Kim Jong-un glowered and slumped in his chair at a memorial for his father
It's a move worthy of Shakespeare: two years after he came to power, North Korea's young ruler has apparently purged and executed his own uncle for plotting a coup against him.
The brutal tale, broadcast at length on state media, had the world gripped. But how much is true? And how much has it revealed about the way North Korea's ruling family works?
Sitting on the podium beneath a giant beaming portrait of his late father, Kim Jong-un wore an expression that seemed calculated to catch attention.
Slumped in his chair, his eyes lowered and his mouth turned down, he seemed to glower at the vast court of political elites clapping before him.
He had plenty of reasons to look upset, of course. The event was to commemorate his father's death two years earlier.
But was it grief making him look so irritable, or anger at the uncle who had apparently betrayed him? Was it a warning to the assembled masses? Or even fear; a premonition that the rows of obedient acolytes hid many more such threats?
Mr Chang's purge from power was unusually high-profile
Perhaps it was even a desperate sign that the execution of Chang Song-thaek was not, after all, the nephew's doing - a signal that this 30-year-old, nuclear-armed orphan was not actually in charge of the country at all.
As usual, glimpses inside Pyongyang's political machine only seem to highlight how little we know.
The reams of news coverage churned out by North Korea give an unusual impression of instability at the heart of the North Korean regime.Continued
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