Fridge / Shrek 2

Fridge Brilliance

• If you remember the first film, the sequence where Prince Charming "storms" the castle immediately has a hint that it's really happening and isn't an Imagine Spot about how the story was supposed to go; Charming rides a zipline across the lava moat, since Dragon burned the rope-and-plank bridge when she was chasing Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey.
• During the prologue, we see Prince Charming racing to Fiona's rescue, boldly storming the dragon's keep, tossing about his "soft and bouncy haaaaaiiiiiirr", and striding confidently into her tower. We don't see him drawing a sword, nor showing any trepidation over the fact that Fiona is guarded by a dragon, nor even showing any confusion as to the absence of said dragon (the viewer knows Dragon has left to be with Donkey, but Charming doesn't). Then it hits you: Dragon was in on the plot, at least partially. After all, Fairy Godmother's whole plot is to get Charming into the kingship, which hinges on him rescuing Fiona and marry her. And, doting mother that she is, she'd make sure things went easy on her son. And so Dragon has to be in on the plot, allowing Charming to walk in and rescue Fiona unchallenged whilst killing anyone else who approaches. At the very least, she had to be under FG's control/command.
• The film makes no mention of the first film’s events, namely Farquad throwing out the fairytale creatures, hiring Shrek to bring him Fiona, his rage and distaste for her ogre form. The omission matters: while the Godmother and Charming wouldn’t care, Harold would respect Shrek more for acting for Fiona’s safety and happiness.
  • On the other hand, it wouldn’t change the fact that Shrek disrupted the arrangement Harold made with the Godmother; even if Farquaad was the one who started it all, he’s gone and Shrek is the current predicament.
• Shrek’s romance was unplanned and unexpected, but so was Donkey’s. As mentioned above, the Dragon was meant to scare away all suitors who came for Fiona, with the implicit exception of Prince Charming. Even Shrek couldn’t fight Dragon and had to settle for stealing away Fiona. Donkey romancing Dragon enabled her to become an ally to Shrek and ultimately stop Farquaad.
• Fiona’s diary entries of her becoming Mrs Fiona Charming is a childhood fantasy. The Princess she is in the film has undergone major Character Development – she was locked in a tower for years and had to learn martial arts, got rescued by an ogre and got to know him, who agreed to marry a spiteful dwarf only to be free of her curse and was unhappy about the trade, and who ultimately was seen as beautiful in her ogre form by the said ogre – and would no longer be satisfied with an Ideal Hero like Charming.
  • In fact, her time in her home kingdom is one of disenchantment: she has to deal with her father judging her husband without actually knowing him, is willing to leave, and when she is made to believe Charming is Shrek she can't understand how he got so vain and superficial.
• During the Fairy Godmother's dressing down of Harold for the fact that Fiona was rescued by and married someone else, the king hurriedly tries to defend his actions (or lack thereof) by saying, "Well, it wasn't my fault! He didn't get there in time!" It seems like a feeble defense at first, but then in Shrek Forever After you find out that he and Queen Lillian nearly signed away their whole kingdom to Rumpelstiltskin, only a brief moment of hesitation allowing a courier of their employ to burst in and inform them that Fiona had been saved. If they had waited for Prince Charming to try saving her, then there would be no kingdom for him to gain. Of course, Harold wasn't going to go into specifics about how he went behind her back to try finding another way to break the curse, with the very thing she wanted in return as part of said secret bargain.
• When Fiona is questioning her father as to Shrek's whereabouts, he tries to deflect by tasting something a servant identifies as "the dog's breakfast". In addition to being actual dog food, "dog's breakfast" is a Britishism meaning a big, messy situation—by lying to Fiona, King Harold is, indeed, making a bigger mess of things than before.
• When it turned midnight to the moment Shrek, Fiona and Donkey revert back to their original forms, it really was a minute long before it officially went past midnight.
• Between Fiona's parents, King Harold is evidently the more fearful at getting their first look at Shrek, while Queen Lillian is at least a bit more open-minded. This makes perfect sense on rewatch, as Harold was originally a frog, and we've seen Shrek casually make use of frogs and other swamp creatures for balloons and the like. Fear of ogres may well be instinctive for frogs, even ones that became human.
  • Probably the biggest reason for his fear was due to the favor he owed the Fairy Godmother. Fiona was supposed to marry Prince Charming as repayment to her. But then he sees her married to someone else and knows what he's gonna get.
  • Another one about Lillian being open-minded is that she fell in love with a frog, who are known to be slimy, warty swamp creatures much like ogres, and it was only after she kissed Harold that he turned human. So her trying to be accepting and understanding of Fiona's marriage makes perfect sense; as how she herself met the love of her life.
  • This can be seen even more during the ending. When Harold reverts back into a frog thanks to Fairy Godmother's magic hitting him, Lillian makes no attempt to kiss him and turn him back into a human. Why? For the same reason Fiona doesn't kiss Shrek to make the effects of the Happily Ever After potion permanent - she loves and accepts her husband for who he truly is (confirmed by the creators in the DVD commentary). D'awwww!
  Harold: [trying to hop away] I'm sorry, Lillian. I just wish I could be the man you deserve.
  Lillian: [stopping him] You're more that man today than you ever were- warts and all.
• The Fairy Godmother's remark to Shrek about how "Ogres don't live happily ever after" has a kernel of truth to it when one takes into account the original telling of "Sleeping Beauty". It didn't simply end with the titular princess finding her prince. There's an act two where, the once-sleeping protagonist is at odds with her husband's stepmother, who's really half-ogre. The story ends with her being scared witless by her Papa Wolf stepson, to the point she jumps into the very trappings she was about to sentence her daughter-in-law and grandchildren to. In other words, the Fairy Godmother's prejudice that ogres aren't supposed to live happily ever after is born from a trope as old as time.
• When King Harold first visits the Poison Apple, he briefly encounters a female frog who asks if she knows him, but a flustered Harold brushes her off. Brief as it is, it's easy to forget all about it and you may take his reaction to be about being recognized as a King in a seedy bar. Then comes the end reveal that Harold was originally a frog, turned human by the Fairy Godmother. The moment was actually a hint as to his real origins.
• Shrek had every reason to be mad and want to leave after the dinner fight. Fiona chastised him for not trying to get along with her father, King Harold, but in reality, Shrek did try. Trying to start a conversation, trying to impress Harold, it wasn't until the latter started making rude remarks at Shrek when things went south. Shrek lost the argument because he didn't consider Fiona's sacrifice to be with him, which is also true, but he was in the right about how hopeless it was trying to get Harold's blessing.
  • Fiona probably realized this too, as when Shrek didn't return when he went to visit Fairy Godmother, she talked with Harold and criticized him for being mean to him, to which he claims that he doesn't like him for turning her into an ogre. It was at this point Fiona realized that Shrek was in the right, and it was a mistake to try to get his blessing. She was ready to go out in the rain to look for Shrek and leave Far Far Away forever, realizing she would also never belong.
    • An interesting little detail was in the scene where she is about to leave, she isn't wearing her tiara, symbolizing her renouncing her royal heritage and her family.
• When the Fairy Godmother first sees Fiona (in her ogre form) she seems startled but not terribly shocked at her appearance and then proceeds to sing about how she's going to improve Fiona's life by changing her appearance and plying her with material objects. Then when she finds out that Fiona married Shrek, she's shocked and horrified and quickly takes off. Since she probably hadn't yet heard from Prince Charming that he'd failed to get to Fiona in time and she'd married someone else, she probably thought Fiona had married Prince Charming and they simply weren't each others' true loves so the curse still held her. No wonder she was trying so hard to make Fiona feel better: she probably thought Fiona was depressed about the spell not being broken and was trying to manipulate her into staying with Prince Charming!
  • That makes sense. In her song, she mentions landing a "prince with perfect hair and sexy tush." And what is one of the things most complimented about Charming?
  • The Fairy Godmother could secretly be the "witch" who cursed Fiona in the first place. Think about it; first she makes King Harold owe her big time by transforming him into a human (as implied when she threatens him to revert the effect) thus allowing him to marry a princess (queen Lillian) and therefore becoming the king of Far Far Away. Then, she (secretly) curses Fiona causing her to be locked in the tower until the day her true love (Prince Charming, if everything goes as planned) arrives to save her. When that happens the Fairy Godmother can simply lift the spell and have her son be next in line to the throne of Far Far Away (and this would be a cynical explanation to why the kiss at the end of the first Shrek didn't have any noticeable effect on Fiona). So all this time, the Fairy Godmother was plotting the conquest of Far Far Away!
  • Actually, Godmother gave every indication of thinking Fiona had not found her "true love" yet; otherwise she wouldn't be eagerly offering help attracting a man. She wasn't shocked to see Fiona as an ogre because it was nighttime, when she would be an ogre anyway.
• When Fiona wakes up after the Happily Ever After potion takes effect, she screams when she sees her human self in the mirror. Of course, she has no idea of the potion at this point yet. So, the reason for the scream? She most likely thought the curse that had affected her almost her whole life was active again, because she was human during the day and an ogress at night, and she had fainted thanks to the potion the night before.
• Shrek reads Fiona's childhood diary where she has written about how she looks forward to marrying a young, handsome Prince Charming. While reading, he gets startled by the king knocking on the door and lets out a yelp, and later says that he was just reading a horror story. Indeed, to him, it basically is a horror story to him; Fiona's childhood dreams are pretty much crushed because she never married Prince Charming she wished to as a child, since she married Shrek, an ogre, ergo he lives in fear that she still lives with these dreams deep down and will never be truly happy with Shrek.
• Lillian brings up the subject of Shrek and Fiona's children and Shrek is so horrified by it, that he swallows his spoon. In Shrek the Third, he again expresses his fear of fatherhood by saying he is afraid of being a bad father. Based on what Shrek says about his father to Artie (when Shrek was a baby, his father tried to eat him!), we can guess that Shrek had a very abusive childhood. It isn't uncommon for there to be a cycle of abuse. We never see or hear of Shrek's parents besides that so we can assume either they are dead or Shrek never spoke to them again. That was Shrek's fear, that he would repeat what he endured as a child and abuse his own children and his children would disown him, like he had with his parents.
  • There's confirmation about Shrek's abusive childhood on the musical, the first number has his parents sending him to move away from their house at age seven. Confirmed (albeit in a more general sense) by an earlier scene in Shrek the Third.
• Puss being high on catnip would explain his overall strange behaviour throughout the movies.
  • Except it really wasn't his: the knight pulled it out of his gauntlet.
    • For someone who had incriminating evidence planted on him, Puss still acts like he has something to hide. Maybe he really DOES have a catnip addiction, he just didn't have any on him at the time of the arrest.
    • Puss's own spinoff repeats the gag, but there he admits it's his (it's for his glaucoma). So yes, he is a catnip user in general, even if that bag in particular wasn't his.
    • It's really not all that clear that the knight pulls it out of his gauntlet. That might have been the best approximation of Hammerspace that the animators could manage. (Puss's outfit doesn't have any pockets.)
• Prince Charming being Fairy Godmother's son makes sense if you think on it: a mother with power wouldn't resist using it to "refine" her son into an Ideal Hero. The one thing she couldn't magic up is an actual royal title for him, so she has to set up another kingdom and get a hold on it for her son to marry into and achieve legitimate royalty.
  • This explains why Charming is such a Manchild: his mother has done everything for him, and he suffers from a serious case of being a Momma's Boy.
• Note that Fairy Godmother never refers to Shrek by his name unless she's trying to manipulate someone. Think about it, every other time she refers to him as simply "the ogre", because her opinions of him are so low, she refuses to humanize him. However, to trick Shrek into thinking she wants what's best for Fiona upon Shrek discovering her with Prince Charming, she refers to him as "Shrek" in order to make him think she's being reasonable and serious with him. Other times she refers to Prince Charming as "Shrek" so to trick Fiona into thinking it's his real identity. It's not because she considers Shrek to be a person with feelings, but to make others think that that's the card she's playing; a well-meaning matchmaker with no ulterior motives behind her schemes. Very sly manipulation tactic she's using, isn't it?
• During the final battle, Fairy Godmother raves at Shrek that he should have "just gone back to his swamp and leave well enough alone!" Ignoring the fact that things really weren't well enough for anyone except her, this was what Shrek had done in the first film: he had returned to his home in the belief things were now okay for Fiona, but was still unhappy and decided to instead see her and try to fix things between them. He knows going away from the problem won't solve anything unless he's confronted it first.
• Donkey's comment about Dragon being moody could simply be seen as a pregnancy joke. However, dragons are reptiles, so Dragon would have likely laid eggs. That's actually a very good reason for her to be moody, as fairy tale monsters are notorious for being aggressive when their eggs are involved.
• While The Fairy Godmother's insult about the wolf being "gender-confused" can be considered less acceptable today than at the time the movie came out, it still suits her character with her shallow, stodgy ideas about gender roles. Society's changing views arguably makes this line even better, as it highlights the Fairy Godmother's narrow-minded views.
  • The wolf is from the Red Riding Hood tale, and had dressed up as Red Riding Hood's grandmother to impersonate her. Charming and Godmother never even checked if that wolf was really gender-confused or just masquerading in drag.
• Another clue that Harold is the Frog Prince: next to his bed, there's a tapestry showing a pond with water lilies.
• Harold makes two comments about having trouble sleeping at night - to the Fairy Godmother about taking a sleeping pill and to Fiona about how drinking tea with caffeine would keep him awake. If both comments were true then it would makes sense - in nature, the common frog is nocturnal.
• Shrek never got to confront Harold over sending a hitman at him and later seeing him planning alongside the Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming, but it makes sense concerning the scene where Harold switches the tea with the love potion. Without being called out for his actions, it allows us to see that Harold figured out Fiona truly does love Shrek on his own as well as that he sincerely wanted what’s best for his daughter. Plus, he jumped in front of an attack that would have only hit Shrek (as he pushed Fiona away so she wouldn't get hurt). Putting yourself on the line for someone you formerly disliked is a pretty good way to show you have sincerely changed.
• Puss was willing to try the potion to ensure it wasn't lethal. While it is a sign of respect to Shrek, as a cat his nine lives means if the potion kills him he'll recover anyway.
  • The Last Wish retroactively implies this was the case.
• It was an Act of True Love that stopped the Fairy Godmother... not from Fiona's husband, but her father. That makes her Karmic Death stronger, considering she set him up and had had him in her power his whole life.
  • Also note that both are parents: the Godmother coddled and controlled her son and effectively degraded him into a Spoiled Brat, while the King refused to remove his daughter's free will and was able to recognize her choice of Shrek and the value of that choice and of Shrek too. It makes sense for the good parent to defeat the bad parent.
• The DVD commentary reveals that Dragon became a Pegasus when Donkey drank the Happily Ever After potion. So why didn't she show up until the potion wore off? Easy: she wasn't aware of the potion's effects and assumed Donkey wouldn't recognize her.
• The Fairy Godmother tells human Shrek that no magic potion can change the fact that he’s an ogre and Fiona’s a princess. It’s the one grain of truth in the spiel she feeds Shrek to discourage him. As an enchantress who transforms people and makes them beautiful, she knows how ugly/flawed people are inside: for her Shrek will always be the ogre, Harold will always be the frog she can bully, Fiona will always be the cursed damsel to save/win, and Charming will always be the boy she needs to perfect. Her Beauty Equals Goodness ethos is a Hypocrisy Nod because for her beauty doesn’t mean personal growth but is just a façade to use; otherwise she may have appreciated Shrek becoming human for Fiona’s sake.
• During the ball, King Harold is apprehensive at seeing Charming try to charm Fiona. He’s not worried for Fiona, but for himself: he’s already saved her by denying her the Godmother’s love potion, but is waiting for the Godmother to see it did not work and punish him. Shrek’s rescue was for Fiona, but Harold was the one in distress: thus Shrek’s arrival gives him more confidence to defy the Godmother when the kiss fails.

Fridge Horror

• How exactly did Donkey impregnate an egg-laying dragon?
  • There's an old Dragon Myth which tells that dragons can impregnate or be impregnated by any species there is. If your question is about how Donkey DID it...let's either say that the Dragon maybe morphed into a smaller shape, or that the Donkey has his ways...
  • Even more intriguing, when Donkey drank the potion and became a horse, what happened to his true love Dragon? If the potion affects both parties, did Dragon become a mare? Or more likely (and disturbing) some completely different creature, considering Donkey's rather unorthodox taste in females?
    • Word of God is that she became a Pegasus.
    • What the heck happened to the babies when she transformed? Maybe she had laid eggs, but the babies are at least partly mammalian so there's no guarantee of that. And either way, there's still the question of what does happen to actual pregnant mammals who take the potion.
• When Harold protests that the Fairy Godmother can't force someone to fall in love...she calmly says that she does it all the time. So, how many of her 'happily ever afters' have come about because she slipped the unwitting — or even unwilling — participant a love potion? And clearly the kiss that seals the deal doesn't have to be consensual...
• At the Fairy Godmother's behest, Harold organizes a morning hunt ostensibly so that he and Shrek can bond as in-laws but, in fact, has hired Puss in Boots to kill him. In other words, he's trying to set up a Hunting "Accident".
• The Fairy Godmother's Chessmaster skills are truly frightening:
  • She implicitly sets up a princess to be cursed with her son being the chosen one to break the curse and rescue her. And keep in mind, whether the curse can be permanently removed or not doesn't matter to her (as above, she wasn't upset about Fiona's ogre mode), what matters is that she set it up for her son to marry Fiona.
  • Later on, she sets up Charming to be Shrek, with a love potion added for good measure. Even if the love potion may wear off, as long as Charming and Fiona stay together, it doesn't matter. She wins, whichever alternative comes out.
  • The only things that can really derail her are Spanner in the Works people like Shrek and Harold (and possibly Farquaad since he wanted Fiona too).
• The Fairy Godmother’s manufacturing of love potions explains how successful she’s become: she’s effectively doped people into loving each other, and no one can object to the method because they can’t see how unfit they are for each other, and it may never wear off. That she’s using magic to enable love together, instead of pushing them together and enabling love to work on its own, shows how much of an Obliviously Evil Control Freak she has become.
• The Muffin Man was able to create a giant gingerbread man capable of besieging the castle of Far Far Away in a matter of hours (if not minutes), and with no prior warning that he'd need to create such a being. If he had time and resources to prepare, he could theoretically build armies. What's more, the castle guards had hot milk at the ready for this exact kind of scenario, which likely means they're either Crazy-Prepared or they had fought The Muffin Man's creations before. Farquaad's shock and horror about Gingy name dropping The Muffin Man in the previous film is a lot more understandable now.