People’s favorite
19.3 million viewers! Yes, with that number, the final episode of Game of Thrones turned out to be the most watched episode of any HBO show ever, and the Internet cannot stop talking about it! Fans of the show have had visibly negative opinion about the last season, for the way things progressed, and close to 1.5 million people have signed a petition to remake the entire season with more able writers. If you simplify the reason behind all the discontent, it boils down to the fact that people’s favorite Daenerys Targaryen being shown as a merciless and destructive character did not go down well with the fans of the show.
Unexpected behavior
“How could she become the same evil that she once fought hard to destroy? How did she go from being a forgiving soul to an annihilator of the innocent? How could the brightest and strongest character in the series turn out to be the most ruthless one? “These are some of the questions that keep coming up in every fan’s mind after the penultimate episode of the series.
And, it is only fair for normal viewers to feel that way. Daenerys has always been a character that was known to be generous, graceful and forgiving. Seeing her go down as a villain after burning King’s Landing to ashes is nothing short of heartbreaking, and no one saw it coming. Or, did they?!
Hidden Trends
In hindsight, while the normal behavior for Daenerys’ character has always been strong, kind and forgiving, there was always a hidden element of cruelty and coldness at heart that went unnoticed by fans like us. Right from season 1, Daenerys’ reaction to the death of her enemies has been chilling. Case in point – Khal Drogo melting her brother’s head off with the Golden crown, in front of her, while she calmly watched. The audience dismissed this dark personality trait in her, in the light of how terrible a person her brother was, and how he could not have been a dragon, because “fire cannot kill a dragon”. Instances like this have appeared throughout the show, but her anomalous behavior remained overlooked by the audience, because other factors indicated that she was a hero! The murder of Mirri Maz Duur, killing of the warlocks of Qarth, crucifying the masters of Meereen and the burning of the Khals were all red flags to indicate that there was a severe dark side to the most popular character in the series, but most of us justified those acts as situational necessities and failed to take note of these anomalies. In other words, there were hidden trends that kept cropping up during the course of the series, but most of us failed to draw any meaningful inferences from it, until ‘The Bells’ happened.
Beyond G.O.T
Moving slightly away from the G.O.T analogy, one can easily relate the above scenario to situations many businesses face today. Hidden trends in data often go unnoticed because there wasn’t a mechanism in place to capture them and make meaningful inferences. These anomalies occurring in hidden trends then go on to emerge as larger business problems, impacting them in ways they hadn’t expected. This is where anomaly detection systems come into play, helping organizations know the unknown, and identify risks before they become impactful.
Now, would a hypothetical anomaly detection system for G.O.T have alerted the users about Daenerys’ character? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But, if there existed any such system, it would perhaps be the most hated thing known to mankind – for generating spoilers about one of the highest viewed TV shows ever!
Image Credit: The Verge
Rakshit is a Product Marketing professional with close to 10 years of experience and comes with strong expertise in Integrated Marketing, product positioning, messaging, content creation, and demand generation for IT products and solutions. Rakshit holds a management degree from M.P. Birla Institute of Management, specializing in Marketing and Information Systems and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.