- “That champion shall have the honor- no, no- the privilege, to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from the fiery keep of the dragon. If, for any reason, the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner-up will take his place.... and so on and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make. Let the tournament begin.”
- ―Farquaad addressing his knights
Lord Farquaad is the main antagonist of DreamWorks Animation's 2001 feature film Shrek. The oppressive, vain, and cruel supreme ruler of the lordship Duloc who introduces his motives in the first part by capturing and relocating Fairytale Creatures, so that he could find the Magic Mirror. Once he did, he asked if Duloc, the place where he ruled, was the perfect kingdom. But since he wasn't a king, Duloc wasn't a kingdom. Because of this, he tried to marry Princess Fiona to become king and strikes a deal with an ogre named Shrek to rescue her for him in order to get his swamp back after Farquaad banished all the fairy tale creatures there.
Background[]
Development[]
Lord Farquaad's character development, primarily established in the first Shrek film and expanded upon in the musical and supplementary materials, centers on his ruthless ambition, vanity, and the psychological motivations behind his desire for a "perfect" kingdom.
Farquaad is the tyrannical ruler of the seemingly perfect, walled city-state of Duloc. His ultimate goal is to become a true King, a status he believes can only be achieved through marrying a princess.
Farquaad's extreme narcissism and obsession with height are central to his character. His towering castle and large statues are seen as a compensation for his short physical stature, a point often mocked by other characters. His desire for a "perfect" kingdom leads him to banish all fairy-tale creatures, whom he considers "trash" and a disruption to his ideal, orderly world.
He is sadistic and manipulative, as shown when he tortures the Gingerbread Man to gain information. He also hires others (Shrek and Donkey) to rescue Princess Fiona rather than risk his own safety, highlighting his cowardice and laziness.
Personality[]
- “Lord Farquaad! He huffed und he puffed und he... signed an eviction notice.”
- ―One of the Three Little Pigs describing Farquaad's personality
Lord Farquaad is a tyrannical dictator who will do anything to become king. He has no problem with having Gingy tortured and maimed, serenely watching Thelonious dunk him in a glass of milk. Farquaad also doesn't care about the well-being of his people, as he openly admits his willingness to risk the lives of all of his own knights to rescue Fiona so he doesn't have to. Though he finds Fiona beautiful, his choice to marry her is purely out of a hunger for power. The full extent of his callousness is revealed towards the end of the film, when he threatens to have Shrek drawn and quartered for no reason (even going as far to say "kill him if you have to") and to lock Fiona back into her tower for all time.
His obsession over "perfection", need to be king, and short stature shows that he was a man with severe self-image problems, as noted by Shrek in the film. Farquaad overcompensates for his short stature by being domineering and controlling. In order, other examples of this include: The towering height of Castle Duloc, the numerous statues and murals of himself around Duloc, and his grave depicts him in a heroic battle with Dragon- which represents his ongoing vanity and narcissism. When Gingy calls him a monster, Farquaad denies this by wrongly claiming that it's the fairytale creatures who are the monsters and lies that was being fair to them. Despite finding fairytale creatures to be a blight upon his perfect world, he has no issues marrying a princess from a fairytale to become king; and while he claims that his goal is to make Duloc perfect, he doesn't view his own shortness as a problem to this "perfection" in addition.
Despite all those traits, he remains true to his word and never goes back on something- evidenced by the fact that he fulfilled his promise of giving Shrek his swamp back once he delivered Fiona to him. However, Farquaad was still very ill-mannered, discourteous, and never expressed his gratitude towards Shrek or Donkey, completely taking all the credit for himself. He is a professional administrative figure, with the town of Duloc flourishing under his rule. At the same time, he's not very popular with his people due to his tyrannical ways. A prominent example was during the tournament where they begin to clap and cheer on Shrek during the tournament, despite having jeered at the ogre at the beginning. They also don't care about Farquaad meeting his doom at the hands of Dragon, with some even laughing and cheering in satisfaction, proving that Farquaad is a truly despicable person. All of this made Farquaad the most dangerous villain in the franchise until "Big" Jack Horner was introduced.
Little else is known about him in the film, though the (non-canon) musical delved deeper into his past and his hatred towards fairytale creatures. In this version, he spends much of his time in the torture chamber- playing video games on the Magic Mirror, and sipping drinks while taking a bath. He also enjoys putting on an elaborate musical number when the time comes to choose the knight to rescue Fiona. His backup dancers mention that he is talented in dancing, though he'll torture anyone who makes a single mistake in the routine. Evidently, he has enforced a dress code as well, as all the citizens are dressed like the dolls from "Welcome to Duloc" in order to make his kingdom more his way. This shows that in the musical, Farquaad has more strict rules compared to the film- although he is considerably less threatening.
Physical appearances[]
Lord Farquaad is a short man (whose dwarf-like stature has been a constant source of humor throughout the film), with shoulder-length black hair, similar to Snow White's. He also wears a red and white suit, with a huge hat and very long black boots and red cape. He has a pale skin, blue eyes and is shown to be near shaved, thus making him possibly middle-aged. During his attempted "wedding" with Princess Fiona, he wears a white wedding uniform.
Appearances[]
Shrek[]
Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party[]
Shrek 4-D[]
Lord Farquaad in The Ghost of Lord Farquaad.
Lord Farquaad returns as the titular main antagonist of the short film and as a ghost and has Thelonious capture Fiona so he can kill her, make her his "spirit queen" (despite rejecting Fiona in her ogress form), and make him king of the underworld. In the cemetery, he sends a stone statue of Dragon after Shrek and Donkey, but the real Dragon comes to their rescue. During a chase scene (reminiscent of the Death Star trench run in Star Wars), the stone dragon loses its wings and falls to a presumed demise. After Dragon rescues Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Thelonius from falling to their demises over a waterfall, she eliminates Farquaad by breathing fire at him- reducing him to several miniature duplicates of his head, which then faded away.
Shrek the Third[]
Lord Farquaad makes a cameo appearance in Shrek the Third during Gingy the Gingerbread Man's flashbacks in which Farquaad yanks off Gingy's legs and mocks Gingy with them. This is a reference to the first Shrek film.
Shrek Forever After[]
He was originally intended to appear in the alternate universe (in which he would still be alive due to Dragon not eating him), but the decision was apparently dropped at the last minute.
Scared Shrekless[]
Despite being eaten by Dragon in the first film, Lord Farquaad plays a major role in the made-for-TV special Scared Shrekless. Shrek challenges his friends to spend Halloween night in Farquaad's haunted castle, Duloc. The three little pigs note that Duloc was where Farquaad lived and died. Later on, Shrek also mentions how Donkey played a role in the death of Farquaad (even though Shrek helped as well).
Thriller Night[]
Other appearances[]
Video games[]
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Farquaad marks the first main villain in the Shrek franchise.
- In one scene where Farquaad lies in bed, the coat of Mother Bear from "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is seen on his floor, hinting that he may have killed her. This makes him one of the two Shrek villains to actually kill someone, the other being Rumpelstiltskin when he "killed" King Harold and Queen Lillian (but in the alternate universe) in Shrek Forever After.
- Despite rejecting Fiona after seeing her in her ogress form, Farquaad wanted her to make her his ghostly queen in the underworld. He also seemed to still have feelings for her.
- In the intro when he was torturing Gingy, the three little pigs, and Pinocchio, he called her "His" Fiona in an affectionate way.
- He also was flirting with her while she was on the raft.
- When he thought she was dead, he called her his angel (although technically, if Fiona died, she presumably would go to the Heaven intend to the Underworld, where Farquaad would be).
- By making Shrek rescue Fiona, he made himself an enemy of all three of his successors, as for all three their plans (getting Fiona to marry Charming for Fairy Godmother, marrying Fiona for Prince Charming, and getting Harold and Lillian to sign their entire kingdom away in exchange for lifting Fiona's curse for Rumpelstiltskin) could only be ruined by somebody else than Charming (Shrek did this) saving Fiona, as Fiona would instead be supposed to marry Farquaad (though she married Shrek), ruining the Godmother and Charming's plans to have her marry him, and, with Fiona saved, Rumpelstiltskin's help was no longer needed as Fiona had been saved (though Harold and Lillian believed her saver was human, and that he kissed her after slaying the Dragon, which wasn't the case, as Shrek was an ogre, he was supposed to bring her to Farquaad, and he didn't slay the Dragon, which actually turned to his advantage when he needed to gain Fiona's true love).
- Despite being eaten by the Dragon, it is possible that Lord Farquaad wasn't actually killed, considering the fact that he'd been seen alive in Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party.
- If this is true, he probably died shortly after, from starvation or suffocation.
- Lord Farquaad serves as a dark parallel of Shrek. They both have the shared dislike of having to let Fairytale Creatures (or anyone in Shrek's case) cross their lands. However, when Shrek learns from Donkey that friends forgive each other, he apologizes for disowning him and not letting him visit his swamp. As for Lord Farquaad, he refuses to allow the Fairytale Creatures (or anyone who goes against his personal ideals) to visit Duloc. If Shrek hadn't met Donkey, Fiona, or the Fairytale Creatures, and never learned to accept company, he would've ended up like Lord Farquaad.
- He may also be based on Napoleon Bonaparte due to being short yet ruling with an iron fist.
- Lord Farquaad along with Lord Shen are considered the most popular DreamWorks villains.
- His removal of the fairy tale characters is similar to the Indian Removal Act's Trail of Tears and the Long Walk of the Navajo (1863-1868).
- Lord Farquaad and Prince Charming are the only Shrek villains to be in love with Princess Fiona and vowed to marry her.
- In Shrek 2, when Shrek in his human form said he never should have rescued Fiona from the tower, it marks of how Farquaad would than give him his swamp back if he didn't rescue her.
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