fact he felt unworthy of taking communion and “sinful” at church, including having asthma and panic attacks during services in also telling.

his crush on greta bowie is textbook compulsory heterosexuality. when he talks about greta, all he mentions is how pretty she is. he never talks about her personality or how nice she is, how smart she is. this may be eddie being a typical little boy, but it could also be something much deeper. many compulsory heterosexual crushes are rooted very much in appearance and surface, since that’s what is easiest to pretend to like. there’s also the fact eddie openly acknowledges that greta is never going to notice him. this is also common in comp het crushes- the gay person attempts to be able to call themselves attracted to the opposite gender by “crushing” on celebrities, or simply on normal people who are, like those celebrities, way out of their league. that way, they have no chance of ever having to engage with the person romantically. eddie also says as an adult he does not want to see greta again, meaning perhaps that greta reminds him of the time in his life where he was closeted even to himself?

tl;dr: eddie is most likely a closeted gay man who’s own internalized homophobia caused gayness to be his biggest fear as a child, and shows every sign of being gay from the start.

Stephen King book covers by Jim Tierney

Stand By Me (1986)

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic, 1919. collage of pasted papers, 90 x 144 cm

IT (2017)