IT: Welcome to Derry - General Shaw's plan has one thing in common with this iconic DC graphic novel

IT: Welcome to Derry, Episode 7 ended with a major revelation about Lieutenant General Francis Shaw. The previous six episodes telegraphed the idea that Shaw planned to use Pennywise as a weapon. However, the last act of the penultimate episode reveals that Shaw never intended to use the demonic entity against the US's enemies.

Instead, Shaw plans to let IT loose on the US citizens, and for that, he orders his men to melt one of the entity's pillars on the incinerator. The General justifies his actions, saying that letting the entity loose not only on Derry but also on the country would close the divisions of the Civil Rights Era.

"You see what’s happening out there, Leroy? Americans are at each other’s throats, and it’s only getting worse. Antinuke crazies, the women’s movement, race riots. This country is slowly fracturing into a thousand jagged, ill-fitting pieces. I am only trying to prevent another civil war. Americans have stopped hearing one another. They only want to fight over who gets which piece of the damn pie while the rest of the world eats us alive. And the one thing that makes people really listen is fear."

This speech clarifies that IT: Welcome to Derry's Francis Shaw sees unleashing Pennywise's evil on the country as "the greater good". In some ways, his plan is similar to Ozymandias's scheme in Watchmen.

IT: Welcome to Derry: explaining General Shaw's plan:

We met General Shaw for the first time in the IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 premiere, "The Pilot". Over the next few episodes, we learn that Shaw and his men are taking Dick Hallorann and Leroy Hanlon's help to track the entity. He tells Hanlon that he is trying to find the sacred pillars caging the entity. He claims that he is finding the pillars to control the entity and direct it just towards the USSR.

However, the seventh and penultimate episode of IT: Welcome to Derry reveals that Shaw intends to use it on the citizens. Leroy points out that the entity preys on children, and Shaw reveals that he sees that as a "small sacrifice". While this scene may look like it came out of nowhere, a previous episode features a scene in which he worriedly looks at the broadcast of a race riot.

In his mind, the entity's attack would keep the people in fear and instantly heal the divisions. Any death in this process is just collateral damage in his mind. This idea is very similar to the 1986 graphic novel Watchmen. The acclaimed graphic novel set in an alternate DC Earth follows a team of masked vigilantes investigating a scheme that could change the fate of the world.

Ultimately, the graphic novel reveals that the mastermind of the scheme is none other than the fellow vigilante Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias.

Explaining Ozymandias's plan in Watchmen:

Just like IT: Welcome to Derry's Francis Shaw, Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt is introduced in the graphic novel as a trustworthy ally to the heroes. He used to be a vigilante himself a decade before the events of the graphic novel. He is also an industrialist and a billionaire, making him one of the most powerful people in this graphic novel's world.

Declared as one of the smartest men in the world of Watchmen, Ozymandias sees himself as the successor of Alexander the Great. Throughout the novel, he aims to soothe the tensions between the USSR and the US. But he soon realizes that it can't be done without a drastic plan. Thus, the first phase of his plan by manipulating Doctor Manhattan to leave Earth.

But that's just the first phase, as the final plan is the most sinister one; it involves g*nocide. Veidt creates a giant squid with psychic powers and teleports it to New York, making everyone believe that it is an extraterrestrial invasion. In the city, as the giant is breathing its last, it blasts the surrounding city with a psychic scream, melting peoples' brains nearby.

Veidt, like Shaw, also justifies his bloody action as a means to force the US and USSR to unite to fight "aliens". Further connecting the classic graphic novel is one of IT: Welcome to Derry's actors, Jovan Adepo, who plays Leroy Hanlon, in the ongoing HBO series. Adepo also played Will Reeves/Hooded Justice in HBO's Watchmen (2019), which followed 34 years after the graphic novel's end.

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Did you notice the parallels between IT: Welcome to Derry's Shaw and Watchmen?

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