The Popcorn Stand: Game of Thrones not about survival

With HalloThanksMas winding down it’s already time to look ahead to spring. That is as a public service I’m going to provide a sneak preview of what could happen in the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, scheduled to begin airing in April.

I’ve never seen Game of Thrones, have no idea what the show is about so I guess that makes me sort of a cultural moron. But spoiler alert — apparently people who watch shows like Game of Thrones don’t like spoilers I’ve been told — Australian researchers have compiled data on the characters who are most likely to survive in the show’s season finale.

Without doing any research and knowing nothing about the show my guess is most of the show’s characters will be killed off during show’s final season. At least that’s what happens with a lot of other popular shows in their final season in my experience.

During the show’s first seven seasons 186 characters have been killed off which comes to an average of more than 26 a season, which is another indicator to me that a lot of characters will be killed off in the final season.

But researchers have determined characters who have the greatest chance of surviving during the final season are those have switched allegiance. So much for loyalty. The researchers also determined female characters and characters that were highborn (don’t know what that is) tend to live longer.

So fans of Game of Thrones may want to stop reading but that puts Cersei Lannister (don’t know who that is), currently installed on the Iron Throne (don’t know what that is), in a good position to survive the final season.

There have been 330 important characters in the show, so at 186, 56.4 percent of the characters have died, which again causes me to have the theory most of the characters will be killed off in the final season.

I will say I know a lot smarter people than I who tell me Game of Thrones is an excellent show that’s really a worthwhile way for someone to spend their time.

It’s definitely not Survivor.

— Charles Whisnand