Interactive Graphs
We found some interesting patterns, but we're just two people with certain abilities and frames of expectations. So, we've included on this page a way for you to find your own patterns and trends. Each of these graphs is interactive, so you can choose what data you see. These graphs are still constructed by us and so limit what you can find; after all, "data are always already 'cooked' and never entirely 'raw'" (Gitelman and Jackson 2), meaning that all data is constructed in some way. This data is impacted by the corpora we chose, by the characters we chose to focus on, by the names we chose to include in the graphs. Still, we tried to include as much information as possible in as many different ways as possible so you can play in and with the data. Have fun!
How to Engage with This Page
For each of the three characters we have assessed in our data, there are two sets of graphs:
Two graphs about the book data...
and two graphs about the fan fiction data.
Each graph within those pairs focuses on either similarity index or name rank (for more on those terms, see the explanation here), and the graphs are basically the opposite of each other. The similarity index graphs work pretty much the way you think they would: the closer a point is to the top, the more similar that character is to the character whose data you're looking at. For example, in this graph:
we can see that Ron (the gold line) is more similar to Harry than Dumbledore (the teal line) in every book except book six because all of his points have a higher similarity index, meaning that his vectors are more similar to Harry's than Dumbledore's are to Harry's. The name rank graphs work in the opposite direction. So, for example, in this graph:
we can see that Lupin (the blue line) ranks higher in similarity to Harry than Malfoy (the red line) in books five and seven because Lupin's points for these two books are lower, meaning that his rank is closer to 0 and thus closer to the most similar word to Harry for that book. Thus, as you work through these graphs to find your own patterns, make sure to keep an eye out for whether you're working with the similarity index (which means that most similar is at the top) or name rank (which means that most similar is at the bottom).
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Now, all you have to do to get started is to pick which character you want to focus on (Harry, Ron, or Hermione), then choose name(s) you want to play with. In the book graphs, we've included every name that occurs four or more times in the top 200 most-similar-word lists for the target character; for the fan fiction graphs, we've included names who appear five or more times (i.e., at least half of the times they can appear). On all of the similarity index graphs, we have also included the average similarity index for the top 200 words for each book/year as a control. To choose who you want to see, all you have to do is click on a name at the bottom of the graph. Once you've chosen a name, it will darken to indicate that it is on the graph, as you can see below with Lupin and Malfoy:
Each graph starts off without names so you can choose who you want to compare, but you can add or subtract as many names as you like. Let us know what you find in the comments at the bottom of this page!
Harry Potter Data
Ron Weasely Data
Hermione Granger Data
So, what did you see? Did you find a new pattern? Is there some information/data that you'd like to see that's not here? Leave a comment and let us (and everyone else) know!