Oh, that's interesting. You're saying that if I know a character really deeply, even a minor change feels big; but if the character is really just a stereotype ("haughty blonde"), then the change needs to be huge for the audience to feel it. Makes sense!
Exactly. And after a while, stories where characters aren't really developed but they're zapped to be completely mindless drones get old.
I wished more stories had less powerful mind control and we saw the subjects aware of the changes, fighting against the effects of a conditioning that goes strickly against who they are. Too many are about superficial characters becoming obedient slaves in the matter of paragraphs.