The project I chose to explore was Network of Thrones, by Andrew Beveridge. The goal of the project was to determine the scale of each protagonist in terms of their centrality to the plot of the hit television show Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is a show that is truly epic in size, it spans 8 seasons and features quite a few protagonists. There is no clear main character of the show, rather there are many characters that all play an important role in the show and attain plenty of screen time. Since there is no main protagonist, this project focused on evaluating the scale of each protagonist. The scale of each protagonist is determined by a combination of metrics resulting from important interactions, important connections, and total interactions each main character has.
Additionally, this project also features data analysis of character interactions and the consistency of those interactions. In this data analysis, the nodes are the characters themselves, while the edges are the relationships these characters have with one another. The project does a good job of using straightforward and easy-to-interpret graphs to display data. An example of this comes with the thickness of the lines that convey relationships between characters in a graph. Jon Snow has a much thicker line connected to Arya Stark than with Lyanna Mormont. This is because Arya Stark is his sister and he has much more scenes with her than he does with Lyanna Mormont. This project was created by using the techniques of network science to explore the immense narrative and all of the relationships within that narrative taking place under the umbrella of Game of Thrones. All of the data for this project is available on GitHub which is very cool because this allows anyone interested in this project to view the raw data that is being analyz
ed.
Overall I thought this was a very interesting project that utilized network analysis effectively.
I am not very familiar with the show Game of Thrones, so while looking at this project it was confusing to me. However, your explanation of the show and the network analysis made it a lot clearer, so thank you! I think this is a really cool project and can be used for different TV shows and movies as well. One aspect that catches my attention is the difference in edges. I think its important to differentiate distinct relationships, as this project does.
From what I know about Game of Thrones, I think its fanbase would be very into this project, especially because someone liked the show enough to make a really extensive analysis of its characters for all 8 seasons. My project didn’t include the source data anywhere, so I like that yours allows people to view the raw data; I think that’s how they all should be.
I’ve never seen Game of Thrones, so I wasn’t sure about the context behind the data. I’m glad that you could provide some of that context. I wonder how fans of the show interact with this project and if they would have more insight or would be surprised by what his project shows. As an outsider looking in, I love that it is color-coded. However, I would have liked a little bit more interactivity, so if you click a node, you get fewer lines on the graph to make it more digestible.
This is one of the most unique and interesting network analysis that I have seen yet. I have heard of Game of Thrones but never watched it. After seeing this blog post and looking into the Network of Thrones analysis it gives a broad idea of what the show is about the protagonists and even a sense of how complex each season is.
Wow, thank you Marcus for explaining the wonders of this show, Game of Thrones, I will definitely have to watch soon. Further, I would also like to point out that, per your description, the Network of Thrones seemed to be very similar to the graph I looked into; Six Degrees of Francis Bacon, in that there were nodes connecting people/characters to others. How interesting!