Science Explains Why All of Us Were Obsessed with Game of Thrones

The secret sauce to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is here

Science Explains Why All of Us Were Obsessed with Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones – HBO

Data Science has tried to explain why all of us were obsessed with Game of Thrones. A team consisting of physicists, psychologists, and mathematicians tried to find out the reasoning behind our crazy obsession for Game of Thrones show and books. They published a study entitled “Narrative Structure of A Song of Ice and Fire creates a fictional world with realistic measures of social complexity’ that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

 

The paper mentions that George R.R. Martin’s books have 2,000 named characters, and there were 41,000 interactions between them. It also mentions that the author gave human brains exactly what we can handle.

Releasing a statement, the University of Warwick in the UK said “The study shows the way the interactions between the characters are arranged is similar to how humans maintain relationships and interact in the real world. Moreover, although important characters are famously killed off at random as the story is told, the underlying chronology is not at all so unpredictable.”

 

The university also created a great chart which shows the social network that was developed by the end of the first book. In the chart, the male characters were represented by blue spots while the female characters were represented by red spots. Grey spots were for characters that have died.

 

Science Explains Why All of Us Were Obsessed with Game of Thrones
University of Cambridge

The university said “Even the most predominant characters — those who tell the story — average out to have only 150 others to keep track of. This is the same number that the average human brain has evolved to deal with.”

The research team that wanted to know the reasoning behind people’s Game of Thrones obsession also found that the narrative networks that were present in Martin’s books were similar to the Icelandic sagas that date back to the latter half of the 9th century to the early half of the 11th century.

 

The paper that intends to find the reasoning behind the Game of Thrones obsession summed up the entire formula in two short points. First, the books maintain the reader’s attention by unexpectedly sequencing several events that make people wonder why something happened and/or what will happen next. Second, the seemingly random events that occur in the books make sense later so that a reader’s sense of what is natural does not get overtaxed.

 

Scientists involved in the project hope that the paper will help understand not just the Game of Thrones obsession but also what makes complex narratives comprehensible and relatable to the readers or viewers.

It seems now we have some idea of what makes Game of Thrones such an irresistible series. And why we cannot wait for House of the Dragon that will soon air on HBO!