From my earlier post:
Upon being told that some analysts in South Korea believe that Kim Ju Ae will be the successor to her father, a high-ranking source in North Korea told Daily NK on Nov. 11 that “I don’t understand why they say that. If you let a woman take power in the fourth generation, the last name of the fifth-generation leader will be different. That doesn’t make sense. When you name a successor, you think of the future. Succession is establishing the fourth generation to serve as a basis for the fifth generation.”
In short, the source argued that Kim Ju Ae’s descendants would have a family name other than Kim, a family name associated with the country’s so-called Paekdu Bloodline, and that this would make a fifth generation succession impossible to achieve. The source’s argument puts on display the power of patriarchal beliefs in North Korean society; namely, that children must take their father’s last name and only sons may become successors to keep familial lines going.
Related to this is the question of mystique. Exposing his daughter so frequently to the public eye is largely about showing her as a symbol of the next generation, of which he's the father. But she's just a side-show. She just stands in the background: no power of her own, no mystique. There are rumoured to be three children, with an older brother and a younger brother. These – presumably the older, at least – will be kept hidden: only revealed when the time is right, as next in line in the sacred Paekdu Bloodline, and firmly in the context of power and authority – perhaps even, like his father before him, ascending holy Mt Paektu on a white horse.
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