Man on Fire (trope): Difference between revisions

* Perhaps the most famous was [[wikipedia:Thích Quảng Đức|Thich Quang Duc]], a Buddhist priest who set himself on fire in protest of the South Vietnamese government in June 1963. Because he notified the press, photographers were on hand to capture on film Duc dousing himself with gasoline, lighting up, and then ''serenely sit there'' as [[Dying Moment of Awesome|he burned to death]]. His death prompted massive public protests that led to the coup that killed President Diem. Duc's heart remained intact, even after a second cremation to reduce the body to ashes for safe-keeping. The heart was kept and revered as a sacred relic.

* The Tunisian ("Jasmine") Revolution of 2010-11 was started when a young man, Mohammed Bouazizi, [[Kill It with Fire|attempted suicide by fire]] as a protest against bad conditions in the country (he died later in the hospital). Besides a full-blown revolution in Tunisia, Bouazizi's actions have inspired four copycats in Egypt, where the Mubarak regime fell one month after Bouazizi's death. Other Middle Eastern nations - Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Bahrain, and Iran - are undergoing mass protests in response to what happened in Tunisia and Egypt.

** At least one video has emerged of protestors accidentally setting themselves ablaze with poor Molotov throws.

* Actually happened in the Vietnam era in the USA. [[wikipedia:Norman Morrison|Norman Morrison]], a Quaker protester of the war, set himself on fire outside the Pentagon in 1965.