New Jedi Order/YMMV

"Jacen: Look, one thing, no matter what we did at Dantooine, I was proud to have you at my side. I don't know what I'll be in the future, Anakin, but I know you'll be a great Jedi Knight. I have confidence that you will succeed, no matter what life throws at you.
 * Alas Poor Scrappy: The death of.
 * Alternative Character Interpretation: There are those (in and out of universe) who feel The Empire would have been more than capable of handling the Vong and that Palpatine had established it to deal with them. Then there are also those (in and out of universe) who feel the Alternative Alternative Character Interpretation that the Empire's over reliance on impractical and overall unsuccessful superweapons (given that they kept getting destroyed) and its loss against the Rebellion suggests the first interpretation is wishful thinking.
 * Both views are presented in the series. Han Solo ridicules the idea, while the Yuuzhan Vong themselves, including Tsavong Lah, tend to believe that they would have lost had the Empire not fallen. One point lending credence to the "Imperial victory" theory was that while the Rebellion won due to hit-and-run tactics targeting critical locations and objectives, the Yuuzhan Vong fought a more traditional manner, i.e. two large forces combatting each other while trying to control as much territory possible, something the Empire was much-more prepared and experience to deal with. It was their main strategy. This is discussed in The Essential Atlas introduction. The Empire with its vast resources, war machines, and battle-hardened veterans would have been a significant threat to the Vong. In addition, the New Republic-turned-Galactic Alliance begins adopting the "stateless" hit-and-run tactics of the Rebellion again, they fare much better against the Vong. Finally, Wedge Antilles devastates the Yuuzhan Vong at Borleias using Imperial tactics, that is sheer, overwhelming force. The operation was dubbed "Emperor's Hammer".
 * In any case, a struggle between the Empire and the Vong would probably have led to the winner absorbing the worst aspects of the loser into itself, which would have resulted in perhaps the most terrible threat to the galaxy ever. It also would have devastated countless worlds beyond hope of repair, considering the power and ruthlessness of the two factions in question. Regardless of the outcome, it's probably best for all concerned that it didn't happen.
 * Timothy Zahn has been an advocate of the 'Empire was created to stop the Vong' theory.
 * Canon Sue (Mara Jade, at least superficially)
 * Complete Monster: Supreme Overlord Shimmra, Tsavong Lah, Nom Anor, and  all qualify. Nom repeatedly causes the death of billions and he is the epitome of selfishness. Shimmra and Tsavong Lah are both heartless psychopaths who gleefully slaughter innocents; Lah to please the gods, Shimmra because he's absolutely insane. Worst of all is  . A former shaper driven mad by his experiments, he manages to be utterly unlikeable even before the full extent of his evil is revealed. He orchestrates a war that results in the death of trillions, destroys whole worlds, and which renders whole species extinct, just to become a god. During his rant to Jaina, he also expresses giddy joy at the prospect of killing "everyone and everything in this foul galaxy!" All four of these guys suffer at least some sort of Karmic Fate.   is consumed by the very poisons he generates to use against Jacen Solo, Tsavong Lah witnesses his fleet get wiped out and falls in combat with Jaina Solo, Shimmra   Many warriors do repent later on, or were simply victims of their culture. Not these guys though. And they still leave one hell of a mess.
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome (a ton--Ganner Rhysode's You Shall Not Pass last stand pretty much takes the cake, but others include Force-assisted singularity manipulation and Operation Emperor's Spear, which entailed turning an entire Super Star Destroyer into a one-man-guided bomb. Another memorable one is Jacen Solo's mental connection with the Vong's living technology - he makes their snake-like amphistaffs surround him like armor. An even cooler one was when )
 * "I am Ganner. Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all at once, I don't give a damn. None shall pass."
 * One should never forget "Operation Emperor's Spear" where, not long after the, decide to reinforce and sacrifice their only Super Star Destroyer, the Lusankya, and.
 * After Ganner's death, Vergere tells Jacen she sees a vision of the future of the Yuuzhan Vong--a temple (or something, I forgot) with an image of Ganner Rhysode wielding a lightsaber, idolized by the Yuuzhan Vong, with words written beneath him in BASIC (re, english, and not Yuuzhan Vong language) labeling him "The Ganner", and with "None Shall Pass" inscribed beneath his image. Win.
 * He is labeled the guardian of the gate between the realms of the living and the dead. The win just goes on and on.
 * Most of the above comes from one book, Traitor. Which is easily a Crowning Book of Awesome.
 * Designated Evil (the Jedi who wanted to utilize Imperial superweapons and Centerpoint Station against the Yuuzhan Vong)
 * This also appears to be the case with Alpha Red, a bioweapon designed to destroy the Yuuzhan Vong on a cellular level. Everyone the reader is supposed to sympathize with is horrified by it, and the people who advocate using it are considered monsters.
 * Fanon Discontinuity: for years afterwards, some people not only joked about it but were convinced that  was still alive.
 * The entire series and everything that follows is this for some fans, still.
 * Fridge Horror : The four year-long war causes the deaths of 365 trillion people (the bulk of whom were presumably civilians), or 250 billion A DAY. Put another way, given the roughly 1 million inhabited worlds in the Star Wars Galaxy, that means each and every inhabited world lost an average of 365 million inhabitants (or 6 World War II's, simultaneously, over 4 years). That means every time at the end of a chapter or scene, which usually marks the passage of a day or even a few hours, that means countless billions more are already dead. Every conversation dithering about morality and using superweapons against the Vong? Hundreds of millions died during the course of the dialog. No mention needs to be made of the fact that the Yuuzhan Vong were infamously sadistic in their methods of killing, including using meat shields and death by overwork, slavery or just for funsies. No wonder the remaining inhabitants of the galaxy were a little sore with the Vong for years afterward.
 * That said, most of the deaths would probably be due to planetary bombardments and Vongforming - it's not as though they worked half a quadrillion people to death in slave camps. (For one thing, they'd need more slave camps...)
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment: Near the end of "Onslaught", Jacen and Anakin and talking and getting philosophical.

Anakin: Are you really Jacen, or some Yuuzhan Vong in an ooglith masquer?

Jacen: For now, I'm Jacen Solo.

Jacen: [thinking] What I'll be in the future, however, is anyone's guess."


 * God Mode Sue (Jacen Solo. From pretty much the beginning, really, though it wasn't too bad until circa Destiny's Way, and the mind-bending Traitor was so fascinating a read you barely noticed. After that ...)
 * Idiot Plot: There are several who feel this is the case, for NJO and everything following.
 * It Was His Sled: While Vector Prime's bumping off of  was a huge shock at the time of its release, it's really not much of a spoiler anymore.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Nom Anor isn't as magnificent as some, and his plans fail about half the time- but no matter what happens, he somehow manages to come out of it smelling like roses, even though most of his superiors are * way* less forgiving than Darth Vader. It doesn't hurt that Palpatine is one of his sources of inspiration.
 * Vergere is also a candidate, and Tsavong Lah has his moments under some writers (his handling of the priest-shaper conspiracy in 'Rebel Stand in particular is as brilliant as it is bloody). Onimi is brilliant enough, if he weren't so totally despicable.
 * Memetic Mutation - Anakin Solo had the hots for his aunt? The NJO is a train!
 * NJO-J=NO!
 * Moral Event Horizon:
 * When the Vong send a moon crashing down on Chewbacca, killing him and the planet's population. After crossing the horizon, they just keep going. Most memorable was their genocidal conquest of Coruscant.
 * What they do to Ithor is a worse. The Jedi Corran Horn duels with the Vong leader to decide the utopian planet Ithor's fate. If the Corran wins, Ithor will be spared. Of course, Corran kills his enemy, but the other Vong betray him and unleash biochemical weapons that melt down Ithor's ecosystem and kill the population.
 * That could be relative. Ithor had been almost completely evacuated when it was utterly destroyed. Coruscant, though... It is mentioned somewhere that a few millions of its inhabitants escaped in time... out of a population of several (possibly over two dozen) billion. By the time the planet is liberated two years later, most of the civilian population has already died, only a handful resistants remaining.
 * The sentient trees of Ithor, however, were not evacuated. Because it was impossible to remove them without killing them.
 * Nightmare Fuel:
 * The Yuuzhan Vong. Their organic technology is bad enough, but worst is 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 (a few fan-reviled characters get some awesome, though usually Redemption Equals Death)
 * The Scrappy The Vong to many of course, though they're more of a Base Breaker, since they've got a fairly sizable fandom as well.
 * Sequelitis (of course, everything in the Expanded Universe, and even the movies, has someone who'll say "But it's not as good as...")
 * Squick (Mara Jade [again], dolling herself up for a sexy disguise, cause her teenaged nephew's mouth to drop open in excitement)
 * Oh, that's nothing compared to The Courtship of Princess Leia, where Prince Isolder fantasizes about Luke having sex with his mother.
 * Not blood relatives, but still dodgy. Not that this has stopped Shipping, and worse.
 * He's a teenager; what would you expect to happen?
 * Straw Man Has a Point - The radical Jedi are evil people who are in favor of using leftover Imperial superweapons and Centerpoint Station. If you disagree with this, then you are wrong. Just to make sure we understand what utterly detestable people they are, the authors made them willing to kidnap children and perform other heinous acts to get what they want. No one, including Luke, seems to be able to explain to us how killing Yuuzhan Vong with superlasers is more evil than fighting them with conventional weapons.
 * Morally, sure, but strategically there's a good reason not to use superweapons. You can divide up a fleet of starships to cover multiple planets. A superweapon can only be in one place at a time unless you mass-produce it, and Imperial superweapons are serious resource drains. They were built to terrorize and control, not to fight wars.
 * Tear Jerker (several)
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks (The main villains aren't Sith or Imperials? Luke isn't the main hero? They're killing off main characters? A lot of fans had issues with various aspects of the series just because they were different, in addition to more legitimate complaints)
 * The Woobie (Vua Rapuung)
 * The Woobie (Vua Rapuung)