quick question. I haven't gotten a chance to finish reading all of this but I know I'll forget the question if I don't comment now lol. When you did totals of male vs female deaths, did you tally the ratio of one to the other. What I mean is, for example, if there are overall more male characters on the show then yes there will be more males in the death totals and vice versa for females. So you need to find out which gender has the most characters over all then use that to make a ratio of gender deaths per that gender - i.e. [(male deaths - number of male characters) divided by number of male characters] multiplied by 100.
Sorry, just a geeky science major adding their two cents XD
This is the same way I respond to the "But white people die in BUFFY too!" or "But more whites than blacks die in BTVS!" when I complain about race problems in BTVS - because if whites died in exactly the same proportion as their representation on the show as do black characters, there would be maybe 3 people left in the entire town, let alone the series.
Supernatural's race issues...Oh, that's a whole nother rant (and I've done it several times on my own blog already).
hey there! ok, the short answer is: no, we didn't. that's a really good point, but considering how many minor characters were already taken into account, that would mean literally counting every person on screen for all six season and I just... I think my head would e'splode :P ash's too, probably. however, while it's not empirically shown, there are some heavy implications about the ratio in the post itself, because we do address death rates vs survival rates, and talk about a lot of the key characters' genders. I think (hope) you'll find this comes kind of close to scratching that scientifically-correct itch :P With the right guidelines, we could probably come up with some pretty strong representative ratios though.
Really you have half the work done. You have death totals by gender. So yes, you'd have to look at the character list on SuperWiki or something and see who has died versus total of still living per gender. You compare the total of characters for that gender (say listed on SuperWiki) and then put that number in the formula I posted along with the total deaths per gender you have in that first pie chart I believe. Go here (if you scroll down they are all listed by name): http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Category:Characters
The only thing I am unsure of as I said below is if you would count deaths by the same character as one overall death or as multiple deaths. I believe you count it as one death because you are only counting that character once in your total of characters by that gender.
The more I've thought about this the more I am fascinated to know the answer (damn it!).
At a guess I would say it's fairly proportional. More men, more deaths. (and we'd have to count Sam, Dean, Bobby, Cas into this mix..)
Where it might be interesting is in the notable deaths. It's about half and half in gender representation. If there are more men in the show over all (which I'd say for sure!) then women are over represented in the notable deaths tally. Though if you then include the leads it could work out even..
Arghhh...
I can't even think the amount of time it would take to tally the genders of all the characters in the show. My mind would indeed explode. It would be doable I should think.. just time consuming.
No problem! I remember doing ratio stuff like this for chem labs lol.
As far as the ratios go, using that formula you would negate the 'more males/females means more males/females deaths'. That's how the formula works. It would then give you a more nonbiased view by removing whether one gender has more characters vs the other. But yes, VERY time consuming. And then when you count them, I'm not sure whether you would count multiple deaths for one character as one death or many (i.e. dean in Mystery Spot and so on). That's where I am unsure. Do you count it as one because it's the same character? It's actually a pretty interesting study of the show. You would have to go on SuperWiki or something to see their character list, count males vs females and then count how many of each have died. Then compare that with your data for deaths by gender and you'll have your answer.
I had the same question when reading the meta. I'm not a science major, but couldn't you just take a sample rather than count all the characters in every single episode for all six seasons? Like randomly choose two episodes per season, for example? It wouldn't be the exact number, but it would give you a representative indication.
OTOH, you have already done so much work, I hesitate to even suggest a reduced amount of additional work. ;)
Sorry, just a geeky science major adding their two cents XD
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Supernatural's race issues...Oh, that's a whole nother rant (and I've done it several times on my own blog already).
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The only thing I am unsure of as I said below is if you would count deaths by the same character as one overall death or as multiple deaths. I believe you count it as one death because you are only counting that character once in your total of characters by that gender.
Anyway, very interesting!
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At a guess I would say it's fairly proportional. More men, more deaths. (and we'd have to count Sam, Dean, Bobby, Cas into this mix..)
Where it might be interesting is in the notable deaths. It's about half and half in gender representation. If there are more men in the show over all (which I'd say for sure!) then women are over represented in the notable deaths tally. Though if you then include the leads it could work out even..
Arghhh...
I can't even think the amount of time it would take to tally the genders of all the characters in the show. My mind would indeed explode. It would be doable I should think.. just time consuming.
Thanks for the thinking though.
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As far as the ratios go, using that formula you would negate the 'more males/females means more males/females deaths'. That's how the formula works. It would then give you a more nonbiased view by removing whether one gender has more characters vs the other. But yes, VERY time consuming. And then when you count them, I'm not sure whether you would count multiple deaths for one character as one death or many (i.e. dean in Mystery Spot and so on). That's where I am unsure. Do you count it as one because it's the same character? It's actually a pretty interesting study of the show. You would have to go on SuperWiki or something to see their character list, count males vs females and then count how many of each have died. Then compare that with your data for deaths by gender and you'll have your answer.
Anyway, very cool job here! Very interesting!
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OTOH, you have already done so much work, I hesitate to even suggest a reduced amount of additional work. ;)
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