A Game of Words: Season 8

Analysing the words spoken in the last ever season of Game of Thrones

The final season of Game of Thrones aired in April and May 2019. It was by far the most controversial season in terms of viewer reaction, with many people unhappy about the ending. For a more detailed investigation of why it was so unpopular, see my new article ‘Game of Thrones Season 8: What went wrong?’, where I look at what the data can tell us about the reasons behind fans’ unhappiness.

Despite this negative reaction, Episode 6 marked the conclusion of 8 years worth of television and arguably the most successful TV show of all time. In a previous article of mine ‘A Game of Words’ (and in Part 2) I analysed scripts from the first seven seasons and showed how the words that characters use perfectly reflect their personality and storyline (if you haven’t checked it out I recommend you do so here, as it will explain in more detail some of the graphs included in this article). It is now time to add to this by looking at the final season of the show! This analysis will use similiar methods to the previous articles mentioned above, in order to allow for comparison between them.

All script data was scraped in the same way as the first article, from the Genius.com lyrics website. Analysis was then performed in R using the tidytext package.

‘She is my queen’

In the original ‘A Game of Words’, the first table I produced was (and still is) my favourite - a table showing the most commonly used word for each character. Despite the simplicity of it, the results manage to capture the essence of each character extremely well. In order to allow comparisons, I have recreated the same table but for Season 8.

Here I chose 12 of the characters who spoke the most words in Season 8. As before, common stopwords (‘the’, ‘and’, ‘is’ etc.) have been removed. The results are almost as good as they were in the first article!

Table showing the most common words spoken by characters in season 8 of Game of Thrones and their relative frequency (the % of all those character’s words).

I think this succinctly captures each character’s storylines in the final season, with their most commonly used word reflecting either what concerned them most, or the storyline they played a most prominent role in.

Jon : there have been plenty of memes ridiculing the fact that Jon said ‘she is my queen’ (or a variation of that) too often in Season 8. The data here would appear to back that up - ‘queen’ is his most commonly spoken word and every time he says it he is referring to Dany.

: there have been plenty of memes ridiculing the fact that Jon said ‘she is my queen’ (or a variation of that) too often in Season 8. The data here would appear to back that up - ‘queen’ is his most commonly spoken word and every time he says it he is referring to Dany. Arya & Sansa : I like the contrast here. Sansa is now the Lady of Winterfell and her concerns are keeping the ‘North’ safe, i.e. she will be staying there. Indeed she doesn’t leave Winterfell in Season 8 other than in the final episode. Arya on the other hand will not be staying and plans to be “going” on her own adventure. Arya also frequently tells others what she is going to do before she does it (or attempts to)- in this Season she was ‘going’ to kill Cersei, for example.

: I like the contrast here. Sansa is now the Lady of Winterfell and her concerns are keeping the ‘North’ safe, i.e. she will be staying there. Indeed she doesn’t leave Winterfell in Season 8 other than in the final episode. Arya on the other hand will not be staying and plans to be “going” on her own adventure. Arya also frequently tells others what she is going to do before she does it (or attempts to)- in this Season she was ‘going’ to kill Cersei, for example. Daenerys : this is an interesting one. It appears that in Season 8, Dany became slightly obsessed with comparing herself to her older brother Rhaegar. This combined with the fact that three of the people she interacted with most in this season (Jon, Sansa & Tyrion), have brothers who also play a key role in the series (Bran, Jon/Bran and Jaime, respectively), meant that ‘brother’ was her most commonly used word.

: this is an interesting one. It appears that in Season 8, Dany became slightly obsessed with comparing herself to her older brother Rhaegar. This combined with the fact that three of the people she interacted with most in this season (Jon, Sansa & Tyrion), have brothers who also play a key role in the series (Bran, Jon/Bran and Jaime, respectively), meant that ‘brother’ was her most commonly used word. Cersei & The Hound : the same word but in different contexts. It has been widely remarked that Cersei played a surprisingly minor role in Season 8, not getting the chance to speak very often. This relative lack of words then skews her results when she pleads for her life shortly before her death (‘I don’t want to die. Don’t let me die.’). I think this perhaps reflects the fact that her mentality in this season was all about survival (i.e. avoiding death). The Hound on the other hand is staying true to form with his abrasive, offensive nature and “we’re all going to die anyway” mentality.

: the same word but in different contexts. It has been widely remarked that Cersei played a surprisingly minor role in Season 8, not getting the chance to speak very often. This relative lack of words then skews her results when she pleads for her life shortly before her death (‘I don’t want to die. Don’t let me die.’). I think this perhaps reflects the fact that her mentality in this season was all about survival (i.e. avoiding death). The Hound on the other hand is staying true to form with his abrasive, offensive nature and “we’re all going to die anyway” mentality. Varys & Tyrion : the same objective but two different ways of looking at it. They both frequently remind us how their characters are only concerned with ‘the realm’. Tyrion, being the more persuasive and less confrontational character, approaches this by reminding everyone (especially Dany) how ‘the people’ are suffering and ‘the people’ need the right ruler. Varys on the other hand is scheming to ensure the person sitting on the ‘throne’ is of the right caliber. The same end goal (peace and stability) but two different methods - one which gets you burned alive and one which doesn’t.

: the same objective but two different ways of looking at it. They both frequently remind us how their characters are only concerned with ‘the realm’. Tyrion, being the more persuasive and less confrontational character, approaches this by reminding everyone (especially Dany) how ‘the people’ are suffering and ‘the people’ need the right ruler. Varys on the other hand is scheming to ensure the person sitting on the ‘throne’ is of the right caliber. The same end goal (peace and stability) but two different methods - one which gets you burned alive and one which doesn’t. The rest: Jaime’s season 8 revolves around his relationship with his sister. Qyburn pretty much exclusively interacts with Cersei, who he refers to as ‘Your Grace’. Sam’s most commonly used word reflects his part in the storyline of Jon finding out his true heritage and Tormund doesn’t actually say dragon very often (4 times in fact) but he doesn’t say much else either - also he is in awe of the creatures.

The Stars of the Show

Next I’ll look at how the volume of words spoken by each character changed over the course of the final season. Season 8 had significantly fewer words spoken than previous seasons and as such it will be interesting to see how these scarce words were portioned out among the remaining characters. This will also allow us to see who was actually central to the storylines of the final season.

In the diagrams below the blue line represents the average number of words per episode for that character across seasons 1–7 (taken from the original ‘Game of Words’ article).

Graph showing the number of words spoken in each episode of GoT Season 8, by 12 of the main characters. The blue line indicates (where available) their average words per episode in Seasons 1–7.

So it seems that on the whole most characters had a similiar level of engagement in Season 8 as they did in the preceding 7 seasons, with a couple of exceptions.

Tyrion: what the diagrams above suggest is that Tyrion and Daenerys were the stars of Season 8 - which won’t come as a surprise to most of us. What may be surprising is just how much Tyrion talks towards the end of the season. In episodes 4–6 he averages just under 1000 words per episode, which is roughly 5 times as much as Jon Snow (an arguably more important character). This perhaps highlights the difference between an eloquent man of speech on the one side and a brooding teen/quiet man of action on the other. As Grey Worm says to Tyrion in Episode 6 “…we have heard enough words from you”.

what the diagrams above suggest is that Tyrion and Daenerys were the stars of Season 8 - which won’t come as a surprise to most of us. What may be surprising is just how much Tyrion talks towards the end of the season. In episodes 4–6 he averages just under 1000 words per episode, which is roughly 5 times as much as Jon Snow (an arguably more important character). This perhaps highlights the difference between an eloquent man of speech on the one side and a brooding teen/quiet man of action on the other. As Grey Worm says to Tyrion in Episode 6 “…we have heard enough words from you”. Cersei: there has been much said about Cersei’s lack of involvement in this final season. Aside from a few key dialogues early on with Euron, the Lannister Queen was relegated to what was essentially a non-speaking role for most episodes. This can be seen here clearly - Cersei was not a key player in Season 8.

there has been much said about Cersei’s lack of involvement in this final season. Aside from a few key dialogues early on with Euron, the Lannister Queen was relegated to what was essentially a non-speaking role for most episodes. This can be seen here clearly - Cersei was not a key player in Season 8. Daenerys: the Mother of Dragons consistently spoke more in this season than she averaged in previous seasons. This is to be expected as she was one of the main players, having been at times something of a side story during the first 7 seasons.

A ‘sentimental’ farewell

In order to stay true to the original articles and allow for proper comparison, I’ll again perform some sentiment analysis on the words the characters spoke. See Game of Words Part 2 for more detail on what sentiment analysis is - however the graphs below should be fairly self-explanatory.

For the benefit of those who didn’t read the original, see the excerpt below to explain what is meant by ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ in this context:

“…you should think of ‘positive’ as meaning polite, friendly, or enthusiastic and ‘negative’ as rude, dismissive or violent.” (A Game of Words Part 2)

Graph showing the sentiment of each character over the course of Season 8 of Game of Thrones. Sentiment analysis performed using the sentimentr package in R.

Unfortunately there isn’t a great deal of interesting analysis that can be drawn from this. However, it is nice to see that some of the patterns from previous seasons have remained in Season 8.

The Mad Queen’s Descent: Daenerys’ graph taken as-is, doesn’t appear to be particularly interesting. However if we take into account the results of the original analysis - which showed that Dany’s words were always significantly positive in their sentiment over the first seven seasons - then perhaps this shows the transformation of the Mother of Dragons into the Mad Queen. Daenerys was always stern but tempered her words with positivity, optimism and mercy. However, in this final season she was almost consistently negative with the words she spoke, which provides some evidence for the argument that she had a significant change of character in Season 8.

Daenerys’ graph taken as-is, doesn’t appear to be particularly interesting. However if we take into account the results of the original analysis - which showed that Dany’s words were always significantly positive in their sentiment over the first seven seasons - then perhaps this shows the transformation of the Mother of Dragons into the Mad Queen. Daenerys was always stern but tempered her words with positivity, optimism and mercy. However, in this final season she was almost consistently negative with the words she spoke, which provides some evidence for the argument that she had a significant change of character in Season 8. Same old Sam: as noted in the original article, Sam Tarly’s bumbling and polite ways mean that he always scores high in sentiment analysis. He rarely uses negative or abrasive words, preferring always to take a deferential and measured tone.

as noted in the original article, Sam Tarly’s bumbling and polite ways mean that he always scores high in sentiment analysis. He rarely uses negative or abrasive words, preferring always to take a deferential and measured tone. The Hound and The Giantsbane: in the original article I pointed out how the Hound consistently had by far the most negative sentiment to his words. This remains true in season 8, but he is almost matched for ‘negativity’ by Tormund. This is because both of them are strong individuals who do not tone down their words regardless of who they are addressing and like to swear. Perhaps their similiarity is why their personalities clashed so much in the show.

in the original article I pointed out how the Hound consistently had by far the most negative sentiment to his words. This remains true in season 8, but he is almost matched for ‘negativity’ by Tormund. This is because both of them are strong individuals who do not tone down their words regardless of who they are addressing and like to swear. Perhaps their similiarity is why their personalities clashed so much in the show. Jon: In my opinion Jon’s graph shows how his character was displayed in this final season. He consistently restrained himself and appeared neutral, especially when talking to Daenerys, with whom he shared a significant amount of dialogue. He was never an abrasive person but particularly in this season he seemed to lack a real personality (insert “she is my queen” meme) - and I think that shows here.

The end of an era

Game of Thrones is over. Alongside this article I also produced some analysis on what the data can tell us about the underperformance of Season 8, I’ll be posting that in the next couple of days so check back soon if you found this interesting!

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