Ally

Her clothes are not black because she’s mourning. Manhwa just doesn’t tell readers they’re black because she uses black to make herself unattractive to Carcel

She is wearing black as a kid way before she announces him as a fiance so it makes more sense that they are mourning clothes. Besides, they look exactly like mourning clothes. She looks like a widow, and not necessarily unattractive.

No. She woke up as a kid at 6 years and made a plan to make herself unattractive to defy her mother’s stupid oppression. Then she formulated a plan to continue wearing black to make herself unattractive to Carcel after choosing him. She even hints at this back in the episode after they had mirror sex and she was wearing black and she wondered why Carcel was still so sexually attracted to her. Then there’s that other chapter where Carcel caught her changing into her black dress and told her her buttoned up dress turned him on. Ines persuaded herself from the time she was 6 years old that she was too small to have a child and kill a child. And her brother was too young to kill a man. That’s how she survived and proceeded to make a plan to live safely to die safely. Her wearing black into her 20s was all about making herself unattractive to Carcel.

Manhwa just does a shitty job of adapting a very complicated and nuanced novel.

Here is an excerpt from the novel and it’s not a spoiler because it should have appeared in chapter 12 or so of this manhwa but they skipped it all.

She had been scheming to get Cárcel to cheat on her for her whole lifetime. She downplayed her attractiveness by wearing black dresses. When others remarked that only women who were “mourning, living as a nun, or had become clinically insane” would wear black dresses, she smirked in delight. She matched the drab frocks with boring buns or braids.

She had kept this disinterested and uninteresting identity in front of everyone not just Cárcel. The whole world needed to remind Cárcel that she was never enough for him. She needed to ensure that he would not have a sudden change of heart one day. She did not want him to ever be intrigued by her even for a split second.

Inés had grown a sizable ego from her past experiences. She worried that Cárcel would fall for her at least once in their long relationship. To hide her charms and her decent face, she needed to be careful to choose the least attractive outfits and avoid all makeup. Once she stripped naked, she wouldn’t be able to hide behind the ugly clothes though. A sigh escaped her throat at the mere thought.

Thus, she resolved to be extra careful. She had to keep associating herself with all the boring and ugly things in his mind. She would continue to exhaust him with her suffocating attitude, gaze and outfit. Back when he feared her the most, she sent him an overwhelming amount of presents and letters to scare him off. He didn’t panic immediately as she expected. Still, she did manage to send him off to military academy and navy army in fear of marriage.

Inés would eventually have to marry into his family even if he tried to ignore her for many years. Their betrothal was inevitable — no wonder he was stricken with fear. Inés wanted to seize this chance and get him to be so stressed about their imminent marriage that he had no choice but to cheat on her when they did marry.

Until their marriage ceremony, she planned to make him feel less guilty about cheating.

Well, I thought it was for both reasons. Then I agree that they did a bad job adapting nuances of the story. And lost a great opportunity to turn this into a real tear-jerker. ╮(￣▽￣)╭

All of Ines timelines are tear-jerkers. Wearing black dresses is cliche. It’s not necessary for Ines’s tragic lives to be compelling. All of the lives she lived in all timelines before were tragic and sad.

Obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn't cry at all. But making subtle connections like that, giving your audience that "a-ha" moments of realization, telling story through actions instead of descriptions is what makes a story even more compelling. So that kind of connection would've been great IMHO

I also read in a spoiler that Carcel was deployed in the ocean by the crown prince to fight rebels (I think) and was later confirmed dead by CP, and that Ines would be marrying him after. That's why, I think the black clothes in the first chapter was Ines mourning for Carcel and waiting in that mountain, then Carcel suddenly appeared.

That’s a fake spoiler though.

Really?? I thought it was real tho, since the threads was meant for novel spoilers of the broken ring

Parts of it are true and parts are false. Carcel does go to the war for the emperor but that occurs in every timeline.