Lord Farquaad is the main antagonist of Shrek. He is the ruler of Duloc. He was voiced by John Lithgow.
History
In Shrek, Farquaad had banished all of the fairy tale 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 fairy tale folk that he has not been able to capture or banish. Just as Gingerbread Man was going to reveal what he knows, the captain of the guards arrived 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 that he's not truly a king, but he can become one if he 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 his henchman Thelonius' suggestion, Farquaad chose Princess Fiona, who is locked away in a castle tower 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 had traveled from his swamp to Duloc accompanied by Donkey to ask Farquaad to move the fairy tale creatures off his swamp, interrupts the tournament. Farquaad then changed the tournament, as the knight that ends up killing Shrek will be named champion. However, despite the knights' best efforts, they were all defeated with relative ease by Shrek and Donkey. Faarquad's archers take aim at Shrek and Donkey, 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 fairy tale creatures took refuge.
Shrek and Donkey successfully rescued Princess Fiona from the dragon and the trio journey onward to Duloc. Shrek and Fiona started falling in love, but Shrek overhears Fiona talking about how no one could love a hideous beast and thinks she is referring to him. The next morning, Shrek brought Lord Farquaad to Fiona. After handing over the deed, Farquaad immediately proposes marriage to Fiona, who agrees on the condition that they have the wedding before sunset. He took Fiona back to his castle, while a heartbroken Shrek returned to his swamp. After having resolved severed ties with Donkey, the duo crash the wedding in hopes of preventing the marriage. There, Shrek admitted his love to Fiona, but Faarquad then laughs at Shrek, which prompts the crowd to laugh with him. However, Fiona reveals to Faarquad her curse of which the Mirror attempted to forewarn him about, and transforms into her ogre persona. Disgusted by Fiona's appearance, Faarquad attempts to have his knights kill both of the ogres, declaring himself a king. With it seeming that Faarquad had finally won, Donkey, riding on Dragon's neck, crashed through the glass, and Dragon proceeded to devour Faarquad.
Faarquad is also mentioned in the ending, where the Gingerbread Man is seen hammering down Farquaad's figurine on the wedding cake of him and Princess Fiona.
Shrek 4-D
- Main article: Farquaad's Ghost
In Shrek 4-D, Farquaad returns as a ghost and has Thelonious kidnap Fiona so he can kill her, make her his ghost queen (despite rejecting her in her ogress form), and make him King of the Underworld. He also sends a stone dragon from the graveyard to kill 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 death. After Dragon saves Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Thelonius from falling to their deaths over a waterfall, she destroys Farquaad by breathing fire at him, reducing him to several miniature Farquaad heads, which vanish for good.
Shrek The Third
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 interrogated by Lord Farquaad as to where the Fairy tale 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 rescued by one of his knights.
Scared Shrekless
In Scared Shrekless, the characters go too Duloc Castle to tell scary stories. It turns out the entire kingdom of Duloc was abandoned and fell into disrepair after Farquaad's death, thus making it seem all the more frightening. Shrek, Fiona and the babies fake a haunting by Lord Farquaad to scare Donkey.
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 and 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 and left him for dead while he was still a child. This was proven false at Farquaads wedding when the fairy tale 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 his basement.
Personality
Farquaad is a cruel, greedy man who wants to officially be the King of Duloc. To make Duloc into his own perfect world, he banished the creatures, arresting them and offering rewards in schillings to those who will turn them in. He tortured Gingy in the process of trying to accomplish his goal. The full extent of his cruelty is revealed at the end of the film when he threatens to have Shrek drawn and quartered.
He also doesn't really care about the safety or well being of his people, as he was willing to get his own knights killed and openly admitted it.
Despite all the his negative traits, he is shown to be honest and true to his word, evidenced by the fact that he fullfilled the promise of giving Shrek his swamp back once Shrek delivered Princess Fiona to him. but he was being very ungrateful and rude and didn't thank Shrek or Donkey and he acted like he did all the work. He is apparently also a competent administrative figure, for following his untimely death the Lordship of Duloc feel into disrepair and was deserted.
Little else is known about him in the film, though the musical delved deeper into his past and his hatred for fairy tale creatures. In the 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, flashy 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 make her 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 evil antagonist in a Shrek film.
- 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 and Lillian to sign over Far Far Away.