Mongo’s Death In ‘Shrek 2’ Is The Most Tragic In The History Of Film

I’m just going to say it: Mongo the Gingerbread Man is the true hero of the Shrek franchise.

Without Mongo’s sacrifice in the undeniably perfect film, Shrek 2, there would have been no happy ending for our favourite ogres. There would be no Shrek the Third or Shrek Forever After. No Shrek 4-D short or the Christmas special, Shrek the Halls. Without Mongo’s fearless sacrifice we would’ve never seen the Halloween treat Scared Shrekless or the Puss in Boots spin-off. Without Mongo, we would simply be ~Shrek-less~.

This is why Mongo’s death is one of the saddest in cinematic history — one of the most powerful sacrifices and one of the most painful deaths.

the most tragic fate in film history pic.twitter.com/G9UeLlGWZc

— Shrek (@shreketc) October 8, 2021

If you’ve blocked the sad, sad death from your memory, Shrek 2 is the movie where Shrek visit’s Fiona’s in-laws in Far Far Away and everything goes tits up.

Weirdly, despite Fiona’s dad being a literal frog, he judges Shrek for being an ugly ogre. Clearly suffering from some deep-rooted body images issues — and having a real inability to communicate with his partner effectively — Shrek decides to steal a potion from the Fairy Godmother to transform into a sexy human.

You know, if he had just spoken to his wife for once, he would’ve realised Fiona never wanted to be human but alas, that’s men for you.

Anyway, after drinking the potion, the Fairy Godmother sees her chance to trick Fiona into thinking Prince Charming is Shrek. But once Shrek clues on to the plan, he’s kept out of the castle by every means possible while Prince Charming tries to sneak a spell-binding kiss.

And this is when our main man Mongo steps in and takes charge. As Fairy Godmother performs an iconic cover of ‘We Need A Hero’ from within the castle, Gingy and Shrek ride Mongo from the Muffin Man’s house that kicks off the saddest scene known to man.

Absolutely, but unintentionally, destroying the town of Far Far Away, Mongo’s mood quickly shifts from dumbfounded to angry as a fireball takes down one of the friendly giant’s gumdrop buttons.

Sadly, after using all his strength to pry open the castle door allowing Shrek to sneak in, Mongo is taken down with a vat of boiling milk in the saddest animated death ever — and yes, that includes Mufasa.

When the milk tears off Mongo’s limbs, he sinks into the castle moat as Gingy loudly sobs for his gingerbread brother? Cousin? Son? Honestly, no one knows the status of this gingerbread relationship.

Either way, watching the giant Frankenstein-esque gingerbread creature born and die in a five-minute time span while Gingy tries to save him is unbelievably depressing for a kid’s movie. But, because I love pain, let’s rewatch the glorious sequence together one more time:

Now everyone say thank you to Mongo for his sacrifice.