Who performs the action 「ホームルームを終わらせて」

Question

My question stems from the last part of this excerpt where he says さっさとホームルームを終わらせて自由の身になりたかった. My question is because he is not the the teacher so he doesn't really have control over causing homeroom to end.

So I guess my question is, is he saying that he wants his teacher to end homeroom (obviously this is implied) but this doesn't seem like what is stated because I imagine it would say ほしい somewhere if this was the case e.g. を終わらせてほしい. So how does 終わらせて work in this case if he doesn't have direct control over the situation? Is having an indirect influence over the situation (he mentioned that he was interested in what type of school life they lead, but didn't ask any questions as he clearly wanted to go home instead) sufficient enough to use a causative form of the verb?

担任が過去にどんな学生生活を送っていたのかは非常に気になるところだが。今はとりあえずさっさとホームルームを終わらせて自由の身になりたかった

Answer 1

In this context, apparently the narrator does have some control over the end time (the homeroom will end soon if he chooses to keep silent), so saying 終わらせる is fine. But you can use ～を終わらせる and ～を終える even when you have no control. As long as you feel you are strongly involved in the event, you don't necessarily have to be the person who can close/finish it "officially". For example, you can safely say the following even when you are not in a "boss" position:

• 学校を終わらせて、すぐ家に帰った。
• 5時に会議を終えたらオフィスに戻ります。
• この戦いを終わらせて、故郷で花屋を開きたい。

I think these are fine because you are essentially thinking this ホームルーム/学校/会議/戦い is a "task/job" you have to finish.