Shrek Trio

Shrek Trio is the friendship between Shrek, Donkey and Puss in Boots from the Shrek fandom.

Shrek 2
Shrek and Donkey met Puss in Boots when they were told by King Harold to meet him on a very specific path, unaware that it was actually an assassination attempt. Though Shrek struggled against Puss and Donkey was of not much help, Shrek quickly pacifies Puss by picking him up on the scruff of his neck, rendering him helpless. Puss tells them all about the plan of Fiona's father to get rid of Shrek and begs for mercy, Shrek starts to like Puss and decides to befriend him against Donkey's wishes.

Despite jealousy driving Donkey against Puss, Puss proves himself useful for the two by showing them where the factory of the Fairy Godmother is, where Shrek hopes he could get a potion to turn him into a husband Fiona's parents and their kingdom would accept. After pretending to be union workers, they manage to sneak into the Fairy Godmother's office, only to find out that she doesn't "do" happy endings for ogres. Offended, Shrek and company stick around and just decide to sneak into the factory's storage room and steal a fitting potion, with Puss and Donkey both doing their parts stealing and watching. Donkey fails and alarms the guards by leaving the door wide open, but gets on his companions' good side by catching the potion and they manage to escape when Shrek carries them outside.

In safety, Puss and Donkey get into a fight over who gets to test the potion to protect Shrek, but Donkey just takes it and drinks half of it before Shrek stops him to drink the rest. Ensuing rain causes them to seek shelter, where both Shrek and Donkey pass out, indicating that the potion's working. Puss stands watch over them until they wake up, but seems to have callen a trio of ladies smitten for the now handsome Shrek. They then find out that Donkey had also turned into a white stallion and manage to steal the clothing of some bypassing noblemen by having Donkey throw himself into the path of their carriage. On Donkey's back the three of them make it to Fiona's kingdom of Far Far Away.

At the castle of Fiona's parents, Shrek tells his friends to wait, but they soon see human again Fiona running out. After Donkey gets Fiona to recognize him, they fill her in about what Shrek had done, telling her that she somehow didn't see him running in. However, Shrek returns defeated, as the Fairy Godmother had tricked him into thinking that Fiona loves her son Prince Charming and had forgotten about Shrek. He takes his friends to the Poisoned Apple bar, but there they overhear the Fairy Godmother's plans of spiking Fiona with a love potion and forcing her to fall in love with Charming. Due to Donkey not keeping his mouth shut, the Fairy Godmother discovers them and calls the Knights to arrest them.

Shrek is thinking about giving up in prison, but his friends try to get him to stay determined. Luckily, Shrek's other friends from the first movie watched their arrest and recognized Shrek and Donkey, rushing to the prison to free them. Shrek gets the idea of storming the castle using a giant gingerbread man and Puss and Donkey transport all of Shrek's friends inside when the guards are distracted. Before Fiona could kiss Prince Charming, they manage to briefly overwhelm the Fairy Godmother by stealing her wand and keeping it out of her reach, but when the Fairy Godmother prepares a killing attack against Shrek, King Harold reflects it after a full change of heart, killing the Fairy Godmother. Puss and Donkey then sing for the newlywed couple after Fiona's parents finally gave Shrek their blessing.

Shrek the Third
Upon King Harold falling ill, Puss and Donkey start to schedule Shrek's day as the king substitute. But when the king succumbs to his illness and dies, Shrek is completely against becoming the new king permanently and takes Puss and Donkey on a journey to Worchestershire Academy to find Fiona's cousin Arthur to fill that role. Before they leave harbor, Fiona tells Shrek that she's pregnant with his child, Donkey is initially happy and congratulates Shrek, but Puss realizes just how poor Shrek's luck is. After Shrek has a nightmare about becoming a father, he opens up to his friends about how worried he is for his unborn child. His friends try to support him, but could only offer distractions instead of long-term solutions.

When they finally find Arthur, who is initially thrilled at the idea of becoming king, Shrek's friends tell him about the harsh realities and responsibilities that come with it, which Shrek tries to suppress, realizing how they're scaring him away. It is for naught, Arthur changes course and ends up getting all four of them stranded in some dense forest. They receive aid from Arthur's former teacher Mr. Merlin, but his teleportation spell is a bit flawed, causing Puss and Donkey to switch bodies when they hold each other's "hands". Shrek and Arthur find that a bit amusing, but are soon horrified to find Far Far Away having been completely conquered by a vengeful Prince Charming, who plans to slay Shrek as part of a play.

Confronting Charming about it, he quickly alarms the guards and has Shrek captured, Puss and Donkey arrested, but simply lets Arthur go when he sees Shrek rudely confessing that he only cared about him to avoid his own responsibilities. In jail, they reunite with Fiona, telling her that Shrek's been captured. Teaming up with Fiona, her mom and their princess friends, the two of them rally up Charming's prisoners to launch a counterattack. When they stumble into Arthur, they talk some sense into the kid by explaining that Shrek was just trying to protect him by shooing him away. In the end, Puss, Donkey and all other allies of Shrek come to his rescue before Charming could land the killing blow. Charming was already prepared for that and positioned all his villain allies around the stage for back-up. Arthur however swings in and convinces all the villains to drop their weapons, with Charming being the only one not convinced but swiftly defeated with a conveniently placed prop. After Puss and Donkey get their own bodies back, they visit Shrek and Fiona to help babysit their triplets.

Fanon
Despite being a fairly iconic trio, Shrek and his two friends rarely have serious fanwork made for them. It seems that fans don't feel the need to write fanfiction about the three of them specifically, given that 3 movies already feature them as the main characters.

In works focused specifically on the first movie or Shrek: The Musical, Puss in Boots is sometimes substituted by Fiona or even the villain Lord Farquaad.

Fandom

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