X = Tyrion. At least that’s what the numbers say.
Macalester College Associate Professor of Mathematics Andrew J. Beveridge and undergrad Jie Shan had their statistical analysis of Game of Thrones published by Math Horizons, the journal of the Mathematics Association of America. Yes, there is such a thing.
The mathematicians used A Storm of Swords, the third book in the ASOIAF saga and applied Network Science to analyze it.
Say what?
Network Science is a new and evolving branch of graph theory that brings together disciplines from many disciplines, including sociology, economics, physics, computer science and mathematics.
Oh joy.
Mathematicians charted the relationships between the characters in the story by connecting them if their names appeared within 15 words of each other in the book. The more characters appear in a person’s “network,” the more influential or important that character becomes.
The resulting map looks like this
As you can see, Tyrion Lannister dominates the chart, having the most relationships, contacts and associations with the greatest number of characters. Jon Snow comes in a distant second, with the Dragon Queen Daenerys Targaryen having the smallest circle of influence because at that point of the story she was still in Essos and removed from most of the action. Once she unleashes dragons on Westeros, everyone will be talking about her.
The formula also measured the characters in other ways including frequency of contact, closeness of relationship, and number of pages in which they appear. Even with these additional factors, Tyrion dominates the narrative. Read the entire paper here.
More Math of Thrones
This isn’t the first time that mathematicians have deployed numerical theory at the GoT saga. In 2014 Wired.com reported on a mathematician who wrote a paper on his use of Bayesian Statistics to predict who will die in the Winds of Winter. This theory uses the previous books to formulate probabilities. Readers have yet to find out if his results are accurate.
Elsewhere in Math of Game of Thrones
Check out this video, a fun spoof that charts all sort of Game of Thrones Stats.
Image: Edited official HBO Game of Thrones Poster, by Vivian Lake.
This post was originally published on Mslake.me
