Akinator & Game of Thrones

[prodigy]

Birthday went well. Excepting the 4-5 drunkdials I made, which I guess you might consider as not going well if you consider I was missing all kinds of people's numbers from my semi-new phone. The good news is, though, that it wasn't actually a party, and my actual party is on the 14th, so that is plenty of time to get more people's numbers.

Thanks to Tumblr, I became totally obsessed today with Akinator, which is one of those 20-questions algorithms that uses users' answers to gather data and refine itself, so naturally I went crazy testing the damn thing. Here are some of the results:

Roy Mustang: 18 questions
Jonathan Strange: 19 questions
Scout: 23 questions
Locke Lamora: 25 questions
Dolores Haze: 18 questions
Maes Hughes: 18 questions
Hisoka Kurosaki: 32 questions (after first guessing "Pikachu")
Dr. Frank-N-Furter: 58 questions (after "Andy (Toy Story)," "Thomas Leroy (Black Swan)," and "is your character a sex maniac")
Sam Axe: 20 questions
Brienne of Tarth: 18 questions
Guybrush Threepwood: 27 questions (after "Qwop")
Mordecai Heller: Gave up (after "Niels," "Nostalgia Critic," "Spades Slick," "Jordan Chase")
The Master: 16 questions (winner!)
Maru: 24 questions

~

We first reported this rumored casting a few weeks ago, but now it is official: Gemma Whelan has been cast to play Yara Greyjoy in season two of Game of Thrones. Yara was named Asha in the books, but has had her name changed in the show so as not to confuses audiences with the character Osha.

Oh, sure, don't change Osha or anything, change POV character Asha Greyjoy instead. I mean, Yara Greyjoy. Yara. Yarrrrrrrra.

Meanwhile, they went and cast a black guy as Xaro Xhoan Daxos the Qartheen, because it's not like ethnicities or consistency matter if the characters are non-European, and this definitely could not bode ill considering GoT's track record with the Dothraki.

Comments

[themis]

Happy birthday!

That Akinator thing is a lot of fun! I am going to play with like a million Bollywood characters.

[prodigy]

I tried with a character from Lagaan -- I had to introduce Akinator to him, which is concerning, considering that movie is famous as hell. Well, that's what we're for.

[themis]

You must be the reason it guessed Bhuvan when I was trying to get Jai from Sholay (it did guess Gabbar Singh, though, to be fair to algorithms).

It doesn't seem to know anyone from A Suitable Boy, although on the way to telling it Firoz I did get Razumikhin which is hilarious.

[prodigy]

I actually had to will myself to feed the cat instead of opting to test out K-drama characters. I should never be allowed near narcotics.

[metonymy]

I EAGERLY ANTICIPATE DRUNKDIALS.

The fact that it guessed Guybrush AFTER Qwop is cracking me up.

Re: casting/renaming, my brow is definitely furrowed.

[prodigy]

I'M TAKING THAT AS A SIGNATURE ON THE CONSENT FORM.

Yeah, I'm really worried about what they're going to do to the Free Cities in general, as if the Dothraki are anything to judge by they're going to turn several distinct (if sometimes problematically handled) city-states with cultures, fashion, language, and ethnicities into "enormous exotic-savage ~Arabian~ marketplace a la the beginning of Disney's Aladdin." As for Yara, I have no idea how this isn't going to turn into a massive fandom joke, and also a huge password as to whether you are a book fan (and therefore know anything) or a TV fan (and therefore don't, Jon Snow). :P