Warning: Contains major spoilers for the most recent episode of Game of Thrones.
As part of an ongoing experiment into data analytics, we're looking at how Twitter users are responding to the latest season of Game of Thrones. We've changed our methodology this time around - instead of analyzing just the main hashtags related to the episode, we analyzed how people reacted to all the characters that appeared in the episode. This has given us a more comprehensive review of how the Twitterverse is responding to this program, and the capacity of automated data analytics for sentiment.
There were eight storylines covered in the most recent episode, entitled "Oathbreaker". The stacked bar charts given below are an aggregation of how Twitter users reacted to the characters that appeared at the episode, indicating their impact on viewers' emotional states.
1. In the Narrow Sea
Samwell Tarly and Gilly's scene on the ship did not seem to elicit a lot of reactions from Twitter users and both the characters' hashtags had very few tweets because of which no meaningful sentiment analysis could be carried out for them.
2. Beyond the Wall
Bran's visions of the past, with the help of the three-eyed raven in this episode, showed us a hint of what really happened to Lyanna Stark. Most fans seem happy with this turn in the story and even a character that has appeared just once (Lyanna) and another who hasn't even been shown yet (Rhaegar) seem to be trending on the joy side.
Example of a 'Joy' classified tweet:
So much prophesy revealed here. #Bran can speak across the ages. #HowlandReed #nedstark #TowerOfJoy #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/hu36YCgv1j
- Benny B. (@bennyvictory) May 9, 2016
3.In Vaes Dothrak
Daenerys is in a bit of a tight spot in this episode, but still most viewers are expressing joy while the second largest category is fear. At first glance this might seem contrary to what we know about sentiment analysis, but looking at the tweets being made and liked, it is obvious why the joy category far outweighs all others.
Example of a 'Joy' classified tweet:
I wuld rescue & marry #sansastark ! We'll chill with the #Khaleesi .Let the #dragons burn our enemies! #GameofThrones #VoxOfThrones @voxpop
- Dwaraka Tupurani (@Dnuts2711) May 9, 2016
4. In Meereen
Varys and Tyrion spend their time in this episode doing what they always do - outwitting their enemies and drinking wine respectively. Although they weren't integral to the episode this time, being fan favorites meant that they end up in the joy category no matter what they do. But the 'Surprise' category being the second largest was a surprise for our team as well.
Example of a 'Joy' classified tweet:
He's such a bad ass though. He definitely is one of the masters of this game #Varys #GameofThrones
- Chloe Duval (@ChloeM_duval) May 9, 2016
5. In King's Landing
There were plenty of characters shown in King's Landing this episode, but the ones that attracted the biggest share of attention were the Lannisters and their new arch-enemy, the High Sparrow.
Example of a 'Joy' classified tweet:
So good to see #OlennaTyrell sass #Cersei and #Jamie ! Good to see her back. #GameofThrones
- Shalin Choksi (@theBigOldBaby) May 9, 2016
Example of a 'Sad' classified tweet:
The #HighSparrow is actually making me miss #Joffrey. #GoT
- Angeline Quick (@AngelineQuick) May 9, 2016
6. In Braavos
Arya finally got her sight back and is in the good books of Jaqen H'ghar. For a girl-who-has-no-name, she was certainly being mentioned a lot on Twitter when it came to discussions about the show.
Example of an 'Anger' classified tweet:
My question is when can a girl issue this fade to this hateful chick. #Arya #demthrones
- E~villainy (@notoriouslyeve) May 9, 2016
7. At Winterfell
Ramsay Bolton is the one character in the show that viewers love to hate, and the one who brings out the strongest reactions in them. As can be seen in the chart given above, he is the only character, who, when shown on the screen, results in the largest proportion of tweets in the 'sad', 'anger', 'disgust' and 'fear' categories.
Example of an 'Anger' classified tweet:
I'm not a violent person but pretty sure I could kill #Ramsay with a plastic spoon at this point #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/V1EjMHfvSo
- anne (@anne3477) May 2, 2016
8. At the Wall
Jon Snow is back and is up and about in this episode. After some words of encouragement from Ser Davos, he swings into action and promptly executes his plotters. Fan favorite, Olly, who stole our hearts when he killed Ygritte (with many memes being generated of that scene) also elicited equally strong reactions when he was hanged in this episode. The reason? The fan favorite had now become more hated than Joffrey and was rivalling Ramsay when it came to fan hate. Few people were sad to see him go. Just look at some of the tweets about him.
Example of a 'Joy' classified tweet:
find it disturbing that I enjoyed the latest hanging scene in #GameofThrones #OLLY is dead & I liked it never leave enemies behind #advice
- Chapo_Martin N (@chapszn) May 9, 2016
Example of a 'Sad' classified tweet:
I fought against white walkers, I came back from the dead, I hanged my murderers aaand then I quit. #JonSnow #GameofThrones
- Lizzie PixieDust (@lizziepixiedust) May 9, 2016
How we do it
We used a Python script to analyze the text, which provides more capacity to categorize the data due to its built-in natural language processing models.
If you're interested in seeing more, you can check out our sentiment analysis of the related Twitter discussion for the first and second episodes here.
Image source: HBO.com