Game of Thrones features an ensemble of protagonists, from Jon to Jaime, from Arya to Tyrion. The interwoven story arcs for these myriad protagonists form the unified super-plot that is the Song of Ice and Fire. So rather than asking “Who is the protagonist of Game of Thrones,” we should ask “What is the scale for each protagonist?”

Last year, I collaborated with Michael Chemers, a Professor of Dramatic Literature to write a paper about using data visualizations as a tool for the analysis of vast narratives. I’ve added a page where you can read more about Fractal Protagonists and the strange conundrum of the Kingslayer. Below is an example of a Character Centrality Diagram for Season 7, which offers a simplified view of the centrality metrics, and gives a sense of scale of each character.

This plot shows

PageRank Centrality (important interactions) on the x-axis

Eigenvector Centrality (important connections) on the y-axis

Weighted Degree Centrality (total interactions) in hue (purple is low, yellow is high)

The centralities have been normalized so that they take on values between 0 and 1. By Season 7, all three of these centralities basically agree. This was not true in earlier seasons, when characters were traveling their various story arcs. In fact, the way characters move through this diagram from season to season tells you what kind of narrative journey they are on.

You can read more about this on the Fractal Protagonists page.