“ Mirror, mirror on the wall / Is this not the most perfect kingdom of them all? ”

Lord Farquaad was the ruler of Duloc and the main antagonist of Shrek. He is voiced by John Lithgow.

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Appearances

Farquaad wears a red hat, red gloves, red cape, black belt, red and white top, black hair, black boots, and black leggings. He is very small.In Shrek, Farquaad exiled all of the fairytale creatures from his land, forcing them to take refuge in Shrek's swamp. Back at his castle, Farquaad tortured the Gingerbread Man into revealing the location of the other fairytale folk which he has not captured or exiled yet. Just as Gingerbread Man was going to reveal what he knows, the Captain of the guards showed up and announced that they have found the Magic Mirror. Farquaad asked the mirror if Duloc was the most perfect kingdom of them all. The mirror told him he is not truly a king yet, but he can become one if he ever marries a princess.

In a parody of dating shows, the mirror introduced three different princesses for Lord Farquaad to choose from: Cinderella, Snow White, and Princess Fiona. At Thelonius' suggestion, Farquaad chooses Princess Fiona, who is 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 plan a tournament to see which knight would be worthy enough to embark on a quest to retrieve Fiona. However, Shrek, who traveled from his swamp to Duloc accompanied by Donkey to ask Farquaad to move the fairytale creatures off his swamp, disrupts the tournament. Then Farquaad switched the tournament, as the knight that ends up slaying Shrek will be named champion. However, despite the knights' best efforts, they were all defeated with relative ease by both Shrek and Donkey. Faarquad's archers take aim at Shrek, but Faarquad, seizing a golden opportunity, declares Shrek the champion of the tournament and gives a proposition to Shrek: if Shrek successfully completes the quest to rescue Fiona, Faarquad will restore Shrek's swamp back to normal, before the fairytale creatures took refuge.

Shrek and Donkey successfully saved Princess Fiona from the dragon. Soon, the trio journey onward to Duloc. Shrek and Fiona begin falling in love, but Shrek overhears Fiona talking about how no one could love a hideous beast and thinks she’s referring to him. The next morning, Shrek brings Lord Farquaad to Fiona. After handing over the deed, Farquaad proposes marriage to Fiona right away, who agrees on the condition that they have the wedding before sunset. He takes Fiona back to his castle, while a heartbroken Shrek heads back to his swamp. After having resolved severed ties with Donkey, the duo crash the wedding in hopes of preventing the marriage. There, Shrek confesses his love to Fiona. But then, Farquaad laughs at Shrek, which prompts the crowd to laugh with him. However, Fiona reveals to Faarquad her curse of which the Mirror attempted to warn him about and transforms into her ogre persona. Disgusted by Fiona's appearance, Faarquad attempts to have his knights slay both ogres, declaring himself the king. With it seeming that Farquaad finally prevailed, Donkey, riding on Dragon's neck, crashed through the glass window. Dragon proceeded to devour Faarquad, defeating him and saving Duloc from his tyranny.

In Shrek 4-D, Farquaad returns as a ghost and he has Thelonious kidnap Fiona so he can slaughter her, make her his ghost queen (despite rejecting Fiona in her ogress form), and make him King of the Underworld. He also sends a stone dragon from the graveyard to murder both Shrek and Donkey, but Dragon comes to their rescue. During a chase scene (reminiscent of the Death Star scene 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.

When Charming and some 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.

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.

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 demise, 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 explains 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.

Video Game Appearances

Personality

InPC version, while not physically appears in the game, Farquaad's face is seen on a training dummy that Shrek uses to practice fighting.

Lord Farquaad is a cruel, greedy man who wants to officially become the King of Duloc. To make Duloc into his own perfect world, he exiled all the fairytale creatures, apprehending them and offering rewards in schillings to those who will turn them in. He tortured Gingy in the process of trying to accomplish this goal. The full extent of his callousness is revealed towards the end of the film, when he threatens to have Shrek drawn and quartered and decides to have Fiona thrown back into that tower for the rest of her life. Thankfully, Dragon showed up in the nick of time to stop him.

His obsession over perfection, his need to be King and his short stature shows a man that has severe self-image problems. He also doesn't truly care about the safety or well-being of his people, as he openly confesses his willing to put his own knights on a fatal misson to rescue Fiona so he can protect himself from being slaughtered and he can steal all the credit.

Despite all his negative traits, he is shown to be sincere and true to his word, evidenced by the fact that he fullfilled the promise of giving Shrek the deed to his swamp back once Shrek delivered Princess Fiona to him. However, he was still very ungrateful, rude, never thanked Shrek or Donkey, and completely took credit for the rescue. He is also apparently a competent administrative figure, with the town of Duloc flourishing under his reign. Upon his death, the town has since gone into ruins without Farquaad's administrative mind to govern it.

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.

Trivia

Despite rejecting Fiona after seeing her in her ogress form, Farquaad wanted her to become his ghostly queen in the underworld. So he must still have feelings for her. In the intro when he was torturing Gingy, the three little pigs, and Pinocchio, he called her "his" Fiona affectionately. He also was flirting with her while she was on the raft. When he thought she was dead, he called her his angel. This could have all been an act for power.

Farquaad, along with Fairy Godmother, are the only villains from the Shrek franchise known to have been killed, considering Prince Charming's status is unknown.

He is arguably the most charming antagonist in a Shrek film. Not to mention that he is the most popular Shrek villain in general.

film. Not to mention that he is the most popular villain in general. Of all the antagonists, Farquaad had the most influence on all the films. His desire to pursue Fiona is what lead to her being rescued by Shrek instead of Prince Charming and her rescue prevented Rumpelstilskin from getting Harold or Lillian to sign over Far Far Away. So, essentially, these movies are his fault.

Farquaad's removal of fairytale characters parallels the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed into law by President Andrew Jackson.

Farquaad is notably the only villain so far not based on any particular fairy-tale character.