“When you play the Game of Thrones, you either win or you die. There is no middle ground.” — Cersei Lannister
The fantasy world of Game of Thrones may be off the air after eight fan-obsessed seasons. But its themes of power, betrayal, and cynical family dynamics come through in a revelatory biography of the North Korean dictator with whom President Trump has met twice: Anna Fifield’s The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un.
Like the fictional world of Westeros, Kim and his lieutenants rule because they are the most ruthless and ambitious characters. Every action is calculated for maximum and immediate self-gain.
The Great Successor lays this out in vivid and hard-earned detail, considering the extreme closed society that has been North Korea since its creation in the late 1940s. Fifield, a Beijing correspondent for the Washington Post, has been reporting on the Korean Peninsula since the mid-2000s. Her work has been critical in terms of understanding the Kim family and how the government of North Korea operates.
In The Great Successor, Fifield sought to explain Kim Jong Un, 35, in the context of his dynastic forebearers, father Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung and explain how the family has maintained power by operating one of the world’s most closed and repressive societies. Fifield, 43, writes she was fascinated by the “durability of the family’s hold on the country.”
Fifield’s wide-ranging interview subjects include a former sushi chef for the Kim family and dissidents who have fled the communist regime. She effectively brings over 100 hours of interviews into a coherent and important story of who Kim Jong Un is and what motivates him.
Fifield, a New Zealand native, makes clear that despite his Kim’s garish appearance and easy-to-mock extreme buzzcut on the sides of his head, the leader is a rational actor who knows what he’s doing when taunting the U.S. with the country’s burgeoning missile program. Or, alternatively, giving the appearance of wanting to make peace with the West through his Trump two summits, in Singapore in June 2018 and Vietnam in 2019, plus an impromptu trip by the president to the DMZ earlier this summer.
Kim is motivated by one thing — his own survival — and is willing to do what it takes to stay in power, Fifield writes.
The book opens with a brief historical introduction to the Korean Peninsula and then transitions into a personal story of Kim Jong Un. Fifield notes that if he was “any other child,” no one would use childhood anecdotes to attempt to construct who he is. However, since there is such little information coming out of the country about Kim, many analysts and journalists are left with no other choice.
Fifield discusses some of the economic reforms made under the Kim regime and how he marketized parts of society to keep certain segments of the elites happy and give a “sense that their standard of living was improving.”
Her most damning material, however, is discussing the surveillance of North Korean citizens and the ruthlessness of Kim Jong Un. When describing sexual assault at the prison camps the North Korean regime has established, Fifield explains that many women at the camps have forced abortions “through beatings” or “having their [babies] killed right in front of them.” When discussing surveillance, she explains that North Korean citizens are constantly watched, that torture is “commonplace,” and that they are attacked by government actors until the subjects “vomit blood.”
The book also digs up fascinating details about the killings of Kim Jong Nam and Jang Song Thaek, both of whom were sacrificial lambs in Kim’s quest for power. Kim Jong Nam was his half-brother and had been a CIA informant. His uncle Jang Song Thaek was just in his way. Regardless, both killings helped establish his power.
All worthy of a Game of Thrones episode, except with deadly real-life consequences.
