What if the person who wants Baek Ho Rang dead is not his business rival, but someone his own family calls his mother?
At first glance, Take Charge of My Heart seems like an unusual romantic comedy. A wealthy heir survives with a battery-powered artificial heart, while a woman who generates electricity becomes his unlikely source of power.
But the original Korean web novel, written by Haebeon, contains a much darker family conflict beneath its playful premise.
Baek Ho Rang has everything that should make a man powerful: money, status, and a position within a wealthy corporate family.
Yet those advantages cannot protect him from the people closest to him.
The story’s most disturbing revelation concerns Kim Soo Yeon, the woman recognized as his mother in the family registry.
According to a Korean-language recap of the original novel, she becomes a central antagonist whose resentment ultimately threatens both Ho Rang and Na Bo Bae.
But why does she hate him so deeply?
And why does she choose to attack the woman he loves rather than confront him directly?
The answer reveals a story about humiliation, inherited resentment, and the danger of treating an innocent child as the embodiment of someone else’s betrayal.
Spoiler Warning: This article discusses major revelations from the original web novel Take Charge of My Heart (나를 충전해줘). The plot details are drawn from a publicly available Korean-language recap of the novel, rather than an independent reading of its complete text. Netflix’s adaptation may change the family relationships, characters, and events described here.
Who Is the Real Villain in the Original Take Charge of My Heart Novel?
Kim Soo Yeon emerges as a central villain in the original novel’s final conflict, according to the source recap.
She is not simply a woman who dislikes Ho Rang’s girlfriend.
Her hostility reaches back decades, to an arranged marriage and a relationship that never developed into the family life she expected.
To understand her actions, we first need to understand the family Ho Rang was born into.
His grandfather, Baek Man Seok, controls a powerful business empire.
Ho Rang’s father, Baek Jae Wook, is expected to follow the family’s plans, including a marriage arranged for strategic reasons.
The woman chosen for him is Kim Soo Yeon.
But Jae Wook already loves another woman.
Their relationship produces a son: Baek Ho Rang.
The arrangement leaves Soo Yeon legally connected to a man who does not choose her as his partner.
The recap describes a particularly painful detail: Jae Wook does not even appear at the planned wedding.
Soo Yeon’s position becomes an unsettling contradiction.
On paper, she belongs to a powerful family.
Emotionally, she has been excluded from the relationship that was supposed to define her place within it.
Years later, that unresolved humiliation becomes the foundation of her hatred.
Why Does Kim Soo Yeon Hate Baek Ho Rang?
The most important distinction is that Ho Rang is not responsible for what happened to Soo Yeon.
He did not arrange the marriage.
He did not reject her.
He did not choose the circumstances of his birth.
Yet he becomes the person onto whom she directs her resentment.
According to the novel recap, Soo Yeon initially hates Jae Wook and the woman he truly loves.
When both die, the people she blames are no longer available to confront.
Ho Rang remains.
He is their son, and therefore a constant reminder of the relationship that existed outside Soo Yeon’s arranged marriage.
This gives the antagonist a recognizable psychological pattern: displaced resentment.
Rather than confronting the powerful family system that shaped her life, she turns her anger toward someone who had no control over it.
That does not make her actions justified.
It makes them more revealing.
Soo Yeon may have experienced genuine humiliation, but she transforms that experience into a reason to punish an innocent person.
Her tragedy is that she allows the past to determine whom she believes deserves to suffer in the present.
Is Kim Soo Yeon a Victim or a Villain?
The original story invites a difficult distinction.
Soo Yeon can be understood as someone harmed by an arrangement that disregarded her feelings.
At the same time, she becomes responsible for the harm she deliberately inflicts on others.
These two truths can exist together.
A painful past may help explain a character’s choices without excusing them.
That is what makes Soo Yeon more interesting than an antagonist motivated only by greed.
Her desire for revenge begins with a personal wound.
But her eventual target is someone who never caused it.
She mistakes the person who reminds her of her suffering for the person responsible for it.
That confusion drives the story toward its darkest confrontation.
Why Is Baek Ho Rang Surrounded by Enemies?
Soo Yeon is not Ho Rang’s only problem.
The original-novel recap describes a childhood marked by emotional neglect, manipulation, and rivalry within his extended family.
After losing his parents, Ho Rang is placed with relatives who regard him less as a grieving child than as a potential threat to their own interests.
His aunt and uncle fear that his position in the family may eventually limit the opportunities available to their son.
Ho Rang’s existence therefore becomes a succession problem.
He is not treated simply as a child who needs protection.
He is treated as a future competitor.
Eventually, he seeks refuge with his grandfather, Baek Man Seok.
But the grandfather’s household does not provide the unconditional affection Ho Rang needs.
Instead, the recap portrays Baek Man Seok as a patriarch who expects obedience and performance.
Ho Rang must become the heir his grandfather wants.
His place in the family depends on fulfilling that expectation.
The Cruelty of Conditional Love
This childhood helps explain the adult Ho Rang.
He is disciplined, calculating, and reluctant to reveal vulnerability.
He understands transactions.
He understands expectations.
He understands what happens when he disappoints someone more powerful than himself.
What he does not fully understand is how to trust affection that comes without conditions.
The family teaches him a brutal lesson: love and security must be earned.
His professional success is therefore not simply evidence of ambition.
It can also be read as a survival strategy.
If he performs perfectly, perhaps no one will have a reason to reject him.
But perfection never solves the central problem.
A person cannot earn genuine love from someone who sees relationships only as instruments of power.
Why Does Kim Soo Yeon Kidnap Na Bo Bae?
This is where the novel’s family drama and its supernatural romance become inseparable.
Ho Rang has an artificial heart that requires regular charging.
Bo Bae possesses an unusual electrical ability that allows her to recharge it.
Their relationship begins because each has something the other needs.
But Soo Yeon eventually learns that Bo Bae is essential to Ho Rang’s survival.
According to the original-novel recap, she responds by arranging Bo Bae’s kidnapping.
The logic is terrifyingly simple.
If Bo Bae cannot reach Ho Rang, his battery will continue to drain.
And if the battery runs out, his artificial heart may stop.
Soo Yeon does not need to confront Ho Rang in public or directly damage his medical device.
She only needs to separate him from the one person capable of keeping it charged.
Why This Plan Is More Cruel Than a Direct Attack
Soo Yeon’s method attacks Ho Rang’s greatest physical vulnerability.
But it also attacks his greatest emotional vulnerability.
Bo Bae is no longer merely someone who can supply electricity.
She is the person who has helped him imagine a different life.
With her, he begins to experience affection that is not tied to corporate succession or family expectations.
Losing her therefore threatens more than his heartbeat.
It threatens the first relationship in which he has begun to feel valued as a person rather than an heir.
That is the central irony of the kidnapping.
Soo Yeon targets Bo Bae because she knows Ho Rang needs her to survive.
But she may not fully understand that he also wants Bo Bae beside him for reasons that have nothing to do with electricity.
Why Doesn’t Kim Soo Yeon Simply Confront Ho Rang?
The novel recap establishes the kidnapping plan, but it does not provide enough evidence to identify every private calculation behind Soo Yeon’s decision.
One interpretation, however, follows directly from the plan’s design.
By attacking Bo Bae, Soo Yeon can exploit a vulnerability without needing to overpower Ho Rang himself.
Ho Rang has wealth, employees, and influence.
Those resources may make a direct confrontation difficult.
His dependence on Bo Bae offers a different route.
The plan also allows Soo Yeon to use the couple’s love against them.
A relationship that should offer safety becomes a source of danger.
This is a recurring feature of family-based revenge stories: the antagonist seeks not merely to defeat the victim, but to destroy the thing that gives the victim hope.
For Ho Rang, that hope is Bo Bae.
Is Baek Man Seok Also a Villain?
Soo Yeon’s actions make her a central antagonist in the final conflict, but the novel’s larger moral problem begins earlier.
Baek Man Seok, Ho Rang’s grandfather, represents a family structure in which inheritance, obedience, and business advantage take priority over emotional responsibility.
His decisions help create the conditions in which multiple family members come to regard Ho Rang as an object of competition.
The grandfather may not share Soo Yeon’s exact motives.
But his values shape the world in which her resentment grows.
That distinction matters.
Soo Yeon is responsible for her own actions. Baek Man Seok represents a broader system that makes affection conditional and turns family relationships into contests for power.
The story therefore has more than one source of harm.
One character acts out of revenge.
Another exercises authority through control.
Other relatives compete for inheritance.
Ho Rang grows up surrounded by people who have reasons to use him, but few who know how to care for him.
What Makes Na Bo Bae Different From Ho Rang’s Family?
Bo Bae initially enters Ho Rang’s life through a bargain.
He needs his artificial heart recharged.
She wants to experience romance so that she can write about it convincingly.
In that sense, their relationship appears to resemble the transactions that already dominate Ho Rang’s life.
But it gradually changes.
Bo Bae begins to care about his happiness, not merely his usefulness.
She notices his loneliness.
She creates moments of warmth in a life organized around obligations.
One particularly revealing incident in the novel recap involves Ho Rang’s birthday.
While his family fails to give him the emotional recognition he longs for, Bo Bae offers a simple, heartfelt celebration.
The gesture matters because it asks for nothing in return.
For a man accustomed to calculating the price of every relationship, that kind of affection is unfamiliar.
Bo Bae does not need him to become the perfect corporate successor.
She wants him to be happy.
That is why the conflict between Bo Bae and Soo Yeon carries more emotional weight than a conventional rivalry between two women.
They represent fundamentally different ways of relating to Ho Rang.
Soo Yeon sees him through the injuries of the past.
Bo Bae sees the person standing in front of her.
The Hidden Parallel Between Kim Soo Yeon and Baek Ho Rang
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the original story is that Soo Yeon and Ho Rang are both shaped by a family that makes decisions for them.
Soo Yeon is caught in an arranged relationship built around other people’s interests.
Ho Rang is raised to become a successor according to his grandfather’s expectations.
Neither begins with complete freedom over the role they are expected to play.
But they respond differently.
Soo Yeon remains trapped in the identity created by her humiliation.
Her life becomes organized around resentment.
Ho Rang initially follows the role assigned to him, but his relationship with Bo Bae eventually encourages him to challenge it.
He begins to ask what he wants, rather than simply what his family demands.
This is the novel’s deeper contrast.
Two people are wounded by the same kind of family power. One tries to pass that suffering on. The other gradually learns to escape it.
The difference is not the severity of their pain.
It is what they choose to do with it.
Does Kim Soo Yeon Succeed in Killing Ho Rang?
No, according to the original-novel recap.
Her plan brings Ho Rang dangerously close to death, but it does not permanently separate him from Bo Bae.
The story’s final confrontation resolves the immediate threat and exposes the crimes behind the kidnapping.
However, the most important consequence is not simply that the antagonist fails.
Ho Rang survives long enough to build a life beyond the family relationships that have controlled him.
For the complete account of the final rescue, the lightning strike, and the original novel’s happy ending, read our companion analysis:
Take Charge of My Heart Original Novel Ending Explained: Does Ho Rang Die?
Will Kim Soo Yeon Be the Villain in Netflix’s Take Charge of My Heart?
That should not be assumed.
Netflix’s adaptation stars Kim Young Kwang as Baek Ho Rang and Chae Soo Bin as Na Bo Bae, preserving the central premise of the original romance.
However, promotional materials for the television series identify a supporting cast and family structure that should be evaluated separately from the original-novel recap.
A television adaptation may combine characters, change family relationships, replace an antagonist, or restructure the succession conflict.
The original novel provides one possible path for the story.
It does not prove that the Netflix series will follow that path.
This distinction is particularly important for viewers who are trying to avoid spoilers that turn out to be inaccurate for the screen adaptation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the real villain in the original Take Charge of My Heart novel?
According to the Korean-language original-novel recap, Kim Soo Yeon becomes a central antagonist in the final conflict. She is connected to Ho Rang’s family through an arranged marriage and later plots against him.
Why does Kim Soo Yeon hate Baek Ho Rang?
Her resentment stems from the failed arranged relationship involving Ho Rang’s father and the woman he truly loved. Ho Rang becomes the target of anger that originated before he was born.
Is Kim Soo Yeon Ho Rang’s biological mother?
No. The recap describes her as his mother in the family registry, not his biological mother.
Why does she kidnap Na Bo Bae?
She learns that Bo Bae’s electricity is essential to Ho Rang’s artificial heart and separates them to place his life in danger.
Is Baek Man Seok innocent?
He is not presented here as the mastermind of Soo Yeon’s final plan. However, the original-novel recap depicts his controlling approach to family and succession as an important source of Ho Rang’s emotional suffering.
Is Kim Soo Yeon also the villain in the Netflix drama?
That has not been established by the original-novel material. The adaptation’s character relationships and plot must be checked independently.
Final Analysis: The Real Threat Is a Family That Cannot Love Without Conditions
The darkest element of Take Charge of My Heart is not the possibility that Ho Rang’s artificial heart will stop.
It is the discovery that people connected to his own family are willing to treat his life as expendable.
Soo Yeon’s revenge is frightening because she turns an old humiliation into a reason to harm someone who never caused it.
Ho Rang’s grandfather and other relatives reveal a different kind of cruelty: a family culture in which affection is replaced by expectation and competition.
Together, they explain why Ho Rang’s relationship with Bo Bae matters so much.
She is not simply a woman who can recharge his heart.
She is someone who allows him to imagine that he deserves love without having to earn it through wealth, obedience, or success.
That is the real conflict beneath the original novel’s unusual romantic premise.
Ho Rang’s artificial heart needs electricity to survive. But the person behind that heart needs freedom from a family that has never allowed him to live for himself.
And that is why the story’s most dangerous villain is not merely someone who threatens his life.
It is someone who refuses to let him have a life of his own.
Related Reading — TTK Original
Take Charge of My Heart Original Novel Ending Explained: Does Ho Rang Die?
Explore the complete original-novel ending, the final lightning strike, and how Na Bo Bae saves Baek Ho Rang.
Sources
- 나를 충전해줘 (Take Charge of My Heart), original Korean web novel by Haebeon.
- JamJam Review, Korean-language video recap of the original novel, published October 5, 2026. The novel-specific family revelations and kidnapping plot discussed in this article are based on this secondary recap.
- Netflix, official Take Charge of My Heart series information.
- Soompi, September 25, 2026, promotional coverage identifying the Netflix adaptation’s supporting characters and family relationships.
TTK Original — Beyond the Headlines
We explore not only what happens in a story, but why it matters.