I want my villain to gradually shift from being nice to eventually being emotionally and physically abusive, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing this. If anyone could provide resources and tips, I would really appreciate it. I want to be as respectful and accurate as possible. Anything helps!
Unfortunately, I tried to wrangle something like this but even with my own experiences, the story wasn't happening because at the time I couldn't fathom how the people who abused me can think, perceive the world, real motivations, etcetera. I'll get to that later.
First, less how they think and more what they do, there are two models we can look at:
The Duluth model was codified from the testimonies of 200 domestic violence victims in Duluth, Minnesota by a domestic abuse intervention project.
This wheel of power and control looks like a pizza, with each "slice" showing tactics or applicability. Isolation, for example, is a tactic—an abusive partner would often imply that the target's support system outside of that abuser is wrong and bad unless that "support system" sides with the abusive person each time. But something like financial abuse or sexual abuse is more like how the tactics apply to parts of the abuse target's life—so, for example, I don't often see "sleep deprivation" in the wheel, but it is something common that also happens in abusive relationships; or overbearing on how the target of abuse eats or what they dress like.
If two people were equally empowered like, "I don't like your substance-addicted friend who reminds me of my abusive druggie father, so I'll leave the room and rather not be invited to group outings where that friend is going to be" then it's not necessarily isolation—the person in between can navigate an in-between of supporting a friend through recovery and not retraumatizing their partner, and not really have to "choose", because of having that freedom and power. If it was more like "you are a bad judge of character, so cut your druggie friend out of your life because I said so and I know what's better for you, and I'll cry and throw things if you say you won't do it, and I'll beat you up if I find out that you did hang out with them anyway" then that's isolation because the power is shifting from the demanding partner's own choice to distance…shifting from that, to the target's choice of friends, the target having less choice now because of intimidation or manipulation.
Similarly, equally-empowered friends can give each other snacks or fashion tips…but if it's like, "What, you're not drinking at this party? What's wrong with you?" "You can't be vegetarian, I'll chop this chicken breast into your salad and tell you it's tofu" "nobody eats pie with a fork, you're weird" "I'll keep making you casseroles so that you keep eating and you'll gain wait so I look better walking beside you", "Your sleeves are too long and doesn't make you look like the rest of us in this friend group, we'll tease you about it and treat you mean until you change your style", "That's my signature fabric and you aren't allowed to wear it too," …then you can see a shift in power that isn't necessarily abusive, but it can get there.
Take the "nobody eats pie with a fork, you're weird" example and compare the response of 'that's an unusual and incorrect opinion' to what the response would be if that turned into "nobody eats pie with a fork, I think you're weird, and I won't stop saying so until you internalize shame, and then I'll hide all the forks so that you can't use forks because I don't like that you do that".
There are abusive actions, and there are abusive relationship dynamics.
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Dr. Lenore Walker theorized "the Cycle of Violence" after interviewing 1,500 domestic violence survivors in 1979.
This is an unhealthy pattern of relationship in which there's a "honeymoon phase" of a relationship when things are going well, and a "violence" phase of a relationship that isn't a reasonable debate or fight but rather immature lashing out at a so-called 'loved one's (or so-called 'loved ones') who happens to be there.
In-between is post-abuse bargaining, that isn't like a healthy relationship talk-it-out-and-compromise. The original conflict was (in a way) manufactured, as in there was nothing substantial from the relationship that caused the conflict—so there's no way to grow or develop as people within that relationship. It's really only spinning their wheels until the next episode of violence, whether that's verbal or physical.
Some hindrances I find to truly understanding why abusers abuse:
A. A basic sense of how other living humans perceive the world or have feelings, is in the back of our mind all the time and reflects back to the average person.
If this is how your mind works, then if you were relaxing on a sofa and somebody you lived and had an amicable relationship with walked right into a table corner in your line of sight/hearing—then, the "sensor of other people's feelings" would usually override your physical response: Maybe you'd almost-involuntarily jump up, say, "Oh no! Are you okay?!?" And if you saw their shin scraped bloody from the table corner then you might even scream softly even though it's not your shin. There might be this ghost of a pain in your own shin.
Somebody who lives like this will become challenged in imagining what it's like to watch somebody be hurt, to know that they're hurt, and to not be inclined to alleviate that pain. Or even, what it's like watching somebody in genuine pain and imagine that experience translated, in a different kind of mind, as something fun to watch or to cause…that even if they've been told it's wrong, they'll find ways harm others as much as can be gotten away with. There isn't that internal checkpoint of, "I have to stop because this is hurting me too."
B. The conflict-resolution learning curve. The "sense of other people's feelings" doesn't always work. Some people are limited by having very different life experiences than others.
Somebody who's had wonderfully supportive parents who can talk through every disagreement and in hindsight even getting grounded was good…would not have any sense at all of what it's like for somebody else to have cruel parents. The 'basic sense of other people's feelings' turns into the very worst advice of "But they're your parents, of course they love you, you're the problem for not talking it out"—or in cases of eating disorders and self injury, "just eat!!" or "maybe don't do that fingertip-picking thing, duh" and then it's like 'thanks, I'm cured…not'.
So, just because a person can scream at somebody else's bloodied shin doesn't mean that they cannot or have not committed an abusive action against somebody else out of ignorance with life experience or lack of understanding.
But usually, when reasoning or life experience gets through, there's this sense of guilt or embarrassment and wanting to admit to that wrong to clear one's own conscience—and do better next time, repair the harm if they can.
Some abusive people act out of genuine ignorance and obliviousness or callousness…and, others are more willful about the same thing, constructing these logical acrobatics (really, logical fallacies) to refuse to recognize or admit that they were flawed or wrong or that they hurt somebody.
C. Control, imposition, and lack of boundaries
Sometimes it's compensatory—Abuse victims, especially those victimized in childhood, very often grow up to be abusers because they internalized this idea that if absolutely everything is not absolutely perfect all the time, then they're not safe and they will be hurt again.
In these cases, everything mentioned in the Duluth wheel stems from that: An abusive person is highly motivated to control somebody else's financial freedom, because somebody else having a different perspective of their own or a empowered to do unpredictable things is genuinely upsetting to some kinds of abusive people. So, whether it's planned or ruminated or improvised…there's a persistent imposition from an abusive person onto their targets, not only financial autonomy but everything else, social support system, eating habits, self-expression, sleep schedule—everything imposed according to the abusive person's overly compensatory satisfaction. And, because the root of this is an emotion or a habit that is not appropriate to the present situation, there's pretty much never going to be satisfaction.
There's not going to be this sense of "I've felt safe for long enough that I can calm down, perceive the world clearly enough to recognize that I have treated others badly, and improve my behavior or make restitution."
There isn't this sense of "not everything has to be under my complete control", because the desire for power over the victim or victims often comes from an emotional need for safety.
D. Inconsistency. The Cycle of Abuse makes it look predictable: Many abusers will behave very nicely, and then they'll be abusive, and then they'll be nice again.
It's difficult to explain the difference between a person with a strong moral code who was in a bad situation and did something they know is wrong, goes into a depression due to the "moral injury", then has to try to find a way to forgive themselves and move on with their life—or somebody learning what their moral code even is—versus somebody who claims to have all these values and then behaves very hypocritically.
I think there's this tendency to think of abusers as more conscientious than they actually are, like some conspiratorial villain from a Shakespeare stageplay who monologues their motivations and analyzes and plans.
Otherwise, why can many real-life abusers control their temper in front of a law enforcer, or in front of somebody that they're trying to impress or to use/manipulate; or somebody I used to know would "prefer" talking things out rather than text or email—just so that she could say later, 'I never said that' when she did.
Most times I really think it's as short-term in thinking as… it's what's worked for them, that they can get away with. Maybe they fall into habitual, not at all right, ways of dealing with whatever their deal is.
But the thing about behaving inconsistently is that, usually, victims will want to continue believing that the "honeymoon" phase in the Cycle of Violence model—the best face that person shows—is what that abusive person is truly like at heart, whereas the abusive episodes are conditional and temporary: "he's had a bad day and isn't always like this", "she's had a rough childhood and is working through it", "I can love them enough to change them and we'll never have these problems ever again", those kinds of excuses.
I think that usually it's the other way around, that the "best face" is the temporary conditional thing, instinctively going into that mode only to get by in society—but the motivations for abuse, whether that's sadism or perfectionism or fear or obliviousness or stubbornness, remain more central to what that abusive person…needs to recover from, but heaps that pain on others for temporary relief instead.
TL;DR, there are many ways to show it. The villain can have pretensions to a strong moral code that really dehumanizes their targets (Javert from Les Miserables, or Gleb from the stage musical version of Anastasia) that they themself believes—Or they can know that they're faking so that they can do something wrong that they've justified to themselves (Iago from Othello, or Edgar from King Lear)—Or they're so desperate for unconditional admiration or accolades that the last thing they have any energy to do is set a long-term plan to earn it (Tonya Harding? I don't know anymore,) and maybe the level that they would be content with is unrealistic and impossible for anyone in the first place…Or maybe something else I haven't thought up of.