Does the ease with which humans are manipulated to become complacent explain some of the hatred the interlopers have for humans in general?

This is very true. The extraterrestrials look down their noses at human beings and one of the main reasons is they are inferior with respect to intelligence. When this is coupled with their ability to be readily manipulated through mind control, they are inevitably seen by the extraterrestrials as inferior, limited beings, and as weaklings because they cannot resist. That is the depraved perspective of an interloper seeking power and control to manipulate another race of sentient beings. This is also in keeping with the fact that being loveless, they see loving gestures, loving thoughts, and loving perspectives as a form of weakness. They have no use for it because they do not even understand it. They see it as a kind of self-indulgent fantasy that serves no purpose and is, in fact, a kind of defect. So they have multiple reasons to have a lack of respect for human beings and their capabilities—they are frail, they are disease-prone, and they are short-lived compared to the extraterrestrial makeup. Their intellectual development is vastly inferior due to the very, very young span of the human culture as well as to an early subjugation through a manipulation of the mind to dumb people down and dim their perceptions. So even though it is to a large extent caused by extraterrestrials, the meager capabilities of human compared to the ETs themselves, even though induced defects, are seen as a reason to look on humans with loathing.