You are absolutely right on both accounts.
The show totally cherry picks from the novel, but it is so as to craft a new version, rather than just backport; as is a good fair tradition for the folktales and myths of China being taken into new incarnations and retold over and over into new shapes to both remain fresh and new to those who know older adaptations, and to reach new people, generation after generation getting to enjoy the tales of the Great Sage Equal To Heaven. And even further so for LMK seeing it isn't an adaptation at all or even a continuation, but rather a work inspired by the characters and ideas of the novel, but rather a full on reinvention in a very different time.
To go back to the point of the use of the novel to backport justifications; it to me feels like trying to use for example, the Injustice version of Superman, who is internally coherent in his own story and specific tale and follows on it's ideas from the premise (even if we can totally disagree with it) to craft that specific variant, to then argue that all versions of Superman are just one really bad evil plot away from snapping and becoming an evil dictator in the name of forcing down peace on everyone, when that flies against the characterization and stories of hundreds of Superman tales and variants through time.
Attempting to do that to any of the characters of LMK just...it just feels wrong for the same reason to me. The novel shouldn't be used to shame on the canonical LMK Wukong, nor to cast doubt into his connection with his version of the Pilgrims he visibly cherished and still cherishes warts and all, or to try to break the DBK and PIF romance, and so on. Especially not coming fresh from Season 5; where we even learn the world can and has been destroyed and reborn countless times, and yet MK and the groups risked it all, even the potential doom of the Great Cycle, because this is the world and the specific version of the people they have learned to cherish from the bottom of their hearts; and so it can be for us, knowing of the many retellings, and yet loving and enjoying this or many specific of them, on a personal level because they are the ones that have touched us.
Finally on the aspect of the victimization. I am a firm believer that one of the most complicated elements of the relationship between both Macaque and Wukong, is that both have victimized one another in different accounts in different ways; out of, well, them just being young when they met likely and then never learning to better their issues, and having their bond stress tested with a war alongside many long festering problems from before leading it to detonate as it did, and then keep exploding further down the line. It certainly is my wish for Season 6, to address all the complexities it has, and also to indeed all the wrongs unaccounted, both between themselves, but also with others (and Macaque has a very much quite larger debt to pay there by far. I do suspect something is up there in what I think is a very disturbing way, but that is a different matter). And I think the writers do acknowledge it, as why they cut off the attempt between both to reach out at the almost end of the world: because there is too much to get into for it to be fixed by a handhold and they should get to it in an environment not pushed along by the pressure of imminent death. It just wouldn't be fair to anyone at all to do that, especially with the next season being set to fully engage with it, after two seasons fully invested into identity and memories and the secrets of the past and how it made the people around into who they are.
I admit my view on the fandom is somewhat limited, as I arrived to it quite late; after season 4, and thus further skewed in my favor by knowing actively of all revealed in-between, of the mutual harm and pain done from both accounts (even if not evenly of course, as said, Macaque's debt count is bigger). But this is to me, it always has been, the centerpiece of how love and pain are so interlocked together, which also heavily ties into Wukong's arc of learning that he deserves to be loved, just because, not because he is useful and fixes problems, with and without errors and failures, being or not the strongest; that he isn't just a living, not weapon, but shield, who has to eat the hits from anything to keep all others behind him and safe, the last (monkey)man standing on who everything has to ride by the end always. That he should allow others to just love him as it is, because they choose to.
The fandom can certainly do it's own takes then, yes, and maybe they manage to do something else that is engaging too, I can even enjoy it on the side as a snack or on it's own merit separately in my case, while I keep it separate from the series...but the show itself, I do hope it keeps speaking to me by doing as said above, with all the love it has for it's story and characters.
And...that's it, I think...
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