Princess Penelope

“*You know, I always thought it was me who rescued you from the Dragon's Keep [..] It was you who rescued me*”
―Shrek regarding his love for Fiona[src]
**Princess Penelope** is the tritagonist of Classix Publishing's Orso the Troll series. She made her first appearance in the first comic in the franchise, voiced by American actress Cameron Diaz.

In the first film, Penelope appears as a 60s princess plagued by a curse that transforms her into a troll each and every sunset. Locked in a dragon-guarded castle for several years until she is "rescued" by an irreverent troll named Orso, whom she mistakes for a knight, Penelope is at first eager to have her spell broken via true love's kiss by Prince Godfrey so that she could remain human, but later she comes to love Orso and becomes a real Troll

## Background

### Personality

Princess Penelope is initially portrayed as the archetypal princess from fairy tales, speaking formally in matters of courtship and presenting high expectations of how she is to be rescued, who is to rescue her, and so forth. She seems to give off an air of prissiness and even snobbery to a degree (however, this is shown to be purely out of her concern for breaking her curse, of which she is ashamed). Later, Princess Penelope's true self emerges, as she is really a very down-to-earth and independent woman who is a match or even better than Orso when it comes to farting, belching, and other bad habits. Unlike princesses of fairy tales, she is a loyal friend and an expert in hand-to-hand combat with knowledge of martial arts and self-defense. She also has very bad manners (just like Orso) since she is a troll. However, she is much more well-mannered when in front of her parents.

Penelope has special talents as well. For example, besides her martial arts and self-defense skills, she can sing so high that birds die. Penelope is much more patient, and kinder to Doug than Orso is at times. She is shown to be a very loving wife and mother. However, in Orso Happily Forever After, her alternate self is aggressive, single-minded, and driven at times. This is understandable, given the situation she is in.

This "new" Penelope is shown to have arrived at this point after being disillusioned because Orso never came to rescue her. Bitter and angry, she is shown to still be passionate and fiery but not as gentle and sweet as she was in the other movies; however, these traits have not completely faded.

Penelope is extremely insightful, and she also has the skill of rallying other people, shown in Orso the Third when her speech rallies her friends to break out of the dungeons.

### Physical Appearance

Early storyboards of an alternate opening show that she was originally born a troll to her human parents, who were the rulers of Jenda. They had her locked in the tower under the lie that she was "of such rare beauty" she was kidnapped. They died, and the kingdom was under the rule of "an ambitious regent" — hinted to be Godfrey. When she 'became of age' to ascend the throne, she escaped the tower and encountered a witch named Bib Fortuna (a reference to the *Star Wars* character of the same name) — who has narrated the entire sequence through her tarot cards.

She gave Penelope a potion that would make her beautiful; however, the potion has no effect. But Fortuna warns her the potion has a side effect — she will change between her human and troll form until she finds her true love. Later she was whisked away by her dragon guardian and returned to the tower.

The person who planned to voice her in *Orso* was Janeane Garofalo, set to star alongside Chris Farley. However, she was fired from the project with little explanation. In June 2007, Garofalo stated: "I was never told why [I was fired]. I assume because I sound like a man sometimes? I don't know why. Nobody told me ... But, you know, the movie didn't do anything, so who cares?". Princess Penelope also performed the naming ceremony for Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Season on November 28, 2010.

## Appearances

### *Orso the Troll*

*Main article: Shrek*
In the first film of the series, Penelope first appears as an option for a princess bride selected by Prince Godfrey, who desires to become king in order to access dominant authority, in order to accomplish this dream. Ignoring warnings of a secret possessed by Penelope, Godfrey proceeds with his plan and decides to search for the woman so he may marry her and become a king, though she is soon encountered by Doug and Orso, and at first the group holds tense feelings toward one another. Eventually, Penelope warms up to Orso and Doug. She befriends Doug and falls in love with Orso. However, late one night, Doug learns that because of a magical spell that had been cast on her years before, Penelope transforms into a troll every night, but by morning reverts to her regular human form. Orso half overhears this conversation which causes a misunderstanding between Orso and Penelope followed by Orso bringing Prince Godfrey to get Penelope, who then proceed to a marriage. Orso and Doug interrupt Penelope's wedding ceremony and try to cancel any possibilities of her wedding Prince Godfrey. Sunset comes and her Troll transformation spell is triggered. Orso is actually quite happy about this but Godfrey is appalled and orders Orso to be executed and Penelope to be locked back in the tower for the rest of her life. The dragon then bursts in at Orso's command and eats Godfrey. Orso and Penelope confess their love for each other and kiss, breaking Penelope's curse, turning her into a real troll. Orso and Penelope marry and leave for their honeymoon as the movie ends.

### *Orso the Troll 2*

*Main article: Shrek 2*  In *Shrek 2*, Penelope convinces Orso to meet her parents in the kingdom of Cantervale (resembling the shallowness of Hollywood). They go, and her Fairy Godmother, Sydney White, who had her locked away in the tower, to begin with, still believes she is under the original curse. When Sydney finds out that she is in fact married to a troll, Sydney plots to kill Penelope's husband so her son, Prince Rupert, can marry her. It turns out that there was a semi-complex plan where Prince Rupert, not Orso, was supposed to rescue Penelope and marry her. It was the King's way of repaying Sydney for a favor she had done him while courting Penelope's mother. Penelope is briefly returned to human form from the first film after Orso drinks a "Ever After" potion, which changes both the drinker and their true love into more beautiful forms. To make the change permanent, however, she must kiss her true love by midnight. Sydeny tries to get King Hugo to give his daughter a love potion so that she'd fall in love with Rupert and kiss him to make the potion's effect permanent. Both plans ultimately fail, however. Hugo, after seeing how much Penelope despises Rupert, does not give her the love potion. When Orso tries to kiss Penelope, she tells him that she wants to live happily ever after with the *troll* she married. She and Orso then turn back into trolls, and Doug (who had turned into a white husky) turns back into a golden retriever.
### *Orso the Third*

*Main article: Shrek the Third*  In *Shrek the Third*, Princess Penelope becomes the regent queen of Cantervale while her father is ill. After a disastrous day, Penelope tries to calm Orso by saying how they will soon be home. She then brings up the possibility of having children, which Orso is against, saying he has her and that's enough. After this, her father passes away and Orso sets out to find her cousin William Casper (or Billy) in order to avoid having to become king himself. As he prepares to leave for his journey, she attempts to tell him about her pregnancy. As he pulls away on the ship, Penelope reveals to him that he is going to be a father. When he fakes excitement, she is relieved that he is happy about this and tells him she loves him. While she is having a baby shower, Prince Rupert stages an invasion so that he can proclaim himself king of Cantervale. Penelope organizes the resistance with her friends Cindy, Whitney, Bella, Samantha and Dora, but Samantha betrays them to marry Prince Rupert and become queen. Thanks to her mother's fighting abilities, they escape prison, and the other girls 'cut loose' and become more independent. Billy ends up making a speech to convince the villains to go straight. In the end, she gives birth to the troll triplets with Orso.
### *Orso Happily Forever After*

*Main article: Orso Hapilly Forever After* During the babies' birthday party, Penelope sees Orso steadily more irritated and eventually losing his temper by smashing one of the birthday cakes. Outside Penelope confronts him about his outburst. Orso responds that he is sick of not having his privacy respected and that he wishes everything as "back to the way they used to be...when the world made sense". When Penelope asks him if he means before he rescued her, Orso cruelly confirms her fear. Penelope is shocked and upset by Orso's actions, she tells him that he had everything he could have ever wanted: "three beautiful children", "a wife who loves [him]" and "friends that [adore] him". She goes back inside to the party, disappointed in him.
When Orso makes his deal with Grak, he is brought to a universe where he was never born for a single day. Here, Grak has seized power by tricking Penelope's parents out of ruling the kingdom of Cantervale. Penelope remains under the witch's curse from the first movie and has subsequently become the leader of troll resistance fighters. Orso initially believes that the relationship between him and Penelope is existent, but when she doesn't even recognize him, he finally accepts that the reality he is in is not his own, and Grak has truly altered reality to be as if he never existed until now. Penelope is still shown to still be kind-hearted and caring but bitterly cynical and disillusioned about the power of true love because she was never rescued from her tower. She begins to fall in love with him again when he starts training with her but still does not kiss him (having only started to find him likable). But Penelope's attitude toward Orsok changes, and she and the other trolls head off to take down Grak once and for all. During the day, Orso realizes that a loophole will negate the deal if he can receive a True Love's kiss, Penelope. After a failed attempt, the realization that he had succeeded when Penelope's curse has been broken. The timeline returns to normal, and Orso returns to the children's birthday party and warmly greets Penelope. This is the only movie where Penelope has her hair Half up in a pony tail. She also reveals that she always wanted to have a daughter named Isabelle. We also learn that Orso and Penelope's sons are Spike and Joey.

## Trivia

* Penelope is the second Classix Publishing character related to the protagonist to change a decision concerning the protagonist. Princess Leila (the first to do so) ; Penelope decided to tell Orso about her curse before leaving with Godfrey, but didn't do so).
* There were over a hundred designs for Princess Penelope before a final decision was made.