📍 After weeks of analyzing Weak Hero and reading hundreds of subscriber comments, I’ve come to a heartbreaking realization about Su-ho and Beom-seok’s friendship. What if their tragic end wasn’t about jealousy, miscommunication, or even Beom-seok’s trauma?
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This post includes copyrighted material from “Weak Hero” (© Wavve/Netflix) under fair use principles for educational analysis, criticism, and commentary purposes. All rights belong to the original creators.
A Subscriber Question That Changed Everything 🤔
When I first started diving deep into Weak Hero Class 1, I thought I understood the tragic friendship between Su-ho and Beom-seok.
But a subscriber recently asked me something that made me reconsider everything:
Was it really one-sided admiration from Beom-seok? How did Su-ho actually think about him? How deep was their friendship, and was their failure to communicate simply because of different personalities?
This question hit me like a truck because I realized I’d been analyzing their relationship mostly from Beom-seok’s perspective. I’d never really considered what this friendship looked like through Su-ho’s eyes, and that oversight was crucial.
Script Book Revelation That Broke My Heart 💔
My obsession with understanding Beom-seok led me to purchase the official script book (yes, I’m that far gone 😂), and I discovered something heartbreaking. In a rolling paper exercise where Hong Kyung writes to each character as Beom-seok, he says to Su-ho:
Su-ho ya… I admired you so much. I loved you so much. I’m sorry, really sorry, Su-ho ya…
Reading this confirmed what I’d suspected but hadn’t fully articulated: Beom-seok’s feelings weren’t just friendship. Su-ho had become everything Beom-seok desperately wanted to be but could never achieve. This wasn’t just about liking a friend; it was about needing that friend to validate his entire existence.
The Communication Catastrophe 🗣️
The fundamental problem wasn’t that these boys didn’t care about each other—it’s that they spoke completely different emotional languages.
Think of it this way: if you wanted something from someone you cared about, would you directly ask for it, or would you drop hints and hope they’d figure it out?
Su-ho operates in the direct communication camp.
If Beom-seok had simply said during their Han River beer session, “Hey, why didn’t you follow me back on Instagram?” Su-ho would have probably laughed, said he deleted the app, and immediately re-downloaded it. Problem solved in thirty seconds.
But Beom-seok was the type to run countless mental simulations before taking action – wondering how Su-ho would react, how he might judge him, whether he’d appear too desperate if he directly asked for a follow. He overthought every possible scenario in his head before making any move, paralyzed by the fear of seeming too needy or clingy.
It’s like the classic relationship dynamic where one person says,
I’ve been using this phone case forever, it’s so worn out, hoping their partner will buy them a new one for their birthday, while the partner thinks, Okay, cool story about your phone case.
Su-ho’s Way of Loving: Actions Over Words 💪
Here’s what I think people misunderstand about Su-ho: he wasn’t emotionally unavailable or uncaring. He was just seventeen years old and expressed affection the way most teenage boys do—through actions, not words.
Su-ho’s language was protection and presence.
He called himself “hyung” (older brother) to establish his role as protector.
When Beom-seok bought food for everyone, Su-ho would insist, “You always buy stuff! Today hyung will pay for everything.” He wasn’t taking advantage—he was reciprocating in his own way.
When Beom-seok told him about his bullying situation, Su-ho immediately offered to give up his part-time job to help get revenge. In Su-ho’s world, that was a massive gesture of loyalty and care.
The Tragedy of Incompatible Needs 😢
Beom-seok’s childhood of abandonment and abuse had created emotional needs that were frankly impossible for any teenager to fulfill. He needed constant reassurance, explicit verbal affection, and someone who could understand his trauma responses.
Su-ho, despite his maturity, was still just a kid trying to balance three part-time jobs and take care of his grandmother.
The deleted Han River scene in the script book shows this perfectly. The directions note that Beom-seok “agrees with everything Su-ho says and smiles bashfully when Su-ho puts his arm around his shoulder.”
Beom-seok was likely analyzing every gesture, every word, every moment of physical contact for deeper meaning, while Su-ho was probably just enjoying hanging out with a friend without reading too much into their interactions.
This difference in emotional processing created an impossible dynamic where Beom-seok interpreted casual interactions as profound moments of connection while Su-ho treated profound gestures as normal friendship maintenance. Beom-seok needed constant validation, but Su-ho assumed their bond was secure. Su-ho expressed care through actions, while Beom-seok needed words and emotional intensity.
The Point of No Return Started
“What, are you trying to get credit from me? Should I pay you for your part-time work?”
The moment that crystallised their incompatibility wasn’t the final fight—it was that devastating argument where Beom-seok said, “What, are you trying to get credit from me? Should I pay you for your part-time work?”
Su-ho’s face in that moment broke my heart 🥲
Look at Su-ho’s face when he’s hurt by his friend’s words… Su-ho had big economic struggles, and this poor boy knew that when he said those words, his most beloved friend would be deeply hurt…
Beom-seok knew exactly how much those words would hurt… 🥲
The Impossible Equation
After analyzing their relationship from every angle, I’ve come to a painful conclusion: their friendship was probably doomed from the start. It wasn’t about jealousy over Yeong-i though she was catalysts. It wasn’t even about miscommunication, though that played a role.
One subscriber put it perfectly:
Beom-seok’s trauma created needs that were beyond what any friendship could fulfill…
What Su-ho Couldn’t Know 🔍
Su-ho could never have known, not even in his wildest dreams, that for Beom-seok, their friendship wasn’t just companionship—it was survival. Beom-seok had attached his entire sense of self-worth to Su-ho’s approval and attention. When that started to waver, it wasn’t just disappointing; it was existentially threatening.
The Instagram follow incident, all of these became confirmation of Beom-seok’s deepest fear: that he was unlovable and would inevitably be abandoned.
Su-ho was operating under normal friendship rules where casual teasing shows affection, actions speak louder than words, friendships don’t require constant maintenance, and social media follows aren’t relationship barometers.
In contrast, Beom-seok was operating under trauma-informed survival rules where every interaction contains hidden meanings, words of affirmation are essential for security, relationships require constant vigilance and effort, and any slight could signal impending abandonment.
Fan Perspective: The Doomed Timeline Theory 🕐
One of my most insightful subscribers shared this theory:
Even if Yeong-i and Si-eun had never entered the picture, Su-ho and Beom-seok’s friendship would have eventually crumbled. Beom-seok’s needs were growing exponentially while Su-ho’s capacity to meet them remained constant. It was a mathematical inevitability.
This really hit me because it reframes their story from “what went wrong” to “what was always going to go wrong.” Their friendship wasn’t destroyed by external forces—it was slowly suffocating under the weight of incompatible emotional systems.
Their friendship teaches us something uncomfortable about love and relationships: sometimes caring about someone isn’t enough. Sometimes the gap between what one person needs and what another can give is simply too vast to bridge, especially when trauma and mental health issues are involved.
Neither Su-ho nor Beom-seok was the villain in their story…
They were just two kids with fundamentally different emotional operating systems, trying to build something meaningful without the tools or understanding to make it work.
If you’re a fan who has watched this drama multiple times, you’ll know that no scene is wasted and every detail carries meaning. When the cracks begin to show between Beom-seok and Su-ho’s relationship, Si-eun, who is trying to mediate between them, looks at the math teacher who says:
You know why you’re all bad at math? Because you don’t understand the fundamentals and you’re always just trying to…
Personal Reflection: Why This Matters 🤔
As I write this, I keep thinking about that script book message:
I admired you so much. I loved you so much. I’m really sorry….Su-hoya…
It captures the entire tragedy—the love was real, the admiration was genuine, and the sorry was necessary because sometimes love, no matter how intense, isn’t enough to overcome the fundamental incompatibilities that doom a relationship from the start.
Their story isn’t just about two characters in a drama. It’s about the heartbreak of loving someone in a language they can’t understand, the tragedy of needing something from someone who simply doesn’t have it to give, the painful realisation that good intentions can’t always bridge incompatible needs…
💭 What’s Your Take on Their Doomed Friendship?
After diving this deep into their relationship dynamics, I’m convinced that Su-ho and Beom-seok were incompatible from the start. But I’d love to hear your perspective:
Do you think their friendship could have been saved with different circumstances?
Share your thoughts in the comments below—this kind of relationship analysis is exactly what makes Weak Hero such a masterpiece of psychological storytelling!
🔗 Continue the Weak Hero Journey
Want more deep dives into these complex characters?
- Missing Su-ho’s jokes? → Read about his lost wordplay here
- Want more fan theories? → Check out what subscribers discovered
- Curious about Si-eun’s “first love”? → Get the full analysis
- Ready to cry about Beom-seok? → Dive into his tragic psychology
- Why Si-eun is a Character Magnet? → See how he transforms every character he meets
Listen to the full podcast episode: [Was Su-ho and Beom-seok’s Friendship Doomed from the Start? | Subscriber Request 🎧]
Trust me, once you start analyzing these relationship dynamics, you’ll never watch K-dramas the same way again! 😉
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Tags: #WeakHero, #Suho, #AhnSuho, #Beomseok, #OhBeomseok, #ChoiHyunwook, #HongKyung, #CharacterAnalysis, #KDramaAnalysis, #KoreanDrama, #FriendshipAnalysis, #TraumaInMedia
