Are self-immolations a thing?

So many alleged phenomena - pandemics, suicide bombings, school mass shootings, self-immolations ... are they things or are they all psyops?

Prompted by the mention of the alleged protest self-immolation by Vietnamese monk, Thích Quảng Đức, in 1963 in the comments on Is It "Inappropriate" To Ask Basic Questions About "Burning Man" Aaron Bushnell? by Celia Farber, I wondered if the 1963 self-immolation might reveal anomalies too.

Sure enough, things don’t add up, just as they don’t with Aaron’s seeming self-immolation. While I must admit that Aaron’s actual immolation is quite convincing but could be some kind of Deep Fake or done in the same way as shown in the stunt video above, there are a number of anomalies around the immolation as mentioned in Celia’s article.

See also article indicating that the January 2001 self-immolation by five people in Tiananmen Square was faked.

Questions about the 1963 self-immolation in Saigon

1. We are told that Malcolm Browne, a photographer working for Associated Press, took the photographs below displayed in Wikipedia. How credible is it that such an event - of which hint was given the day before - was able to be set up and allowed to proceed at a “busy Saigon intersection”? We might also ask that if the “important event” indicated were allowed to proceed, why not use film camera as well as still - after all, we got both for the impromptu “live” shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald a little later in the year. Note that the first photo below won World Press Photo of the Year, 1963.

2. When we crop the first photo so that the car appears at the same distance, Thích Quảng Đức is not in the same position in relation to the car, the people behind the car look different as do the people in the upper right quadrant and as Proton Magic points out in the comments, isn’t there an expectation of writhing? Whatever kind of mind control a monk has, wouldn’t his nervous system would be overwhelmed by the attack of flames? Do you think these seeming anomalies can be accommodated by the narrative or rather that they are against reality Revelation-of-the-Method (RoM) style, that is, they are trusty clues that tell us it’s all staged.

3. To the left of the alleged self-immolation we see a white object that looks very different in both photos and in the second photo is significantly closer to the monk. Do you think that the second object reflects a petrol container deformed by the flames or rather that this is a RoM signal of fakery?

4. If we crop the upper right quadrant in both photos we find that the monks in each don’t seem to match, for example, in the first photo we see no monk in a dark robe or a monk kneeling (extreme right) which we see in the second photo. Do you think this simply reflects natural movement of the monks during self-immolation or rather a RoM signal of fakery?

5. In the right upper quadrant of the second photo we see what looks like a boy monk levitating although people have disputed this claim. Judge for yourself. Obviously, if you accept that that is what it looks like it can only mean one thing, right? RoM … and they do have a laugh with that one. If you don’t, I welcome alternative explanations.

6. Part of Malcolm Browne’s bio in Wikipedia reads:

Browne worked for ABC TV for about a year but became dissatisfied with television journalism,[1] and worked freelance for several years. He did a year's fellowship at Columbia University with the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1968, he joined The New York Times, becoming its correspondent for South America in 1972. Having worked as a chemist prior to becoming a journalist,[3] in 1977 Browne became a science writer, serving as a senior editor for Discover. He returned to the Times in 1985, and went on to cover the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Do you think this biography may suggest he worked for intelligence?

EDIT: 21/04/24 We are told that Max Azzarello posted a 2,700-word manifesto to his Substack before setting himself on fire outside the courthouse where jurors were being chosen for the New York state criminal trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump on 19 April 2024, describing his intent to bring attention to a "totalitarian con" and writing that the U.S. government is "about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup." Footage is unconvincing, in fact, it’s difficult to see what might be construed as a body in most of the footage.