In Game of Thrones, death can come for anyone at any time, something we all learned the hard way when Ned Stark’s head rolled down the steps of the Sept of Baelor in the show’s first season. Naturally, we’re all eager to know if our favorite characters make it out of the show alive.
Data scientist Taylor Larkin, a PhD working at analytics firm DataRobot, is here to help. He’s created a complex computer algorithm that looked at over 2,000 Wiki entries for different characters from the Song of Ice and Fire universe, and analyzed how likely current characters are to die moving forward, based on factors like gender, age, House membership and number of relatives. Here are the results:
- Daenerys Targaryen – 83.77% chance of death
- Jaime Lannister – 72.91% chance of death
- Tyrion Lannister – 70.76% chance of death
- Bran Stark – 66.02% chance of death
- Cersei Lannister – 60.39% chance of death
- Jon Snow – 58.99% chance of death
- Euron Greyjoy – 54.95% chance of death
- Sansa Stark – 50.28% chance of death
- Arya Stark – 49.04% chance of death
- Gendry – 39.87% chance of death
According to Larkin, the most important determining factor was whether or not the character had dead relatives, which “serves as a proxy indicating the amount of turmoil in each family’s history.” Looking over the histories of other characters, Larkin’s algorithm discovered that being of Valyrian descent put characters at especially high risk, whereas being Northern wasn’t quite a perilous. Being older also increases your risk of death, hence why the three Lannister siblings are near the top. Also, men tend to die more often that women, since they’re more likely to be in battles.
Of course, Larkin is the first to say that his algorithm isn’t foolproof. Ultimately, each character’s fate lies in the hands of author George R.R. Martin and showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who all have a history of being unpredictable. “I’m not even sure a machine learning algorithm could have predicted the amount of emotional distress this show has caused, and will continue to cause, as we all wait for the Long Night to come to an end,” Larkin said. For better or worse, we agree.
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