Why did the Baudelaires burn down the hotel?

[indyrams]

The way I see it was, the orphans were with Olaf who had Justice Strauss.
Only JS was under Olaf's capture. The Baudelaire's voluntarily got in the elevator with Olaf to get back Justice Strauss.

So my questions are:

Why did the Baudelaire's burn down the hotel? They knew there were many people in the hotel AND blindfolded! They knew not everybody would escape with their lives. So were they willing to kill many people (including possible Justice Strauss) just to send a signal and help Olaf at the same time?
Yes they did visit every floor to warn people, but they could have avoided making the fire in the first place.

2nd question.
Why leave with Olaf in the boat?
He is the man that has become the root of 95% of their problems since day one.
They were terrified of him. So why join him on a boat to journey in the middle of the sea?
Justice Strauss was willing to help the Orphans and she was a respectable judge.
Running away was only going to make it worse for them and either choice would have been tough. Pick the lessor of two evils!
Yes there were the other two judges that were in fact wicked, but there would always be evil.
The Baudelaire's did willingly commit some of those crimes including the Hotel Denouement fire, always thought they would have wanted to step forth and claim responsibility for it. Since they kept telling themselves they didn't want to be on the evil side of the world.

[Teleram]

The Baudleaires did not purposely join Olaf, it was just that they wound up together by a turn of events.

[Dante]

The Baudelaires needed to send a signal to all other volunteers to avoid the hotel, as it had become a hotbed of villainy under the direct control of two of the most powerful villains, the sinister duo, who it had become clear controlled the legal system. For the same reason, escape was vital - placing themselves in the clutches of the sinister duo, who are stated to be even worse than Olaf, would be suicidal. The Baudelaires just didn't have any decent options to deal with these problems. To be fair on them, they did try to warn everyone they could of the fire, and didn't know that Olaf would dismiss their warnings of fire to keep people in the hotel to burn to death. As for Justice Strauss, she was outnumbered on the High Court, and quite frankly would probably have been done away with before long, once she learnt the sinister duo's secret.

I'm not saying that what the Baudelaires did was right, but what they didn't do was foolish.

[indyrams]

Your explanation is very good Dante.
Never thought of it that way.

[colette]

I am more feeling person than thinking person. So I was angry at Baudelaires when they had done. Anyway, there were 999 rooms in the hotel. Nine stores. It was impossible to safe everyone's life. Even if everyone have believed Baudelaires' warnings.
As for Justice Strauss... I am almost sure that she was perished. Unlike Mrs Bass, she had a very small( even tiny) chance of surviving the fire. I would even say Strauss had the smallest chance of surviving among all other characters who stayed in the hotel at the moment of fire.

[Dante]

I would agree that Justice Strauss seems likely to have been the most endangered. It's hard to see who could have been more under threat.

[Dante]

Climb aboard, if we're being literal - and they were speaking to both Olaf and Justice Strauss. The Baudelaires are generally against death and were never going to leave Olaf to die, while the fact that Justice Strauss refused her invitation does not invalidate it. I also think it's fair to say that they would have preferred to escape with anyone else before Count Olaf, but he was the only way out they had (that wouldn't, as I outlined above, be suicidal).

[gliquey]

Oct 4, 2016 10:25:07 GMT -5 Dante said:

The Baudelaires are generally against death and were never going to leave Olaf to die

This is sort of reaffirmed by the quandary in the early pages of The End where the Baudelaires wonder whether to push Olaf overboard. The storm interrupts them, but I'm inclined to think that they could have been stuck on the boat with Olaf for another week and they still wouldn't have chosen to push him overboard. In any case, I think it makes sense that their gut reaction was to try to save Olaf (and Justice Strauss).

[Hermes]

Oct 4, 2016 10:25:07 GMT -5 Dante said:

The Baudelaires are generally against death and were never going to leave Olaf to die

Though one Baudelaire doesn't seem entirely to share this feeling. 'Unless.'

[A comet crashing into Earth]

To get to the other side of the schism?

[doetwin]

My reasoning is that Violet and Klaus over-estimated Sunny's wisdom. It was primarily Sunny's idea to burn down the hotel. In TPP, I think we can safely assume that she was about 2 years old. Most 2-year-olds have not developed enough awareness to understand what's right and what's wrong. There's a good reason that kids are punished less harshly than adults for the same crime. Sunny, at her age, simply hadn't developed the morality to understand how wrong it was to set a building on fire just to send a signal. However, Violet and Klaus didn't realize this until after the fact, when they were on the roof of the building and it was too late. When Sunny announced that she wanted to set the building on fire, Violet and Klaus probably assumed that Sunny had a much bigger and more important reason for wanting to burn down the hotel.

[Violent BUN Fortuna]

I agree with the answers other people have given. 

The way I see it is, I think they made the best they could out of a bad situation. They needed to escape and people were in terrible danger anyway -- the whole reason for burning down the hotel was to send a message to let people know that it wasn't safe anymore -- if the other volunteers had got there, they would have walked straight into danger, and quite possibly (or even probably) to their deaths.
They were, as bizarre as it might seem on the surface, trying to help people. It was a 'for the greater good' sort of action, if you like -- death and danger was likely coming either way, and it would be better to try and prevent the deaths of as many people as they could (and especially of their closest friends, whom they wouldn't have wanted to come into danger by arriving at the hotel) by starting the fire and thus not only sending a signal but also scattering everyone away from the hotel, which had become so unsafe. Of course some people wouldn't escape, but they tried their best to make sure that as many people as possible did. There was no good way out of the situation they were in.
Plus, it has to be remembered that they were very distraught, stressed, and frightened from Dewey's death (and everything that had happened to them recently) and that, as doetwin said, they were very young (particularly Sunny, who had the idea). 

Whether it was wrong or right is difficult to say, but what I think is certain is that they did it with the best of intentions. They hadn't given themselves over to villainy in the way that Count Olaf did -- they genuinely were trying to protect and help people, and felt awful for any potential harm they had caused. I couldn't have done it, but I don't blame them for doing it. 

[coolcat667]

Jul 9, 2017 9:24:32 GMT -5 Violent BUN Fortuna said:

I agree with the answers other people have given. 

The way I see it is, I think they made the best they could out of a bad situation. They needed to escape and people were in terrible danger anyway -- the whole reason for burning down the hotel was to send a message to let people know that it wasn't safe anymore -- if the other volunteers had got there, they would have walked straight into danger, and quite possibly (or even probably) to their deaths.
They were, as bizarre as it might seem on the surface, trying to help people. It was a 'for the greater good' sort of action, if you like -- death and danger was likely coming either way, and it would be better to try and prevent the deaths of as many people as they could (and especially of their closest friends, whom they wouldn't have wanted to come into danger by arriving at the hotel) by starting the fire and thus not only sending a signal but also scattering everyone away from the hotel, which had become so unsafe. Of course some people wouldn't escape, but they tried their best to make sure that as many people as possible did. There was no good way out of the situation they were in.
Plus, it has to be remembered that they were very distraught, stressed, and frightened from Dewey's death (and everything that had happened to them recently) and that, as doetwin  said, they were very young (particularly Sunny, who had the idea). 

Whether it was wrong or right is difficult to say, but what I think is certain is that they did it with the best of intentions. They hadn't given themselves over to villainy in the way that Count Olaf did -- they genuinely were trying to protect and help people, and felt awful for any potential harm they had caused. I couldn't have done it, but I don't blame them for doing it. 

It probably would have worked to just shout "Fire!" to get everyone out, then burn it down. That would be safest.

[Violent BUN Fortuna]

Maybe, but that would waste time, and most people wouldn't believe them: there were already people who didn't believe them when there WAS a fire. If they had shouted it beforehand, they never would have been able to get enough people out for it to have even been worth trying, and then by the time they set the fire, people would probably be coming back in anyway.

[Dante]

On which note, I've just realised that in over three years of this thread's existence, nobody has mentioned the Medusoid Mycelium. I can't remember if it was on my mind or not, but it remains a fact that Olaf planned to unleash invisible death upon the entire hotel, and that's likely what the Baudelaires were really signalling against and attempting to prevent; not just the machinations of a corrupt High Court, but Olaf's plan to simply kill everyone in the building by an alternative and much less visible method. By setting the fire and stopping the elevator at every floor to warn of it, the Baudelaires prevented Olaf from unleashing the Medusoid Mycelium and provided a threat which was easier to detect and escape.

We've been writing this thread as if it was a matter of death by fire versus death by society, but actually it was death by fire versus death by fungus.