Konstantin Bothari

Sergeant Konstantin Bothari is a character in the Vorkosigan Saga of science fiction novels by Lois McMaster Bujold. He is a deeply disturbed foot soldier and a classic example of an anti-hero.

Known to all simply as "Bothari", he is the product of the Caravanserai, the notorious slum district of Vorbarr Sultana, the capital city of Barrayar. He never knew his father. His mother was a midwife and prostitute. Bothari's personality is variously described as fragmented, insane, or chameleon-like. While a child, his mother repeatedly sold him to customers until he was old enough and large enough to fight back. His deep psychological scars and trauma can surface with the right stimulus, converting him from a cool-headed warrior to a sexual psychopath in an instant. He is described as very tall, with a hatchet-like facial profile and a rumbling bass voice, which he uses sparingly. He has to take medications constantly to control the violent urges and hallucinations that bubble up from within his mind.

The one environment in which he has shown himself able to exist in a reasonably functional capacity is the military, where he was a superbly effective foot-soldier. At some point during his military career, he came to the attention of the sadistic, perverted Ges Vorrutyer, who used him to fulfill his personal sadistic sexual fantasies, especially with captured prisoners of war. Compelled to exist in this environment, Bothari's personality crumbled even further, but under the stolid command of Vorrutyer's sometime lover and later foe, Aral Vorkosigan, he was able to pull himself back together to a certain extent. Completely loyal to Vorkosigan, he retained his fealty even when Vorrutyer began using him again, so when Vorrutyer directed him to rape Cordelia Naismith, formerly Vorkosigan's prisoner and someone Vorkosigan had told him to protect, he first refused to do it, and then when Vorrutyer attempted to do the deed himself, killed Vorrutyer instead.

After this incident, he left the military and became a Vorkosigan Armsman, one of 20 personal bodyguards allowed to a Count of Barrayar. He also acquired a daughter, Elena, who was one of a group of children who had been the product of rape of Escobarans by Barrayarans during the failed invasion. Escobar sent these children, as fetuses in uterine replicators, to their Barrayaran fathers. Elena's mother had been one of the prisoners Bothari had abused, for weeks, at the direction of Ges Vorrutyer. Elena was placed in the care of one of the women in a village near the Vorkosigan country estate, Vorkosigan Surleau. Growing up, she became Miles Vorkosigan's playmate, first love, and, eventually, subordinate, in his mercenary fleet. During her childhood, Bothari saved every spare coin for her dowry, so she would make a good marriage when grown.

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