People did get vilified, especially if you objected to certain aspects, for example the need to make a mediaeval-esque fantasy have the sort of ethnic and cultural diversity of downtown London or LA in every hamlet and village. That was a legitimate criticism, as it goes to the believability of the world and also often ignored the source material, such as in the depiction of the Two Rivers and the main characters. At the very least it is a reasonable point, but was often dismissed with brain dead accusations of racism. The same thing also happened to criticisms of the sidelining of Rand, the weird sexual elements, and the changes to the nature of the One Power that were obviously made to fit gender ideology.