Donkey, who is Shrek’s energetic and endlessly chatty sidekick, brings a lot of humor and heart to the adventures that he, Shrek, and later Puss in Boots go on across the series—four films so far, with a fifth on the way.
The beloved role was famously voiced by comedy legend Eddie Murphy. Interestingly, the part was originally offered to Steve Martin, known for his role in The Jerk, before the final casting decision was made.
But have you ever taken a moment to wonder about where Donkey actually came from in the Shrek universe or why we never got much of a backstory for him?
It’s definitely something worth thinking about.
Now though, fans on social media have started tossing around theories about who Donkey really might be in the larger fairy tale world.
You might have always believed that Donkey was just a fun, talking animal character added for comic relief—and sure, that’s partly true. But one Instagram user, who goes by @asheleyspam, has come up with a theory that Donkey was originally a human.
She plays clips from the original Pinocchio movie and suggests that Donkey is actually Lampwick—Pinocchio’s best friend who he meets on Pleasure Island. In the film, Lampwick is transformed into a donkey and later sold off for labor.
Asheley adds that this would explain why Donkey has the ability to talk, and she even connects it to the original Italian novel by Carlo Collodi that the Disney movie was based on.
Her theory suggests that Donkey might have been human all along, and surprisingly, many fans seem to agree with her.
People on Reddit have also brought up the original 1940 Disney film and specifically mention the scene set on Pleasure Island as being the possible link.
Starting to sound familiar?
In Shrek The Third, when Donkey and Puss end up switching bodies, Donkey even talks about how he had to learn to control his hee-hawing, and says it takes practice—something that lines up pretty closely with Asheley’s theory, according to ScreenRant.
Is any of this theory actually true? Well, we might just have to wait for Shrek 5 to find out if the mystery is finally solved.