Things to keep in mind-
1) El was designed to be a controversial character. I’m saying this as someone who, for better or worse, shares many of Edelgard’s personality traits. In real life, as in the game, calling out people’s hypocrisy, challenging moral truisms, and being a somewhat persnickety, arrogant, and distant person does not endear you to a number of people. That’s not even getting into the fact she’s consequentialist who believes the ends justify the means. Hell, Edelgard doesn’t even like herself.
2) In a game like this, where she’s the antagonist for three/four routes, Dimitri, Claude and Rhea fans will likely have a negative view of her. Like, I’m sure if you took a poll, more people would have a favorable view of Claude than Edelgard. However, that really doesn’t define popularity-passion does. The people who support Edelgard, similar to Camilla (who’s popular for completely different reasons, but the point applies) really are passionate about her. I’m sure most people would say they have a favorable view of Raphael, but does that mean Raphael is popular? Not at all.
3) Who is vocal is not necessarily an accurate picture of how people feel-I did a post on how I believe the bandit raid was to get Jeritza installed as the house professor. I got blasted hard in the comments, in the sub, and in PMs for weeks afterward. You would think it was widely despised-but it actually got 1.6K upvotes. I’m not saying this to brag, but point out that the vast majority of people read it, went “oh cool”, and moved on with their day. Similarly, many people played CF-which is still the most popular route looking at the online data-and moved on with their lives. Captain Marvel made a billion dollars, and yet there’s a cottage industry of angry people who act like her movie was widely panned and a failure.
4) She’s a woman. The general FE fanbase is just awful toward female characters. It’s the truth. Lucina’s “flat” jokes, Micaiah’s being a Mary Sue (somehow), and so on and so on. Really, you know you’ve made it as a FE female character when you attract this type of attention. No one is writing angry forum posts about Eyvel or Igrene (and if they do, I’ll be very salty, lol)
5) I’m mentioning this as friendly advice. It doesn’t matter whether El is actually the least popular character in the game. She matters to you-and nothing can take that away from you. Don’t let some angry people on the Internet ruin something you find comfort or meaning in. If you allow your enjoyment to be ruined every time you see a person spouting nonsense about how Edelgard is a Nazi persecuting Rhea, who’s a metaphor for the Jews (that was on the FEH sub yesterday, lol) you’ll go nuts. It’s a natural desire to want a character you like to be appreciated by others- I want to scream at most of the discourse-but in the end, all that matters, really, is that YOU like her. I’ve been playing this series for a long time-I’m never going to appreciate a character as much as El, and I don’t give a crap if the entire fanbase considers her to be the second coming of FE4’s Hilda. To see a character capture my own feelings of alienation, abandonment, and anger, without sugarcoating the dark side of it, while still allowing her to be a hero is, and was, insanely meaningful. Nothing will ever take that away.