CNN NEWS

NK News, a well-respected English-language North Korean monitoring website, even runs a North Korean Leadership Tracker which allows users to see the number of appearances or mentions of Kim and other high-ranking leaders in state media.

Speculation about the leader's health or whereabouts is often educated guesswork, and it often turns out to be wrong. But there are two major reasons why it happens so regularly.

No apparent heir

Any conjecture about Kim's death usually feeds into a popular narrative of North Korea as a modern-day Shakespearean tragedy.

 

The country has been ruled as a hereditary dictatorship since its founding in 1948 by Kim Il Sung. His son, Kim Jong Il, took over after his father's death in 1994. And Kim Jong Un took power 17 years later when Kim Jong Il died. Their eventual takeovers were telegraphed to the public before their respective fathers' deaths.

But Kim's three children are not believed to have reached adulthood yet. Even if one was being groomed for future leadership, the child would need some sort of regent to rule in an interim capacity -- something that's never happened in North Korea.

"It's not a monarchy officially. It's a monarchy for all practical purposes," Lankov said. Michael Madden, an expert on North Korea's leadership, believes there are about 10 to 20 different scenarios that could play out should Kim be incapacitated, though cautioned against reading the tea leaves too much.

He said it's possible North Korea could choose to follow the model the Soviet Union did after the death of Joseph Stalin, another communist dictator who ruled by cult of personality, and turn to some form of collective leadership. It would likely be led Kim Jong Un's sister and close aide, Kim Yo Jong, an it's possible the body would serve until Kim Jong Un's heir is old enough to take the reins.