A Killer 'Game Of Thrones' Algorithm Developed By Students Predicts Which Characters Are Going To Die

Statistics forecast who lives and who dies on the show's final season.

A Killer 'Game Of Thrones' Algorithm Developed By Students Predicts Which Characters Are Going To Die
HBO/Youtube

With the premier of Game Of Thrones' final season so tantalizingly close many of our favorite remaining characters are in the home stretch of surviving George R.R. Martin's ruthlessly bloody saga.

But sadly we know they can't all make it out alive.


But who will live and who will die? A team of German students think they have the answer to that question.

Over the last seven seasons GoT fans have come out with all sorts of theories about the show, some wildly inaccurate and some surprisingly prophetic.

But a group of computer science students out of the Technical University of Munich wanted to take some of the guess work out of predicting what happens next.

So the team developed a statistical algorithm using artificial intelligence and as much info about the books and the series as they could find to predict which characters will be gone by the end of the series and who will be left around to sit on the Iron Throne.


The project supervisor Guy Yachdav explained Friday that the model the team developed to predict a character's Potential Likelihood of Death (PLOD) is based on a number of factors.

For instance male characters are almost twice as likely to die as females, and nobles have a higher survival rate than peasants. But of course no one is ever really safe in Westeros, even the nobles, especially those in House Stark.

Along with house, age, and gender the team also accounted for things like popularity, marriage, titles, being a major or minor character, culture, region and allegiances.

With all these factors added together the team thinks they have a pretty good idea of how things are going play out over the show's final episodes.

So who came out on top? Good news for fans of the Mother of Dragons.

Based on their predictions Daenerys Targaryen has a 99 percent chance of surviving, but others weren't so lucky.

According to the algorithm these are the top five characters most likely to make it out alive.


1. Daenerys Targaryen
2. Tyrion Lannister
3. Varys
4. Samwell Tarly
5. Jaime Lannister


Being that it's George R.R. Martin though, we all know someone has to die.

Based on the predictions these are the top five characters who should be watching their backs.


1. Bronn
2. Gregor Clegane
3. Sansa Stark
4. Bran Stark
5. Sandor Clegane


While it's pretty bad news for Bronn, fans were at least comforted to know Daenerys is probably going to be safe.





Though many fans couldn't see the point in making predictions this close to the premiere.





Of course actress Maisie Williams‏ who plays Arya Stark on the show had some of her own predictions as to who was going to die next.



And If there's one thing Martin is known for, besides killing off his characters, it's his story's unpredictability.

We're still pretty upset about the Red Wedding. So even mathematical predictions by artificial intelligence could be way off.

As the official GoT Twitter account reminded us recently it's still anybody's throne, for now.






As to whether or not the predictions will prove true we'll just have to wait and see.

When you predict the Game of Thrones you win or you die. Our guess is George R.R. Martin still has some surprises in store that even a computer couldn't predict.


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