Adam was always an abuser
Something Adam fanboys often say is that Adam never had any romantic or abusive relationship with Blake before Volume 3 and that he was rewritten mid-development. While there are still issues with the White Fang storyline, Adam was always abusive.
Adam, like many abusers, tries to present himself as non-abusive, and in his particular case, puts on a mask(and is initially presented to us) as a noble, morally gray freedom fighter who walks the line of a liberator and a villain.
Starting with the Black Trailer, we see Adam leading Blake on an espionage mission. Note how when Blake questions what about the crew members on the car (along with the implication that Adam didnât tell her they were going to kill innocents), he immediately replies aggressively âWhat about them?â.
Throughout the entire trailer he talks in a harsh and aggressive tone, but Blake is clearly distraught and nervous throughout the mission whenever she does(or is about to do something) she knows will upset Adam, she knows heâs lashed out at her before and is afraid of doing anything that might upset him in fear of punishment. Adam has a rage semblance like Yang, but he also seems to have anger issues and a short temper. If merely questioning him is enough to make Blake nervous, what did he do to her in the past to elicit that reaction from her? She does manage to leave him, but not by leaving him, but by leaving his group because she couldnât tolerate their violence. Adam messed up, she wouldnât have left him, he was too good at gaslighting her and making her believe she deserved it, but by making her think in terms of grander scale morality beyond just Adam and Blake, he gave her a different method to break away from him.
The next time Adam is mentioned in V2E10, after Blakeâs gotten away from him and has only recently started to open up to Team RWBY, telling them about Adam for the first time.
She was his partner and pupil, and we see from her body language and voice when telling us that itâs a painful and uncomfortable memory for her and that she likely doesnât want to tell them just how close they were together, or is at this point still too uncomfortable talking about it
We then see Adam in V3E7, away from Blake, and being talked to by Cinder, who wants the White Fang to ally for her cause. Adam in this scene is cold and calculated and with clear and seemingly âjustifiedâ anger at Cinder and her human faction.
He seems rational here, a bit aggressive but not someone youâd immediately think is an abuser. But an abuser doesnât need to âseemâ like an abuser to be one, and as someone raised by an abusive and manipulative father, abusers like Adam are VERY good at appearing ânormalâ to others, to the point of convincing people that theyâre the fair and reasonable one in a relationship, and that whoever their victim is being emotional and unreasonable.
Then, we finally see Adam and Blake together again in V7E12, and the mask comes off. Heâs cruel, and tells her sheâs a coward for leaving him, and that heâs going to punish her(and implicitly, that she deserves what heâs going to do to her)
Notice Blakeâs eyes, which have been the most telling about her emotions in RWBY so far. Sheâs never seen Adam this angry before, this is the first time heâs truly angry enough to kill her. The same emotion and fear that was present in as early as Black Trailer is there, just in a more extreme form.
Because he was ALWAYSÂ abusive. He just, in a meta way, hid it from the audience and made it seem that he wasnât like real abusers do. And it wasnât until later that we saw things from Blakeâs perspective that we were able to truly see this.
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