The MBTI® Personality Types of the Take Charge of My Heart Characters
A woman whose touch can electrocute people. A man whose artificial heart needs recharging. Somehow, they’ve found someone whose relationship problems are compatible with their own.
Take Charge of My Heart gives us a fairly unusual reason for two people to move into each other’s lives. Bo-bae is a screenwriter who has spent years navigating the electrical powers she acquired as a child. Ho-rang is a businessman trying to manage both a succession battle and an increasingly unreliable artificial heart. Their arrangement begins with a practical solution to both their problems, which is probably Ho-rang’s preferred way to begin anything.
But the characters around them are just as interesting to type. There’s the friend who sees through every excuse, the dependable secretary who keeps things functioning, and several people who could benefit from spending considerably less time plotting.
Here are my interpretations of their Myers-Briggs® personality types, including a few tentative guesses where the evidence is thinner.
Spoilers ahead!
Not sure what your personality type is? Take our personality questionnaire here. Or you can take the official MBTI® here.
Jo Seo-jung: ENFP
“Is there anyone in your life who is honest with you about these things?”
Seo-jung is the friend you call when you need support and then briefly regret calling because she has identified the exact thing you were hoping to avoid discussing.
She sees the pattern in Bo-bae’s behavior: worry about her powers, pull away when someone cares, and leave before she can get hurt. When Bo-bae tries to present this as bravery or concern for others, Seo-jung challenges the explanation.
“You’re trapped in this cycle of worrying about your powers and bolting when someone cares.”
That attention to the larger pattern is part of why I lean ENFP. Extraverted Intuition, the ENFP’s dominant function, looks for connections and alternative interpretations. Seo-jung can hear Bo-bae’s account of a situation and consider what else might be happening underneath it. She also seems able to see possibilities that Bo-bae’s fear has pushed out of view.
Her Introverted Feeling comes through in her personal loyalty and insistence on honesty. She cares about her friend enough to say something uncomfortable. Bo-bae can be frightened, confused, or deeply inconvenient, and Seo-jung will still be there. She will also ask whether Bo-bae is about to run away from everyone again.
Na Bo-bae: INFP
“You can’t read the lines like that. You need to put some feeling into it and make it sound real.”
I loved Bo-bae right away. She’s spent the majority of her life feeling like an outsider, a monster even, but trying her best to find possibility in the midst of that.
Her imagination gives her access to experiences she has had little opportunity to explore in everyday life. She’s a screenwriter whose electrical powers have prevented even ordinary affection, much less romantic touch. Meeting Ho-rang opens up an experience she has largely had to imagine.
Bo-bae is concerned with emotional authenticity. A line can be delivered correctly and still feel wrong to her. She wants the actor to mean it. When she’s unhappy with Ho-rang she lets it show, when she’s awkward, she’s awkward. She’s not trying to be something she’s not, but she can use her imagination when pretending is for a good cause (like when she’s asked to describe her ideal type).
Her Extraverted Intuition supports her imagination and willingness to consider unusual possibilities. She can build stories beyond her immediate circumstances, even while her own feelings remain difficult to explain. She can create alternate worlds in her scripts and dream up characters with little effort.
Baek Ho-rang: ENTJ
Ho-rang encounters a bizarre medical and romantic predicament and produces a contract. You can see why ENTJ entered the conversation.
He’s a businessman with strengths in strategy and execution, caught in a struggle over the family company’s leadership. One thing I loved is that this series shows us an ENTJ with heart. I find that K-dramas do this much better than Western media. In Western media, ENTJs are often cold-hearted in power hungry. In K-dramas like this one, our ENTJ lead is deeply caring and protective, but he has a blunt exterior.
His Extraverted Thinking shows in how he handles problems. He gathers information, identifies leverage, and presses for a concrete result. He focuses on metrics, return on investment, and logical outcomes. He’s not someone who beats around the bush, he’s decisive and ambitious.
His Introverted Intuition shows up in his observations about Bo-bae. The blackouts, malfunctioning appliances, rubber gloves, and “human rubber glove” comment gradually form a coherent explanation about what’s really going on with her. He notices separate clues and arrives at an underlying conclusion. His intuition also helps him to come up with proactive contingency plans. He can foresee potential obstacles and work around them long before they come into play.
For someone accustomed to managing circumstances, accepting a relationship with an uncertain outcome is a meaningful choice. His feelings have become clear enough that he can state what matters to him, even without a guarantee that it will be painless.
Ho-rang has difficulty expressing his feelings outright. This is normal for ENTJs. Because they have inferior introverted feeling they often feel vulnerable or awkward expressing how they feel. Often times they focus on facts, directives, and logic instead, sweeping their feelings under the rug. We see this initially with Ho-rang, but as the series progresses he develops more bravery with expressing himself.
Yoon Jae-ho: ISTJ
Jae-ho is someone I would trust to remember the appointment, bring the necessary paperwork, and notice that a situation was becoming a problem before everyone else finished discussing it.
I’m a little biased towards ISTJs maybe. I just adore them. I love how he’s so dependable, so loyal, but also perceptive. You can count on him and even if he may look serious or intimidating, he definitely has a huge heart for the people he loves.
Two functions that Jae-ho uses are Introverted Sensing and Extraverted Thinking. These show up in attention to detail, caution, respect for procedure, and a practical approach to responsibility. He’s comfortable keeping track of what needs doing and following through.
Ji Eun-ho: ESFJ
Eun-ho is gentle, considerate, and attentive to how other people are doing. Around some of this cast, basic thoughtfulness starts to look like an exotic skill.
As a healthy ESFJ, he’s always considering the other person, taking the relationship seriously, and trying to behave in a way that supports it.
That fits dominant Extraverted Feeling, which pays attention to interpersonal needs and the effect one’s behavior has on others. In Eun-ho, it seems to come through as courtesy, conscientiousness, and a willingness to put someone else’s comfort into the equation.
His loyalty and memory for the past suggest supporting Introverted Sensing. Shared experiences continue to matter to him. Affection has history behind it, and he carries that history forward. He’s constantly reminding himself of memories with Bo-bae and using those memories as fuel to keep going and to keep seeking her out.
One thing I look for when distinguishing ESFJ from ISFJ is where the person’s attention naturally begins. Both can be devoted and thoughtful. With ESFJs, there is often an immediate engagement with the people and expectations around them, followed by reference to what they know and remember.
Eun-ho gives me that impression, though ISFJ remains a reasonable possibility.
Han Seol-hui: INTJ, Tentatively
As someone who identifies as INTJ, I did briefly hope Seol-hui would turn out to be somebody else’s problem.
Still, she makes a plausible case.
She is strategic, perceptive, and capable of preparing contingency plans when events don’t go her way. She appears to keep an objective in mind while considering how to position herself to reach it.
That suggests Introverted Intuition supported by Extraverted Thinking: anticipating a likely direction, then arranging the practical steps needed to influence it.
My case for her as an INTJ rests on her quiet, strategic way of going through life and her focus on competence and metrics over impulse and emotion. Keep in mind, being an INTJ doesn’t make someone cruel or manipulative like this character. Those are choices, and every personality type has people making terrible ones. If you read through many of my other character articles you’ll see examples of other types being unhealthy as well.
I’m keeping INTJ tentative because we see much more of Seol-hui’s plotting than her ordinary inner life. A character written to create obstacles will naturally spend a lot of screen time creating obstacles. We have fewer opportunities to see how she thinks when there is nothing to gain.
For now, INTJ fits. I reserve the right to reconsider while continuing to dislike her.
Choi Do-yun: ESTP, Unhealthy
Do-yun can read an opportunity and move quickly. Of course, whether anyone should move on that opportunity is a question he seems willing to postpone.
His ESTP pattern shows in the combination of immediate action, tactical calculation, and uneven concern for what follows.
Dominant Extraverted Sensing focuses on what is happening now and what can be done with it. He’s impulsive, fast, and often reckless. If he wants something, he quickly tries to find a way to get it.
His Introverted Thinking adds calculation. He can look for an angle and work out a maneuver. But a clever move can still serve a very foolish purpose.
There’s also his desire to be appreciated and loved. Through an ESTP lens, tertiary Extraverted Feeling helps explain his interest in other people’s responses. He wants recognition, yet repeatedly behaves in ways that make affection and trust harder to actually attain.
That contradiction makes him frustrating to watch. The need for connection is there. So is the habit of acting on whatever impulse is currently loudest.
ESTP is my best fit for him, but he’s definitely an unhealthy version of this type.
Chairwoman Gong: ISTJ, Tentatively
Chairwoman Gong doesn’t reveal much emotion, but she has no difficulty making her authority felt. While she may care about some of the people in her life, she’ll never show it. She hides her vulnerability and any ounce of tenderness, instead criticizing, withholding, and pushing the people around her.
ISTJ is my tentative guess. She tends to have a lot going on under the surface that she doesn’t reveal. She’s risk-averse, attentive, and planful. While I wouldn’t say she’s a healthy ISTJ, she does showcase their leadership capability. She just needs a little help in the kindness department.
If she and Jae-ho are both ISTJs, they also offer a useful reminder of how much variation exists within a type. Similar preferences can support very different relationships with duty and authority. A type tells us something about a person’s approach. We still have to watch what they choose to do with it.
What Do You Think?
Did you enjoy Take Charge of My Heart? Do you agree with my perspectives or do you have a different suggestion? Let me know in the comments!
Find out more about your personality type in our eBooks, Discovering You: Unlocking the Power of Personality Type, The INFJ – Understanding the Mystic, The ISFJ – Understanding the Protector, and The INFP – Understanding the Dreamer. You can also connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube!
