Sonny Lofthus’s code of protecting innocents

Sonny Lofthus’s code of protecting innocents is a practical limit on his campaign of violence, not a rejection of violence itself. It explains why he selects a risky confrontation with Arild Franck inside Staten rather than at Franck’s home, where his wife and child might be endangered, and why he leaves a pistol untouched when Anders assaults him. In a story where justice is pursued outside a compromised law-enforcement system, Sonny’s restraint distinguishes the people he targets from those he refuses to put in the line of fire.

The Code and Its Boundary

The code is made explicit when Simon Kefas reasons that Sonny could have confronted the assistant prison governor more safely at home, but chose Franck’s office instead. That decision exposes Sonny to danger while keeping Franck’s family out of the conflict. Simon identifies the intended boundary plainly: innocent bystanders are not to be hurt. The choice is therefore not simply tactical; it reveals a rule Sonny applies even when breaking it might make his immediate objective easier.

The rule is selective rather than pacifist. Sonny has killed people, and Simon connects his actions to his father Ab Lofthus’s demand for judgment and justice beyond the law. Sonny’s protection of innocents exists inside that vigilante pursuit: it limits the reach of his violence without withdrawing him from it. The tension between restraint and lethal action is central to the code’s meaning.

Franck’s Office: Risk Redirected

At Staten, Sonny confronts Franck in the assistant prison governor’s office. He binds Franck to his chair with duct tape, secures his arms, chest, and feet, and takes his wallet and car key. The confrontation is an act of coercive control, but the chosen location matters: unlike a visit to Franck’s home, it does not place Franck’s wife and child within the immediate danger. Sonny’s method is threatening, while his choice of setting observes the code’s distinction between a target and that target’s family.

Simon later draws attention to this contrast. An encounter at Franck’s home would have been less risky for Sonny, but would have put the family in the firing line. The office confrontation thus makes protection costly to Sonny rather than merely a promise made at no personal expense. His concern for bystanders shapes the route he takes, even when the route leaves him more exposed.

Anders and the Unused Pistol

The code appears again in a different form when Anders attacks Sonny outside Martha Lian’s home. Sonny turns to meet him and briefly restrains him, but then releases him. Anders continues striking Sonny, who does not retaliate with the pistol concealed in his trousers. When Martha sees the weapon, it has remained untouched throughout the assault. Sonny instead raises his uninjured cheek toward Anders, allowing the blows to continue without drawing the gun.

That restraint is consequential because the pistol offers Sonny an immediate means to end the attack, yet using it in this confrontation would bring lethal force into a personal dispute involving Martha and her former fiancé. The scene does not show Sonny explaining his decision, but his conduct matches the boundary Simon describes: he does not make an innocent or emotionally entangled bystander bear the cost of his capacity for violence. The code is conveyed through what Sonny declines to do.

Restraint Without Innocence

These episodes establish a moral distinction, not an absolution. Sonny’s protection of Franck’s family does not undo the violence of binding Franck, just as refusing to draw the pistol does not erase the killings Simon attributes to him. Rather, the code restricts whom Sonny permits himself to endanger. His actions remain part of a private campaign for justice that Simon regards as arising from Ab’s example and the corruption of the Oslo police; the code governs that campaign from within instead of making it lawful.

The contrast between the Staten office and the assault outside Martha’s home gives the principle two forms. In the first, Sonny chooses a more dangerous location to keep a family out of reach. In the second, he declines to use a weapon while being attacked. Together they show that protecting innocents is an active constraint on his tactics, one that can cost him safety without changing the violent character of his mission.