Statistician Creates Mathematical Model To Predict the Future of Game of Thrones

KentuckyFC writes One way of predicting the future is to study data about events in the past and build a statistical model that generates the same pattern of data. Statisticians can then use the model to generate data about the future. Now one statistician has taken this art to new heights by predicting the content of the soon-to-be published novels in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R R Martin. The existing five novels are the basis of the hit TV series Game of Thrones. Each chapter in the existing books is told from the point of view of one of the characters. So far, 24 characters have starred in this way. The statistical approach uses the distribution of characters in chapters in the first five books to predict the distribution in the forthcoming novels. The results suggest that several characters will not appear at all and also throw light on whether one important character is dead or not, following an ambiguous story line in the existing novels. However, the model also serves to highlight the shortcomings of purely statistical approaches. For example, it does not "know" that characters who have already been killed off are unlikely to appear in future chapters. Neither does it allow for new characters that might appear. Nevertheless, this statistical approach to literature could introduce the process of mathematical modelling to more people than any textbook.

Comments

Hodor

[tage]

Hodor hodor hodor. Hodor, hodor hodor hodor hodor Hodor hodor. Hodor.

Re:Hodor

[xevioso]

I will make a prediction: Martin will kill off an important character because he has no idea how to write a character arc out of a wet paper bag. Someone important will die, because there's no way for him to have a character come to a resolution. This is known as "not knowing how to write a story" and instead is just writing a series of events.

Re:Hodor

[mistapotta]

Hodor hodor hodor. Hodor, hodor hodor hodor hodor Hodor hodor. Hodor.

I am Groot.

EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY!!!!!!

Re:Hodor

[DutchUncle]

After the first few deliberate shockers, I came to the conclusion that GRRM is saving time on role-playing the story, and just rolling dice every so often. The reason it's taking so long for the next book is that he's been accepting deliveries from Chessex by the container-load, and he can't roll them all any more.

Re:Hodor

[i kan reed]

bool WillCharacterBeKilled(Character c)
{
    if(IsCharacterPopular(c))
        return true;
    else
        return true;
}

Re:Hodor

[JerryLove]

As much as I don't want to validate trolling by responding to it: many of Martin's kills are done specifically to play with expectations. We killed the presumptive protagonist (Ned Stark). Then the audience realizes this story is about the sone and his revenge. So we kill him. But at least we know who the villan is. So Joffrey dies.

Martin's work speaks for itself. I'll not feed the "can't write" comments. I'm sure your novels are better. Which movie network is producing them?

Re:Hodor

[hey!]

Martin will kill off an important character because he has no idea how to write a character arc out of a wet paper bag.

I actually don't think that's true. I think what you're reacting to comes with the epic scale of the novel (SoI&F really is just one, long, continuous work) -- both in word count and the enormous cast of characters. It's a kind of literary clutter. If you boiled Game of Thrones down to the story of Ned Stark's rise and downfall, that would be quite a satisfying (although grim) story arc. The fact that the story goes on and on after that dissipates the emotional impact of that one story line.

At over 1.7 million words currently, Song of Ice and Fire is more than six times as long as typical English translations of the Illiad and Odyssey combined. Think about that. In the time it took you to read just the first volume of Song of Ice and Fire, you could have read BOTH the Illiad and the Odyssey. And as a bonus you'd have read BOTH the Illiad and the Odyssey.

As works go further and further north of 200,000 words, they almost inevitably lose the tight, clockwork structure you expect in a 2 hour stage play or 70,000 word novel. Stories stop feeling like they have a beginning, middle, and end and start to feel more episodic. That happens to some stories well before they hit the 200,000 word mark (American Gods, 183 KWords).

At 473 KWords, Lord of the Rings is one of the rare exceptions. From Rivendell onward it's a marvel of complex yet tightly interwoven structure. But it's a hot steaming mess of false starts up until Ford of Bruinen. Tom Bombadil anyone? I think that it could probably be edited down to 400,000 words without losing much artistically. That's still almost miraculously long for a story that feels like one story.

I have a theory about episodic megastories like Song of Ice and Fire, which is that they aren't catharsis you get from a tightly plotted play or novel. They're about transporting a reader to a world he finds interesting to visit again and again. If so that bodes ill for the the Game of Thrones TV series now that Emilia Clarke has sworn off nude scenes.

Re:Hodor

[Whorhay]

How do you have a story that doesn't have a plot. You could have a one sentence story and it would still have a plot. Not every story has a complicated plot, but a plot is pretty much just a simpler explanation of events.

And as the Anon's have already said, Breaking Bad had a well done ending. I would add that the ending for Dexter was good also.

Statistical Literature

[__aaclcg7560]

Nevertheless, this statistical approach to literature could introduce the process of mathematical modelling to more people than any textbook.

Reading Shakespeare in the original Klingon language would probably easier.

Books 4 and 5.

[mistapotta]

His analysis doesn't seem to take into account Martin originally wrote books 4 and 5 as one book, Seems to me those numbers should be averaged. Then again, IANAS.

Re:Books 4 and 5.

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

He specifically notes this -- see sections 3.1 through 3.3 of the paper.

I think another approach that might be interesting to try would be to model the distance between adjacent POV chapters by a given character given the distribution of their previous POV chapters. For instance, if Arya's POV chapters are 10 chapters apart on average and book 6 will be 70 chapters, you'd probably expect 6 or 7 Arya POV chapters if they're uniformly distributed. On the other hand, Ned's last POV chapter was quite a while ago, and so you would expect that trend to continue. [He could still have a POV chapter via Bran trying to see into Ned's past. That would certainly surprise readers looking at the list of POV characters!]

Re:Limited to poor literature.

[alen]

yes it can. good literature has flawed characters and the story line is overcoming their flaws

Re:Interference

[KamikazeSquid]

(their PR department probably scans slashdot)

I suspect that you are overestimating Slashdot's relevance to the general public.

Let's save a lot of time.

[jpellino]

John Snow and Daenerys Targaryen FTW. Otherwise it wouldn't be Fire and Ice. Plus they're the only two non-incestuous family leads standing who would not produce a tragedy. And we know one important character is not dead, since another actress already leaked it. Hope he didn't pay too much for his statistificator.

Re:Mental masturbation

[naturalog]

Yeah, he kind of covers that in section 5. No reason for picking his model (other than simplicity), it can't predict new characters, and there's very little data to go off of.

Sure, it's mental masturbation. But developing little toy models like this is still interesting and helps you understand limitations and keep up your skills without working on big, complicated, boring real statistical models. This kind of thing is worth doing for the same reason masturbating is worth doing--it's fun. As long as you don't take it too seriously and start confusing it with actual sex.

Statistics?

[grumpyman]

.... any outcome is as good of a chance as the aliens invasion and kill all characters.

Another Stark dies

[dysmal]

Every time someone tries to predict the end, another Stark dies.

This so-called statistician...

[Mister_Stoopid]

Now one statistician has taken this art to new heights by predicting the content of the soon-to-be published novels in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R R Martin.

soon-to-be published novels in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R R Martin.

soon-to-be published

soon

better re-check that model bro.

Re:Asimov's First Foundation Problem

[vux984]

very Asimov too, as it turns out.

Not only is knowledge of the second foundation given to the first as a nudge, but later on the first is set up to eliminate a decoy second foundation as another nudge, while protecting the real second foundation.

Re:I don't like it.

[cellocgw]

Nevertheless, this statistical approach to literature could introduce the process of mathematical modelling to more people than any textbook.

Until the writer reads that analysis and intentionally deviates from it.

Congratulations, you've just spoiled the plot of Minority Report (the original, not the movie).