Not sure I'm positive yet the bottom scenario should work or not as I have to think about it a bit more.
I recreated something similar.
felix@gemini:~/test$ rclone ls /home/felix/test -vv -L --include 'test2**'
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : Setting --config "/opt/rclone/rclone.conf" from environment variable RCLONE_CONFIG="/opt/rclone/rclone.conf"
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.60.0" starting with parameters ["rclone" "ls" "/home/felix/test" "-vv" "-L" "--include" "test2**"]
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "/home/felix/test"
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : Using config file from "/opt/rclone/rclone.conf"
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : local: detected overridden config - adding "{12rtk}" suffix to name
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : fs cache: renaming cache item "/home/felix/test" to be canonical "local{12rtk}:/home/felix/test"
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : test3: Excluded
0 test2/test2file
2022/11/14 11:12:07 DEBUG : 2 go routines active
felix@gemini:~/test$ ls -al
total 12
drwxrwxr-x 1 felix felix 38 Nov 14 10:58 .
drwxr-x--- 1 felix felix 266 Nov 14 08:57 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 felix felix 10 Nov 14 08:56 blah -> /etc/hosts
-rw-r--r-- 1 felix felix 511 Nov 14 08:56 hosts
lrwxrwxrwx 1 felix felix 17 Nov 14 10:58 test2 -> /home/felix/test2
drwxrwxr-x 1 felix felix 18 Nov 14 10:54 test3
felix@gemini:~/test$ rclone ls /home/felix/test -vv -L --include 'test2/**'
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : Setting --config "/opt/rclone/rclone.conf" from environment variable RCLONE_CONFIG="/opt/rclone/rclone.conf"
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.60.0" starting with parameters ["rclone" "ls" "/home/felix/test" "-vv" "-L" "--include" "test2/**"]
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "/home/felix/test"
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : Using config file from "/opt/rclone/rclone.conf"
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : local: detected overridden config - adding "{12rtk}" suffix to name
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : fs cache: renaming cache item "/home/felix/test" to be canonical "local{12rtk}:/home/felix/test"
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : test3: Excluded
2022/11/14 11:12:58 DEBUG : 2 go routines active
The top works but the bottom doesn't as test3 does as that's a real directory.
felix@gemini:~/test$ rclone ls /home/felix/test -vv -L --include 'test3/**'
2022/11/14 11:14:46 DEBUG : Setting --config "/opt/rclone/rclone.conf" from environment variable RCLONE_CONFIG="/opt/rclone/rclone.conf"
2022/11/14 11:14:46 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.60.0" starting with parameters ["rclone" "ls" "/home/felix/test" "-vv" "-L" "--include" "test3/**"]
2022/11/14 11:14:46 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "/home/felix/test"
2022/11/14 11:14:46 DEBUG : Using config file from "/opt/rclone/rclone.conf"
2022/11/14 11:14:46 DEBUG : local: detected overridden config - adding "{12rtk}" suffix to name
2022/11/14 11:14:46 DEBUG : fs cache: renaming cache item "/home/felix/test" to be canonical "local{12rtk}:/home/felix/test"
0 test3/test3file
2022/11/14 11:14:46 DEBUG : 2 go routines active