Agree crimes against your own people should probably be the more major consideration. In terms of who is the biggest baddie there are also elements of actively bombing/starving vs the more passive methods of NK control.

TBH I think I (and maybe others) just get triggered when the bogey man is invoked each time there's a crypto story.

"Passive method of control" is a remarkable euphemism for being packed off to the gulag for crimes like being related to someone who fled to South Korea.