Farquaad

Lord Maximus Farquaad was the ruler of Duloc and the main antagonist of Shrek.

## Appearance

Farquaad wears an outfit of mainly red, with a red hat and red cape to match his red tunic. He has a big chin, a pageboy haircut, and is quite short.

## History

Lord Farquaad is the sole ruler of Duloc. Because they don't fit in with his idea of a perfect world", he forcibly exiles all fairytale creatures from Duloc. He puts out rewards for turning them in to his guards]], who then round them up and force them into Shrek's swamp]]. Back at his castle]], Farquaad and his henchman Thelonious torture the Gingerbread Man into revealing the location of other fairytale folk in hiding. Just as Gingy is about to reveal what he knows, the Captain of the guards]] interrupts to announce that they have found the Magic Mirror. Farquaad boasts that Duloc is the "most perfect kingdom of them all", but Mirror tells him that he is not actually a king yet, but he can become one if he marries a princess.

In a parody of dating shows, the mirror introduces three eligible princesses for Lord Farquaad to choose from: Cinderella, Snow White, and Princess Fiona. Won over by her beauty and Thelonius' suggestion, Farquaad chooses Princess Fiona, who happens to be locked away in a castle]] guarded by a ferocious dragon. Despite the mirror's attempt to warn him about what happens at sunset, Lord Farquaad decides to hold a tournament to determine which of his knights]] will be sent to rescue Fiona for him. However, the tournament is disrupted when Shrek and Donkey come to demand that the fairytale creatures be removed from Shrek's swamp. Disgusted by Shrek, Farquaad declares that the knight who kills him will be named champion. Despite the knights' best efforts, they are all defeated with relative ease by both Shrek and Donkey. Farquaad's guards take aim at Shrek, but Farquaad, seizing a golden opportunity, declares Shrek the champion of the tournament. Farquaad offers a proposition to him: if he rescues Princess Fiona, Farquaad will rid Shrek's swamp of the unwanted fairytale creatures.

Shrek and Donkey successfully rescue Fiona and the trio journey back to Duloc. At one point, Farquaad is shown to be forcing the Magic Mirror to show him an image of Fiona as he lies in bed, waiting for her to be delivered. Shrek and Fiona begin falling in love, but the day before they are set to return to Duloc, they have a falling out over a misunderstanding. The next morning, Shrek brings Lord Farquaad along with a host of guards to exchange Fiona. After giving Shrek the deed to his swamp, Farquaad proposes marriage to Fiona right away, who agrees on the condition that they have the wedding before sunset. Fiona is none too thrilled with her new groom, though Farquaad doesn't seem to notice. He travels with Fiona back to Duloc and eagerly prepares himself for the wedding.

At the wedding, just as Farquaad and Fiona are about to kiss Shreks bursts in to object. Shrek confesses his feelings to Fiona and tells her that the only reason Farquaad is marrying her is so that he can become king. Farquaad laughs at the thought of an ogre falling in love with a princess, and has Thelonius prompt the crowd to laugh with him. However, when the sun beings to set Fiona reveals her curse (which the Mirror attempted to warn him about) and transforms into an ogre. Disgusted by Fiona's appearance, Farquaad orders his guards to seize Shrek and threatens to lock Fiona back in her tower, declaring himself the king. Suddenly Donkey, riding on Dragon's neck, crashes through the glass windows of the church. Dragon devours Farquaad, defeating him and saving Duloc from his tyranny.

### *Shrek 4-D*

In *Shrek 4-D*, Farquaad returns as a ghost and has Thelonious]] kidnap 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. He also sends a stone dragon from the graveyard after Shrek and Donkey, but 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 Farquaad heads, which disappear for good.

### *Shrek The Third*

When Charming and the other villains raid the castle of Far Far Away, they find the three pigs, Pinocchio, Gingy, and Wolf having afternoon tea. Charming interrogates them about where Shrek is, and Hook flashed his hook threateningly at Gingy who remembers when he first came out of the oven. Part of the flashback showed when he was being interrogated by Lord Farquaad in the first movie, as to where the fairytale creatures were.

### *Shrek Forever After*

Even though he is not seen nor mentioned, in Shrek's other universe, the Magic Mirror belonged to Rumpelstiltskin and so Farquaad never owned it and never knew about Fiona. Therefore, she was never saved by one of his knights. He was supposed to appear in the film, but it was dropped at the last minute.

### *Scared Shrekless*

In *Scared Shrekless*, the characters go to the Duloc Castle to tell frightening stories. It turns out the entire lordship of Duloc was deserted and in disrepair after Farquaad's funeral, thus making it seem all the more terrifying. Shrek, Fiona, and the babies fake a haunting by Lord Farquaad to frighten Donkey.

The overall appearance of Duloc in Scared Shrekless may have been altered to a more scary and Halloween scale for the purpose of the special itself.

### Past

In *Shrek The Musical*, Farquaad's past is revealed during the musical number "The Ballad of Farquaad". Farquaad's mother was revealed to be a Princess named Pea from the *Princess and the Pea* and his father being Grumpy (which would explain his comically short stature) from *Snow White*. They married for love, and his mother was apparently disinherited from her crown. Because his mother had a hard time sleeping on her husband's lumpy mattress, his dwarf father placed twenty-five mattresses on top of one another hoping to give her some rest. However, this caused Farquaad's mother to fall from the top mattress to her death. Farquaad claims to have never known her, meaning it probably happened during early childhood. Farquaad lived with his father until, he claims, his father abandoned him in the woods and left him for dead while he was still a child. This was proven false at Farquaads wedding when the fairytale creatures bring Grumpy to his wedding, however, his father reveals that the reason he kicked Farquaad out was because he was twenty-eight years old and living in the basement.

## Personality

Lord Farquaad is a ruthless and self-centered man who will do anything to become the proper king of Duloc. He has no problem with having Gingy tortured and maimed, and taunts him while doing so. He doesn't seem to care about the well-being of his people, as he openly confesses his willingness to risk the lives of all of his own knights to rescue Fiona so that he doesn't. Though he finds Fiona beautiful, his decision to marry her is purely out of a lust 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 and to lock Fiona back into her tower for the rest of her life.

His obsession over perfection, his need to be king and his short stature shows a man that has severe self-image problems. Farquaad overcompensates for his short stature by being domineering and controlling. In order Other examples of include the towering height of Castle Duloc, the numerous statues and murals of himself around Duloc, and his grave which depicts him raised above Dragon. When Gingy calls him a monster, Farquaad dismisses and claims that it is fairytale creatures that are the monsters. 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 also doesn't view his own shortness as a problem to this perfection.

Despite all his negative traits, he is remains true to his word, evidenced by the fact that he fulfilled the promise of giving Shrek the deed to his swamp back once Shrek delivered Fiona to him. However, he was still very ungrateful, rude, never thanked Shrek or Donkey, and completely took credit for the rescue. He is apparently a competent administrative figure, with the town of Duloc flourishing under his reign. At the same time he isn't very popular with his citizens, as they quickly begin to cheer on Shrek during the tournament and welcome him back when he interrupts the wedding. They don't seem to care much about Farquaad's death, some even laughing and cheering.

Little else is known about him in the film, though the musical delved deeper into his past and his hatred towards fairytale creatures. In the (non-canon) musical, he spends much of his time in the torture chamber, playing video games on the Magic Mirror, sipping drinks while taking a bath, and 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 will torture anyone who makes a single mistake in the routine. He has apparently 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 perfect.

## Role in the Series

He made his first appearance in Planet Sweet Palace, where he attended the first meeting of the Three Lords Alliance.

His final and most prominent role was reprised in Punch Time Exploders Meet Shrek.