Some months late for this thread, but meh, whatever. I didn't want to make a dupe thread. As to who is my favorite character (I'm not using the keyword hero as there are no heroes in this series), Sasuke is one of my all-time favorite characters of this series. Not only my all-time favorite character but he's pretty much the only good thing that came from that atrocious squad that is Team 7. I'm for real here, he's far more interesting than the majority of the characters in this series. Especially after he left the village. Whenever he got an arc to himself, the series felt like a proper Shonen manga. While Naruto was going through some boring training arcs or showing up at the last minute in Shikamaru's revenge arc, Sasuke was beating major villains like Orochimaru, assembling his own team, killing two Akatsuki members, freeing prisoners, etc. People can hate him, and bash him for all I care, but at least he's acting like a true protagonist unlike Naruto Uzumaki.
At the same time, he's also like the antithesis of the series. He didn't care about “bond”, everyone whined about loneliness, Naruto especially, he coped with it well. Everyone lived for their village, he wanted to destroy it. He didn't want any home or any friends. The fandom keeps forcing their cheesy “happiness”, “family”, “papasuke” “bond” expectations on him, and he's still saying no. This is my favourite thing about Sasuke, he hated everything the series tried to preach.
But too bad he's a main character and Naruto's best friend, and there's never a chance he could be a fully fledged villain. And too bad he had to accept the nonsensical Talk no Jutsu just like everyone else. Well, I guess it never mattered, because most characters, if not all, had no conviction in this series, not even the major villains.