Lord Farquaad

"*laughs* Ahem! Run, run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me; I'm the Gingerbread Man! (Gingy: You're a monster!) I'm not the monster here; you are! You and the rest of that fairytale trash, poisoning my perfect world. Now, tell me; where are the others!?"

- Farquaad interrogating Gingy.

Lord Farquaad (simply known as Farquaad) is the main antagonist of DreamWorks's 5th full-length animated feature film, Shrek, and its 2003 3D short, Shrek 4-D.

In the film, Farquaad spent the first part capturing fairytale creatures so he could find the magic mirror. Once he did, he asked if DuLoc, the place he ruled, was the most perfect kingdom, but as he was not a king, DuLoc was not a kingdom, so he tried to marry Princess Fiona to become king.

He despises creatures of any kind and sought to relocate the fairytale creatures to Shrek's swamp. He attempts to cut a deal with Shrek by promising to remove the monsters from his swamp if Shrek could bring Princess Fiona to him, as he wanted to marry her.

He was voiced by John Lithgow who also played Jean-Claude, Lord John Whorfin, Eric Qualen, and Arthur Mitchell.

Shrek
In Shrek, Farquaad has banished all of the fairytale creatures from his land, forcing them to take refuge in Shrek's swamp. Back at his castle, Farquaad tortures the Gingerbread Man named Gingy into revealing the location of the other fairytale folk that he hasn't been able to capture or banish. Just as the Gingerbread Man is going to reveal what he knows, the captain of the guards arrives and announces that they have found the Magic Mirror. Lord Farquaad asks the mirror if DuLoc is the perfect kingdom of them all. The mirror tells 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 introduces three different princesses for Farquaad to choose from: Cinderella, Snow White, and Princess Fiona. At his henchman, Thelonious's suggestion, Farquaad chooses 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 midnight, Lord Farquaad decides to plan a tournament to see which knight will 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 fairytale creatures off his swamp interrupts the tournament. Farquaad changes his mind and decides that whoever kills Shrek will be named champion. However, despite the knights' best efforts, they are all defeated by Shrek and Donkey. Impressed by Shrek's actions, Farquaad awards the ogre with the quest he had set to his knights. Shrek remarks that he's already on a quest to get his swamp back. Farquaad makes a deal with Shrek that if his is successful in the quest to rescue Princess Fiona, he will give the ogre his swamp back, fully restored to the way it was before the fairytale folk overran the place.

Shrek and Donkey successfully rescue Princess Fiona from the dragon and the trio journey onward to DuLoc. Shrek and Fiona start 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 brings 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 takes Fiona back to his castle, while a heartbroken Shrek returns to his swamp. But then Donkey comes to Shrek and tells him that Fiona was not referring to him when she said no one could love a hideous beast. So Shrek and Donkey go to crash the wedding, where Shrek admits his love for Fiona, Farquaad found it amusing and then tries to get Fiona to marry him, but then Fiona sees the sun setting and decides to reveal her spell.

Disgusted, Farquaad orders for Shrek to be executed, and Fiona locked back at the tower and he crowns himself king. But then Shrek whistles for Dragoness, who destructively bursts in the window and devours Farquaad, and she belches his crown back out.

He is last seen in Dragoness's stomach with a match singing "Staying Alive" and is later digested sometime after the Shrek dance party.

Shrek 4-D
In Shrek 4-D, a short featured in a simulator ride of the same name at Universal Studios Florida, Hollywood, Japan, and Singapore, Farquaad returned as a ghost and sent his henchman Thelonius to take Fiona to him so he could kill her by sending her over a waterfall, to make her his ghost queen so he could rule the underworld. He also sent a giant stone dragon to eat Shrek and Donkey, but this failed, as during the fight between Dragon and the stone dragon, the stone dragon lost its wings in a tunnel and fell to a watery grave. After Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, and Thelonius fell over the waterfall, and were saved by Dragon. Dragon killed Farquaad (again) by breathing fire at him. The short is also known as The Ghost of Lord Farquaad.

Shrek the Musical
In Shrek the Musical, his role is the same as the movie. Unlike the movie however, Farquaad was portrayed as more of a comedic and less-dignified egomaniac. It was revealed that he was raised by Grumpy, but got kicked out due to him being 28 years old and that he lived in his basement, which explains his "little" height.

Shrek The Third
Farquaad doesn't appear once in Shrek's first sequel, Shrek 2. However, he did appear in its second sequel, Shrek The Third. When Prince Charming and Captain Hook demand Shrek's whereabouts, Gingy's life flashed before his eyes and he recalls the moment when Farquaad tortured them for the other fairy tale creatures whereabouts.

Shrek Forever After
Farquaad appears during the end credits of Shrek's third and final sequel, Shrek Forever After.

Scared Shrekless
In the Shrek Halloween special Scared Shrekless, Shrek and his friends return to DuLoc to tell scary stories. It's revealed that DuLoc turned into a dark and terrifying place since Farquaad died. Shrek and Fiona used Farquaad's death as their main weapon to scare Donkey. Farquaad's picture is seen everywhere.

Thriller Night
In Thriller Night, Farquaad made a cameo along with other Shrek villains being resurrected as zombies and with Shrek began to dance after getting controlled by the Pied Piper.

Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life
Though rarely appearing, Lord Farquaad serves as the main antagonist of the pasta. According to BROGRE.com, Farquaad is the creator of Drek, a blue ogre who looks like Shrek, but is affectionate, courageous, reliable, and loyal to Farquaad and is more ruthless than Shrek. Both Farquaad and Drek want to destroy Shrek and his brogres, or make them love Drek instead of Shrek and thus, spread all Farquaad's hate to the whole world. Drek appears the most time than Farquaad but he always gets killed by Shrek in many stories.

Personality
Farquaad is the villainous, impatient, menacing, ruthless, defiant, snooty, livid, vile, sly, mean, stern, sinful, pompous, greedy, cruel, rude, evil (literally), mean, cocky, furious, thieving, loathsome, scandalous, egotistical, manipulative, short-tempered, materialistic, unscrupulous, acquisitive, tyrannical, persuasive, obnoxious, sinister, hateful, unkind, baleful, violent, insolent, sarcastic, iniquitous, traitorous, prejudicial, and iron-fisted ruler of DuLoc. He is an extremely selfish, arrogant, conceited, oppressive, dictatorial, totalitarian, and power-hungry dictator who doesn't care about anyone but himself. However, despite his villainy, Farquaad didn't see himself as a monster and when this was brought up to him by Gingy, he instantly dismissed it and even went as far to call him and the rest of fairytale creatures which makes him completely xenophobic, contemptuous, and individualistic. Farquaad also suffered from Napoleon Complex and felt the need to overcompensate for his comical stature by being domineering and controlling. Other examples of this is the towering height of castle DuLoc and in his grave when Farquaad was taller than the dragon that killed him.

Farquaad is a heartless perfectionist whom saw that everything had to be done his way and the only way for DuLoc to become perfect was to exile all fairy tale creatures. Farquaad's one and only dream was to become the official ruler of DuLoc. However to do this he needed a princess so the only reason he decided to wed Fiona was out of pure lust for power and not any love in his heart. Farquaad is also very sadistic and manipulative as evidenced while he was torturing Gingy by severing his legs and taunting him further by repeating the line "Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man.".

Although in the first film where he was disgusted by Fiona's ogress appearance, he may have actually developed real feelings for her he may have developed genuine feeling for her after his death he wanted her to become his undead queen so he could rule the underworld. He was also lazy as evidenced by him not wanting to rescue the princess himself so he arranged a tournament of Knights to battle for the honor. To be fair, he is incredibly short in stature, so he was likely unable to do so. Farquaad was quite rude and had a bullying streak which shows as he calls both Fiona and Shrek hideous at the sight of their appearance and described them both as "it". Farquaad's overall attraction towards the princess may have been solely lust and even if they did wed there was no guarantee that he would treat her right.

Trivia

 * IGN's Orlando Parfitt chose Lord Farquaad as his 14th favorite fantasy villain.
 * Farquaad is probably the only main Shrek villain who don't come from a fairy tale, as Fairy Godmother, Prince Charming, and Rumpelstiltskin, the main antagonists of Shrek, and its three sequels, Shrek 2, Shrek The Third and Shrek Forever After, actually came from them.
 * He is based on Michael Eisner. He may also be based on Napoleon Bonaparte, due to being short, yet ruling with an iron fist and crowing himself to king.
 * The late Alan Rickman was originally offered for the role of Lord Farquaad, but he turned it down to play Severus Snape in Harry Potter instead.
 * His name may be a humorous play on the word "f-ck-wad".
 * He is similar to Sid Phillips the main antagonist of the 1995 Disney/Pixar film, Toy Story.
 * Both are the main antagonists of the first films of a film series; Farquaad is the main villain of the first Shrek film and Sid is the main villain of the first Toy Story film.
 * Coco LaBouche has a similar evil plot to Lord Farquaad from Shrek since they both want to marry a certain someone in order to gain a selfish desire to be promoted in their life. Lord Farquaad wants to marry Princess Fiona in order to become a true king, since the Magic Mirror advises him that he must marry a princess in order for his kingdom to be complete. Coco, on the other hand, wants to marry Chaz Finster in order to be promoted as the head of Yamaguchi's company, since Mr. Yamaguchi says that she has to be a lover of children in order to get the job, and Chaz Finster has a child known as Chuckie. Coincidentally, Coco's partner-in-crime, Jean-Claude, is played by John Lithgow, who was also the same actor that played Lord Farquaad in Shrek.
 * Both did not appear once in the franchise's second film.
 * Both made a cameo appearance in the franchise's third film.