SomeBODY once told me the world… building of Shrek was great.
And they were right! Let’s talk about why.
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we do a stream about “worldbuilding in Shrek”
Watch the full video here or scroll down for highlights.
What is Worldbuilding?
- Worldbuilding is all of the details that make your story feel real
- Everything from your world’s history/politics/economy to geography/languages/cultures to plants/animals/physics to buildings/currency/games/food/clothes and more.
- Ex: If your world has no technology, what are the ripple effects in the world?
- No electricity > no lights > use candles/magic > they have to make/buy them > make them out of what? where do they get them?
- Generally, the more specific you can make your story’s worldbuilding, the better
Worldbuilding Precaution!
- When writing, it’s easy to get caught up in worldbuilding and forget about the actual story.
- BUT REMEMBER! The worldbuilding should serve the story, not the other way around
- Ex: In the Hunger Games, the 12 Districts, coal mining, Capitol, illegal hunting, and more all serve the story
- The author could’ve easily told us more history of the war that led the world to that point, the war between the Districts/Capitol, come up with a new language/currency, but she didn’t because the story did not require it
- Generally, you only want to include worldbuilding that is relevant to your story
And that’s exactly what Shrek does!
Why is Shrek’s Worldbuilding Amazing?
- Shrek’s worldbuilding is great for a lot of reasons, but I want to break it down on three levels
- Story worldbuilding: worldbuilding that enhances the STORY
- – Ex: Harry has to go to Diagon Alley to get his wand, goes to Gringotts to find out about a “mystery item” in a vault, takes a train to get to school, etc.
- Character worldbuilding: worldbuilding that enhances CHARACTERS
- Ex: Katniss has her bow, which was made by things they can find, which she uses to hunt, which was taught to her by her dad, who died in a mining accident…
- Theme worldbuilding: the worldbuilding that enhances the THEME
- Ex: The white walkers in Game of Thrones play into the theme of people squabbling over stupid things while a real threat is coming
Let’s take a look at each in Shrek!
Story Worldbuilding
- Story: All the fairy tale creatures in the land have been rounded up and banished to a swamp by humans. The ogre that lives in the swamp doesn’t like this, so he and a donkey go on a quest to rescue a princess, so that the king will kick all the intruders out. Also, the princess is secretly an ogre herself.
- It’s a fairy-tale-parody story, so it’s enhanced by lots of familiar fairy tale characters: Seven Dwarves, Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio, Gingerbread Man (who is tortured with milk!), Mirror on the Wall, Robin Hood, etc.
- The prejudice in the world against fairy tale characters enhances Fiona’s plot: if there were no prejudice, then her secretly being an ogre wouldn’t really be an issue
Story worldbuilding is best when it just feels right, not forced. It’s hard to imagine Shrek any other way, but it could’ve been any number of other things: an Ogre in our modern world goes on a quest, all the fairy tale characters get along with humans, etc. All of those would’ve been expressed differently in worldbuilding, and that would have affected the STORY greatly
Character Worldbuilding
- Character: A giant green ogre who lives in a swamp and prefers to be left alone.
- Having an original character enhances the story by contrasting with all the other familiar fairy tale characters, allows him to be a blank slate without any baggage
- So many details enhance the character and make him feel real: he showers in mud, oozes out toothpaste from bugs, eats eyeballs, burps to start a fire, squeezes jelly from eyes (and says it’s “good on toast” later!), makes candles out of earwax, eats cotton candy spider web, makes frog/snake balloons, tells stories about ogre constellations
Character worldbuilding is best when you can make the character feel unique and real. Have them express their loves, hates, goals, and ambitions through the world they live in. Shrek could have been a regular guy who’s just down on his luck/happy-go-lucky/incurably depressed. Each of those would’ve been expressed differently in worldbuilding, and that would have affected the CHARACTER greatly.
Theme Worldbuilding
- Theme: The destruction of Disney tropes.
- One of the big themes in Shrek is rebelling against what Disney has established as a “fairy tale,” and it’s expressed in the worldbuilding
- The enemy is Duloc (“Disney”) and Lord Farquaad (“Walt Disney”), who abuse “real” fairy tales and want to create a squeaky clean theme park where they can make money off people
- Shrek/Donkey/Fiona are ugly main characters, which goes against the typical Disney protagonists
- There are plenty of modern references (tic tacs, waffles, eviction notices, wrestling ring, parfaits, etc.) to rebel against the “timeless” idea of fairy tales
- Shrek is almost anti-musical, using Smash Mouth for the soundtrack, he tells Donkey to stop singing, birds explode when Fiona sings, and Fiona beats up the Robin Hood troupe when they sing
Theme worldbuilding is best when it ties in with the story and characters. Shrek does it so seamlessly that it’s hard to imagine it any other way, but it could’ve been. Lord Farquaad could’ve just been a king, there could have been regular musical numbers, and Shrek/Fiona could’ve been regular attractive protagonists. Each of those would’ve been expressed differently in worldbuilding, and that would’ve affected the THEMES greatly.
Why Worldbuilding is Important
- Shrek is not a perfect movie. It has a shaky conflict and a lot of unanswered questions:
- Ex: Why did the creatures come to Shrek’s swamp? Why didn’t he eat them? Why weren’t they put in jail? Why is Donkey the only one who knows how to get to Duloc? And why the hunting of creatures to begin with? Also why did witch cast spell on Fiona? And how did dragon escape and meet Donkey again?
- But because the worldbuilding is so good, those issues don’t matter! The world is so rich and detailed and real that you can’t help but get sucked in. All stories have problems, but the ones with good worldbuilding get overlooked much more easily
- And the same can go for your story, so long as you do good worldbuilding as well!
Chat then voted that come up with the three types of worldbuilding for this story idea: a repairman uses a lantern in the outskirts of town where light saves lives.
Here’s what we came up with:
STORY WORLDBUILDING
- Story: One day the world went dark, no one knows why. Aaron’s town resorts to artificial light to stay lit, but everything outside is pure blackness, until the Repairman comes to visit with a lantern bringing news of other places. The townspeople are scared of the Repairman since he travels in the darkness, but Aaron wants to go with him and find out about their world. Along the way they find out that humanity blotted out the sun themselves by testing a power source that filled the sky with soot.
- Monsters that live in the darkness are actually animals and humans who have adapted to the constant nighttime, they feed on the slime that falls from the sky when it rains (which is filled with bacteria that gets its energy up in the clouds)
- Aaron and the Repairman travel to the golden city that is constantly lit up with the same power source that blotted out the sun, and that is still blotting out the sun (they don’t care, so long as they have power)
CHARACTER WORLDBUILDING
- Character: Aaron
- Maybe the town subsides on geothermal energy produced underwater in the nearby ocean, and they eat the fish from it and feed the algae to animals (chemotrophs)
- Maybe Aaron is a diver, one of the people who has to go down deep to harvest the fish/algae, he has scars where the seams of his diving suit meet, where acidic and hot vents have burned him
- Aaron has been experimenting with capturing some chemotrophs and seeing if they can feed of electricity (electro-trophs!), which they do and it makes them multiply like crazy. He uses that in the Golden City, and the electro-trophs go nuts, engulfing the entire place pretty quickly. Thanks to it shutting down and no longer producing soot, a sliver of sunlight comes through the clouds.
- Character: The Repairman
- He’s called the Repairman because he used to live in the Golden City and he was a power plant repairman there, where he did his job because he thought there was no alternative, but then he started cultivating the jellyfish and showed that they could change, but the people in the city didn’t want to, so he got fed up and left, looking for other places
- His light is powered by a type of bioluminescence that he’s cultivated himself, a lantern filled with water and lit up jellyfish (a green alternative to other energy sources)
THEME WORLDBUILDING
- Theme: Knowledge vs. ignorance
- Knowledge is light and ignorance is darkness
- The town thinks it has knowledge, but it’s only lit by artificial light, artificial knowledge that is not real, same thing with the Golden City
- Actual light/knowledge would be the Repairman’s lantern, and the sliver of light through the clouds at the end
Be sure to check out the video for more comments, explanations, and great ideas from chat!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso (edited by me)