>>150049995
Also, comparing Star Wars to Avatar: ROTJ puts over Sheev in a way that Book 3 completely fails to do with Ozai. Palpy is spectacular in ROTJ with his limited screentime. From the minute he walks down the shuttle ramp on the Death Star he oozes malice and dark power. Ian McDiarmid, the costuming, John Williams' score--it all works perfectly, and within seconds, we believe in Palpatine as the Evil Overlord's Evil Overlord. With the Emperor you need to believe that this guy could boss Darth Vader around, and Sheev absolutely DOES have that feel. You DO believe in him as Vader's boss.

By contrast, Ozai's flatness as a character, and frankly, how boring he is, never makes him seem like the kind of person who's above Azula in menace. He doesn't even have blue flames like she does, which visually tags him as 'inferior' to Azula, not as special as she is. And he doesn't really have any memorable lines or memorable scenes. We never get the feeling that this guy could credibly boss Azula around. Quite the contrary: as was said earlier, it's Azula who feels like SHE could boss HIM around, hence the belief that a bait-and-switch was coming.