Shrek/The Musical/Heartwarming

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The Act One finale where the eponymous Deadpan Snarker reveals in the span of two minutes that he's adventurous, poetic, sentimental, desperately lonely, and aching to be one of the heroes he's read about. Describing his fantasy rescue of the maiden of his dreams, only to end in a moment of silence when he gets to showing his face, is like a gutpunch. This troper didn't even like the movie all that much...
  • That song is one hell of an Act 1 Finale. And then when Fiona joins in, and she's in her ogre form singing about how she still believes the stories she's read despite everything wrong that's happened so far...oh lord. Heartbreaking.
  • Not to mention the song "When Words Fail" from the second act, where Shrek is trying to get up the courage to tell Fiona how he feels about her and worried that he won't be able to phrase just right and she won't know how he feels . It's a rare moment of nervousness, anxiety, and personal insecurity from a character who has kept up this appearance that he doesn't care what the world thinks of him. And by the end of the song, he decides that it doesn't matter if words fail him, because Fiona will understand all the same.