Abuse Escalation

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Bullies, abusers, and general jerkasses are a sad but true part of life, and many will have people they specifically target. Sometimes, the victim of this mistreatment will know what they're in for when they see their bully at the end of the hallway, their drunk father in the kitchen, or their awful partner driving home from work. They may begin to anticipate certain actions and, perhaps, learn to adapt and handle them. But abuse in real life doesn't always stagnate; abuse is often a cycle, and in many cases, it escalates over time. Like a frog in boiling water, the victim's circumstances increase steadily but consistently until they're too cooked to escape. This is a trope that happens when the abuser's actions ramp up over time, leaving their victim never feeling safe or secure in the routine, all while revealing the true depths of their cruelty.

First, the abuser gets their foot in the door. It will start out slowly, with relatively mild acts of abuse. In some cases, they will be downright friendly to the victim, securing a position and gaining trust that can be exploited later. In others, they'll be a jerk from the start, but won't be doing anything too horrible. Then things get worse. The best case scenario involves a jerk just becoming an even bigger jerk, such as a bully who goes from petty insults to public humiliation and physical abuse. In the most extreme scenarios, the victim will suffer from things like torture and rape, and may be at risk of attempted murder. With such a range, it all depends on the tone of the story and the standards (or lack thereof) of the abuser in question. What matters is that there's a noticeable escalation in abuse tactics, with at least two different on-screen acts for the sake of comparison.

There are a variety of possible motives for this, but it all boils down to the abuser latching onto their victim and, primarily through a combination of comfort and a growing Lack of Empathy, self-rationalizing their need to escalate things and seeing their actions as somehow justified, even if only through Insane Troll Logic. In essence, their victim becomes increasingly dehumanized in the process, and the abuser shows their true colors depending on how awful it gets. Any abuse scenario is fair game here; for example, while most cases stick to a classic one victim, one abuser scenario, others involve groups, sometimes even entire societies, being on either side of the coin. It's about how the dynamic changes over time, not the specific type of abuse. Just keep in mind that the jump should be intentional, rather than a case of Flanderization or Depending on the Writer; plenty of bully characters get worse due to a writing flaw rather than intentional Character Development, which wouldn't count here.

Some of the most common triggers for this escalation include:

• Sadism
• Bigotry and prejudice, or a general sense of superiority
• Personal hatred of the victim, such as through jealousy or a grudge
• Sanity Slippage
• Substance addictions
• General anger issues
• An obsession with power and control
• Retaliation to any attempt by the victim to rebel against the abuser. It does not even needs to be combative — merely showing assertiveness is enough
• Delusion, genuinely thinking they're in the right
• Seeing the victim as some sort of guinea pig to "experiment" on

Though the main purpose of the trope is to showcase just how twisted the abuser is, there are two other reasons for this as well. The first is that it shows us the way the victim responds to their increasing suffering... as well as where their personal line is drawn, if they have one. There is a range of possible outcomes here, such as snapping and getting Revenge on the Bully, being Driven to Suicide, or rising above it and getting a happy ending. The other purpose is to be dark and dramatic, often in a way that evokes Realism-Induced Horror; real life abuse very often escalates over time, so putting a scenario like this in fiction, while often uncomfortable, makes the story itself more realistic and makes the abuser in particular go through a realistic arc, rather than starting out at full throttle. That being said, this can be Played for Laughs in a Black Comedy scenario, especially if Amusing Injuries is involved.

As mentioned, this is, unfortunately, truth in television — a lot of abuse cases end up as a series of escalation, often ending in murder. For obvious reasons, though, this trope is No Real Life Examples, Please!; we are not here to talk about real-life abuse and bullying cases.

Compare Slowly Slipping Into Evil, the primary difference being that this pertains to an abuser/victim dynamic; the character could have always been evil and simply chose to reveal that side of themselves slowly, rather than growing generally more evil as time went on. Also compare Abusive Personality Shift, for when someone starts out as (seemingly) caring but eventually ends up abusive, sometimes overlapping with this trope. Contrast Bully Turned Buddy and Took a Level in Kindness, where a jerk or abuser becomes nicer. Compare and Contrast Even Bullies Have Standards; while many of the abusers listed here have zero issue with doing awful things, some may still have a line they won't cross even if they're growing worse over time.

As this trope can involve major plot points or cover a whole story, most spoilers are unmarked. Tread carefully.

Examples: