Amundsen cultivated the image of a modern Viking and followed a code of honor that often conflicted with the nuances and compromises of life at lower latitudes. Just as he remained fiercely loyal to his closest friends—a small group that now included Cook—he rarely forgot a slight. He would never forgive de Gerlache. His confrontation of the commandant, whom he had once so admired, was practically Oedipal in nature. It marked the end of his polar apprenticeship and his coming-of-age as a leader in his own right.
