This post is best read on a computer. Also spoilers for the Adventure Zone: Amnesty campaign.

Previously on the Adventure Zone Social Network Analysis... I visualized an episode co-appearnace network using transcripts from TAZ: Balance episodes. In this post, I follow up with a social network analysis of the Amnesty campaign.

After spending time scraping and cleaning transcript files from TAZ Transcribed, I formed a "social network"¹ in which each node represents a unique character from the show, and an edge between two nodes encodes how many episodes contain both characters. For example, Indrid and Barclay appear in three episodes together, so the edge between them had a weight of 3. Once formed, I ran the network through a community detection algorithm² to uncover the close-knit groups of characters that tended to appear in episodes together.

An unweighted version of the Amnesty network is visualized below. Each point represents a character, and the connections between them can be revealed by hovering over a node. Nodes are arranged by their arc of first appearance, with arcs³ placed in what could generously be described as an "archway" shape. You can toggle the detected communities by clicking the "Communities Off/On" button in the upper right. Explore and have fun!

What I enjoy about these networks is how they encapsulate the relationships that formed and developed over the course of the show in a single image. As one example, the residents of Amnesty Lodge all fall into their own community (dark brown triangles), even Agent Stern!

Another instance involves the finale. Most of the characters pictured as red crosses played major roles in the finale, including Juno, Alexandra, and Billy. However, other characters important to the finale, like Minerva and Mama, are featured elsewhere in the network. I think this has to do with how some characters were scarcely utilized outside of their introductory arcs, a fact the McElroys commented on in the post-Amnesty The The Adventure Zone Zone. Minerva, Leo, Mama, etc. show up in virtually every arc, while Billy, Juno, and Alexandra have much more audio time in the finale than in a majority of the other arcs.

One final fun observation is that the McElroy brothers' real life Nonny was sorted into a community with the rough and tumble stunt sport gang, the Hornets, thanks to her French onion soup themed cameo.

Thank you to the McElroy family and the Maximum Fun podcast network for the Adventure Zone. If you are not already a Maximum Fun donor, please consider joining during the next MaxFun pledge drive. Also thanks to TAZ Transcribed for providing transcript files for every episode.

Notes

1. Data to create the network is stored on my corresponding GitHub repository. These data do not include live shows.
2. Specifically I used the Louvain algorithm as described here, Blondel, Vincent D., et al. "Fast unfolding of communities in large networks." Journal of statistical mechanics: theory and experiment 2008.10 (2008): P10008., on the sub-network not including The McElroys, Aubrey, Duck, Ned and Thacker because they were the main characters of the show.
3. Characters who first appeared in an "Interlude" Arc have been grouped under the "Interludes" heading.