Princess Fiona

"But I'm supposed to be rescued by my true love, not by some ogre and his pet!"

- Princess Fiona's first meeting with Shrek.

Princess Fiona (simply known as Fiona) is the tritagonist and female lead in the Shrek films. The actress Cameron Diaz provides her voice to the character, and Fiona's singing is provided by Renee Sands of Kids Incorporated and Wild Orchid. Princess Fiona is from Denmark originally - a land of fantasy and ogres.

Early Life
Fiona was under a curse that between sunrise and sunset she was a human, and between sunset and sunrise an ogre.

Fairy Godmother locked her away in a tower. There was a semi-complex plan where Prince Charming, was supposed to rescue Fiona and marry her. It was the King's way of repaying the Fairy Godmother for a favour she had done him while courting Fiona's mother (King Harold was originally a frog and the Fairy Grandmother allowed him to pursue his dream of marrying and loving Lillian, by making him human).

At Shrek the Musical it is claimed Fiona was imprisoned in a tower on Christmas Eve when she was 7 years old. She spent at least 16 years in that tower until Shrek rescued her. She was rescued at age 23. She claims to have had only:


 * Bare essentials (e.g. food / water)
 * An army cot
 * A hot plate
 * A chamber pot

Shrek
In the late 20s (29 years old), Lord Farquaad banished all the fairy tale people from the kingdom which forces them to Shrek's swamp. Shrek was upset about it and went to Lord Farquaad to get his swamp back. Farquaad orders a mission for Shrek to retrieve Princess Fiona, so she can be his bride. When she first appears, she is angered to learn that her rescuer is not her Prince Charming, but an ogre, and that the man who wants to marry her wouldn't come himself. At first, she refuses to travel to Farquaad, but eventually befriends Donkey and develops a bond with Shrek, since they both realize they are more similar than they first thought, and Fiona begins to doubt that Lord Farquaad is her true love. Her Dragon Guardian later falls in love with Donkey. Through the course of the film, the audience discovers that she is cursed and while she is a human by day, she becomes an ogress at sunset. The spell was placed upon her when she was a child by a Witch (It is unknown whether the Fairy Godmother placed this curse as part of her plan).

Donkey discovers this when checking on the Princess at night, and Fiona explains the curse. Shrek overhears part of this- with Fiona asking "who could ever love a beast so hideous and ugly?"-, and believes Fiona is referring to him. Angry and upset, Shrek hands Fiona over to Farquaad, and Fiona goes with him willingly as she is upset by Shrek's cold behavior, although she doesn't seem to like Farquaad on sight. When Donkey later on reveals to Shrek that Fiona was talking about 'somebody else', Shrek rushes off to disrupt the wedding. The curse is lifted at the end, when Fiona is kissed by Shrek and becomes an ogress permanently; while she had expected to become her human self, Shrek assures her that she is still beautiful and the two marry. Then they have a big party and Shrek and Fiona go to a beach on their honeymoon, and a big karaoke party, starting the second movie.

Shrek 2
Princess Fiona tries to convince Shrek to meet her parents in the kingdom of Far Far Away (a kingdom resembling Hollywood). They go, and her Fairy Godmother, who had her locked away in the tower to begin with, still believes she is under the original curse. When the Fairy Godmother finds out that she is in fact married to an ogre, Fairy Godmother plots to kill Fiona's husband so her son, Prince Charming, can marry her and become king. It turns out that there was a semi-complex plan where the Prince Charming, not Shrek, was supposed to rescue Fiona and marry her. It was the King's way of repaying the Fairy Godmother for a favor she had done him while courting Fiona's mother, Queen Lillian. Fiona is briefly returned to human form after Shrek drinks a "Happily Ever After" potion, which changes both the drinker and their true love into more beautiful forms. To make the change permanent however, she must kiss her true love by midnight. Fairy Godmother tries to get King Harold to give his daughter a love potion so that she'd fall in love with Charming and kiss him to make the potion's effect permanent. Both plans ultimately fail however. Harold, after seeing how much Fiona dislikes Charming, does not give her the love potion. When Shrek tries to kiss Fiona, she tells him that she wants to live happily ever after with the ogre she married. She and Shrek then turn back into ogres, and Donkey (who had turned into a white stallion) turns back into a donkey.

Shrek the Third
35 years old, Princess Fiona has to act as the queen of Far Far Away while her father is ill. When the latter passes away, Shrek sets out to find her cousin Arthur Pendragon (or Artie), and she tells him that she is pregnant (something that she has been hinting since the start of the film). While she is having a baby shower, Prince Charming stages an invasion so that he can proclaim himself king of Far Far Away. Fiona organizes the resistance with her friends Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Doris the Ugly Stepsister, but Rapunzel betrays them to marry Prince Charming. Thanks to the fighting abilities of her mother, they get out of prison and manage to escape, and the other princesses 'cut loose' and become more independent, Artie ends up making a speech to convince the villains to go straight. In the end, she has ogre triplets with Shrek. This was the only film in the series so far where Fiona is not seen as a human.

Shrek Forever After
Now with 38 years old in 2010, Shrek makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to become "Ogre for a Day", and gives up the day of his own birth. Since Shrek was never born, he never rescued Fiona from the tower, her parents signed the contract, and Rumpelstiltskin became king of Far Far Away. After Shrek escapes from the castle, it is revealed that Fiona rescued herself from the tower and is now the leader of the ogre rebellion. Her personality is very abrasive and she refuses to believe in love, completely unlike her alternate self. Throughout the night of Shrek's day, Shrek attempts to woo this new Fiona, and fails multiple times. Close to midnight that night, the ogres storm Rumpelstiltskin's castle and capture him; just as they are preparing to eat him, dawn comes and Shrek begins to disappear in his former wife's arms, telling Fiona of their family and of her daughter, Felicia. She kisses him just as he's fading, and the curse is lifted.

Once the timestream is back to normal, Fiona is shown at the birthday party with the children.

Video Games
Fiona appears in all of the Shrek games.

She appears also in Shrek Super Slam as one of the 10 starters. Her Super Slam is that she sings very hard (so hard that birds can explode).

She also appeared in Shrek Smash and Crash Racing. Princess Fiona is one of the four racers that are unlocked from the start. Princess Fiona does not appear in her human form in this game at all. Princess Fiona's kart is the Onion Carriage that Shrek and Herself used to travel to Far Far Away in the film Shrek 2. Princess Fiona's special item is a pot.

Personality
Princess Fiona is initially portrayed as the archetypal princess from fairy tales, speaking formally in matters of courtship and presenting high expectations of how she is to be rescued, who is to rescue her, and so forth. She seems to give off an air of prissiness and even snobbery to a degree (however this is shown to be purely out of her concern for breaking her curse, of which she is ashamed). Later, Princess Fiona's true self emerges, as she is really a very down-to-earth and independent woman who is a match or even better than Shrek when it comes to farting, belching and other bad habits. She is a loyal friend, and unlike princesses of fairy tales, an expert in hand-to-hand combat with knowledge of martial arts. She also has very bad manners (just like Shrek), since she is an ogre. However, she is much more well-mannered when in front of her parents.

Fiona has special talents as well. For example, besides her martial arts skills, she is able to sing so high that birds explode. Fiona is much more patient and kinder to Donkey than Shrek is at times. She is shown to be a very loving wife and mother. However, in Shrek Forever After, her alternate self is shown to be aggressive, single-minded and driven at times. This is understandable, given the situation she is in.

This "new" Fiona is shown to have arrived at this point after being disillusioned because Shrek never came to rescue her. Bitter and angry, she is shown to still be passionate and fiery but not as gentle and sweet as she was in the other movies, however these traits have not completely faded.

Fiona is extremely insightful, and she also has the skill of rallying other people, shown in Shrek 3 when her speech rallies the princesses to break out of the dungeons.

Trivia

 * Fiona is the second DreamWorks character who looks like the protagonist to change a decision concerning the protagonist. Rameses II (the first to do so) initially allowed Moses and the Hebrews to leave Egypt, but pursued them to the Red Sea trying to kill them; Fiona decided to tell Shrek about her curse before leaving with Farquaad, but didn't do so).
 * There were over a hundred designs for Princess Fiona before a final decision was made.