What if DreamWorks Pictures/DreamWorks Animation was founded in 1934?/Shrek/Dragon

Dragon is Donkey's love interest from the Shrek franchise. She initially started out as an antagonist, charged with guarding Princess Fiona in her castle, but later reforms and helps Shrek.

Shrek
Dragon first appears while guarding the derelict castle which serves as Princess Fiona’s prison.

It can be assumed that this is her long-time, permanent domicile, since the tower houses a large hoard of treasure and happens to be littered with the bones and armor of many unsuccessful knights who tried to rescue Fiona.

While searching for the princess, Shrek and Donkey become separated within the castle. Dragon traps Donkey on a stone pinnacle, intent on eating him like so many other intruders. Out of desperation, Donkey smooth talks Dragon with compliments, causing her to become infatuated and spare his life.

When Dragon traps Donkey on a broken bridge Donkey uses his charming and smooth talk to seduce her to not eating him. In conclusion, Dragon flashes her eyebrows at him and blows a smoke of a heart. Dragon grabs an unwilling Donkey with her mouth and hauls him back to her lair, shaking her hips back and forth happily and swaying her long tail around as she walks away. She wraps him up in her tail, trapping him in her coils and attempts to flirt with him persistently. Her attraction initially appears quite one-sided, but this does little to dissuade her. She makes the first move, lifts Donkey in her tail and she leans in for an attempt to kiss Donkey. Unfortunately, Shrek intervenes right at that moment to rescue his companion and knocks him out of her tail, leading Dragon to accidentally kiss his butt instead. Infuriated, Dragon resumes her rampage, but Shrek manages to collar her with a hanging lamp attached to a heavy chain. This gambit saves Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona by preventing Dragon from pursuing them across the bridge. Dragon is left alone and devastated.

Later, Shrek and Donkey break up their friendship. A brooding Donkey discovers Dragon, weeping with loneliness by a brook. While her escape from the castle is unexplained, Dragon clearly has no wish to return to her old life, or even her hoard. Feeling sorry for her, Donkey overcomes his initial hesitation and approaches the forlorn woman, whereupon the two reconcile and become a couple.

A tamed Dragon helps Shrek and Donkey prevent Fiona’s wedding to Farquaad by flying them to Duloc. Upon landing, Donkey tells Dragon to have fun – which entails her chasing off some local knights. However, Shrek’s failure to rescue Fiona from Farquaad’s clutches prompt the Ogre to whistle for Dragon At this point, Dragon intervenes by smashing through a glass window, breaking through the glass and devouring Farquaad. The glass then shattered from Dragon's body weight simply crashing through the window. Donkey, riding her head, threatens the assembly by claiming "I have a dragon here and I'm not afraid to use it". This restores peace, since everyone present is glad to be rid of Farquaad, as well as being frightened of a dragon who simply smashed the glass window and completely destroyed it (Dragon vandalized the place by smashing the windows). He is later seen again in her stomach, but the events of Shrek 4-D confirm his inevitable death by digestion.

This was also the first time Dragon had ever smashed through glass, however shortly after she punches her fist through another glass window, breaking it into pieces. Dragon became notorious for breaking of glass which she promised never to do again.

During Shrek and Fiona’s wedding celebration at the swamp, Dragon cavorts with the rest of the fairy tale creatures. As the newlyweds leave in their carriage, she catches the bouquet thrown by Fiona and lovingly presents the flowers to an embarrassed Donkey.

A later karaoke number was produced for the CD of Shrek. One scene features the two lovebirds performing a song-and-dance. While Donkey sings a rendition of Baby Got Back, Dragon provocatively shakes her backside at the camera – eventually knocking her boyfriend off his feet with her swaying tail.

Shrek 4-D
This short film was produced as the audio-visual media of a Universal Studios ride, but it was released as an additional feature along with the original Shrek film. Dragon has a prominent role in this production, first taking Shrek and Fiona on her back to their honeymoon hotel, and then helping the pair and Donkey to get away from an animated dragon statue magically brought to life by the ghost of Lord Farquaad. Dragon's aerial maneuvers through a narrow defile causes the pursuing stone dragon to break its wings off, effectively terminating the chase. Dragon saves them again as they plunge over a waterfall, and ultimately, incinerates Farquaad's ghost with her fiery breath, finally finishing the job she began when she swallowed him in the first Shrek film.

Shrek 2: Kingdom of Far Far Away
While not stated, this film implies that Dragon and Donkey got married at some point following the events of Shrek. In the beginning, Dragon is only briefly mentioned by Donkey to be acting 'all moody and stuff lately'. She does not appear until the very end of the film (actually in an extra inter-credits scene) – accompanied by her and Donkey’s hybrid children.

This inclusion was made when fans attending pre-screenings complained about the character’s absence from the film. Initially, Dragon was intended to have a more meaningful role in the original story-line. When the other main characters were changed into more beautiful or heroic characters by Fairy Godmother's magic potion, Dragon was supposed to change into a beautiful female Pegasus, the perfect match to Donkey's transformation into a handsome stallion. But these ideas were dropped, and Dragon only makes a cameo appearance in the post-credit scene, where she proudly introduces her offspring to their father.

The "mutant children" are hybrids with mostly donkey features, but sporting dragon wings, tails, resulting in an ability to fly and breathe fire. There is some confusion as to whether the babies were hatched or born. On one hand, Dragon’s eggs can be seen in a spin-off video game. On the other, Donkey’s confusion about his wife’s 'moodiness' suggests pregnancy.

Shrek the Halls
This made-for television Christmas special, as a pilot of Shrek's Family Life. It takes place shortly after Shrek the Third.

Along with other characters, Dragon, Donkey and the Dronkeys show up uninvited at Shrek's home on Christmas Eve, where they create chaos with their antiques. Dragon nearly burns the house down when she tries to light the chimney, unwisely blasting a huge ball of flame from her mouth.

Throughout the special, Dragon pokes her head into Shrek's home through the window, but cannot join the others due to her large size. She also appears in Donkey’s story for Christmas.

Shrek: Happily Ever After
At the film's beginning, Dragon flies the Shrek family and Donkey from their swamp to the Kingdom of Far Far Away to celebrate the Ogre Triplets’ first birthday. When they arrive, Dragon and Donkey share a brief kiss and tells her not to eat the valet.

Dragon’s reappearance occurs when Rumpelstiltskin releases her to devour Shrek and Fiona, now chained to the walls. No explanation is given for how Dragon was captured. Having never met Donkey, Dragon recognizes neither her husband nor her friends.

Donkey and the owls save Shrek and Fiona by dropping part of a huge disco ball on the dragon’s head, but this stops her only temporarily. In desperation, Shrek encourages Donkey to "woo" Dragon. Donkey goes to the point of kissing the female, but her only response is to gobble him up instead. Before Donkey gets swallowed, Puss sticks Dragon in the backside with his sword, causing her to bellow and spit her prey out. Humorously, Donkey misinterprets this predatory act as some form of “kiss” and happily shouts out “I'll call you!” Dragon then continues to hunt Shrek and Fiona but gets thwarted by them and ends up muzzled and trussed up in chains.

At the end of the film, with the original universe restored, Dragon returns to her normal, more benign personality. Both she and Donkey remained a happily married couple. The ensuing Shrek karaoke scene even features Dragon playfully gobbling her husband without swallowing, contrasting the parallel world and underlining the love and depth of their relationship.

Description
Dragon is a giant magenta-red female dragon who is 100-feet long (or 30 meters) from snout to leg. She sports a pink belly, maroon spines, white spikes on her cheeks, webbed ears, bat-like wings, and a long spade-tipped prehensile tail. She also has obvious feminine features like lipstick and large eyelashes, to avoid any mistake in identifying her as a female dragon, since this is critical to the plot of the first movie. Whether these are natural markings or deliberately applied makeup is never revealed. In some of the original conceptual drawings, Dragon was even more obese and had a mop of disheveled hair. The original intention seems to have involved making her analogous to a lonely, overweight, unattractive woman, which would have made her spontaneous romance with Donkey more convincing. Much of this was lost in her final design of a fat, but not grotesque, classic European Dragon. She communicates using both her body language and loud roars. She and Donkey share strong affections for each other and she is also very protective of her Dronkey babies. Despite her love for Donkey, Dragon is still a dangerous carnivore who has eaten many knights and Lord Farquaad, although the latter act was to protect Shrek and Fiona.

Video game appearance
Dragon appears as a boss in Shrek the game. She also appears in Shrek Smash and Crash Racing as Donkey's kart, because Donkey used the wand of the Fairy Godmother to make her smaller.

Trivia

 * Early versions of Shrek the Musical featured Donkey's proposal to Dragon.
 * Shrek the Musical is the only place where Donkey and Dragon ever sing a duet together (I'm a Believer).
 * In the commentary for Shrek 2: Kingdom of Far Far Away, filmmakers stated that Dragon's storyline was drastically changed during the course of the story. She was going to be at the house when Shrek and Fiona got back but test audiences were afraid of her pregnant moodiness. She was also supposed to show up when the other fairy tale creatures showed up in Far Far Away to rescue, Shrek, Puss, and Donkey from the jail, as a talking pegasus horse (Because Donkey drank the Happily Ever After potion, she changed too). Filmmakers stated that it was just too hard to have her keep the pregnancy a secret when she was talking, plus she had TOO much to say, so, the idea was nixed, but they did state that she still changed, making her Donkey's official true love.
 * In Shrek: Happily Ever After, to the audience that it was the first time to see Dragon and Donkey share a brief kiss.
 * Donkey and Dragon's daughter Eclair, has been missing since the beginning of Shrek The Third.
 * Dragon was originally supposed to be much bigger and fatter than she ended up being. Animators wanted to portray her as more of an unattractive, overweight woman that would seem more unpleasant for Donkey and Shrek to deal with. Eventually test audiences were offended with the idea and Dragon got a makeover to make her who she is today.
 * Dragon's voice can be heard in Shrek The Musical, where she is talking and singing.
 * Dragon somehow learned to read because she has a cookbook on cooking knights.
 * Dragon does not speak at all (just roars, growls, and snorts).