Zach Bernstein

Undergraduate data science student and A/V technician at the University of Vermont.

Inspiration

The inspiration for this project came from this social network analysis of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The team at Macalester created network graphs depicting the interactions of characters in both the book series written by George R. R. Martin and in its television adaptation, Game of Thrones. The nature of these books, with multiple different subplots and communities rife with political intrigue, made for an extremely fruitful analysis.

I’ve been a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s books since 2011, when I chanced across the two novellas he wrote as companion books for the Infinity Blade trilogy of iOS games. Since 2007, Sanderson has been writing collection of fantasy novels that take place within the same universe (albeit on different planets) that he calls the Cosmere. The key element of this collection of books that I think would make for an excellent social network analysis is that there are a small handful of recurring characters who have the ability to travel between these worlds and a tendency to manipulate the plots in subtle ways. I was interested in exploring how these key characters are connected to the different worlds that Sanderson has written, as well as exploring the communities and sub-communities present in his books.