Wow the manhwa really took out a lot of important information that would’ve helped the events of those chapters flow a lot smoother than they did.
Maybe the manhwa team took chances since I’m guessing once ines finds out about carcel meeting Emiliano and later on when she finds out that carcel remembers their previous lives she communicates her perspective to him anyway?
Manhwa team tends to focus on events rather than the details that helps the reader to understand both Carcel and Ines better. They probably felt the Calztela arc was too slow so they cut a lot from that. The Calztela arc is important because not only was Ines healing, she was falling for Carcel (her heart loved him first as confirmed by novel and via Q&A by the author) and Carcel was influencing her to change.
Regarding Ines’s indifference to Carcel in previous timelines, there’s no explanation needed for this couple. They understand each other. The past is also just the past and no longer exists nor matters. The rule of the world is that there’s only one lifetime in the end. Carcel’s focus will be protecting his wife and waiting for her to open up to him. He doesn’t care about her past indifference to him. All that matters to him is the present time. For Ines, you will see how she knows she doesn’t have to explain anything to him and ultimately, it doesn’t matter in the face of the NEW memories she will receive this season.
That makes sense. I’ve heard it’s a common issue when adapting novels into manhwa form. There are only a rare few manhwa that actually take time to adapt everything from a novel well.
About Ines never looking at Carcel in the past, let’s clarify why:
In the timeline Ines married Oscar and became Ines Valenza, she acknowledged Carcel as exceptional and outstanding. How do I know this? In the manhwa, during the flashback to hunting at 14 years old (around manhwa ch65), the novel provided more information. During the hunt, the novel told us Ines’s thoughts. She saw 14 year old Carcel as a rival who surpassed her in everything she loved doing. No one had ever beaten her until he appeared. She also begrudgingly acknowledged that Carcel made ‘Her Oscar’ who should be the most desirable man in the world, mediocre. But guess what? Ines was still firmly on Oscar’s side against Carcel.
The above is the mindset that Ines had for Carcel early in that timeline. Later, when she became crown princess and was at court, she rarely saw Carcel. Looking back on that timeline, Ines Escalante (Carcel’s wife) even observes that Carcel kept himself away from crown princess Ines Valenza and Ines Valenza also kept herself away from him because of the way Oscar would treat her if she so much as talked to Carcel. Ines Escalante also observed that Carcel used to look troubled when he saw Ines Valenza and he stayed far from her. She also wondered how they became like strangers when they used to be unfriendly playmates. That’s because there were things happening behind the scenes between Oscar and Carcel in that timeline that Ines didn’t know. It was mostly Oscar tormenting Carcel one-sidedly. But even crown princess Ines Valenza acknowledged Carcel as “he who was called the most handsome man in the world beyond borders”. Her attitude of indifference to Carcel during that timeline in particular was because of Oscar’s behavior and because of the noblewomen who always noisily told stories about Carcel which Ines Escalante (Carcel’s wife) now realized were probably mostly false since Carcel was a magnet for rumors by both men and women and never defended himself against them but simply ignored them.
So, all Ines Valenza knew about Carcel who essentially became a stranger to her, were the rumors that noble women would make up about him as they used Carcel’s name as a trophy to spread lies. Ines Escalante mentions this in the novel during the arc where she lets the crazy lady into the house. Ines Escalante thought of these things and that’s why she suddenly dreamt of the crown princess timeline when Oscar had sexually assaulted her and Carcel appeared on the palace ground and approached her. At the time, Ines Valenza (crown princess) tried to seduce Carcel and Carcel told her he couldn’t bear to hear her talk of herself in such a way. In the novel, Ines Valenza says in her thoughts, she knew for a fact that Carcel would never take his lord’s wife. She thought of herself as the exception and that Carcel wouldn’t be interested in her.
After Ines Valenza kills herself, she regresses to the next life. She was thinking of how to get out of marrying Oscar and decided to choose the first man that she could to runaway. Of course there was no Carcel around since Ines is the crown prince’s fiancée. In addition, Ines Valenza already thought that Carcel was never interested in her. Keep in mind it’s Ines Escalante who realized Carcel loved Ines Valenza in the crown princess timeline after she was able to observe him in the flashback and after she had already begun to truly know Carcel Escalante during the first months of marriage in the final timeline. Ines Escalante was able to understand that Carcel loved Ines Valenza after looking at his behavior, expressions and eyes.
So, in the end, from Ines’s perspective, she had no clue Carcel Escalante loved her and was interested in her before in any timeline and she never thought he would love her. If she did, she would have never chosen him in this final timeline for her great divorce plan.
From Carcel’s perspective, he loved her but she never looked at him. The thing is, Ines and Carcel are the same age. By the time Carcel began to think of girls as girls, Oscar, who is four years older than him, had already won over Ines who from an early age was in turn playing hard-to-get towards Oscar who showed interest in her. When she finally became engaged to Oscar, Carcel and her were already separated into cousin and fiancée of Carcel’s cousin before they were 7 years old. Carcel needs to realize that Ines has never TRULY looked at him until now. That’s why she told him at the hunting lodge, when she was crying about the gun, that she noticed him this time.