Tyrion knows the rules of the Game of Thrones better than anyone, but he refuses to play.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – People have long wondered who is the central character of George RR Martin’s series “A Song of Ice and Fire” Some say Daenerys, some John Snow. But a team of mathematicians constructed a program which proved that mathematically Tyrion Lannister is the most important character in GOT.
As it can be seen in the graphic pictured below, Tyrion and Jon are both central characters in Martin’s saga, but mathematically Tyrion Lannister is the most important character in GOT.
Seeing how “A Storm of Swords” ends, people would think that Robb is the central character.
A team of mathematicians from Macalester College, Jie Shan and Andrew Beveridge conducted a study to see how the complicated web of relations in “A Storm of Swords,” the third novel from the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series can be translated into mathematical language.
The paper that was published in Quartz journal concluded that mathematically Tyrion Lannister is the most important character in GOT. In order to reach that conclusion, the two researchers first created a computer program meant to analyze the social interactions between the characters.
The program then searched a number of times each character was mentioned in the book, or how often references to one or two characters are used in close proximity.
The vertexes shown above are color coded for each community. Note the fact that a community is not always the same as a House, mostly because by the events of the third book the characters were scattered around Westeros and beyond.
So with blue we can see the majority of the individuals belonging to House Lannister plus Sansa, Renly, Lysa, Peter, the Hound and everybody else who was living in King’s Landing at the time. By the size of the vertex, which indicates the amounts of time the character was mentioned, and by the size with which the name is spelled, Tyrion is the most important individual in King’s Landing.
The larger the name font, the more important the character is in its community and the overall plot. So it’s easy to deduce (even without the mathematical analysis) that Tyrion rules King’s Landing, Robb is the King in the North, Stannis, well, Stannis is playing with fire and Daenerys is tricking slave dealers. And Jon is playing hide and seek with the wildlings.
Every character seems equally important in its community, but mathematically Tyrion Lannister is the most important character in GOT.
Some say the dwarf is Martin’s literary projection, and that’s why he’s so witty and somehow essential everywhere he goes, but most of the “Game of Thrones” fans would rather disagree with the mathematical analysis.
The most popular theory is that “A Song of Ice and Fire” is an elusive way of saying “This is the complicated story of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen.” Others think that Jon is both the ice and fire from the title, judging by his snowy and fiery origins.
All fans know for sure is that Tyrion’s wits won’t do as much good when the White Walkers invade as Daenerys’s dragons or Jon’s valyrian steel sword.
Images source: Tyrion, Chart