YMMV / New Jedi Order

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: The death of Borsk Fey'lya.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • How would the Yuuzhan Vong have fared against The Empire?
    • There are those (in and out of universe) who feel that the Empire would have been more than capable of handling the Vong and that Palpatine had established it to deal with them, while others (again, in and out of universe) feel the Empire's failure against the Rebellion and obsession with Awesome, but Impractical superweapons meant that even if it had been, it would have lost regardless. There's also a third middle-of-the-road interpretation that Palpatine was planning for the Yuuzhan Vong War, but viewed them as a rival to be eliminated rather than his raison d'etre.
      
      In Destiny's Way Han Solo gives a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to an Imperial Remnant naval officer on version #2 after she speaks in favor of version #1:
      "What the Empire would have done was build a super-colossal Yuuzhan Vong–killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. They would have spent billions of credits, employed thousands of contractors and subcontractors, and equipped it with the latest in death-dealing technology. And you know what would have happened? It wouldn't have worked. They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors, or some other mistake, and a hotshot enemy pilot would drop a bomb down there and blow the whole thing up. Now that's what the Empire would have done."
    • Also the point that the Vong earned most of their early success against the New Republic by taking advantage of its Byzantine bureaucracy to keep New Republic forces from engaging them directly and overwhelmingly for a significant amount of time. Whether or not similar tactics could have kept the mighty Imperial war machine off of them for a similar length of time is debatable. (They couldn't have bound Palpatine up in red tape, but aiding resurgent rebellions across the galaxy to keep Imperial forces tied up would have been doable, particularly with a manipulator like Nom Anor on hand). Additionally, a large part of the GFFA's success involved unconventional tactics and coming up with creative ways to counter the Yuuzhan Vong's technology, which (with the exception of Thrawn) the Empire usually sucked at. Nor would the Empire have been able to draw on Jedi as ace pilots and commando leaders, for obvious reasons.
  • Vergere. Is she a genuinely good person who's been corrupted by years of living amongst the Yuuzhan Vong? Is she a Sith whose true intention is to corrupt Jacen and bring about the events of Legacy of the Force? Is it somewhere in between? Everyone, in- and out of universe, has their own opinion.
• Ass Pull: While Zonama Sekot had been previously introduced (in Greg Bear's Rogue Planet, set between TPM and AOTC), its explanation of a major plot detail came completely out of nowhere. The series provided several philosophical examinations of the Force and what it meant that the Yuuzhan Vong could not be sensed. The Jedi spent a lot of time agonizing over this and questioning everything they knew, which was perhaps the height of storytelling for the series. At the end, however, we learn that the Genius Loci of the Vong "Took the Force away" from the entire species, because apparently it can do that. It was a development that not only arose from nowhere, it retroactively turned the Jedi quest for greater understanding of the Force into a "Shaggy Dog" Story.
• Base-Breaking Character: An entire race of them. Apparently, the Yuuhzan Vong are simultaneously a fresh blast of originality that provided a threatening and utterly badass new foe and a nonsensical and ugly blight on the franchise whose try-hard attempts to be Grimdark was so horrendous that the only way to save the franchise was to nuke them from canon entirely.
• Broken Base: The Expanded Universe as a whole varies wildly with the fans depending on which book or writer is in question. Before the release of the Sequel Trilogy, nothing compared with New Jedi Order on just how split the reception was among the fanbase given how radical of a departure it was. Even the prequels were less divisive.
  • Fans of the books like the change in tone, feeling that the more mature story was exactly what the franchise needed, appreciate the Yuuzhan Vong as something different from the worn-out "superweapons, darksiders, and imperial warlords" the Bantam era overused, and enjoy the exploration of the sticky moral issues the concept of the Dark Side represents. Detractors feel the series suffered from being way too long, hate the offhanded killing of popular characters, and describe the Yuuzhan Vong as "BDSM supervillains" ill-suited to the universe's primarily family-friendly, escapist entertainment nature.
• Common Knowledge: George Lucas ordered Anakin's death. While it's true he did mandate that Anakin couldn't be the hero due to initial story outlines hemming to close to his grandfather's story and thus wanted to avoid confusion, it was stated that he never actually ordered the character killed off and that it was simply presumed that he had due to confusion from the writers. This stemmed from a round table interview with James Luceno, but was then clarified by Shelly Shaprio that it wasn't quite so clear cut. However, this belief still has proliferated among fans for years.
• Complete Monster: Onimi was once a gifted Shaper whose experiments resulted in him becoming hideous and malformed, branding him as a Shamed One and outcast in the eyes of the Yuuzhan Vong. However, his experiments also granted him incredible power. He enslaved the mind of Supreme Overlord Shimrra Jamaane, ruling the Yuuzhan Vong as the secret master from the shadows while being publicly presented as Shimrra's court jester, hiding his intellect behind Obfuscating Stupidity. Onimi ordered the invasion of the Galaxy, leading to a brutal campaign that saw hundreds of trillions dead and entire species and worlds annihilated by the Yuuzhan Vong. Desperate to contain the supposed "Jeedai" heresy, Onimi initiates violent purges of his own people, slaughtering them en masse while throwing away the lives of loyal Yuuzhan Vong on pointless endeavors throughout the war. When he faces off with the Solo twins, Onimi reveals he has come to see them as avatars of the Yuuzhan Vong gods of trickery and war and reveals his intentions to continue the massacre of everything in the galaxy to elevate himself to godhood. Twisted, cruel and obsessed with his own glory, Onimi aimed to destroy all he could for the sole purpose of spitting in the faces of the gods he abandoned in his own hubris.
• Crack Pairing: Several years ago on TheForce.net, Jacen X Nen Yim did a brief stint as a mildly popular pairing (often with Tahiri playing matchmaker). The two characters never meet, aren't the same species, and are on opposite sides of the war. Usually done with something of a knowing wink, though.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Go here.
• Fandom Rivalry: Exploited. Michael A. Stackpole was on the planning committee for NJO, and has said in con appearances that anytime he needed to kill a really bad idea, he'd say something to the effect of, "Yeah! That was so cool when they did it on Star Trek!"
• Fan Nickname: In-Universe, "Vong" is an insult, denying the relationship of the Yuuzhan Vong to their gods. Out-of-universe, it's just more convenient.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The death of Anakin Solo. Even some of the series most ardent fans don't like to acknowledge it.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Go here.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Go here.
• It Was His Sled: While Vector Prime's bumping off of Chewbacca was a huge shock at the time of its release, it's really not much of a spoiler anymore.
• Iron Woobie: Vua Rapuung in Edge of Victory I is one of the first truly sympathetic Yuuzhan Vong we meet. He's a war hero who was in a Secret Relationship with a shaper (Nen Yim's mentor). His lover betrayed him by making his implants go bad, forcing him to join the ranks of the Shamed Ones, the YV underclass who are treated little better than slaves. In the book proper he forms an Enemy Mine with Anakin Solo to get revenge, in exchange for helping Anakin rescue Tahiri from captivity.
• Magnificent Bastard: Nom Anor is a cunning agent of the Yuuzhan Vong who specializes in "weakening the hinges of the enemy's fort", spying and sowing conflict on targeted worlds to prepare them to invasion. Anor is one of the key figures driving his people's war against the New Republic, and when he is cast out for failure he turns his skills against them as well, assuming the persona of "the Prophet" and leading the lower castes in revolution. Ultimately loyal only to his own ambition, Anor ends up Playing Both Sides for his own game; after the Yuuzhan Vong are defeated and his final plans fail, rather than throw himself on the mercy of any of the factions he's backstabbed, he chooses to meet death on his own terms. Manipulative, resourceful, and always with another trick up his sleeve, Nom Anor is a key player in the Yuuzhan Vong War and the iconic antagonist of the New Jedi Order saga.
• Misblamed: R.A. Salvatore, the writer of Vector Prime, was frequently blamed by fans for having "killed" Chewbacca. While he wrote the book where that happened, it was actually Dark Horse Comics alumni Randy Stradley who made the decision to kill off the character.
• Moral Event Horizon: Played with and ultimately subverted. Just after the midway point, it's revealed that Luke's greatest fear is that Yuuzhan Vong are not only so evil, but so unnatural, that his only choice will be to lead the Jedi in a war of extinction against them. Vergere tells him this is not the case. Ultimately, the Yuuzhan Vong as a species are redeemed, but several individual members are still beyond the pale.
  • Onimi crosses this during his Motive Rant. Before, everyone thought he was just a messed-up individual. It's impossible to have any pity after learning that he knowingly caused the most devastating war in galactic history, which resulted in the deaths of untold trillions and the extinction of entire species, and is responsible for all the pain and suffering the Vong inflict on the galaxy purely to ascend to godhood.
• Narm Charm: This gem from Pellaeon. Laughably stupid? Hell yeah. Still awesome? HELL YEAH!
  Pellaeon: You may win the occasional battle against us, Vorrik, but the Empire will always strike back. That I promise you.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Yuuzhan Vong. Their organic technology is bad enough, but then there's their obsession with pain and suffering, which they consider a religious experience.
  • Lord Nyax. Two meters high, lobotomized to the point of no higher thought process, hunts through the Force, with six lightsabers attached to his hands, elbows, and knees respectively, prowling through the forgotten slums of Vong-ruled Coruscant searching for prey among the refugees and survivors.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Uldir Lochett from Junior Jedi Knights goes from being an arrogant kid who feels that he's entitled to be a Jedi to a brave and resourceful search and rescue pilot who is content to help the Jedi. Fans appreciate the change.
• Rooting for the Empire: Not the Yuuzhan Vong themselves, but it's argued in- and out-of-universe that if The Empire was still in power, they would have defeated the Vong far more effectively than the New Republic, possibly before the Vong gained a foothold in the galaxy that let them launch a full-scale war. This has led many to say Palpatine was right, as one of his stated reasons for creating The Empire was to militarize the galaxy to defend against them. No matter that, knowing Palpatine, it was a convenient excuse to take power for himself and, at best, a threat to his plans.
• Strawman Has a Point: A subplot in the early books deals with a schism within the Jedi Order brought on by the invasion, with some Jedi, opposed by Luke and the other protagonist Jedi such as the Solo siblings, wanting to use leftover Imperial superweapons and Centerpoint Station against the Yuuzhan Vong. To prove that they're misguided, they're labeled "heretics" and are willing to do things like kidnap children. Nobody, up to and including Luke himself, is able to come up with a coherent reason why using superweapons against Yuuzhan Vong military targets is any worse than using conventional weapons—and lest we forget, Star Wars Legends is a setting where an ordinary starship is a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A lot of fans had issues with various aspects of the series because it was so different from previous Star Wars works.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Briefly during Dark Tide: Ruin, Leia notes one of Palleon's aides is a Force sensitive, apparently trained in her powers enough to block Leia's sensing her emotions. Said character then proceeds to never show up anywhere again.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Given the enormous body count in this series, one would be forgiven if they were turned off this series by the sheer bleakness, to the point where even Timothy Zahn criticized the series for this trope.
• Vindicated by History: Fan opinion on the series' quality improved in the twilight years of the Star Wars Legends continuity, albeit partly because the next three big series (Dark Nest Trilogy, Legacy of the Force, and Fate of the Jedi) were widely considered much worse, with FOTJ ending up as the Franchise Killer for the post-Endor EU even before The Force Awakens was announced. And now, with the contentious nature of the Sequel Trilogy, and the many similarities it shares with the Original Trilogy and several divisive Legends stories, many have come to see NJO as, at the very least, unique in the story it was trying to tell. Dave Filoni has tried at least twice to pull the Yuuzhan Vong into his projects, and there are fans who would like to see them migrate into the new canon. New Jedi Order is at least a competent "first draft" story that could be streamlined and cut down to make a film trilogy.

---