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Prince Charming is a recurring arch-nemesis of Shrek. He was a somewhat recognizable figure in Far Far Away, and was arranged to rescue Princess Fiona from the Dragon's Keep.

Biography

Early life

Prince Charming was born to the Fairy Godmother and his unnamed and presumably deceased father in the kingdom of Far Far Away. Since his mother is a fairy but he has human appearance, it can be presumed that his father was human. When he was a little boy he was betrothed to Princess Fiona, who was later cursed to turn into an ogre at night and locked away in a tower of a dragon-guarded castle. Charming was raised to believe that he would be the one to rescue Fiona and break her curse.

Shrek

Although Charming does not appear physically in the film, he is mentioned when Fiona reveals that she thought that she would be rescued by Prince Charming- possibly having been told so by her parents.

Shrek 2

Charming hair Shrek 2

Charming flipping his hair.

In Shrek 2, he is more of a comic relief character. Charming's narration explains Fiona's childhood, and reveals that she was locked away at the advice of Fairy Godmother. Charming travels a long distance by horse to the Dragon's Keep to rescue Fiona. To his shock, he instead finds the Big Bad Wolf in her bed, who tells him that Fiona has already been rescued and is on her honeymoon.

It is later revealed that Charming is, in fact, the son of the Fairy Godmother and that she wants her son to marry Fiona so that Charming can become king of Far Far Away (similar to Lord Farquaad's intentions from the first film). It can be reasoned that after having Fiona locked away it was always her plan to have Charming rescue her, Shrek being an unforeseen problem. In contrast to his fairytale namesake, this version of Prince Charming plays a more villainous role.

Later, after Shrek, Donkey and their new friend Puss in Boots steal Fairy Godmother's Happily Ever After potion and trash her factory, Charming enters, notices the mess and asks what happened, and she tells him Shrek was there. Charming then demands to know where Shrek is so he can kill him with a sword. However Fairy Godmother talks him out of it, stating he will still be king.

Charming disguises as Shrek with Fiona

Charming pretends to be a human Shrek.

After Fairy Godmother finds out which potion was stolen, Charming then deceives Fiona into believing that he is Shrek turned human by the Happily Ever After potion. Fiona remains highly suspicious of Charming as he acts nothing like Shrek, forcing Fairy Godmother to have Harold give Fiona a love potion that will make her fall in love with the first man she kisses.

At "Shrek" and Fiona's wedding ball, Charming pressures Fiona into dancing with him. At numerous points he attempts to seduce Fiona into kissing him, nearly succeeding until Shrek and Donkey interrupt the dance. In the ensuing confusion Charming forces a kiss on Fiona, believing that she has now fallen in love with him because Harold gave her the love potion. However, Fiona knocks him unconscious, and Harold reveals that he never gave Fiona the love potion, which angers the Fairy Godmother. Charming wakes up to throw Fairy Godmother's wand back to her, and is later seen being forced to dance by Doris.

In Far Far Away Idol, Charming sings "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred. During the song, Shrek and Fiona press a button, opening a trapdoor below him due to his horrible singing.

Shrek the Third

Charm

Charming with a sword at the start of Shrek the Third

He returns as the main antagonist. Charming is stuck working at a dinner theater, playing himself due to his name. However, despite being the hero in Charming's play, the audience cheers when the "Shrek" Mascot comes onstage. Finally, a prop tower falls on Charming, but he escapes injury as the window passes around him. Charming leaves the theater upset and goes to his "dressing room": the back alley behind the bar, and starts sobbing at his misfortune. There, Charming vows to a picture of his mother that he will become the King of Far Far Away and kill Shrek to avenge her death.

Following the death of King Harold, Charming reaches the Poison Apple tavern and recruits an army of villains, promising them a "happily ever after" if they help him take power. While Shrek, Donkey and Puss in Boots are away looking for Arthur Pendragon to have him take the throne, Charming and his newfound army stage a coup d'état and take over the Kingdom of Far Far Away, becoming King. Shrek and the others are later arrested upon returning, but only Shrek is detained.

Charming then places Shrek in the play, now being performed in a pavilion before the entire kingdom. Shrek begins to ruin it for Charming by making a fool of him. As Charming is about to kill Shrek onstage, Fiona and the others burst in, getting ready to fight the villains. However, before a confrontation ensues, Artie, the true king, convinces the villains to give up their evil ways, and they do so. However, Charming refuses and apparently stabs Shrek in the chest, but Shrek is completely unharmed; Charming merely stuck the sword between Shrek's arm and side. Shrek then throws Charming before Dragon, who tips over the stone tower with her tail, which falls on Charming, defeating him. The crown then goes rolling and Artie puts his foot on it. It is debated whether Charming survived the ordeal, as some say the empty window of the stone tower landed on him in a similar style to the cardboard tower at the beginning, and moments earlier, Shrek tells him that he is going to have to keep on looking for his "Happily Ever After", which could be an indication that he was not intended to be killed. However, watching in slow motion shows that the part of the tower above the window was what landed on him, and he says "Mommy?" before it. He appears at the end of the short Thriller Night alive sitting in the movie theater between the Cyclops and Thelonious, but it is unclear whether he was previously sent to jail for his actions in Shrek the Third.

Shrek Forever After

Charming does not appear in the fourth movie but he makes a cameo during the flashback montage of the end credits. He does not appear on-screen and it is unclear what happened to him in the alternate universe. Since Fiona ceased to be a princess after her parents sign away their kingdom to Rumpelstiltskin, it can be assumed that he either failed to rescue her or lost interest.

Scared Shrekless

Prince Charming Scared Shrekless 1

Prince Charming as he appears in Scared Shrekless

Charming appears in the story "Bates Motel", told by Puss and Donkey. He first appears as a warm and friendly motel owner, inviting the two in, but is told by Donkey to have killed the Puss. Puss then replies that Charming killed the Donkey. Puss and Donkey argue over who is killed, then resort to just making each other look bad, Puss saying that before Charming could kill him, the Puss leaped to safety. Donkey then replies that "was exactly what Charming wanted the Puss to do". Charming laughed, then pulled a lever to make Puss fall through a trapdoor. The story ends as Donkey gets Pinocchio to spray Puss with water, making him run away, which Shrek later says is cheating.

Thriller Night

Charming appears in zombie form in the dance number and later is seen sitting between Thelonious and Cyclops in the audience of the movie theater when Shrek wakes up from his dream. This indirectly confirms his survival at the end of Shrek the Third, and it is implied that he reformed.

Powers and abilities

In the second movie he is shown to be very wealthy, just like his mother, and to be a very good dancer. Although he is also shown to own a sword, he is never seen actually using it in a fight, so his combat abilities cannot be assessed.

Weaknesses

He has poor aim, as shown in the third movie when he fails to stab Shrek. He is also possibly not much intelligent, as he fails to comprehend that he needed to act like Shrek to deceive Fiona in the second movie, although this can also be explained by his disgust in acting like an ogre. His singing is not enjoyed by most other characters, as seen in Far Far Away Idol and Shrek the Third, but his voice is nonetheless able to shatter glass.

Video Game appearances

Prince Charming appears as a boss in the Shrek 2 video game as well as the secondary adversary and in the Shrek The Third video game as the main adversary.

Charming also appears in Shrek Super Slam as one of the ten starting characters. His Super Slam is that he slams down with his sword creating giant beams of light.

He also appears in Shrek Smash n' Crash Racing as one of the eight unlockable racers. His kart is the stallion that he uses in the Shrek films. His item is a giant mirror.

Appearance

He is a very handsome man with blond, smooth hair and blue eyes. He typically wears elegant and opulent attires and can be considered metrosexual as he is very concerned with his personal grooming and fashion.

He possessed a medieval longsword, but was never seen actually using it in battle.

Personality

As seen when he narrates his story at the beginning of Shrek 2, he is portrayed as a selfish and arrogant mother's boy. He is also somewhat effeminate, which Shrek pokes fun of, calling him a pretty boy. He is sometimes not very intelligent, as seen where he pretends to be Shrek, he does not know that he needed to act like Shrek in order to deceive Fiona. He also was very offensive towards Shrek, as when he called him "dreadful". He also believed, as shown in his last moments, that the "Happily Ever After" of being with Fiona belonged to him, but that Shrek stole it from him. However, in Shrek The Third, he was eager to avenge his mother after her death in Shrek 2, caused by Harold. He, along with his mother, was remorseless, unlike Harold, who formerly conspired with them, as he had no qualms about how what they were doing would affect Shrek. He was also the only Shrek villain to never get along with Shrek, though his mother and his minor henchmen only pretended to, and the only one that Shrek never trusted. He also shares similarities with Lord Farquaad in that they both wanted to marry Fiona to become king, and with Rumpelstiltskin in that their lives were inadvertently ruined by Shrek's rescuing of Fiona.

Trivia

  • Out of the four main villains (Farquaad, the Fairy Godmother, Charming, and Rumpelstiltskin), Charming has the most appearances in the four Shrek movies, having appeared in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third, as the secondary antagonist and main antagonist respectively. He also had a cameo in Shrek Forever After during the clip montage of the credits with the others.
  • Until the appearance of "Big" Jack Horner in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Charming was the only main antagonist of a Shrek or Puss In Boots film to not be unusually short, as Lord Farquaad, the Fairy Godmother, Humpty Dumpty and Rumpelstiltskin were all short (though Fairy Godmother was a fairy, and fairies are normally short in stature and Humpty was an anthropomorphic egg).
  • Charming can shatter glass with his voice.
  • He is the only main villain to appear in the same film as all the other main villains. He appeared in the second film (in which Fairy Godmother appears), and in the third film, in which Lord Farquaad is seen in a flashback.
  • Rupert Everett, who voices Charming, was a considered choice for the voice of Gaston from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, but was turned down because he did not sound "arrogant enough." Everett eventually made sure to sound as arrogant as possible when voicing Charming in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third, whose narcissism was coincidentally very similar to Gaston; although his motives and vindictive traits were closer to Jafar (as he only wanted Fiona for the throne and seized it in a similar manner).
  • He has the same hair color as Queen Lillian and Artie, which has led people to think he is the son of either Uther Pendragon or Lillian's father, the old King. Others think that he himself is Artie's father.
  • Prince Charming's tunic has the Fleur-de-lis on it as a pattern, which is a Catholic symbol that, while technically present throughout Europe, is most associated with France. The symbol depicts a lily and is associated with the Virgin Mary/Saint Joseph as well as various Catholic saints in France.
  • The ending of the Thriller Night short hints that he became friends with Thelonious, as he is sitting next to him at the movie theater.

Gallery

Prince Charming/Gallery

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