Data of Thrones: Direwolves, Unique Deaths, and Word Trends... Oh my!

Taylor Todd, Blog Editor

May 3, 2019

Like Hot Pie excitedly sharing his new cooking tips with Arya, we’re eager to share some more insights from the #dataofthrones that have been surfaced in the weeks since introducing the Game of Thrones data dashboard and the Gender of Thrones analysis.

So whether you’re still processing the most recent events of this season, in denial about Game of Thrones already being halfway over, or are here for all-things data — you’re in the right place. Check out these GoT insights and share yours with us on the Community and social media #dataofthrones.

Ghost, where have you been?

Almost from out of nowhere, season eight blessed us with the on-screen return of Ghost. This happy but sudden occurrence had us wondering — when was the last time we’ve seen a direwolf on Game of Thrones? We consulted the data and got all the feels.

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Deaths by house throughout the series

Looker’s own Rufus Holmes shared this cool Look comparing deaths by house season-over-season. If you filter on only house Baratheon and Stark, there seems to be a pattern of one season with major deaths for house Stark, followed by a season with more deaths in house Baratheon.

Curious — I wonder if that will carry on into the end of the series... what do you think?

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Common and uncommon word frequency

Community Member Haley Baldwin found some interesting trends associated to word frequency in Game of Thrones. As Haley shared:

“The upward trend of NORTH and DRAGON, peaking in season 7, makes a lot of sense and was interesting to see! Dragons became really important to the plot last season and there was also a lot of chanting “King in the North!” in Winterfell.

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Said with honor

Not that we didn’t already think Brienne was one of the most — if not the most — honorable GoT character, we consulted the data to confirm. The conclusion — Brienne = just as amazing as we thought.

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The evolution of one-time-only GoT deaths

In addition to word frequency trends, Haley shared these interesting results about GoT deaths throughout the season —

“When you look at the types of death in Game of Thrones, it’s clear that most named characters died by some form of stabbing. I wanted to find out which types of death had just one victim. In this table you can see that the most unique deaths happened in Season 1 and they’ve been declining since then. The violence definitely hasn’t decreased overall, but it seems that named characters have become less likely to die in unique ways.”

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Who will (or already did) battle karma before the end of Game of Thrones?

Right before the season eight premiere, Looker’s Sloane Ansell whipped up this word cloud of the remaining GoT character who’ve killed throughout the season yet still had not been cut down themselves. If you made bets or predictions for the final season, I hope you had a chance to consult this data...

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Explore the Game of Thrones data

Ready to dive in yourself? Start exploring our Game of Thrones dashboard and be sure to share what you find!

Disclaimer: Game of Thrones belongs to HBO and is not affiliated with Looker in any way.