Can Game of Thrones' decline be measured in graph of words per minute?

GQ

Vanity Fair writer Joanna Robinson shared a graph on Twitter showing how, using data from OpenSubtitles.org, the rate of words per minute declined sharply, from 70 words per minute in Season 1 to 10 words per minute in Season 8. "Now, by itself this isn't necessarily the mark of bad storytelling," says Luke Darby. "The world of Game of Thrones has a lot of complicated politics that the audience needs to understand from the very beginning. While author George R.R. Martin can write that history into the narrative, for a TV show the only way to deliver that exposition is to have characters just, well, say it." But, he adds, "even accounting for that, the last couple seasons were filled with rapid-fire plot developments without much connective tissue. The ratio of scenes with characters doing things versus scenes with characters plotting to do those things, or discussing their aftermath, got super lopsided. And it culminated in the final episode, with long, lingering silent shots of the Starks and other survivors sailing, riding, or sitting down to their fates."

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