Ezar Vorbarra

Ezar Vorbarra is a minor character in Lois McMaster Bujold's sci-fi series, the Vorkosigan Saga.

Ezar Vorbarra was the Emperor of Barrayar during the time of the novel "Shards of Honor." His son, Crown Prince Serg, was killed during the Escobar War. His daughter-in-law, Princess Kareen Vorbarra, was killed during the subsequent war of Vordarian's Pretendership, leaving four-year-old Prince Gregor as the only direct descendent of Vorbarra line. As a result of Ezar's death, and Gregor's minority, Aral Vorkosigan was appointed Regent of the Barrayaran Imperium till the end of Gregor's minority, when he would rule rightly as Emperor.

Ezar Vorbarra is historically important to Barrayar because of his direct involvement in ending Mad Emperor Yuri's Reign of Terror. Ezar, with the assistance of Count Piotr Vorkosigan and Vorkosigan's loyal army, overthrew the reigning Emperor, Yuri, to end his paranoid reign of terror.

"Ezer" and "Ezar" (אֵצֶר) are different variants of "Ezra" "help, assistance" (from God) in Hebrew. It is also possible for "Ezar" to mean "blue" by being cognate with the word for "blue" in some other languages, for example Arabic "azhar", medieval French and English azure. However, "blue" would be less likely to be a person's name.