The mysterious world of the town of Derry, which according to Stephen King’s legend is located in the state of Maine, has captivated us — fans of horror, mysticism, and fantasy — our imagination and our deepest fears since September 1986. And this fall, HBO gifted us an on-screen addition to the IT universe, skillfully combining the literary dimension, the storylines of two films, and, of course, the mesmerizing Bill Skarsgard. And on December 14, Season 1 of Welcome to Derry came to an end. Everything was recreated down to the smallest detail: picturesque forest and waterside landscapes where one would long to spend a vibrant summer and a golden autumn; streets with local shops forming a labyrinth of neighborhoods; a school, a library, a town square with a large monument; and terrifying secrets that make people uneasy every 27 years. The story tells us that despite the cozy small-town charm, Derry occasionally reveals its dark side — children go missing, adults lose their sanity, tension hangs in the air, and strange creatures appear whose purpose is to stalk, frighten, and… make you float. Yet despite all these troubles and recurring problems, people remain within the city limits, trying to live, build a future, and not dwell on the past — even if that means letting go of those who left our world in the most unjust ways.
Doesn’t this remind us of something? Of course, there is hardly any fictional world left that we haven’t compared to the war in Ukraine — and that’s fine; let’s add another one, because it’s often easiest to perceive the universe through analogies. And this one suggests itself naturally. There are lands, places, hotels (yes, yes — an allusion to the Overlook) that carry this strange feeling of the presence of something sinister — something that seemingly should not exist alongside us, yet it does. Somewhere deep down, we even sense these ominous thoughts trying to seize our consciousness, to turn our existence into service to evil, into a militant desire to conquer and kill without purpose or meaning. They echo from our eastern neighbors, amplifying their noise toward the north, attempting to reach distant lands. As it turns out, this evil doesn’t want to use clowns as bait — no. This entity favors drones, ballistic missiles, and torture. And this story is as old as the world itself: Russia attacked Ukraine, and everyone pretends that it will somehow stop on its own, by the will of mystical forces and spirits.
But something seems off, doesn’t it? The good old clown in Derry wasn’t particularly interested in feeding on adults very often; as it turned out, they didn’t interest him that much. Of course, when mass disasters occurred, it was a sin not to snatch up the terrified, frightened, hopeless boomers — but that truly wasn’t his main strategy. His primary focus was on children — the future of our world. Schoolchildren, kids in kindergartens, older teenagers — all were part of the main menu of the sinister force living in the local sewers. Children simply vanished, right before adults’ eyes, never to be found again, leaving behind only a photograph in the local newspaper. And perhaps this isn’t so different from today’s situation in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, our children face far more serious problems than a bad grade or strange noises from a sink — daily shelling, power outages, and so on. Yet one moment remains strikingly similar, almost a mirror image of Pennywise’s universe — they disappear as well.
Some of them are in occupied territories — more than 20,000 children, according to Ukraine. And considering that Russia can compete for the title of “dictator of the century” perhaps only with North Korea, it’s not hard to imagine the living conditions in these zones. But this is far from the only problem. Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, suggests that more than 150,000 children (and according to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Daria Herasymchuk, this number may be twice as high) have been forcibly taken out of Ukraine. Naturally, as always, the Russian side does not confirm its involvement in the abduction and forced deportation of children to the Russian Federation — but no one expected otherwise. What can we say when even the attack on Ukraine is, for them, a figment of global whispers? Despite this, on December 3, 2025, the UN General Assembly supported a resolution calling on Russia to return abducted children to Ukraine, which at the very least confirms the existence of such a problem.
So does it turn out that the city of Derry actually exists in our universe as well — where instead of painted clowns, there roam barely warm old men clinging to power for decades? Where children disappear, disasters occur, and people forget honesty, justice, courage, and kindness? Of all possible worlds, did we choose the one where magical dragons don’t fly, mermaids don’t swim in the seas, and animals don’t talk to each other in a New York zoo — but one where there is a sinister and merciless master of death whose goal is to feed on fear, awakening it in everyone who crosses his path? Where did humanity take a wrong turn, and why did horror films stop frightening us? Why do we watch such stories to relax, to calm down, to remind ourselves that one day things could be much worse — and today… today is just like this. And we must be glad that the enemy doesn’t crawl out of sewers but simply attacks with aircraft; that he doesn’t wear crimson makeup and orange hair but looks like a respectable man in a suit. We change the scenery, but the meaning remains the same.
Talented writers can, even unconsciously, create analogies or delicately veil classic themes of good and evil, love and hatred, true courage and fear, life and death, sorrow and happiness. And it doesn’t matter how much time has passed, or how characters and territories have changed — from cold Alaska to warm Florida — eras shift, continents move, comets shatter; all of this tells us the same story in which the plot remains unchanged. Where there is a beginning, there will be an end; where love arrives, hatred will follow; fear will chase strength, and healing will follow pain. The city of Derry was terrorized by the clown Pennywise, who was in fact the embodiment of evil; the Enderverse suffered from bugs; and Ukraine is being killed by a good old human being — a descendant of Dostoevsky and Bulgakov, still praised by Western culture today. And we close our eyes to this, try not to read the news, binge new series from dozens of platforms, hoping to disconnect, to forget, to rest—subconsciously knowing that while somewhere in the city of Derry a struggle is underway, our real world is ruled not by forest-bound spirits of the otherworld, but by figures of flesh and blood — the most terrifying demons imaginable. Those so easily mistaken for human beings, at the cost of one’s life and soul.
Photo: VM collage
Author: Victoria Hridina
