Reading Villains are destined to die

Recently finished this manhwa ... Mostly to "study" the beautiful art, but was drawn in by the FL being so cool!! The only other otome isekai I've read for this series is hamefura ... Which I also love! But in contrast to hamefura the story takes the threat of death and the "hatred" the LI's feel for the FL more serious.

What is triggering me to make this post was mostly how unsatisfying to me personally how Eckles was handled. At the time he came into the story, Penelope treated Eckles like a game character ... She only visited him and said things to "raise his affection" and gave him material goods to raise his affection and basically tried to game her way into his heart.

It was working up to a certain point, Eckles affection did grow for her, but he could also tell that Penelope was only doing it for some ulterior reason. She didn't truly love him nor would she ever. What Eckles wanted more than anything was actual love from Penelope. (From my interpretation of the manhwa)

This parallels with how she was asking Callisto for true love in a few scenes after when she realized that Eckles wouldn't be able to hit 100% affection for her before the start dTe of normal mode... Callisto also kind of echos Penelope in that he lavishes her with valuable gifts the way Penelope lavished Eckles with gifts but I'm assuming Callisto is doing it because he is actually smitten we ith Penelope where as Penelope is just trying to escape the game.

Where Penelope gets even more selfish and hypocritical for me is when Eckles tries to get her to run away with him to escape. She logics that if she runs away, her father and brothers will be able to track her down so it was pointless to run away but doesn't explain that to him.

But it reaches the point of the story where all of Penelope's lies and manipulation to Eckles comes back to bite her in the ass when Eckles brings back Ivonne ... Earlier than the game's original starting point. ivonne is the one character Penelope is afraid of because Ivonne signals death and game over for Penelope.

The thing is, Eckles most likely brought back Ivonne because she brainwashed him by taking advantage of Penelope's own abuse/manipulation of Eckles.

What's so devastating to me is that it felt like she never acknowledges what she did to fuck up and fuck over Eckles. Soon after this, the story shifts from a romance to an action/adventure prevent the apocalypse plot and she runs away with Callisto and gets her happy ending.

But I felt like her actions didn't have enough consequence I guess to have her reflect on her own abusive behaviors to justify the happy ending. I felt like Eckles wasn't resolved well.

I understand Penelope though. She's been through a lot and the game she was sent to where she has to put up with all these characters that hate her, where does she have the time to feel bad for Eckles and reconciliate with him when the fate of the world is at stake? Idk either.

But also if I feel that way might as well write fanfiction or just complain on the Internet about it lol. Either way tldr, i do love penelope and Callisto, and a majority of Villains only deserve to Die. I just didn't like how Eckles was handled.

I guess I wanna write about Ivonne a little bit later too... I'm rereading the book to do some art studies so I might be able to form some coherent thoughts