Pitting Ines against Carcel & vice versa

Author Kim ChaCha wrote a mature story and a mature couple. Have you ever noticed that when Ines and Carcel are faced with a fight or contentious disagreement it NEVER lasts more than a day? That’s because they act with maturity and understanding in the end. Major fights they faced were:

1. When Ines brought the strange woman into house to entice or tempt Carcel. The manhwa itself bungled this sequence of events and development. They never showed the reader how Ines felt guilty over the way she treated Carcel. In the first place, the reason why Ines dreamt of the crown princess timeline in that arc is because after she and Carcel had sex and Carcel left the bedroom, she began to think about why she had chosen Carcel who behaves so differently to her original expectations. She thought of the FACT that she based her choice on rumors about him. She began to remember how she would see Carcel in the courts and he was like a lonely, cold fortress with busy tongues wagging about him whether because of his military accomplishments or his rumored liaisons with women. Present day Ines finally realized that Carcel was always surrounded by gossip from both men and women. She realized that many people envied him so they made up rumors about him and he never did anything to dispel rumors about himself. That’s when Ines realized everything she believed about him might not have actually been true. (This is true because more things are revealed later in the novel)

Everything Ines had been rejecting was finally confirming her clarity. Then when Carcel returned to the bedroom to clean her up, Ines was relieved. She was relieved because he didn’t abandon her after he realized what she tried to do in bringing in a woman to seduce him. That’s when she admitted that she knew from his eyes that he was in love with her and she broke down crying over the both of them. After she fell asleep, she began to dream of the timeline when she was crown princess. She remembered Carcel found her on the palace lawn and she was covered in bruises and she was barefoot. The most significant point of this dream was the fact that present day Ines realized that Carcel was in love with her and tried to help her even when she was the wife of the crown prince. The last thing she remembers him telling her is he doesn’t want her to die. He wants her to live. This is why Ines feels bad that she took his precious gift and killed herself. When this is revealed in the future, it will be an emotionally moving scene. However, I don’t know if the manhwa can do it justice. It’s a scene that makes me shed tears every time I read it in the novel.

Anyway, when Ines wakes up from the dream, she realizes she made a mistake in choosing Carcel and she was wrong from the start about him. The next day, Ines felt unsettled. She knew Carcel was VERY angry about what happened but he still stayed up all night taking care of her because she was sick from her annual fever then he went to work. In other words, he didn’t get any sleep. Ines was also uneasy about the fact that he might fall out of love with her after the stunt she pulled the day before. Then, as usual, she told herself she didn’t care. But when Carcel came home sick, Ines’s thoughts took a severe turn. She began to think she’s bad luck for him and what if he dies and how she’s disrupted his life and so on. It was really weird the way she thought he would die from a fever. This all basically leads to Ines finally being honest with herself. This is when she truthfully admits she can no longer imagine a life without him and all the people in their residence. She realizes she had finally begun to live and look forward to the future. Her honesty is what led her to kiss Carcel as soon as he woke up. From then on, Ines truly began to live with Carcel. They lived like they were on their honeymoon and eventually went away to the hunting lodge. In the fight that led to this development, the same day Carcel, as the one who was angry, overcame it and nursed his wife back to health. Even the next day he was still hurt over what happened but never mentioned it again and moved on from it.

2. The contraceptive fight. Ines and Carcel fought in the morning and made up in the morning. However, this fight was great development for both. Notice also that Carcel admitted his wrong right away. He always apologizes right away. Even though he felt he had good reason to take the contraceptives, he knew it was wrong to do it secretly and apologized. The irony is, the reason he started taking contraceptives is because Ines and Raul both lied to him about not knowing the cause of her illness back when she almost died after collapsing in the house (ep35 - 38). Ines realizes this too and because he immediately apologized, Ines finally realized she was doing the same thing she accused him of. She acknowledged to herself that she behaved terribly (dumping the presents she bought over him) yet she’s keeping all these huge secrets from him. She regrets how she threw the presents when she had wanted to give them to him in a happy way. That’s when she decided she will confess her first secret to him.

Later that evening, Ines confesses to Carcel about the fact that she chose him to use him and dump him and about her mental issues. Quite frankly, I don’t really like some parts of how this was adapted in the manhwa. It made it seem that Ines was just heartbroken over herself and Carcel was comforting her. This is not the case in the novel. This was very much about both of them because after Ines saw the hurt in Carcel’s eyes when she said she was going to use him and dump him, that’s when she actually broke down crying. Then Carcel told her he knows it’s no longer the case that she thinks this way. Another thing is, Ines realized Carcel already knew she had chosen him to use and dump him. She was so surprised about it that it made her wonder how could he still keep loving her. This realization is extremely important because it’s helping Ines to see that he loves and treasures her even when she hurts him. By the end of the story, we will understand how deeply Carcel’s love has influenced and changed Ines because of these moments.

Of course it goes without saying that this fight also shows that Ines was sorry for hurting Carcel. She knows it was wrong of her to plot to use him. Now she was finally able to let this secret go and move on from it. In fact, every single time Ines and Carcel clear up secrets or resolve a fight, they immediately go into honeymoon phase as they grow closer and more trusting as a couple.

Finally, Carcel knows Ines has been through a lot. In all the timelines, Carcel has NEVER traumatized Ines. Not once. Ines broke Carcel’s heart A LOT in the first timeline but he loved her to the end. He has always treated her well when she was his wife and when she wasn’t his wife. Ines knows this too because she will later make a beautiful statement about how Carcel has always treasured her life through all her miserable times…how he always searched over the world looking for her and how he always loved her whom she even hated (meaning she hated herself). This is why Ines doesn’t use her past traumatic experiences to excuse any wrong she did to Carcel. Ines even wonders how Carcel could still love her after learning all the things that should make him hate her.

Notice also that Ines keeps getting memories of the first timeline where she treats Carcel bad and in all of them, Carcel is either quietly receiving her hurtful words or fussing over her health and safety. So why is she getting these memories? The purpose of those memories is to help her do better this time. They help her grow and develop to become a better wife. Every time she gets a memory, she then acts contrary to her past self. Like the way she immediately vocalizes to Carcel that she always prays for him or the way she tells him she likes him.

In the end, none of Ines’s past trauma is Carcel’s doing. He has always helped Ines even at the risk of his family. It was NEVER okay for Ines to repay his kindness with plots against him. No one ever talks about the fact that Carcel helped her escaped the soldiers in the most recent past life and even housed her in a safe house. Yet the very next timeline, Ines disregarded this and plotted against him as a 6 year old boy. Did Carcel harm her in the most recent past life? No. He helped her even while disobeying the imperial family. We know in the latest chapter that his family is NOT safe from the imperial family so it was in fact a risk to choose to hide Ines and disobey imperial authority.

Despite all this, when Carcel learned the truth that Ines chose him to use and dump, he didn’t blame her. He cried for her instead and wanted to divorce her since that was her original plan. Yet, this simple acknowledgement to grant her wish inspired so many negatives comments against him. Why? Because rather than choosing to understand him as a character and how much he wants Ines to be happy, it’s always easier to blame him because he isn’t Ines. No one had any problem with Ines plotting for months to divorce Carcel but everyone suddenly had a problem with Carcel decision to grant her wish. This shows how biased against Carcel so many readers are. Their choice to only understand and sympathize with Ines reveals that she’s the only character they do in fact care about because no one else in this story has endured all the things she has endured. I guess that means nothing else and no one else in this story can move them. After all, it’s better to pay attention to the sick child while ignoring and disregarding the healthy child because the healthy child should never feel pained, should never feel wronged, and should be dismissed unilaterally,

Regardless, this work was always intended for mature readers. It’s not about pitting Ines and Carcel against each other. As this couple grew together, they acknowledged their wrongs against each other and grew closer and stronger. That’s the beautiful journey of their story.