YMMV / Life, the Universe and Everything

• Crosses the Line Twice: Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged showing up when Arthur Dent has been marooned on prehistoric Earth for two years, insulting him to his face, and just leaving him there? Brutal. The fact that he takes the time to ensure that he is in fact talking to Arthur Philip Dent before insulting him? Suddenly funny. The reveal that he is spending eternity travelling back and forth across the galaxy insulting every single living creature in alphabetical order? Hilarious.
  • He proceeds to cross the line a couple more times later on, when he shows up at the invasion of the Krikkiters to pull his "insult his next victim and leave" modus operandi again... on a dying man.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The story of Effrafax of Wug's bet to make a mountain disappear and how he would have succeeded had he merely painted the mountain pink and erected a Somebody Else's Problem Field on it. A few books later and Douglas Adams would be writing about an Electric Monk who believes his world to be... pink.
  • As seen on the main page, Arthur Dent and Trillian are Expies of the Doctor’s companions. Almost thirty years later, the real Doctor’s companions would be played by Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillian.
• Jerkass Woobie: Agrajag. While he abducts and tries to murder the unsuspecting Arthur, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for him once it's made clear that he literally cannot let go of his vendetta... because whenever he tries to just live his (current) life, Arthur will show up and kill him again, sometimes gruesomely.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Krikkiters, who only want to, you know, kill everything that isn't Krikkiter. More specifically, the Krikkit killer robots, who are described as inexplicably embodying the essence of "pure, clinical evil." The ordinary Krikkiters who still live on the planet surface are revealed to be meek, considerate lads who are second-guessing the "destroy the entire universe" plan put in motion by their higher-ups and Hactar. That said, the Krikkiters who first broke through the dust cloud that isolates Krikkit from the universe certainly count as, upon seeing the stars for the first time, one of them dismissively says "it'll have to go," and the crew proceeds to sing a little ditty about peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life, and the obliteration of all other life forms.
  • Agrajag is a pretty creepy character for such a comedic series. Pursuing a fanatical vendetta against Arthur Dent (with some reason, given that Arthur has inadvertently killed every one of his previous incarnations), he has built a Cathedral of Hate full of disturbing sculptures to which he abducts his nemesis, and incarnated as a Body Horror-laden giant bat creature designed purely for killing Arthur. Of course, then Arthur goes on to accidentally kill him again.
    Do not be afraid.
    ...
    Be very, very frightened, Arthur Dent.
• So Okay, It's Average: Generally agreed to be this in relation to the other books. While definitely not as fondly remembered as the first two books, it's certainly better remembered and more highly regarded than the two books that followed.

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