The complex social network from The Lord of The Rings

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the social network structure within J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth universe, using graph theory and entropy measures to understand community bonds and social relations across his key works.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach by applying social network analysis and entropy metrics to Tolkien's literary universe, revealing structural insights into fictional social relations.

Findings

Identified key social hubs and central characters in Middle-Earth.

Measured the homogeneity of bonds within different communities.

Provided a quantitative framework for analyzing fictional social networks.

Abstract

Studies of social structures has been grown on the last years, because its sharing form and content creation attracted the public in general. Such structures are observed, as an example, in literary pieces. A featured author is J.R.R. Tolkien, with his books that describe a fictional world and its inhabitants. These books bring a narrative of the creation of the Middle-Earth and all of its mythology. His main pieces are: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the rings, The objective of this article is the analysis of the social structures emerging of the conjunction of these works, where the social relations are described by the reference criteria, shared events and direct bonds, with the major centrality measures together with the structural entropy of first order. Enabling the doing of an analogy with the canonic ensemble of the mechanics statistics and enabling analyzing the degree of homogeneity of the bonds between the formed communities.