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Pennywise's impact on the children of the Derry series shapes them long into adulthood, twisting them into the very adults who keep the community's cycle of hatred ongoing. The creature preys most easily on children from broken households — youngsters who often mature to replicate the identical behaviors as their guardians. However, the Hanlon household stands apart as one of the few family unit that never splinters, which may explain why Mike Hanlon, even after choosing to stay in Derry, remains the only Loser who never fully falls under the clown's influence.

Hanlon Household's Unique Resilience

In the fourth installment of Welcome to Derry, Leroy finally becomes more aware of the paranormal entities surrounding the community, particularly when It begins tormenting his child, Will Hanlon, during their angling excursion. The Hanlon clan comprises a small number of adults who are aware that things are not right with the municipality, especially the father, who was revealed to be receptive to psychic abilities when he was capable of sensing Dick Hallorann's use of it in the third episode. Subsequently, he sees one of the clown's trademark balloons outside his residence. The ability, alongside his failure to experience terror, along with the foundation of his family, could be why he's able to see the entity's manifestations. However, consider if that shining is generational, and a key factor Mike Hanlon is among the few adults in Derry who resisted succumbing to the town's malevolence?

The boy is a member of the collective of kids at his educational institution being tormented by the clown. All his school friends come from dysfunctional families, with caregivers who don't believe they're being haunted. The cause he is being pursued is because of the cruelty of the town, paired with his likely receptiveness to psychic abilities, which makes him susceptible. The Hanlons are ultimately strangers in Derry during 1962, which lends itself towards the family sensing anomalies exist about the locality from the beginning. They also have a good foundation that isn't fractured, unlike the folks who come from the area, with relationships that have decayed within.

Backstory Connections

Based on the It novel, we know the young Will will find himself at the infamous nightclub, where Hallorann will save him from a fire that the town bigots of Derry will cause. In the 2017 movie, we observe that he has a boy named Mike and that the father eventually perishes in a fire, with Leroy surviving his own child and adopting his grandchild. The official story in the motion picture is that the parents were on drugs, but now that we see Will in the series, that's hard to believe. Maybe the timid youth, once he became an adult, turned to drink to rid himself of the hauntings, or perhaps the rotten environment got to him initially, with the hate group ultimately finishing the job it started long before. Be it via the fear of Pennywise or via the cruelty of the town, instigated by It, the creature in the end gets the last laugh on him.

The Father's Evolution

These occurrences would explain how the elder Hanlon transforms so drastically from what we see in the first film and the prequel. In his older age, Leroy seems resentful and much stricter with his parenting. Because he survived his own offspring, it's comprehensible to see such a drastic change. However, his statements hold greater significance since we are aware he's witnessed the clown's activities and the impacts they wrought upon his son. In the initial sequence of It, we observe Mike hesitate to use a bolt gun on a animal at the family property. Leroy reprimands him for hesitating and offers an analogy that results in a survival-of-the-fittest scenario.

“There are two places you can be in this world. You can be in the open like we are, or you can be in there,” he states as he points to the creature. “You dawdle hemming and hawing, and someone is going to decide for you. Except you won't know it until you feel that bolt in your head.”

In hindsight, this could be a piece of prediction, a lesson he regrets not imparting to his own child. Maybe he wishes he had acted differently in his youth, but for certain factors, he was unable to avoid the sickening allure of Derry.