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Mathematicians mapped “Game of Thrones” relationship to find the main character
- kyriakos 11y agoyou need a mathematician to come up with that diagram?
- treerex 11y agoCertainly not to record the relations or visualize them, but social network analysis certainly falls into the realm of mathematics.
- maxerickson 11y agoIn this case the mathematician decided on his own to make the diagram, it isn't an answer to some external need.
- thearn4 11y agoGraph centrality measures are a pretty interesting and ongoing topic of research in mathematics, yes. I'm familiar with methods based on eigenspectra of the matrix exponential (and some relevance to Krylov subspace methods), but that's really it.
- amelius 11y agoBut I guess there will be some arbitrariness involved anyway, even when mathematicians look at the problem. E.g. why would one measure be better than another?
- Mithaldu 11y agoI want to see this animated.
- marxidad 11y agoWith the 3D clockwork graphics and the musical theme score!
- jmiserez 11y ago> Whenever two characters appeared within 15 words of one another, a link (or “edge”) was added between them. The links are weighted based on how often the two characters appeared in close proximity. The interesting part here is that the algorithm needs no upfront understanding about the relationships nor about the type of interactions between characters. You can construct the graph from just looking at the locations of the words associated with each character.
- jsmith0295 11y agospoiler alert I wouldn't say this necessarily points to the "main" character, as its just one measure of a character's significance. Littlefinger (Petyr on this diagram) is rather small and on the edge - but he's ultimately responsible for a huge amount of what goes on.
- kyriakos 11y agoyou are right but the aim is to find who the writers consider the "main" character and not who had the most impact on the GoT universe. If we take it in that sense the white walkers are probably the most significant.
- talmand 11y agoI would say there is no single main character to the story.
- kyriakos 11y agothat's also the most likely reason the story (book or TV) is so popular. the fact that there is no distinct good or evil, no main character, no main villain etc. everyone is grey, everyone can die etc
- possibility 11y agoThere are obviously evil characters, obviously good characters, and ambiguous characters. Mostly ambiguous.
- wheat7420 11y agoThis is an analysis of the books, who have just one author.
- lizardking 11y agoSome of the characters who have had the most effect on the events as they are taking place in the books are dead before they start and get very little page time.
- ludicast 11y agoReminds me of Six Degrees of Harry Lewis[0], where Mark Zuckerberg set up a graph to find out the most popular person in Harvard, via cross-referencing articles in the crimson. That project may or may not have been the origin of Facebook. 0 - http://bostinno.streetwise.co/all-series/the-harvard-professor-who-helped-make-facebook-possible/ http://bostinno.streetwise.co/all-series/the-harvard-profess...
- Raphmedia 11y agoOr you know... you could count the number of chapters that every character has and come up with the one that has the highest number of chapters as the main character?
- evgen 11y agoWhich, if your RTFA, they have done and noted. They show that this is not quite as simple as it seems since, for example, Arya has more POV chapters but Sansa is more important to the story.
- lmm 11y agoIs she though? What measure are you using to say that Sansa is more important than Arya?
- bonobo 11y agoOr you could just count the number of times their names are mentioned... Except neither approach really represents character importance accurately. Why just go the naive route when you can extract more information from your data by using a more complex approach? The article actually counters your point exactly: "For example, Arya Stark, Sansa’s younger sister, has the third most chapters with 34, but ranks behind Sansa in terms of network importance."
- chongli 11y agoI don't think the naive approach is too far off in this case. Arya's importance is reflected in the sheer amount of exposition devoted to her. She's pretty clearly being set up to make a major return at some point, just as it is with Daenerys. The characters with a lot of network connections, on the other hand, are easy to kill off because they're ultimately redundant.
- peeters 11y ago> Or you could just count the number of times their names are mentioned "Hodor"
- pigpaws 11y ago...still no cure for cancer.
- jccc 11y ago"In spite of his small size, Tyrion is mathematically the most important character in Game of Thrones." ... followed by Jon Snow.
- elcapitan 11y agoCan they map postmodern literature to find the plot?
- huac 11y agohttp://www.critical-theory.com/this-is-what-happens-when-you-map-a-deleuze-and-guattari-book/ http://www.critical-theory.com/this-is-what-happens-when-you...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kchoudhu 11y agoShocker: POV characters are probably main characters.
- ceejayoz 11y agohttp://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/POV_character http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/POV_character says there are 31 POV characters, many of whom aren't main characters.
- wheat7420 11y agoReaders of the books know that is definitely not the case. For instance Areo Hotah is a repeated point of view character who is merely there to provide prospective on the court of Dorne as a silent body guard. Fans of the series call him "the camera who rides." On the other hand GRRM has said characters like Littlefinger and Varys will never have chapters because their plans are too revealing of the end of the book. They are too central to be PoV characters.
- FnuGk 11y agoHis chapters is called "The captain of guards" and not "Areo" as is the way chapters of the main POV characters is named.
- wheat7420 11y agoNumerous characters both major and minor get chapter names like that. Asha gets a chapter where she's "the sacrifice", Victarion gets a chapter where he's "the iron suitor" and chapters that just go by their name as well. Arya has been "the ugly little girl" in the chapter title. Theon has been "the ghost of winterfel". Regardless, he's still a point of view character that isn't central to the plot.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- thom 11y agoThe dragon has three heads, so we're told. Tyrion, Jon, Daenerys?
- neipfjin239 11y agoThis is a popular fan theory (Jon's parentage is very ambiguous, and it can be argued that Tyrion's parentage is not completely clear, leading to speculation that they both have Targaryen blood).
- soylentcola 11y agoYep. That's the general theory so popular and makes enough sense that in a way, I'll be both pleased (for picking up on it) and disappointed (for lack of surprise) if it really turns out that way. At the same time, it would be sort of lame if GRRM decided "well, everyone figured out R+L=J and the three headed dragon and all so I guess I better change some things around". Then I just get a little bit bummed out (and guilty for feeling entitled) that the next book probably won't be out for a while still.
- talmand 11y agoThis is only a popularity contest among the known characters and their known interactions. For instance, Littlefinger started out seemingly as a small player but then we learn later he was actually a rather significant player in almost all aspects of what has been happening so far. Granted his obvious interactions are with rather important people but by appearances the number of interactions seem low while actually being quite large. As for Tyrion; he has a high position in life, hangs out with a large number of similar characters, and even crosses an ocean to meet up with more of that group that the others have not met yet. Regardless, I would say he's not so significant to what's going on simply because most of the others don't listen to a thing he says, even though he's right most of the time, so he doesn't have as much impact on events as he should. Just because he's present at significant events doesn't make him significant. Although, I admit those reasons are why I find him one of the more interesting characters. Seems fun but I don't see how it can answer the question without it just being about today's favorite. It cannot be fully answered until the end.
- repsilat 11y ago> [Tyrion is] not so significant He was essentially responsible for the successful defense of King's Landing at the Battle of the Blackwater. If he hadn't been there, Stannis would be on the Iron Throne -- I'd call that high-impact. I agree that Littlefinger's impact is under-represented by this measure, though. And obviously Arya has had no impact on anything important at all ti date...
- lizardking 11y agoNot to mention his kidnapping was responsible for the war that broke out in the first book and set the stage for every major event in the series. He also put a cross bow bolt through the gut of the guy who had been running the 7 kingdoms.
- talmand 11y agoThe kidnapping was not the reason, it was the excuse. He was also accused of killing the King, which is more important than killing his father in the scheme of things. But notice he didn't do it and not many characters care anymore. Tywin wasn't running the 7 kingdoms and never did. Once he came into that level of power there was no unity in the kingdoms, half of them or so in open revolt. He controlled King's Landing and related lands through his grandchild. His family was broke and the only thing they had left was family on the throne (which is not a rightful claim), which is quickly dwindling away and under direct threat from multiple fronts. Notice that once he was dead, it was swept away to something not to worry over just like much of anything involving Tyrion. Tyrion has been present at many significant events but in the end has little impact on their outcomes. I suspect he'll continue this trend and then one day people may actually start listening to him, which will make things really interesting. This is one of the things that make this story interesting; that anybody can be made insignificant regardless of their position and power. If there is to be a main character named, I would say it's the "game" because all the characters are just pieces on the board.
- wmil 11y agoThis graph only covers the third book, A Storm of Swords. I'm surprised that they haven't gone back and generated a graph for all of the released books yet.
- moron4hire 11y agoIs it so hard to imagine that a popular series could represent a non-traditional narrative structure in which there is no, one, main character?
- skywhopper 11y agoThe graph is interesting. But maybe Game of Thrones doesn't have a "main" character. One of the things fans love about the books is that they subvert genre expectations at every turn. Given how things are going, in fact, I won't be surprised if the next literary convention GRRM eschews is "conclusion".
- xiaq 11y agoExactly. Instead of a lot of plotting and planning, people just kill and die. It's very, very refreshing.
- talmand 11y agoBut there's lots of plotting and planning for people to just kill and die as well.
- lumberjack 11y agoI've only read three fantasy series besides ASOIAF but all of the have similar character development. I think the difference in ASOIAF is that there isn't a clear set of protagonists and antagonists. Or maybe the story so far only talked about the protagonists and the antagonists are yet to be revealed.
- qrendel 11y agoI think this is one way to look at it, at least for the books. For the TV show, over all the seasons it seems like three main characters have emerged (based on longevity, screentime, and plot importance): Daenerys, Tyrion, and Jon Snow. You could perhaps argue Cersei as well - iirc she has more POV chapters and page-time in the books than any other character. An alternative view is that the main character(s) change from book to book and season to season. Ned was probably the main character in the first book & season one, Robb replaced him in book/season two, with similar evolutions for other "temporary-mains." Though really the first explanation seems better: a "main character" just doesn't fit the structure of ASOIAF very well.
- FnuGk 11y ago
- sickbeard 11y agoMathematicians take the fun out of everything and turn it into a graph
- hornbaker 11y agoThis would be interesting to run on the HN community, or any popular forum.
- samfisher83 11y agoGRRM said Tyrion is his favorite character so not that surprising.
- Overtonwindow 11y agotl;dr for those with short attention spans like me: Tyrion, Jon, and Sansa are identified as the central characters.