Hey! Sorry for the long ask, I just wanted to chime in if possible? Lol I actually haven’t seen all that much Isen hatred so imma talk about Elaine and Zeke in particular.

I think that the reason why people’s reactions to Elaine vs John, Arlo or Sera are so different, is because they are humanised - Elaine, on the other hand, is extremely one-dimensional. So whereas Arlo, John and Sera have their flaws and definitely have done questionable, bad things in the past, the narrative also presents us with different sides of them, as the main trio, which coexist with their bad traits and make them more bearable or even likeable. Characters like Zeke and Elaine, on the other hand, don’t have that - I think uru-chan has a slight issue with creating very one-dimensional minor characters. Take Zeke, for example - arguably, even his actions are not as bad as John and Arlo, per se - though Zeke is responsible for his actions, Arlo validated him with the hierarchy and never bat an eye or involved himself when Zeke abused the other students. John was way more brutal than Zeke, also abused people out of spite and his sick idea for revenge, even seemed to enjoy it back in New Bostin (in case someone wants to argue that it’s different because Zeke enjoys the beatings whereas John did not) and even abused, mentally and physically, his best friends - this is something even Zeke is not doing.

Now what’s the difference, though? Zeke doesn’t have anything deeper to his character than “bully” and this makes him way easier to hate than John or Arlo or Seraphina. He doesn’t get those moments of regret or self-hatred John gets, he doesn’t get soft moments with his buddies the way Arlo gets with Remi, he does’t get to be the “loyal best friend who’d go to hell and back for you” like Seraphina. The same thing could be applied to Elaine - he is just not developed enough and all we’ve got so far is 65% prejudiced snitch, 34.5% Arlo simp, 00.5% aaaw she cares for cripple sera actuallyyt!

Basically, some characters are written with the ideas of being a hate-sink and I think Uru intended to do that with Zeke and partially, Elaine. They can both be considered the “epitome” of what’s wrong with high-tier society (abuse and prejudice) but unlike the other characters who also have hate, love, trauma, trust, friendship etc.etc. to their characters, Zeke and Elaine barely have any of that which leaves them with just..abuse and prejudice (and “haha simp” which doesn’t exactly help Elaine’s case because we know how those characters are usually treated in media)

tbh yeah. its also just the way they're portrayed in the end. we also dont know much about their motivations either. because they're never quite shown in the positive light, its hard to sympathize. and then that effect is only amplified because we rarely ever get internal dialogue from either of them, offering zero insight into their thoughts or motivations