YMMV / Elite (2018)

• Abandon Shipping: Many fans shipped Lu/Samuel in the end of Season 1 due to their actors' closeness, Foe Yay Shipping hype and to Pair the Spares (as Lu was involved with Guzman when most of fans want Guzman/Nadia and as Samuel was involved in a messy romance with Marina). But after the release of Season 2, the majority jump to ship the more canonical Carla/Samuel instead leading Lumuel to decrease in popularity in comparison.
  • Some fans like Marina and Samuel, but sadly Marina died at the end of the one, the ship has been decreased and it even lost of Marina/Nano shippers as well.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • Samuel is a big Base-Breaking Character due to his Vanilla Protagonist status, but his death at the end of season 5 greatly upset the fanbase, including his detractors.
  • Ari is perhaps the show's biggest scrappy, yet many greatly sympathized with her when she was assaulted by Armando.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Carla’s covering up Marina’s murder by Polo motivated by her wanting to protect Polo or by her realizing that if Polo is caught, his reason for killing Marina will be called into question and potentially expose whatever secrets her father had encrypted into the watch? Or is it both?
• Awesome Music:
  • The trailer's song is Twisted Games by Night Panda, which suits the dark, edgy tone of the series to a tee. And it just keeps getting better from there...
  • Charli XCX's 5 in the Morning from the 'Party' teaser deserves a mention.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Patrick. Most of the fans feels bad because of his problems around his family including drugs, but he was criticized by the fans for destroying Omar and Ander's relationship.
  • Marina. Many like her for being nice and respectful to the scholarship students, but she was loathed by some fans for reckless and selfish behavior, stealing the watch from Carla's dad and stringing Samuel along with Nano behind his back.
  • Mencía. She was liked for being the Token Good Teammate of her family and supporting her classmates' disapproval of Benjamin, but also hated for behaving bratty and ungrateful at times when it comes to her family. In season 5, she became more divisive as she was constantly siding with her father despite being aware of his crimes, choosing her family over Rebeka (only for her to act bizarrely jealous when she sees Rebeka with another girl) and seeing Rebeka trying to steal the SIM card as a "betrayal".
  • Sara. She gets a lot of sympathy for her abusive relationship with Raúl, but she gets the biggest amount of hatred for her Ungrateful Bitch behavior every time Mencía and Jessica (both who went through a similar dilemma) try to help her out, and throwing Chloe under the bus by using her affair with Raúl to her own advantage.
• Broken Base:
  • The decision to cover up Lucrecia murdering Polo gets flak from some detractors who call out the Double Standard in regards to Polo, who killed Marina. Those who criticize this point out how his life was made a living hell and were fine that he ended up in jail. Others simply don't care at all and see this as genuine growth and a moment of friendship between the characters.
  • The show's renewal for new seasons post-Series Fauxnale is definitely polarizing. A lot of fans firmly state that the show hasn't been the same after season 3 ended and most of the original main characters departed, so without them and the unnecessary addition of new characters who are simply cheap replacements from the likes of Guzman, Marina, Polo, Carla, Lu, etc., they won't watch the show anymore and will pretend like they never even existed. A second party also strongly opposes said seasons, but are still willing to watch the fourth, fifth and a lesser extent the sixth because of the remaining original characters (Samuel, Guzman, Omar, Ander, Rebeka and Cayetana) and even the season 4 ones, namely the Blanco siblings, yet this doesn't convince them that the show's essence is still the same. Both parties were even glad to learn that the show would finally end for good after the eighth season was revealed to be the last. A third but minor party has fans who keep watching the entire show without minding the changes and departures.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Carla finally standing up to her father, which doubles as a moment of awesome.
  • Benjamín getting punched in the face by Rebeka for murdering Samuel is very satisfying to see after he spent two seasons treating him and the other characters like crap.
  • Isadora's rapists getting arrested after a period of time of the authorities doing nothing about it.
  • No one was shedding tears when Carmen killed Raúl, especially when you recall the nightmarish monster Sara, and later Chloe (who almost repeated Sara's cycle), had for a boyfriend themselves. Seeing him meet his demise after getting away with abusing them was really satisfying.
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming:
  • Nano and Samuel's reunion in the pilot episode.
  • Samuel and Guzman's friendship from seasons 3 and 4, especially when Samuel decides that Ari isn't worth ruining his relationship with Guzman.
  • Lucrecia and Nadia's eventual friendship, which extends to the Shaana's offering their home to her when her parents disown her.
  • Yusef reconciling with Omar and acknowledging Ander as his boyfriend.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Carmen viciously confronts Raúl by rightfully pointing out each of his negative traits as an abuser to her daughter Chloe. This escalates when he attempts to choke Carmen, who asks Raúl to go get ice to bring to the rooftop. When he doesn't and calls her "crazy", she defiantly asks him if he knows what he should do if a woman asks for ice when there's none, distracting Raúl long enough to kill him by pushing him backwards off the rooftop. A death by falling is not so nice, but the fact that it happened to an IRREDEMEABLE abuser like Raúl and Carmen responding "you go down and get the ice" shortly after his death is ensured makes it funnier.
• Cry for the Devil: Many of the fans were heartbroken and saddened by Polo's death at the end of season three.
• Designated Hero:
  • Marina evidently qualifies as one. While she's nice to Samuel and genuinely wants to help Nano pay off his debts, she is also a reckless teenager who makes a lot of stupid decisions, including betraying the people she ever cared about. It's no wonder she died after everyone turns their backs on her.
  • Samuel and Ari could qualify this, but Ari the most because she's treated like a big scrappy.
• Designated Villain:
  • Polo in season 3 as Samuel and Lucrecia both blame him when he got expelled and her accusations against him during the graduation caused the loss of her and Nadia's scholarships, which was actually the doing of his mothers. It was unforgivable of Polo to kill Marina and let Nano take the fall for it, yet they fault him for things going wrong for them.
  • Patrick for getting away with Omar and Ander and for their ruining relationship. But he's a guy who wanted to love from anyone especially Ander, and this all changes when he started a relationship with Ivan.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • The Season 3 new characters Yeray and Malick are targets of this. They're considered as "obstacles" in the three most popular ships of the fandom (Ander/Omar, Guzman/Nadia, and Samuel/Carla) being Love Interest to Carla, Nadia and Omar. Especially Malick because he cheated Nadia with her brother and by extent Omar cheated Ander with him.
  • It got way worse in Season 4, the new character Ari caught in a Love Triangle with Samuel and Guzman, became hardly a target of this for Samuel/Carla and Guzman/Nadia shippers (and to a lesser extent Guzman/Samuel shippers) even after the season release. Her twin brother Patrick caught himself in a threesome/love triangle with Omar and Ander is a victim of this for a significant amount of Omander shippers as well though better received than his twin sister mentionned above as some fans actually appreciated his fanservice scenes with Ander.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Fans are willing to overlook Carla's controlling and manipulative tendencies and the fact that she has covered up a murder in favor of complimenting her good looks.
  • Polo, despite being the ultimate Big Bad of the show,gained quite a bit of defenders due to those who found him a more sympathetic Anti-Villain because of his ambiguous disorder, his struggles with his sexuality and the fact that he was so frequently manipulated and emasculated by Carla and even his own parents, along with the fact that he's shown clear remorse over Marina's death... despite refusing to come forward to the police about it, forcing an innocent Nano to take the fall. There were even those who sided with him when he was aggressively bullied by Samuel and Guzman in season 3, despite the fact that they had completely understandable reasons for their anger, and it was looking like he was going to get away with it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Azucena, despite her morally questionable choices as a principal, managed to win fans over for being the most supportive open-minded parent of the show, and one of the few parents to not be involved in illegal business, treating their children like garbage or barely showing concern over what's going on in their lives. It is further helped by the fans ranking her #1 as the best parent.
  • Christian obviously earned the spotlight with his sense of humour and flirtatious partying personality.
  • When introduced Rebeka looked like a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to both Marina and Christian due to her being simulteanously an outcast due to her ghetto-in-the-mind personality and style in comparison to her more prim and polished wealthy classmates as well as being a wealthy (though formerly poor) girl who struck up a friendship with the bullied scholarship students. She however won fans due to her snarky personality, darker edge and frequently trading barbs with the resident Alpha Bitch Lucrecia.
  • Felipe in season 5, for being different from Cayetana’s other love interests. Having a non-wealthy love interest for Cayetana helped provide the closure needed after everything she went through. And fans rejoiced when they became an Official Couple.
  • Nico's parents in season 6 as well, for being supportive of their son's gender identity.
• Evil Is Cool: Carla, whose Manipulative Bitch and The Hedonist tendencies make her the most frightening character on the show, while also making her arguably one of the most interesting.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: For Guzman and Nadia as individual characters, as well as the heterosexual pairings of the show, Guzman x Nadia has been the One True Pairing even when Guzman was still a jerk in Season 1. Very few actually cared for Lucrecia with Guzman, especially as Lucrecia was an overtly racist bully that made pre-Character Development Guzman look better. Season 3 gave shippers a satisfying ending, where Guzman and Nadia promise to come back for each other.
• Fanon: Fans like to believe that the scenes of the film Who Would You Take to a Deserted Island? involving only the characters of María Pedraza and Jaime Lorente are Marina and Nano, having escaped Polo if he hadn't succeeded in murdering her.
• Fanon Discontinuity / First Installment Wins: Many fans complain that the series should've ended after the third season since most of the original characters departed and the arc of Marina's murder got proper closure. They even say that without Danna Paola, whose iconic Alpha Bitch character they grew to love, there's no reason for them to keep watching the show. For many, the following seasons just feel like a rehash with similar plots, less appealing Expys of the departed cast members and the show employing far more over-the-top twists and falling back to an over-reliance on explicit sex scenes which it was moving away from by the latter half of season 1. Also, the fans prefer 1-3 seasons because they were "elite" instead of the later seasons such as season 4-7.
• Franchise Original Sin: The large amount of sex scenes is agreed to be one of season 4 flaws even tough the show had already built a reputation around it since the first season. However, while having a lot of sex in it, season 1 at least have an interesting plot that could maintain the viewers that were not insterested in the sexual aspect of it. Ironically, season 2 and season 3 have a progressivelly decrease in sex scenes compared to the first, which could explain the public reaction to them in the fourth season.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Baby (2018) and fans of Josh Schwartz's 00s era teen dramas Series/The O.C and Series/Gossip Girl, the former for both looking at the scandulous affairs of the ultra-priviledged in a wealthy European high school and the latter for it's Fish out of Water plot of poor(er) teens clashing with their extremely wealthy new peers.
  • With Control Z as well, considering that they both center around Hispanic schools and various mysteries centered on the student body.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Phillipe who was revealed as a rapist in the first episode of season 5, given the fact Pol Granch was accused of sexual assault.
  • In universe example, If you could recall, remember in the season 2 when Guzman said he wanted Samuel gone and Lucrecia straight up threatened him with "You're dead, you son a bitch!" (because she thought he was the one who told Nadia about her and Valerio), it's makes it more all the tragic when Samuel dies at the end of season five.
  • In season one, Nadia witnessed Guzman having sex with Lucrecia in the school showers, which she threatened to tell everyone about it. Ironically in season two, Nadia and Guzman were having sex in the school locker room, Valerio caught them getting busy in there which it lands him to record and send it to Lu. It's also ends up Nadia being humiliated at school.
  • Omar comments that he never really liked Benjamin after learning that Samuel was expelled over the provocative photo of him wearing the school uniform. In the last episode of season five, in which Samuel dies, this is highlighted to tragic proportions when Omar furiously threatened to kill Benjamin if something bad happened to Samuel.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Lucrecia's role as the Alpha Bitch becomes this to those who have seen Danna Paola starring in Atrévete a soñar, a Mexican adaptation of the Argentine telenovela Patito Feo, notably the episode when Patito starts behaving with arrogance and jerkassery, courtesy of the swap-body spell between her and Antonella.
  • María Pedraza and Jaime Lorente playing two characters who are a couple in the film Who Would You Take to a Deserted Island?, which came out a year after the first season was released, is basically how Marina and Nano would've lived their lives, away from everyone, if Polo hadn't murdered her.
• Ho Yay:
  • Polo and Christian in Season 1.
  • Guzman, Ander and Polo.
  • Just Ander and Polo in Season 2 due to their hook up.
  • Guzman and Ander in Season 3.
  • Valerio and Polo (yes, again) in Season 3.
  • Samuel and Guzman in Season 4, with many remarking that the two showed much more chemistry with each other than either of them did with Ari.
  • Patrick and Phillipe for most reasons because when they shared a kiss in season 5.
• Hollywood Homely: Nadia and Rebeka get hit with this quite a bit in-universe, with Nadia being more She Cleans Up Nicely due to her demure appeareance being based in her cultural upbringing, and Rebeka's edgier Tomboy appearance. It also a natural reaction to being in the rare situation of being constantly surrounded by the glamorous, beautiful offspring of the 1 percent.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Lucrecia, Polo and Carla are definitely the only teenage characters who geniunely tiptoe across the line of being geniunely evil, but they seem to be beloved by the audience., while the new season 4 characters, Malick, one of Polo's mother's, pre-Character Development Cayetana and even Nadia's father (at least for the first couple of seasons) tend to get most of the fandom hate. There were even many who sided with Polo after Samuel and Guzman's admittedly over-the-top bullying in season 3, despite of course being a natural reaction of watching Marina's murderer walk free. Sara due to her falling into Unintentionally Unsympathetic territory given her questionable actions against some of the characters from the likes of the Blanco siblings, Isadora, Iván and Chloe to name a few.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Guzman is a classist, smug jerk with a Hair-Trigger Temper, but he is also a loving and protective brother towards Marina, whose Hard-Drinking Party Girl tendencies and poor choices make his life very difficult. Guzman also finds out that his birth parents died in a drug overdose and loses his little sister and would-be niece or nephew to murder, all in one year. Oh, and it turns out that the murderer was actually Guzman’s best friend Polo, with his other friends Carla and Ander covering it up, unbeknownst to Guzman who goes to him for comfort. It’s not surprising that he is very nearly Driven to Suicide by the end of the season.
  • Lucrecia. Sure, she's the school's resident Alpha Bitch, but seasons 2 and 3 put her through the wringer. She not only gets cheated on by her boyfriend, but she's lied to and pushed away by her two other friends, and winds up disowned and cut off from her parents due to her relationship with Valerio.
  • Carla is a Manipulative Bitch, yes she did horrible things for the first two seasons but in season 3, after she confessed at the judge, her dad was prostituting her in order to save her mother's winery by making Carla dating Yeray. The worst part is, her father threatened to kill Samuel, if she ever sees him again. So yeah, you're allowed to feel bad for her what she's going through.
  • Polo is no saint, but in season three you can’t help but feel bad for him for all he’s been through. Even his death at the end of season three would make you reduced to tears and he got a Cry For A Devil reaction from fans.
  • For obvious reasons, Chloe (see Unintentionally Sympathetic below), to the point that she gets mad at Sara for throwing her to the lions about her infamous sex reputation.
  • Eric and his self-destructive personality that causes him to push away the people he cares about, to which he becomes self-loathing, believing they'll be better off without him.
• Just Here for Godzilla: While fans completely disagree with the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons, they are still willing to watch them with the appearances of Samuel, Guzmán, Omar, Ander, Rebeka and Cayetana. Ari, Patrick and Mencía as well.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Ander being the resident Woobie is this being shipped with every main student of Las Encinas in the three first seasons (except with eventually Marina and Cayetana). Just if one of them had a heartwarming moment with him, it's enough for fans to ship.
  • Suprisingly enough but Lu became this as well throughout seasons. Mainly of her ships are Foe Yay Shipping and some of them have a Portmanteau Couple Name. She shipped with Valerio (Valu despite the sizable hatedom), Carla (Carlu) Nadia (Lunadia) mainly. Though her ships with Omar (Lumar), Samuel (Lumuel), Guzman (Luzman), Rebeka (Lubeka) or even Cayetana are less popular, they're still noticeable.
• Les Yay:
  • Marina and Carla at the point Carla's face was very close of Marina's when she threatened her, making it seem like if she was going to kiss her.
  • Lu and Carla clearly go way back, but also have a very prickly relationship, but also care about each other more than it sometimes appears. In short, they sort of seem like exes sometimes.
  • Throughout the show, Lu and Nadia as well, mostly of Lu's side because she became quite obsessive with her in their "game". In Season 3, they developed a friendship.
  • In Season 2, Lu and Cayetana. Like with Nadia, Lu shown obsession for Cayetana during the latter's first day and started a friendship until the discovery of Cayetana's true status.
  • In Season 3, Rebeka sheepishly admits to Ander that she finds Carla attractive.
• Love to Hate: Lu had few redeeming qualities in the first two seasons, but was loved by fans precisely because she provided such a perfectly diabolical Alpha Bitch antagonist whenever the plot called for it, crossed with her often having the best lines in the show (though for a number of viewers her posting a revenge porn video of Nadia and Guzman made her irredeemable. All of this changed in the third season, though, as her extreme Broken Pedestal made her much more sympathetic and nicer to those around her and even a genuine friendship with her Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Nadia.
• Memetic Mutation: This image from the show has become popular online as a way for people to celebrate their One True Threesome.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Lu crosses it when she posts the video (which Valerio recorded) of Guzmán and Nadia having sex in the changing rooms to get revenge on her, which also costs the latter a chance in season 3 to apply to a potential college. Lu has made things difficult to Nadia since she arrived, and now she's made them even more difficult because of her petty whims.
  • Cayetana protecting Polo from being arrested by hiding the murder weapon in her house after telling her that he was the one who killed Marina.
  • Teo prostituting Carla, her own daughter, to Yeray in a desperate and misguided attempt to save the wineries from banrkruptcy. To make it worse, not only does Carla's mother not side with her daughter, but she had already known about the plan and agreed upon it, making Carla realize that the two people who are supposed to love her the most don't give a rat's ass about her wellbeing, and are more preocuppied with staying rich and are willing to go to extreme unethical means (if necessary) to see to that. Carla's mother twists the knife further by accusing her daughter of not thinking about their future, saying they'd rather want her to be with Yeray than risking their wealthy lifestyle.
  • Armando when he brutally attacks and leaves Ari injured and with a bruised eye.
  • Hugo, Javier and Alex raping a drunken Isadora while she's passed out.
  • Benjamín killing Samuel by accidentally making him fall into the pool and cracking his skull open while both fought over the SIM card that Samuel intented to give to the police.
  • The three unnamed homophobic men crossed it for killing Cruz without a shred of remorse after he came out as gay, thus becoming a victim of a hate crime himself.
  • Hugo and Alex attempt once again to cross it by raping a drunken girl at Isadora's club the same way they raped her back in Ibiza, just before they are interrupted and arrested by the police.
  • Raúl spikes Mencia's drink to drive her away from Sara, then she is last seen weak trying to reach Patrick's car. She later wakes up in a deserted spot in the driver's seat and breaks down in tears thinking she ran Iván over. Then, it turns out Sara was the one both driving the car and the true culprit who caused Iván's accident, but instead of the cops she called Raúl who encouraged her to frame Mencia.
  • Roberta was revealed to have crossed it twice in season 7. She ordered the shooting at Las Encinas, full of innocent teenagers, then poisoning her own mare to make Dídac the guilty party. It doesn't help that she did all this to protect her daughter, just showing how far she'll go to get what she wants.
  • Martín also crosses the line when he hires some thugs to kill Catalina as to stop her from airing his dirty laundry.
• No Yay:
  • A quite large part of the fandom are against Valerio/Lu due to their incestuous relationship.
  • The whole Isadora and Phillipe relationship storyline is a big NO.
  • Marina and Nano’s relationship, the fact Marina is a minor and Nano is in his early twenties.
  • Ditto for Patrick and Cruz brief romantic storyline, it’s the fact Cruz is in his mid 30s and Patrick was a minor at the time. And most people were against it for some reason.
• One True Pairing: Ander and Omar for many fans being the most stable couple. Also Nadia and Guzman. See Fan-Preferred Couple. Carla and Samuel in spite (or likely because) of it being Dating Catwoman and subsequent Star-Crossed Lovers.
• One True Threesome:
  • Being a show with actually two canon threesomes, there is Christian/Carla/Polo in Season 1 and to a lesser degree Valerio/Cayetana/Polo in Season 3. Both have followings even if the former is actually more popular than the later. The former because many fans enjoyed the relationship between the three as Christian's influence helped Carla with her confidence and helped Polo embrace his bisexuality. While the later is due to the shared feeling of loneliness and because that bring Polo's humanity after have been a jerkass in Season 2.
  • Being a semi-canon one , Ander/Guzman/Polo is this having a longtime friendship and mostly because in 2.02 , they slept in the same bed after Marina's funeral with Polo and Ander who hooked up despite Guzman was next to them.
  • Both Nadia/Samuel/Christian and Nadia/Samuel/Rebeka as well though not as the same extent but have support being quite outcasts together at the beginning of Season 1 and Season 2 respectively.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Few examples:
  • Omar/Ander: Omander
  • Guzman/Nadia: Nuzman, Guznadia
  • Samuel/Carla: Carmuel, Samucarla
  • Polo/Cayetana: Cayepolo
  • Patrick/Ivan: Patrivan, Ivantrick
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Ari is clearly a one-dimensional substitute for Lu, Carla and Nadia. Her Alpha Bitch attitude is exaggerated to higher levels compared to Lu, lacks the charisma of Carla and while at first retaining Nadia's ability to be responsible, she fails to live up to any of these popular characters' personalities the audiences formerly rooted for.
  • Sara became this to Polo, as she ran over Ivan and her abusive boyfriend Raul covered up the crime. But Sara is clearly afraid of Raul, as he had something to use against her so she wouldn't leave him. And she doesn't actually do anything to stand up to him, nor does she take responsibility for Ivan's accident, while also behaving very ungrateful to the people who warned her about Raul. In season 7, she became one to Mencia, for obvious reasons.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Lucrecia was a huge Base-Breaking Character since Season 1 for different reasons: blackmailling her teacher solely to spite Nadia and manipulate her way to the top of the class, manipulating Guzman, throwing racist insults to Nadia, being a Shipping Torpedo between Nadia and Guzman... It's not helped in Season 2 due to her incestuous relationship with her half brother Valerio but in Season 3, she gains a lot of fans due to her Character Development and her newfound friendship with Nadia mainly.
  • Cayetana who was hated since her introduction in Season 2 for being a self-serving Con Artist who, despite her secret poverty, still looked down and participated in the bullying of the school's outcasts (namely Samuel and Rebeka) and ended up being a murder apologist (or Polo apologist) who ends up hiding the murder weapon to let Polo get away with the crime, and even still uses her possession of the murder weapon as leverage when she worries he'll eventually move on from their relationship. It was only during Season 4 when she gained a lot more sympathy once she finally loses her pathological obsession of upward mobility & wealthy priviledge and becomes a much more well-rounded character.
  • Nadia's father early on got flak mainly due to the Values Dissonance of his ultra-traditional Muslim values at times clashing heavily with his European-raised kid's desire for more freedom and especially his struggle to accept Omar's sexuality, but became much more sympathetic by the end of season 2 when he showed to be a comforting parent at their kid's (especially Nadia's) lowest moments and being a generally supportive and stable influence when the show otherwise is full of Adults Are Useless or manipulative parents, especially the wealthier ones who are often involved in quite shady business's that more often than not put's their children in harm's way.
  • Patrick in Season 5 as he received more depth than in his introduction in Season 4 as he was subject of conflict bewteen Omar and Ander and too reminescent of Valerio and Polo.
  • Carla has gotten better in season three, well due to defending Yeray from cyberbullying, and the best part is when she stood up to her father.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Easily Samuel/Marina/Nano in season 1, despite it being the main driver of the plot. Mainly Marina being a Type B Tsundere to Samuel, often teasing romance while secretly hooking up with Nano, which he initiated despite him clearly noticing his younger brother's interest (and for having purely selfish reasons for doing so in the first place). There were also many who found red flags with Marina having sex with Nano while not disclosing her HIV status, despite her medication making transmission a near-zero probability. Though it largely became this trope when their affair spiraled to the point where Marina routinely betrayed everyone close to her made both characters rather unsympathetic to a decent portion of the fanbase despite the the ultimately tragic outcome for them at the end of season 1.
  • The introduction of characters Malick and Yeray were particularly disliked because, for even the most basic Genre Savvy viewers, they came across like they existed solely to create romantic obstacles to the show's most popular pairings, though disdain was mainly reserved for Malick since it not only caused a wedge between Nadia/Guzman but turned into an outright Love Dodecahedron since it ended up involving the Omar/Ander ship as well, and making fan-favorite Omar look worse in the process.
  • Nearly every love triangle in the fourth season was viewed as this, for some a major indicator of the show's Seasonal Rot.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Guzmán can be this to some viewers, as he was willing to take Nadia's virginity for a bet, even though he later developed real feelings for her, outed Omar to Nadia, and revealed his illegal drug selling and his classist attitude toward Samuel, which is taken to a new level in season 4 when they both compete for Ari's affection. It says a lot when you remember they became best friends when the truth about who killed his sister came out.
  • Surprisingly enough, Ander. While he was nice to the new students, he knew about Polo killing Marina, but instead chose to keep his mouth shut and still allowed his best friend to think it was Samuel's brother who did it and torment him relentlessly in his misguided quest for revenge. This makes him a hypocrite when he furiously tells Polo that Guzmán deserves to know the truth and gave him an ultimatum: talk to Guzmán himself or he would. Yet he doesn't have the courage to do so when asked by Guzmán. Even if he knew their friendship would be ruined, staying quiet didn't justify it.
  • Everyone views Ari as a ‘bitch’ and a ‘slüt’ for messing up with her relationships and her reckless behavior in three seasons, she gets treated as a Die for Our Ship with the Samuel/Carla, Guzman/Nadia & Patrick/Ivan shippers.
  • Contrast to Polo as he was viewed as Draco in Leather Pants, Samuel got it really bad in season three when he starts bullying and harassing Polo along with Guzman in addition to selling out Rebeka's mother to the police.
  • Marina is not much meaner than Lucrecia and Carla, but she was demonized by fans by her irresponsible, selfish and careless behavior such as making Nano stealing Carla’s dad’s watch, being ungrateful to her family, throwing Samuel under the rug and causing trouble to everyone she knows.
  • Sara is clearly having a hard time getting actually liked by viewers, going from being a social media nuisance, to not having the balls to leave Raúl and defending him to everyone who's concerned about her (which is close to making her a Raúl apologist), to even manipulating poor Iván when she won't own up to running him over and being totally fine with letting Mencía take the heat for it. Heck, Sara was even being ungrateful to Jessica, who was in a similar situation. She gives her useful advice but this girl continually spat in her face!
• Seasonal Rot: The fourth season is this for a large amount of fans. It's due to the departure of many characters of the first three seasons who were quite beloved, and for many the replacements just felt like less-appealing carbon copys of the departures, not helped by the lack of friendship content between the remaining original cast. Not helping either was also the degrading of the hard-fought Character Development of the original cast (especially Guzman and Samuel), the sheer amount of sex scenes and gratuitous plot twists as well as the main driving plot being sidelined by the romance-driven storylines (Samuel/Ari/Guzman, Rebeka/Mencia, Omar/Patrick/Ander and Phillip/Cayetana).
  • Season 6 got hit with these even harder, due to all the original cast now gone and the total emphasis on "shocking turns" over a driving plot in general, as well as many contrived subplots that felt lifted not only out of past seasons but entirely out of other shows as well.
• The Scrappy:
  • The teacher Martín, in the first season, is far from likeable for imprudently and indirectly making Marina reveal her HIV positive status in front of the entire class when he caught Samuel texting his brother and asked Nadia to read what he was writing out loud. Also, he handled very poorly being bribed by Lu, in exchange of adopting a child, so he could give her the top score over Nadia.
  • Malick and Yeray got a lot of hate by fans due to Carla/Samuel and Omar/Ander splitting up, but Malick is even worse because he cheated on Nadia with her brother and it destroyed their relationship completely.
  • Since her introduction, Ari has been harshly hit with this due to her unpleasant attitude towards the main characters - her sister Mencía included. She also had a tendency of defending her father's overtly strict actions as the new school principal regardless of the objections of their classmates, not even caring that Samuel and Omar - the two remaining scholarship students - had to take a hard reassessment exam to prove that they deserved their place at Las Encinas. She also shamelessly accused Cayetana of being a golddigger (given her previous actions as a con artist and fraud history) when she saw her talking to Phillipe, who actually didn't mind her poor background at all. However, fans were mostly angered by the fact that the writers were attempting to make her a cheap copy of Lucrecia and Carla and that she had played with Samuel and Guzmán's feelings for her - nearly ruining their friendship in the process - not to mention that she publicly humiliated Samuel in front of the entire school by bringing up his brother's criminal past during a debate that coincidentally happened to be about the reintegration of prisoners. She gets worse by the fifth season when she starts becoming more reckless and irresponsible (drinking a lot and dragging Samuel out of class for them to have sex), in contrast to her Academic Alpha Bitch self from its predecessor. And then it gets even better in the Season 6 premiere, when she makes transphobic comments towards Nico (even gaslighting him and calling him “woke” when he calls her out on it) and has the gall to keep on defending her father...after he killed Samuel and she was there to witness it! Mencía is quick to call her out on that. Not to mention the time she had sex with her brother’s boyfriend. She just keeps endearing herself to fans more and more.
  • Benjamín is also loathed by the fans since he takes over as the school's new principal, severely criticizing his abilities to discipline the students, as well as doing a very poor job as a parent to his own children Patrick, Ari and Mencía. His first act as principal is to give Samuel and Omar, the only students on a scholarship, a hard assessment to test to prove their worth. He acts as both a Parental Substitute and Reasonable Authority Figure to Samuel, only to show his true colors by leaving Samuel to rot in jail after he takes the fall for Guzmán, his friend and the true culprit behind Armando's murder, despite earlier promising that he would bail him out, all to save his own ass and prevent his dirty laundry from being aired. Even the new measures he imposes towards the students are just pointless: tracking them down outside of the premises, drug testing them and having one expelled on everyone's behalf? Come on, man, just give them a break! And the worse part? Benjamín murders poor Samuel in an attempt to shut him up when he's about to report him to the police and keeps on insisting it was an accident. So, Benjamín predictably gets charged for manslaughter and arrested. But hold, this doesn't end right here. Once we're introduced to season 6, Benjamín is still in jail for what he did to Samuel and has the gall to ask his children to testify on his behalf for him to be pleaded not guilty of the crime. Of course, since Ari still defends her father until the day he is gone from this world, she doesn't hesitate to agree, but Mencía and Patrick will not be fooled by his emotional blackmail. The plan is dropped after Ari is made to see the truth about Samuel's death, deciding not to go through with the trial. However, Iván's accident, which Mencía was framed for by Sara and Raúl (not knowing they set her up), ends up forcing Ari to turn to Benjamín for help in covering her tracks. And basically the man who finally got what he deserved has the charges against him dropped and gets to quietly walk out free and move to another country, taking his children with him to start over.
• Ship Mates:
  • Ander/Omar and Nadia/Guzman shippers get along mostly because Omar and Nadia being siblings and Ander and Guzman best friends.
  • Nuzman shippers and Carmuel shippers as well.
  • By extent the three mentioned ships are this all together.
• Squick:
  • Ugh, Talk about in season two where Valerio and Lucrecia having sex despite BOTH of them are siblings!
  • Carmen also almost having sex with Iván (while imagining him as his father Cruz), her own son, while both are high on drugs, is a complete YUCK. Chloe as well, who is his sister.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Even though she tried to get away with breaking the school's zero-tolerance drug use policy, it was bold for Marina to threaten Martin to reveal his bribery deal with Lucrecia to Azucena. Near the end of the first season, Samuel violently attacks Martin, mistakenly assuming he's the father of Marina's baby, before Nadia names him as the culprit behind Lu's unethical scheme to get the top score. Azucena fires him for this.
  • Polo bravely standing up to Lucrecia by telling her how actually no one really likes her comes off as awesome after how she blew her poor treatment of Nadia out of proportion by posting the porn video of her and Guzman.
  • When Benjamín accidentally injures Samuel, who appeared to be dying, a tearful Ari tries to join Rebeka and Omar who tend to him, only for her to be pushed away by Omar. Justified that he understandably recoiled because, as stated above, Ari wasn't well-liked since her introduction.
  • Benjamín also gets a well-deserved commeuppance for attacking Samuel as Rebeka angrily punches him in the face for what he did to him before getting arrested. Before that, Omar even threatened Benjamín if Samuel didn't make it out alive.
  • Mencía subtly roasting Sara for blatantly bringing up her father on social media, Patrick tossing her phone on purpose for making fun of him, Dídac telling her she's done enough harm to Isadora and Chloe putting her in her place for using her infamous sexual reputation to her advantage, clearly highlights the hatred of the fans who were put off by her Double Standard behavior to Isadora and Chloe, and acting immature and ungrateful and spitting on people's faces (even Mencía) whenever she's reached out to for advice about leaving Raúl.
  • The three guys who killed Cruz got arrested.
  • To those who don't like Marina, it was satisfying enough that Polo killed her in the season one finale, given by her reckless and careless actions.
  • Raul is a unlikable douche who abuses Sara, so no one would be sad or crying when Carmen killed him at the end of season 7.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In the fourth, fifth and sixth season of ELITE. The new characters were disliked by most fans, and the plot hasn't been the same.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • In the first season, having Samuel, Christian and Nadia as the new scholarship students being ostracized and bullied but they don't really band together except in the first episode having their own storylines with other characters. It would have been interesting if the writers would have created a bond between all of three having Black Sheep status in the wealthy school Las Encinas.
  • The fourth season when it came to Azucena being sacked off as principal and replaced by Benjamín. After that, she is just Demoted to Extra and is rarely seen with Ander and Omar, especially the latter whom she comforts after he and Ander break up. It could've been something to see Azucena struggling to get a new job, although this never came to be since both Ander and Guzmán were Put on a Bus on the finale.
  • A very common complaint with the newer seasons was that the friendship dynamics between the remaining original characters was scarcely shown. The short centered around Cayetana, Rebeka, and Guzman was lauded by fans for the interesting and entertaining interactions, and many felt that it was completely out of character for both Samuel and Guzman to throw their friendship away over a girl they just met.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Most of the fans felt bad for Polo because he's been bullied and harassed by Samuel during season three. Yes it was wrong of Polo for killing Marina even though she deserved to be punished, but Samuel and Guzman took it way too far by bullying him in the process.
  • While Guzmán's petty selfish behavior towards the scholarship students, especially Samuel, is unfair, it is also partly justified because his sister Marina got infected with HIV by Pablo, who was a scholarship student himself, and he didn't want a similar a incident to happen. Even though he held an misplaced grudge against Samuel, whom he blamed for Marina's death, it's still not hard to feel bad for him for all the crap he has gone through after that.
  • Lucrecia is an asshole, but in season two, you can't really blame her for Guzman cheating on her with Nadia. If it wasn't so terrible enough, her so called "friend" Cayetana LIED to her about who she is and Carla growing much more distant, it becomes a bit more understandable Lu losing some common sense when she lacks any real support system.
  • Chloe is no saint at all. But her reasoning of her behavior because her mother is implied to be neglectful towards her, plus she doesn’t have any support from anyone at all. Also, she was painted as a jerk and a whore by all the students after the video of her and Raul making out. So, it’s hard to view her as a bad guy.
  • Eric also can be a bit of a jerk and also a coward for not stopping the police from arresting Rocío, but he's far from being considered a bad person because of how he wants to end his self-destructive personality to bond with his cousin Nico, who clearly looks up to him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Marina. While her murder was absolutely undeserved, many fans found her hard to sympathize with due to her stringing Samuel along while secretly sleeping with Nano (culminating in her getting pregnant with his baby and not only lying to Samuel about who the father was, but fully intending to run away with Nano), in addition to stealing from Carla's father and lying about it. Interestingly enough, she's viewed as this in universe, with many characters in Seasons 1 and 2 criticizing all of the horrible decisions she made.
  • Guzmán. While he deeply loves Marina and his friends, and forms an endearing relationship and friendship with Nadia and Samuel, many found his initial bigotry towards the scholarship students, his violent tendancies, and the bet he made with Lucrecia to be problematic aspects that were swept under the rug. The backlash only grew worse in Season 2, when Guzman not only refused to entertain the possibility that Samuel may be right about Polo's guilt, but cheated on Lucrecia with Nadia. In Season 3, many also found his (and Samuel's) harrassment campaign against Polo to be taking things too far.
  • Carla in Season 2. While her breakup with Polo was totally justified and she convinced him to cover up Marina's murder, the latter one is mostly for her own benefit so her family's reputation wouldn't get destroyed, so she displays little to no concern for Polo's wellbeing and belittles his trauma over it and the only times she ever turns to him is to get updates on Samuel's investigation against them, thus leaving Polo to suffer alone, to the point of even sexually assaulting him while coercing him into turning himself in to the police without selling her out as well. Luckily for him, Cayetana (who is no less of a saint) at least is the one who does care about how Polo is doing, not that it justifies her also covering up the crime.
  • Rebeka becomes this in season 3. Yes, her anger at Samuel for selling her mother out to the police and leaving her without a cent to her name was totally reasonable, but she not only ignored that Samuel did it under the belief it would exonerate Nano of Marina's murder, but also took it out on Carla by selling her molly out of pure spite and entitled jealousy for her crush on Samuel. She immediately regrets it, though.
  • We are supposed to root for Sara due to the abuse on her relationship with Raúl and Mencía sticking up for her. However, fans had stopped sympathizing with her after she turned out to be the real culprit behind Iván's accident and allowed poor Mencía to take the rap for it, especially when encouraged by Raúl, yes the very first person she called instead of turning to the cops.
  • Cayetana in Seasons 2 and 3. While it's understandable that she would want to fit in at Las Encinas - especially given the students' less than welcoming attitudes towards lower class students, she not only lied about her entire backstory and social class, but she constantly mocked and dismissed her mother due to her job as one of the school's janitors. She also not only colluded with Polo in hiding the trophy that killed Marina, she even told Rebeka she would be better off in jail with her mother after her arrest.
  • Samuel in season three. We were meant root for him instead of Polo, but many found his (and Guzman's) harrasment campaign against Polo to be taking things too far, finding his anger at Azucena about his expulsion to be a case of Never My Fault rather than a warranted complaint. Many also criticized him for making Rebe go broke and temporarily homeless due to selling out her mother to the police. Also, Samuel lashes out to Azucena after getting expelled from school, the fans has to sided with Polo on this.
  • Sara hits this again in season 7, yes we were meant to feel sorry for her. But for the two seasons, she was refusing to leave Raul before he got murdered. The worst thing that she has done is when she filmed Chloe and Raul making out, then victimizing herself for all the actions that she did. Sara failed to make her fans win over her.
  • Ivan, yes he is The Woobie who lost his father in the sixth season and for everything he has gone through. But he could also counts this for the way he treated Patrick throughout the season by cheating on Patrick with Ari, he treated him like dirt especially blaming him for his father’s death, also he was being incredibly dismissive to Patrick while he’s grieving and being very depressed. So yeah, according to most viewers, it was still wrong for the way that he acted.
  • While Isadora earned a lot of sympathy over her rapists getting to walk free everyday, however, she falls into this in season 7 when her role as the owner of Isadora's House goes to her head, especially when she signs papers approving the eviction of a building supposedly in a bad state scheduled to be wrecked. Dídac is not happy with this, let alone with Isadora kicking out into the street poor people who clearly can't afford housing, which is the case of Omar, Joel and Dalmar, who happen to live in said building. Even though Isadora backed out of the whole thing, it was very out of character for her to do that.
  • Once again in season 7, Isadora. She doesn't take it well when she finds out that Dídac is working with the police to put her parents behind bars. And even if Dídac said it was the only way for them to be together and stop the war between their families (and Isadora's parents would stop blaming Dídac for things that weren't absolutely his fault), Isadora firmly states that she won't betray the people she loves. She is aware of her parents' large crime history, but turning a blind eye and keep letting them do whatever they want just because they are her parents clearly doesn't help matters. Rocío even calls out her friend's hypocrisy in standing for justice when she tells her about her mother's corruption.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Samuel, the main character, got hit with this early on, mainly because in contrast to the other scholarship students he lacked Christian's humor and charisma and Nadia's supreme intelligence and compelling Culture Clash struggle, and came across like a relatively bland protagonist in comparison. Especially after Marina's death, which from then on seemed to base his whole personality as The Determinator.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Called a teen drama, the series has plenty of blood, explicit sex and a much heavier atmosphere than what is usually asked from a teen aimed media. Values Dissonance with Spanish culture might be to blame.
• Why Would Anyone Take Her Back?: Many of the fans felt that Ari was quickly Easily Forgiven by Guzmán and Samuel, who started a relationship with her at the beginning of Season 5, even after she had played with his and Guzmán's feelings (at the point of almost ruining their friendship), mostly when the latter was kept in the dark about this and did not take it really well after finding out.
• Win Back the Crowd: While it wasn't exactly as well-received like its three predecessors, Season 7 definitely qualifies. Out of the new characters, Chloe and her mother Carmen were the best interesting ones because of their strained relationship. Chloe is especially seen as a better improved replacement to former badass snarky female characters (like Lu and Rebeka). So far, the finale is the considered the best episode of the season for its tension and unexpected twists. These aspects clearly sparked back the interest in season 1-3 fans, who feel the show managed to go back its roots and experience a revival of such unforgettable events they have seen before.
• The Woobie:
  • Samuel clearly went through so many losses ever since he enrolled at Las Encinas. Marina, the girl he loved and the first one to be romantically involved with, is killed by Polo, his brother Nano goes from being framed for her murder to leaving town, to once again getting arrested after the police lied to Samuel about freeing him through a deal, to not returning at all once his name is cleared, his friend Christian is hospitalized (possibly never able to walk again), his mother leaves too, and Carla, his other love interest, also leaves for college to London, even after how hard they fought to be finally together despite her father's open disapproval. Even his best friend Guzman, who initially disliked him and later attacked him for his brother supposedly murdering his sister, left as well. At least he still had Rebeka and Omar, but boy did life dealt him hard blows. And to put a nail on the coffin, he is sadly killed by Benjamin, his girlfriend Ari's dad and the new principal (ouch), before he could complete his senior year at the school. Yes, he made some bad unforgivable decisions (i.e. bullying Polo with ZERO remorse, leaving Rebeka penniless and so on), but fans agree that he didn't deserve to die like that.
  • Ander. His storylines made him this, especially in season three when he was dealing with leukemia, this guy needs a hug.
  • Omar. The poor guy just can't catch a break. He is a closeted gay who's in love with Ander but afraid to come out to his parents because of their conservative beliefs, and is especially yelled at and neglected by his father seeing him as nothing but an embarrasment compared to his hard-working sister. Nonetheless, he has become accepting of his son's sexuality. It gets worse once he enrolls at Las Encinas. His best friend Samuel is killed by Benjamin and he is unable to move on even though he is attending college, having PTSD episodes from the tragedy and growing resentful at the school that took his friend away from him. He even gets cheated on by his new boyfriend Joel, with Iván of all people. You simply want to give him a hug for everything he has gone through.
  • Christian, only after he is ran over by Carla's father to keep him quiet about Marina's murder, never to be seen again after he is shipped off to Switzerland.
  • Mencia is clearly this, she was blamed for her mother's death, she was the Black Sheep of the family, Armando has been sexually abusing her and he nearly killing her older sister, Ari. On top of that, she was also blamed for Ivan's accident and Sara didn't take responsibility of it. So, she's really a sad character to watch.
  • If she wasn't so bad enough, Isadora, who was raped by three guys at her Ibiza party. It gets worse for her in season six that she was suffering from anxiety and her fans turned on her for lying about her sexual assault because of it.
  • Iván. His father Cruz, whose only crime was being gay, is killed in the cruelest way possible, and becomes embittered and resentful, blaming Patrick for the deed. Then, he is accidentally ran over by Sara and almost dies. Fortunately, he pulls through and gets better. However, Patrick left with his family to another country after Mencia was framed by Sara and Raul, and starts missing him. While no longer depressed, Ivan hasn't still fully moved on and decides to apply for a South African exchange program to start fresh. Then, his birth mother Carmen shows out of nowhere and only wants Cruz's money, despite her daughter Chloe, also his sister, insisting he be left alone. Carmen even almost had sex with him (while imagining him as Cruz) and she avoids him. When the truth comes out, Ivan is too disappointed to be even mad at her, deciding she's dead to him and simply giving her the money she wanted before leaving for the program.
  • Poor Dídac ends up in the middle of his family's feud with Isadora's, gets almost expelled when the shooting ordered by her mother takes places and is unfairly blamed for things that were the fault of his family, and repeatedly states he wants nothing to do with them.
  • Rocío, whose mother is a judge under Isadora's father's payroll, keeps lying to her about being corrupt and doing shady business with him. Their arguments don't help either.