Here's the bottom line, Sasuke is an avenger, he chose his path, and I truly respect him for his willingness to do anything to reach his goal. So, why the backlash? It isn't his fault that the HOKAGE sent our favourite characters after him, and that they are getting killed.

Sure, having people die for him is hurting me (I love Chouji and rest damn it), and I -really- don't see why Tsunade even bothered sending a team to chase after Sasuke when it should be pretty obvious that -these- children aren't gonna stand a chance.

I don't hate Sasuke, I may be highly annoyed and even angered that some of my fav characters are probably dead, but I don't hate Sasuke. I do, however, think it is not worth the sacrifice going after Sasuke when the boy has already DECIDED to go to Orochimaru.

YES. Decided. Free will. You know, decisions that impact on an individual’s life based on his/her own choices.

So, I don't see why the hate should be coming from the deaths, as for the other reasons... Sasuke is not a whinny little, stupid, snot-nosed kid. Sasuke is an angry, probably at times borderline insane -child- who is trying to fulfill a goal that will likely destroy him. But Sasuke doesn't care, because to Sasuke, his chance at a normal life ended when Itachi decided to massacre their clan.

So, Sasuke has to be strong, and cut all emotions, except the anger, the hate, and the determination to kill Itachi. Except Fate is a bitch and the best-laid plans never survive beyond the planning stage. Instead Sasuke meets his Team, and somewhere along the way realised 'Hey, I have way more emotions than I thought I did.'

And somehow (because Naruto, by existing, changes people, and Sakura loves him unconditionally), somewhere along the way he began to care. Not only that, Sasuke began to hope, to hope that it might be okay to have a life outside of anger and hate, because he has his 'precious people' to protect now. Not saying that Sasuke doesn't want to kill Itachi anymore, it's just that maybe he can become strong at his own pace, try the normal way, learn the chidori, and becoming stronger with Naruto, because hey, Naruto exists for Sasuke to measure against, to be -stronger- against, to protect.

See, this would have been fine except Naruto is the MAIN character, and Naruto is STRONGER than Sasuke now. You know what they say, when it rains it pours. So, Itachi, the cold reality, comes along and completely destroy Sasuke, demolish the little bit of healthy, normal living that Sasuke had began to build, and Sasuke realises.

Our little avenger realises that there was no way in hell that he can beat Itachi the normal way. Never. And really, what the fuck has he being thinking about, why the fuck has he been wasting his time? Reality isn't nice, and Sasuke got a wake up call. Somewhere along the way Naruto became so much more powerful than Sasuke, to the extend that maybe Sasuke can't catch up to anymore, at least not in the normal way, and if Dead Last Naruto, his rival has left him so far behind, and his brother can throw him around like a rag doll, what the hell was one emotionally screwed, psychologically fucked up kid meant to do?

Orochimaru enters stage left. The snake can give everything to Sasuke. Power, power, power. So much power that Sasuke can kill his brother, and hey, who cares what happens afterwards? Sasuke never planned to live beyond Itachi anyway. So Sasuke makes a decision, Sasuke chooses his vengeance over his precious people, Sasuke chooses Itachi over Naruto and Sakura, and seriously people, were any of you surprised?