Still in the Picture

Official portraits of North Korea's ruler, Kim Jong Il, and his late father, Kim Il Sung, are considered so sacred that a North Korean caught in a fire is expected to save them before his own children. So experts on the secretive state were puzzled by reports last week that portraits of the younger Kim had been disappearing from public buildings. A Tokyo-based news agency that monitors North Korean media also reported that the national wire service had dropped the usual Dear Leader honorific it used to refer to Kim. Were these signs that his absolute power was slipping?

Probably not. With no apparent unrest in the North, it seems more likely that Kim is trying to dial back his cult of personality, possibly to present himself as a more normal leader internationally. "He is confident in his power," says Kim Kwang In, a North Korea specialist at Seoul's Chosun Ilbo newspaper. "He doesn't need idolatry." But if this was a show of self-abnegation, it was a modest one. North Korea uses more than 1,000 flattering designations for its leader, including Guardian Deity of the Planet and Sun of the 21st Century. Meanwhile, Dear Leader was still in use on Korean TV.

The absence of Kim's portrait from the People's Palace of Culture in Pyongyang was confirmed last week by before-and-after photos in a South Korean newspaper. And Stanislav Varivoda, a Russian correspondent based in the capital, says Kim's image was also missing from the city's Mansudae Assembly Hall. But Varivoda told TIME he could find no evidence that other portraits were missing. Meanwhile, an aid worker in Pyongyang said he saw nothing amiss in the dozen buildings he visited last week. However, a source close to South Korean intelligence told TIME that some portraits in the capital and three other cities have been replaced recently—after they were defaced with paint. Not every North Korean, it seems, is willing to lay down his life for a picture.