YMMV / Elif

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Is Melek a loving Mama Bear who wants to get her daughter Elif back or just an Extreme Doormat who can't even fight back or stand up for herself when the situation calls for it?
  • Mahir, Kiymet's son, also became a very debatable character as he was torn between helping Melek get out of prison due to his feelings for her and scheming with his mother to exact her revenge on the Haktanirs. He even refused to believe at first that Kiymet would be capable of having Melek framed for a crime she didn't commit, and he was willing to put all the blame on the already dead Tarik instead.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Tarik getting arrested by police for the embezzlement on the company is extremely satisfying for everything he's done to Elif and Melek.
  • No one was crying either when Kiymet got arrested in the finale, given that she had murdered her sister, abused Elif a lot, had Melek unjustly thrown in prison and tried multiple times to get away with her cruel actions.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Reyhan in Season 4 won over the viewers for her fondess of Elif and Cool Big Sis role. They even felt bad for Reyhan when she left the mansion, which was because of Parla.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Kerem in season 5 behaves like a full-blown jerk when Melek is wrongly accused for giving wrong medication to Macide, and never shows any remorse when she's separated from Elif while in prison, not helping matters is that Elif overhears him cruelly insulting her mother, something that makes him just as odious and unsympathetic compared to the other villainous characters. Emirhan, Julide's son, also acts like a total brat when his birth father Tufan manipulates him into turning on Safak and refuses to listen to his mother's warnings about Tufan. Safak's mother Leman, is also despised because of her petty hatred for Julide and disapproving the relationship with her son.
• Moral Event Horizon: Kiymet crosses it in the finale when she murders Macide, her own sister, by shooting her, and even attempting to kill Mahir and Kerem. By this time, is made crystal clear that Kiymet is beyond any redemption, so she justifiably deserved to be arrested for all her malicious actions.
• Strawman Has a Point: When Melek is framed for a crime against Macide by Kiymet, who was the true culprit, most viewers arguably state that the fact that she couldn't bring herself to explain she was using a fake name (Serse) out of fear that Tarik would find and kill her didn't help her case, and if she had told the Haktanirs about this before, maybe this whole conflict could've been avoided.
• Take That, Scrappy!: In season 5, it is revealed that Tarik was beaten to death by the prison inmates.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Most of the show basically revolves around the bad guys making Elif and Melek's lives a living hell, trying by any means to harm, torture kidnap or kill them at any cost with ZERO guilt, attributed to the fact that it has a long amount of episodes that makes it seem like an eternal depressing story. And whenever it seems that mother and daughter are about to have a happy ending, it is proven otherwise. So it's no surprise that most viewers have grown tired of watching the show to the point of harshly condemning it over its looming themes, even when the bad guys become much more evil and less sympathetic throughout the story's run, and some of the good characters either make stupid decisions or become plain jerks for petty reasons.

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