‘Game of Thrones’ Algorithm Predicts Which Major Characters Will Die in Season 8

Death is coming.

Game of Thrones
HBO

It’s hard to argue with math. Data scientists know this, so they wield numbers like Game of Thrones characters wield swords.

Boston-based data scientist Taylor Larkin targeted GoT’s final season with an algorithm designed to predict the show’s death toll. If Larkin is right, it will be a bloodbath. (Okay, it doesn’t take science to know that.)

Game of Thrones
What, what’re you gonna do?

We’ll try and break down Larkin’s process, then probably give up and just quote. 

Larkin’s program sifted through a comprehensive Thrones wiki, analyzing the houses and genders of about 2,000 characters. “Naturally,” Larkin wrote, “the task of actually predicting who will die in the series is extremely complex and requires more than just descriptive information.”

HBO

The scientist followed that up with an explanation about algorithms and trees and we popped another Adderall, immediately making this stuff easier to parse.

Basically, the white guys on Thrones are often doomed, as are the older characters. Targaryens in particular are extra doomed. Characters from the North, however, might just make it after all. That means characters such as Sansa Stark stand a decent chance of making it out alive.

All this might be bad news depending on your fave, but here’s the worst news of all: We might have to say bye to the Mother of Dragons. She’s at the top of the following list of likely deaths ranked by percentages:

  • 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

Of course it’s possible none of these characters will be sent to a nice farm family upstate. It’s certainly possible they’ll all ride off into the sunset to poison, burn, and screw again.

We’ll have to wait till 2019 to find out.

h/t DigitalSpy

Mentioned in this article: