Things are really starting to gear up for the biggest event of the year.
No, it's not the Super Bowl and it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. (That particular horrorshow has been delayed until Halloween.) Nor is it the publication of the very first photo of a black hole – that was Wednesday.
We are talking about the Game of Thrones finale. Eight years in the making – more if you include the books – and fans will finally have the chance to find out who will take the Iron Throne.
Still, not content to wait for the final episode to air, attendees at a computer science seminar held at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) used their technical prowess to develop an artificially intelligent application designed to predict which character will come out on top. The algorithm combed the web for GoT data and crunched some numbers to calculate each character's survival chances.
Skeptical? In 2016, students on the same course correctly predicted the resurrection of Jon Snow prior to the start of Season 6, so there might be something in it.
As even the most casual viewer will know, the death rate in the GoT universe is notoriously high. Indeed, more than half of the show's main characters have bitten the dust so far – and with events reaching a climax in Season 8, fans can expect a bloodbath.
So, who will live and who will die according to the app's predictions?
Warning: Possible spoilers ahead.
First up, some of the characters most likely to come to a sticky end before Game of Thrones' final credits roll include Bronn (sorry), whose survival rate is a pitiful 6 percent, Sansa (27 percent), and her brother Bran, aka the Three-Eyed Raven (42 percent).
Meanwhile, those with the greatest chances of survival (according to the app) are Daenerys (99 percent), Tyrion (97 percent), and Jaime Lannister (96 percent). Jon Snow, having already died once, also has some pretty good survival odds at 88 percent.
According to the algorithm, women have a higher survival rate than men (89 percent versus 78 percent) and nobles are less likely to die than peasants (82 percent survival versus 75 percent). Other factors that can boost your chances of not dying include marriage (decreases "predicted likelihood of death on average" by 56 percent) and being a main character (decreases "predicted likelihood of death on average" by 16 percent).
The results also suggest that it is better to be a Lannister (decreases "predicted likelihood of death on average" by 45 percent) than a Targaryen (decreases "predicted likelihood of death on average" by 42 percent) or a Stark (decreases "predicted likelihood of death on average" by 38 percent).
This is not the first time people have used science to predict the complex and often unpredictable (Red Wedding much?) life-and-death storylines in Game of Thrones. Last December, a team of researchers at Macquarie University tried to figure out who will survive the series' conclusion – discovering that one in seven main characters die in the first hour of being introduced.
We have to admit, some of these survival odds seem a little optimistic given the showrunner's penchant for death and destruction, especially if stories of the cast blubbering at the final script read are anything to go by. Still, you can find out how your favorite character fares here.
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