performers of actions in 自らも同行すると言い出して聞かず

Question

X went on a mission, the speaker just appeared in scene as well.

x 「出陣は久々だなぁ・・・ふふっ、なんだか気分が高揚するよ」

手勢を連れて村へ様子を見に行っていたXが戻ってきて、俺に声を掛けてくる。

突然自らも同行すると言い出して聞かず、さらにXの希望で俺まで連れ出されたのだ。

さらにXの希望で俺まで連れ出されたのだ。 is indicating that the speaker was dragged here because of X's wishes as an extra reason.

Without this knowledge, if the sentence were cut off at

突然自らも同行すると言い出して聞かず---

Who is doing 言い出して and 聞かず seems to be hard to determine. Even with knowing the 2nd half of the sentence i'm not sure because no passive forms were used.

How would you go about tackling this?

thank you

Answer 1

It can be parsed more easily if you know that:

～と聞かない
～と言って聞かない

and their variations are an idiomatic expression to mean "stubbornly persist that —", literally "saying that — and don't listen". 聞かず is the proper continuative form (中止法) of 聞かない (you can use neither 聞かないで nor 聞かなくて here).

It chiefly describes that one insists on something because of personal or emotional reasons. In a situation somebody makes a formal argument, 譲らない fits much better than 聞かない.

Anyway, there is only one actor assignable in this clause. Since last sentence's subject is X, and no explicit subject introduced in this part, it will be naturally X.

突然自らも同行すると言い出して聞かず、…
X suddenly started to insist strongly that s/he would go as well, ...

Answer 2

At most 4 different people can be involved in the phrase:

(Aは)突然自らも(Bに)同行すると(Cに)言い出して(Dの言うことを)聞かず

A suddenly said to C that himself/herself would go with B, not hearing what D said

What is true is that A is the one 同行する (go together), 言い出す (say/propose), and 聞かない (not hear/ignore). What is also true is that A is not B, nor C, nor D. However, without more detailed context, it is difficult to specify who A is. Specifying who B, C, D are is even more difficult.

One possible scenario is that:

A = X (A is X).

B = C ≠ the speaker (B and C are the same person and not the speaker).

D ≠ the speaker, D = ? (D is not the speaker but it is difficult to specify who D is).

This leads to the following:

(Xは)突然自らも同行すると(Bに)言い出して(Dの言うことを)聞かず

X suddenly said to B that himself/herself would go with him/her, not hearing what D said

With the context provided, my guess is that there is a military officer B whose rank is higher than or equal to X, which coincides with @kimiTanaka's comment.