@arithanas I just had a thought... what if Yanez was super surly and kind of an asshole at the beginning.  Like he knows there is something about the man that drew him in but he hasn’t unlearned all the toxic European ideas and ideals yet so he’s essentially stuck in a world he’s always wanted but feels like he can’t touch.

Sandokan has the patience of a saint (He usually doesn’t and the tigers are shocked by how he treats this strange European) and teaches Yanez how things are done in Mompracem, how things are done when living with the tigers.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Yanez lets himself let go and this is what turns him into the man we know in the books.