Many South Koreans were rattled by North Korea's nuclear test - angry and wounded at what they see as betrayal by a North Korean regime they had tried to cajole into reconciliation.
Many of those were supporters of South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, who continued to grasp at hopes that all North Korea's talk of a nuclear test was just one more negotiating ploy, smug in the belief that South Korea could escape the fallout of any North Korean belligerence aimed at Japan or the US.
Roh himself reacted with uncharacteristic sharpness to Monday's test, seeming to sense the diminishing support in South Korea's political centre for those who see engagement with the North as the best way to ease tensions on the peninsula, which is still formally in a state of war. He accused Pyongyang of breaking its 1991 pledge against going nuclear and told reporters:, "North Korea's nuclear test has left us with little or no room to continue engaging it. I can assure you that our relations with North Korea will change drastically from this point on."
Since 1998, liberal South Korean governments have pursued a "sunshine policy" of trying to engage North Korea, rather than chastise it, arguing that reconciliation can be achieved through economic incentives and increased personal contact.
Conservative critics denounced the policy of engagement as naive, arguing that South Korean aid and benefits were allowing a dangerous dictatorship to divert resources into weapons development. To many the test settles the argument. Conservative commentators adopted an "I told you so" tone and dismissed Roh's conversion as too little, much too late.
"People are now really angry with the president," says Song Young-sun, a legislator and security specialist from the opposition conservative Grand National Party. "He was manipulating people's thinking, telling us Kim Jong Il will be docile and listen to us if we feed and clothe his people ... no wonder some people were surprised. They had been conditioned to not expect it." South Korea's stock market tumbled on news of the test, losing as much as 3.6 per cent of its value before recovering to close 2.4 per cent down.
Conservatives, sensing vindication, were warning of more nuclear tests. "Kim Jong Il has committed a reckless act," said Kim Tae-san, a former North Korean diplomat who defected and lives in South Korea. "He seems determined to take it all the way, to the end."