Tyrion Lannister: The Math Behind The Path To The Throne

As it turns out, your sophomore math teacher was right.

You will end up using math in your everyday life.

Sort of.

Only for way more geeky purposes than he/she ever intended.

The evil geniuses over at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, have opted to use their collective brainpower figure out which Game of Thrones‘ character is the most important.

It’s Tyrion Lannister.

Shocker.

But it’s not just about the best Goddamn lines delivered by the best Goddamn actor on television. But his or her relation to other characters on the show.

On most shows, you have a small cast where unless a character’s name is in the title or elluded to by the title, most of the characters share screen time. However, when dealing with extremely large casts, there are often times when characters don’t even meet.

Take a look at Deadwood. There is no doubt that the character of the Ellis Albert “Al” Swearengen (geniusly played by Ian McShane) was the central character. He had dealings with every character in town, even one the Widow Garrett, with whom the two never shared a scene.

In the case of Thrones, the cast is perhaps one of the largest in the history of television (this does not include Doctor Who, which spans six decades, but does include The Simpsons which has been noted has having one of the largest recurring casts of all time.)

Furthermore, the story spans over continents, to characters that have been on the show for years can drift off and never seen each other again, like most of the Starks.

Therefore, it is important to note character interaction. Take a gander at the chart below:

According to math nerds who have yet to cut the cord, Tyrion is the character with the most interaction with the most characters. But those who know the show understand why:

• He is wealthy and while he was the Hand of the King, was in a position that allowed him to travel

• He was a Lannister, thus had many political ties 

• He visited the Starks, he battled the Starks and he married a Stark

• He went on the run to join the usually isolated Daenerys in her campaigns

• He was quite jovial, drank a lot and many people knew and of him

While Daenerys is a popular character, her interaction with others is limited due to the fact that they all wanted her bloodline wiped off the face of the planet.

In the end, the main characters boiled down to a battle between the Lannisters and the Starks, the Lions vs. the Wolves. But just because the focus of the show is pulled between the power of two houses, that does not mean a dragon cannot destroy them both.