Game of Thrones S8 E6 Data Visualization Recap
By: Jeffrey Lancaster
Tags: Data Visualization, Data, HBO, Game of Thrones, D3js

This is the sixth (and final) in a series of recaps I’ll be posting for the final season of Game of Thrones based on work I’ve described in “The Ultimate Game of Thrones Dataset”, “32 Game of Thrones Data Visualizations”, and “19 More Game of Thrones Data Visualizations.”

Well, it’s all over now. Unlike the vast majority of the Internet, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I wasn’t nearly as disappointed as the authors of so much that’s been written about that finale. Sure, we don’t know whether King Bran the Broken Three-Eyed Raven will live forever. And sure, maybe Drogon is a savvy socio-political thinker. And sure, everyone laughed at direct democracy. And sure, Jon Snow gets to live out his best Wildling life now. And sure, good question: what is west of Westeros? (I’m not even going to mention the water bottles…) All that aside, read on for a data-driven recap of the sixth and final episode of Game of Thrones’ Season 8, “The Iron Throne”.

If you want to see these visualizations for past episodes, you can check out any episode here. And if you want to see/play with the dataset, it’s on github.

When are characters on screen?

The front half of the episode was clearly punctuated by Daenerys’s epic rally of her troops, followed soon by her final moments alive, but what strikes me was just how imposing the meeting in the Dragon Pit is (based on who’s in attendance). Robin Arryn came back from puberty along with Yohn Royce, who never seemed to be out of the mix of things since The Battle of the Bastards. The new Dornish Prince was there (how’d that happen?) along with the newly minted Lord of Storm’s End, Gendry Baratheon. And poor ole Uncle Edmure Tully…

Also, that final montage of Jon, Arya, and Sansa is pretty clear toward the end of the episode before a long farewell to Jon, Tormund, and Ghost as they go beyond the Wall.

View the interactive version here.

For how long are characters on screen?

It’s worth noting that even though he missed out on the Dragon Pit meeting, Jon Snow was still in the episode the longest. He was there as Dany rallied her troops, he was there when he [spoiler!] killed her, he was there as he bid farewell to his family and headed north. Tyrion is at the top of the list with Jon, but everyone else was pushed to the background a bit, even Arya and Daenerys.

It was great to see Pod added to the Kingsguard, too, but I agree with the corner of the Internet that’s still concerned his service may waste his epic love-making skills.

View the interactive version here.

Which locations are on screen?

It was great to at least revisit some of the rest of the Lands of Ice and Fire before we wait the Long Wait for the prequels. Maybe it could have been nice to montage some of those places in the final farewell, like, what’s Daario Naharis up to? And Illyrio Mopatis? And Meera Reed?? I mean, Meera!?!

View the interactive version here.

View the interactive version here.

How long is spent in each region?

Aside from the final expansion of the narrative funnel, everything was centered in the Crownlands.

View the interactive version here.

View the interactive version here.

How many words does each character speak?

Why change in the end? Tyrion said more than three times as much as Daenerys or Jon; he was, throughout the show, the driver of the dialogue. While Jon and Daenerys took action, he spoke. And spoke. And spoke.

I’m still mulling this idea that Game of Thrones is really Tyrion’s story: a story of excess and redemption and familial bonds. Maybe there’s an argument there for someone else to make…

View the interactive version here.

How many languages are spoken?

I appreciated including both Dothraki and High Valyrian in the finale as a nod to both as creative constructed lingustic masterpieces.

View the interactive version here.

What’s the gender balance on screen?

Like most of the final season, the finale was still largely male-dominated. Looking around the Dragon Pit or even Daenerys’s speech, strong women are surrounded by, well, men. So it isn’t surprising that the composition of characters bears that out throughout the finale.

View the interactive version here.

What’s the gender balance of words spoken?

Tyrion really tips the scales here; the balance of words spoken was very male-dominated: about 2:7.

View the interactive version here.

For how long is each House on screen?

I’m finally giving time here to Gendry as a Baratheon, so it’s nice to see House Baratheon back on the scoreboard. This chart also made me realize I need to revise some of the data in the underlying datasets, especially in characters.json ; instead of House and Kingsguard being static text or Boolean values, I’ll need to update those with the season numbers in which a character is a member of that House, etc.

View the interactive version here.

Which locations are in the opening sequence?

Not ones to stray, the series finale stuck with the same(-ish) Season 8 opening sequence, but aside from some epic destruction around King’s Landing including the ousting of the Lannister sigil from the Throne Room, the order of the locations didn’t change.