This feels very stupid and uncertain to answer, but I get really curious.
I know certain people who are very manipulative. They care a lot about how they’re perceived. They put on a sort of “face” of agreeability and kindness, when in reality, they’re not like this at all.
They can fool almost anyone who doesn’t know them, because they’re very good actors. They don’t like a lot of people and even view a lot of them as not human.
They’ll find people to target, like disabled people specifically, who they view as objects or animals. They’ll show a completely different side to them. Manipulative, outwardly cruel, wanting to hurt them. And they never feel bad. They never apologize.
After all, to them, it’s the victim’s fault that they were hurt.
“If you just would have done X, I wouldn’t have hurt you!”
How can anyone be like this? I know it’s likely something in their brain, but why?
Yeah, that could be narcissistic behaviour though there are also other possible explanations, such as "antisocial personality disorder". Ultimately it is very hard to distinguish one personality disorder from another without a full diagnosis by a professional. Those personality disorders may look very much alike from an observer perspective, but differ in the nuances of the behaviour, the underlying thought processes and their origin (and therefore have to be treated differently in a clinical setting).