YMMV / Nexo Knights

• Adorkable: Good!Jestro is a far cry from the psycho Villainous Harlequin he is universally known as, and while his clumsiness is certainly laughable, it can just as easily be endearing, especially when combined with his dorkiness and pleasant nature.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: The fact that we don't know how much exactly the Forbidden Powers influenced Monstrox allows for some. Is he a tragic Fallen Hero who was unlucky to be corrupted by the dark magic into evil incarnate? Was he always a bad apple and the powers just made him even worse? Or perhaps he wasn't truly a villain yet, but shaping up to become one, and the Forbidden Powers were the final straw.
• Angst? What Angst?: The way most characters react to what should by all accounts be seen as hard blows from fate will make you believe there's a law in Knighton against mourning someone for more than an hour:
  • The first two seasons estabilished that Jestro used to be Clay's best friend, and that Clay still remembers the jester that way, even after he turned evil, to the point where he's the only one beside Merlok believing that his Heel–Face Turn is genuine. It would be reasonable to assume that Jestro being forcefully turned evil in the Season 3 premiere would keep the knight worried about him and searching for a way to return him to normal...except the exact opposite happens. While everyone else believes Jestro betrayed them willingly, Clay only once states his belief that Monstrox may have done something to his mind, and seems to have completely forgotten about their broken friendship in the following episodes, seeing him only as an enemy, and not even talking once to Jestro even after the brainwashing is lifted.
  • A more or less minor case comes from the two times Clay is turned into a lifeless stone - first by Monstrox's dark magic, then by himself. While his friends do mourn him and swear to find a way to revive him, they remain relatively upbeat, cracking jokes every twenty seconds or so, some of them even about Clay's predicament.
  • Among the towns that get ravaged in the climax of Season 4 is Aaron's hometown Grindstead, yet he doesn't even seem to acknowledge it in any meaningful way.
• Awesome Music: "Unbreakable" by Danish electronic rock band Carpark North, which serves as the opening theme starting with the second season.
• Broken Base: Nexo Knights is probably the most controversial LEGO theme in existence due to the medieval-futuristic aesthetic it has. Some fans of the previous Castle themes were disappointed in this one, and that it took the place of classic Castle while it was released. Others loved the wacky and creative direction it took.
• Catharsis Factor: After three and a half seasons of being a greedy, selfish douchebag, Jorah Tightwad finally gets his just desserts in "Krakenskull": he attempts to pull a Quisling by selling new monsters to Jestro and Monstrox, only for their plan with them to fail. Angered, they turn into lead not only the very gold they paid Jorah for the army with, but his town made of gold as well. As Jorah freaks out over losing so much wealth at once, his Tighty Knighties start singing "The Villain Sucks" Song about him. Even though he hasn't lost all of his wealth, seeing him get humiliated after the crap he's pulled in Nothing Hill does put a smile on one's face.
• Creepy Awesome: Jestro is a monstrous jester who looks creepy but very cool. His checkered colour scheme no matter his alignment leads to some excellent vehicles.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Evil!Jestro is completely fine with creating chaos and endangering innocents, yet his fans, due to him largely being a Jerkass Woobie, tend to downplay his worst tendencies, usually for the sake of shipping.
  • It's also not uncommon to depict the Book of Monsters as actually caring for Jestro, despite their relationship being depicted as toxic and one-sided, with the former being a self-serving, Manipulative Bastard towards the jester and at times acting downright abusive.
• Fanfic Fuel: The Cliffhanger ending of the show expectedly spawned quite a number of Fan Sequels, though few (if any) have actually been completed and not abandoned as of this day.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Human!Monstrox wears a cape, a cowl, and a hood at the same time. It looks as ridiculous as it sounds.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Aaron/Whiparella has a decent following in form of fanfics and fan-art, despite the former being a knight who fears nothing, and the latter being a lava monster who defeats her enemies by triggering their worst fears. Of course, that's all part of the appeal, and the Lava Monsters' Heel–Race Turn in Season 3 probably makes this ship less problematic.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • A little bit regarding the kingdom of Knighton's name: the guide book A Knight's Code reveals that the kingdom was founded after the Order of the Eight, led by its eventual first king, defeated the monsters plaguing its territory. In other words, it was named after its founders - knights.
  • During the training sequence in "Knight Out", Clay says that Ava will have the grip strength of a mountain orge thanks to training. Later in the episode, she is able to hold off Axl with her bare hands. Looks like Clay wasn't metaphorical about it.
  • Lava Monsters forming an anarcho-syndicalist commune. Not only chaos is kind of their specialty, but what are the colors of the anarcho-syndicalists' flag? Red-and-black, matching most of the Lava Monsters' color scheme.
  • In "Rock Bottom" we see Merlok's flashback to his battle with Monstrox, and the wizard declaring that he will stop the necromancer's "evil destruction of this land". That sounds a lot like one of Clay's "pre-fight lines". Wonder why?
  • For most of Seasons 3 and 4 the sky is fully covered with clouds, with the exception of the sky above Nothing Hill. Given the whole cloud motif, with the Cloud of Monstrox being the main villain of those seasons, the odd weather must be his doing, while Nothing Hill is stated to be located on the west border of the kingdom. This indicates that Monstrox is either limited to, or chooses to limit his influence to Knighton's borders.
• Fridge Horror: In "Heart of Stone", what if Clay had Macy strike him with a Combo Nexo Power instead of a normal one? Best case scenario: he is Killed Off for Real. Worst case scenario: so is everyone in the kingdom in the next three episodes.
• Growing the Beard: Season 3 is when the goatee turned into a beard. While the tone of the first 2 seasons is more comedy-focused, with an obligatory dose of action, Season 3 keeps this vibe while having a slightly darker tone and more action scenes. Jestro has been zapped by the Cloud of Monstrox and forced to become evil again. Clay is slowly turning to stone after being hit by the Cloud and the threat posed to the kingdom by Jestro, the Cloud and the Forbidden Powers is taken much more seriously, especially compared to the first two seasons that started playing themselves straight only close to their respective finales.
• I Knew It!: The Book Of Monsters being Monstrox was figured out quickly due to the published version of him dropping hints about the twist.
• It Was His Sled: You'd have to live under a rock to still be unaware that the Book of Monsters and Monstrox are one and the same.
• Jerkass Woobie: Jestro. It's tough not to feel even a little bad for the guy. Ridiculed his entire life, manipulated into turning evil, then straight up forcibly brainwashed into it in season three. The universe just won't cut him a break. Even after he's freed in the final episode, he is held responsible for what he did under brainwashing and suffers punishment while the heroes celebrate and most of the monsters escape unscathed.
• Karmic Overkill: A good portion of fans did not take well to Jestro's fate in Season 4 finale, where he got sentenced to community service and presumably prison time as well. At first glance, it seems like a well-deserved fate for helping Monstrox in his evil schemes, but unlike most characters, the audience was aware that he was brainwashed by Monstrox and thus wasn't in control of his actions throughout the third and fourth seasons (which only makes the fact that he was Easily Forgiven in Season 2 finale, despite having turned evil willingly in the first episode, all the more bizarre). To add insult to the injury, Jorah Tightwad, who sold out the kingdom to Jestro and Monstrox only four episodes ago entirely on his own will, gets no punishment aside from losing some of his money, and is allowed to attend the victory celebration with the heroes.
• Moe: Robin, an Adorably Precocious Child who, despite his young age, isn't afraid to get his hands dirty in a fight (even if he tends to end up in danger because of that), and remains cheerful and friendly to everyone around no matter what happens.
• Moral Event Horizon: If Monstrox somehow didn't cross it by raining destruction on Knighton in the past, turning Jestro into a villain, attacking the kingdom with Lava Monsters numerous times, then attempting to possess his sidekick as a thanks for his role in his return, he definetily did in Season 4 by attempting to destroy the whole kingdom as the Colossus of Ultimate Destruction, putting millions of lives in danger just to get revenge on the heroes for defeating him.
• Narm:
  • Clay declaring that he chooses Aaron as his replacement, due to how we are shown him saying practically the same thing at the end of several episodes in a row. One has to wonder how Aaron felt having to listen to Clay and Merlok over and over again.
  • The best way Axl can describe the Colossus of Ultimate Destruction, which by that point had obliterated several towns and everyone is terrified of, is "a giant meatball of doom", which doesn't really sound like he's talking about a serious threat.
• Nausea Fuel: The "snotheiser special" from "Saturday Knight Fever". As if causing colds wasn't enough, its ingredients include yak phlegm, bat-eye gak, and dry crystals of forehead sweat from feverish caterpillars. And we see the Book eat the thing.
• Nightmare Retardant: Jestro's toy design is surprisingly creepy looking for a LEGO toy, both in year 1 and 2 (not helped by the first year having him on the front of every box). In the show, his design is much less frightening, and thanks to his woobie-ness, he's mercifully less terrifying.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: In spite of the crew members insisting that Clay and Macy are nothing more than friends, most fans don't seem to get it, and Clay/Macy remains the most popular M/F ship in the series' fandom. They are a little too affectionate with each other at times, with Macy's monologue addressing the petrified Clay in the Season 3 finale sounding like she's grieving over the loss of her lover in particular, so you can understand where this idea comes from.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Clacy (Clay/Macy)
  • Claytro (Clay/Jestro)
  • Rova (Robin/Ava)
• Rooting for the Empire: Even those who despise the technological spin on Castle enjoy the more classic-fantasy villains who are considerably less advanced and on the side of magic (with the exception of the Tech Monsters, though they were still well-liked).
• Special Effect Failure: Sooner or later, you'll notice that nearly every single town the characters visit is just the same environment reused over and over again, with only a few minor tweaks to make it look different, such as changing the sign on the central tower or adding snow.
• Stoic Woobie: Merlok. In the past, the guy lost his colleagues and sister to dark magic and had to perform what is essentially a Mercy Kill on the latter (and implicitly the former as well), in the very first episode he loses his body and is confined to life inside a computer for the rest of his days, and eventually Monstrox's magic deprives him of his nephew as well for a while. But do you see him complain (at least until he's hit really hard)?
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The final wave of sets fixed the changes in the second year. The Nexo Knights' builds replaced some of the bright orange with gold and better distributed the Knights' personal colours for more visually appealing builds and the Tech Monsters' pale skin, black armour and green lighting and technological designs were regarded as far more interesting than the Stone Monsters.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The second year made a few controversial changes. The Nexo Knights' builds began using their own colours as an accent, but the colours were considerably unbalanced and in the case of Aaron (whose colour is lime or green) clashed horribly with the orange and blue aesthetic the Nexo Knights usually used. Meanwhile, the Stone Monsters, despite LEGO's valiant attempts to make them interesting with vibrant secondary colours, interesting designs and textures, and a lightning-charged aesthetic, were ultimately largely grey rocks (both in appearance and personality seeing as they were animated statues) in comparison to the brighter and more personable Lava Monsters.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Robin and Ava are considered part of the main cast, appear in the show's intro and have proven themselves to be capable assistants to the Nexo Knights, but are given surprisingly little focus and screentime compared to the main five knights, as well as Merlok and Jestro. They remain the only main characters whose origin wasn't fleshed out in the app-exclusive Origins Episode or following episodes, we don't even know how they met the Nexo Knights, and even their promotion to junior knights at the end of Season 1 did little (if anything) to increase their prominence. Considering the two are the closest the show has to an Audience Surrogate, this is quite bizarre.
  • Surprisingly little is done with Aaron after he becomes the group's leader with the loss of Clay in Season 4, as said season mostly focuses on the Back from the Dead Clay struggling with his new form, uncontrolled rage and dark past. For example, the introduction of the Shocking Scare Forbidden Power could be a good way to test a character well-known for having "no fear whatsoever", but Aaron simply dodges its blast without being influenced by it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Jestro performed a Heel–Face Turn close to the end of Season 2, and it would certainly be interesting to see his reconcilation with people of Knighton and his only friend Clay in particular. Season 3 dedicated less than 5 minutes to it before Jestro is brainwashed into villainy for the second time. Even then the knights, including Clay, don't seem all too bothered by their friend rejoining the dark side, and he isn't shown to reconcile with them when the brainwashing finally wears off and he is punished.
• Ugly Cute: Squirebots. In spite of their gonky appearance and Too Dumb to Live levels of stupidity, they can look oddly adorable when they are truly happy or just fooling around (like in the short "Always Be Prepared").
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Lance Richmond is supposed to be seen as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, which he technically is, however, due to how often the "jerk" part is emphasised with his arrogance, narcissism and frequent whining, it's easy to see him as the opposite trope. It doesn't help that many episodes where he commits acts that disgust even his close friends ("The Golden Castle" and "Greed is Good?"), he ultimately doesn't learn his lesson even if he gets comeuppance, and is Easily Forgiven in spite of never changing.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Jestro in the show's universe - a complete loser constantly mocked for his failures who nobody but Clay, Merlok and the king feels sorry for. Jestro in the show's fandom - the most popular character, receiving tons of fan art and fanfiction starring him. This was, in fact, intentional on the writers' part, as they intended to make Jestro as likeable as the heroes.
• Wangst: Lance's grudge against his parents. So they forced him to become a knight instead of an actor, that's not really nice of them, but not to the point of leaving them to rot in Jestro's clutches. This is especially jarring considering that in the present, he is both a knight and an actor, and both professions bring him fame, so he no longer has a valid reason to hate his parents. He even calls his father cruel for refusing to buy him an island just to sunbathe alone.

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