All hail Cersei Lannister — officially the most prominent female character in Game of Thrones season five.
The narcissistic Queen Mother, played by Huddersfield’s own Lena Headey, spoke a total of 2,378 words onscreen in the last season of the HBO drama — more than any other female character.
Only her younger brother Tyrion spoke more than his sister, with 2,803 words, while the recently deceased (as far as we know) Night’s Watch commander Jon Snow came third with 1,893.
Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish was the fourth most prominent player, while Mother of Dragons Daenerys Targaryen came in fifth place.
Despite Cersei’s rollercoacter storyline in season five, which saw her stripped of her freedom (and her dignity) by the High Sparrow, only two of the top ten prominent characters in the last season were women.
Analysis of unofficial Game of Thrones transcripts from Genius.com by the Examiner data unit looked at who spoke the most — and who dominated the conversations they were part of.
Unsurprisingly, master manipulator Petyr Baelish was the most dominant conversationalist of the 20 key speakers, responsible for 56 per cent of the words spoken in scenes he featured in.
Cult leader the High Sparrow, Tyrion Lannister and sellsword Bronn were the other three characters to dominate more than half the conversation in their scenes.
While few women made the top 10 in number of words spoken, four female characters made the top 11 for steering conversations in the Thrones universe.
Brienne of Tarth was found to be the most dominant conversationalist, the centre focus of 48 per cent of her scenes.
But some women had a harder time finding their voices — namely downtrodden Sansa Stark, who accounted for just 21 per cent of the words spoken in her scenes.
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Despite ruling Meereen, Daenerys was often drowned out by her advisors, sharing just 30 per cent of the conversation in her scenes — then again, her actions in season five spoke louder than words.
Roose Bolton, father of deranged rapist and serial torturer Ramsay, emerged as the most long-winded of the top 20 characters, saying 17.5 words every time he spoke.
An unsurprisingly, Tyrion was the sweariest of the bunch with 11 bad words to his name throughout the fifth season.
Game of Thrones season six begins tomorrow at 9pm on Sky Atlantic.
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Character | Onscreen words | % of conversation | Words per speech |
1) Tyrion Lannister | 2803 | 53% | 15 |
2) Cersei Lannister | 2373 | 45% | 12.6 |
3) Jon Snow | 1893 | 36% | 11.7 |
4) Petyr Baelish | 1441 | 56% | 15.7 |
5) Daenerys Targaryen | 1279 | 30% | 9.8 |
6) Stannis Baratheon | 1189 | 36% | 10.9 |
7) Samwell Tarly | 1158 | 35% | 11.7 |
8) Ramsay Bolton | 978 | 48% | 13.2 |
9) Daario Naharis | 900 | 37% | 16.7 |
10) Bronn | 836 | 52% | 9.6 |
11) High Sparrow | 816 | 54% | 13.4 |
12) Brienne Of Tarth | 809 | 48% | 14.2 |
13) Jaime Lannister | 803 | 31% | 7.7 |
14) Davos Seaworth | 708 | 30% | 13.4 |
15) Arya Stark | 689 | 42% | 8.7 |
16) Lord Varys | 648 | 44% | 13.2 |
17) Roose Bolton | 647 | 45% | 17.5 |
18) Sansa Stark | 639 | 21% | 6.7 |
19) Hizdahr Zo Loraq | 568 | 34% | 13.5 |
20) Margaery Tyrell | 563 | 37% | 9.5 |