| “ | The princess will be up the stairs in
the highest room in the tallest tower. |
” |
—Shrek to Donkey | ||
Painting of Fiona's Tower
Princess Fiona's tower is the tallest tower of the Dragon's Keep. Princess Fiona was locked away in its highest room, waiting for her true love to slay her Dragon guardian and rescue her.
Shrek[]
When Shrek and Donkey enter the Dragon's Keep, Shrek guesses that Fiona is kept in the tallest tower based on a storybook he read earlier. Just as Shrek arrives at Fiona's tower, Donkey accidentally awakens Dragon while wandering around the castle. Shrek ends up being launched into the air by Dragon's tail, conveniently crashing through the tower's roof and into Fiona's room. Disguised as a knight, Shrek ignores Fiona's romantic expectations, yanking her out of bed and rushing to leave. Frustrated, Fiona tells Shrek that he's supposed to "sweep [her] off [her] feet out yonder window, down a rope onto [his] valiant steed". Instead, after breaking off the door knocker Shrek smashes through the door and leaves the tower with Fiona in tow. Much later when Fiona reveals her ogre form at her wedding to Lord Farquaad, he threatens to lock her back in the tower for the rest of her life.
Shrek 2[]
It is revealed that Fiona's parents, Harold and Lillian, locked her away in the tower. They did so at the advice of Fairy Godmother, with the intention of having her son Prince Charming rescue her, marry her, and become king of Far Far Away. When Charming finally arrives to rescue Fiona he instead finds the Big Bad Wolf relaxing in her bed, who informs him that Fiona is already rescued and married. Shrek criticizes Fiona's parents for locking her away in a tower, but Fiona replies that it was for her own good. Later when Shrek chastises Harold for locking Fiona away, Harold similiarly justifies that he did it because he loves her.
While staying in Fiona's bedroom, Shrek sneaks out of bed at night to read the diary Fiona kept as a little girl. It reveals that some time after being cursed, Fiona was told by her father that she would be "going away for a while", which she assumed meant that she would be attending a finishing school. Later she seemed happy about being sent to the tower, when her mother had told her that when she was old enough her Prince Charming would rescue her and return her back home. After seeing Fiona and Charming together, Shrek goes to the Poison Apple to drink, expressing regret over having ever rescuing Fiona in the first place.
Shrek: Forever After[]
Before Fiona was rescued by Shrek, Harold and Lillian feared that she would never be freed from the tower and so they went to make a deal with Rumpelstiltskin. He promised them that if they signed his contract, he would break Fiona's curse in exchange for them signing over the kingdom of Far Far Away to him. They nearly signed this contract until a messenger interrupted with them with the news that Fiona had been rescued, and so they tore up Rumpelstiltskin's contract and left. After getting angry at his children's birthday party, Shrek tells Fiona that his life has better before having rescued Fiona from the tower.
In the alternate reality, because Shrek never rescued Fiona, Harold and Lillian signed Rumpelstiltskin's contract. However, instead of freeing Fiona, the contract was worded to be that "all their problems to disappear", causing the two of them to disappear. Shrek revisits the tower to try to rescue Fiona again, but discovers her room to have been long since abandoned. Shrek finds only a wall of tally marks showing how many days Fiona spent in the tower, her tiara, and her "token of gratitude" that she gave him when he first met her. Fiona explains to Shrek that because no knight came to free her, she escaped on her own. Back in reality, Shrek tells Fiona that he didn't rescue her from her tower, it was she who rescued him.
Exterior[]
The tower rises well above the rest of the keep and can only be reached by venturing deeper into the castle. A short bridge from another part of the castle connects to the tower, leading to the spiral stairs that lead up to Fiona's chambers.
Interior[]
Fiona's room is sparse, containing only a bed, a dressing table and chair, tapestries depicting a knight rescuing a princess, a stand for a vase of flowers, and a chandelier (which Shrek breaks with his fall). The only ways of entering or exiting are a small window above Fiona's bed and a door barricaded from the outside to keep Fiona from escaping.
Trivia[]
- Sometime before the events of Shrek 2 the hole in the tower's ceiling was repaired, the debris was cleaned up, and the door was rebuilt. It can be assumed that it was Wolf who had it repaired, given that he was living in the tower when Charming showed up.
- The appearance of the door and the entrance outside it slightly differs between Shrek and Shrek Forever After; a possible continuity error.
- According to Shrek the Musical, Fiona was seven years old when she was locked in the tower and around the age of 30 when Shrek rescued her.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
The Tallest Tower