Game of Thrones: Here's who will survive final season, say medical researchers

According to scientists Game of Thrones characters who switch sides are 65 per cent more likely to survive than those who are loyal.

Researchers who watched all 67 episodes in the name of science have worked out which traits make the characters most likely to die.

'Highborn' characters – lords and ladies, those who change allegiances, and women who have the best odds of surviving the notoriously violent show.

According to the study, published in medical journal Injury Epidemiology, has been done ahead of the final season, which is expected to be released next spring, it gives big-name characters including Cersei, Jaime and Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, and Bran, Sansa and Arya Stark a good chance of surviving until the end.

Notably, scientists from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, studied the deaths of 186 characters in the hit TV show, based on the novels of George RR Martin.

The study found women are a fifth less likely to die than men, and 'lowborn' characters who are not nobility are 28 per cent more likely to die than those who are 'highborn'.

Furthermore, those who stayed loyal to their allegiance throughout the series' were the most likely to die.

Their research does not bode well for Daenerys Targaryan, who has been loyal to the Targaryan family throughout the show's seven seasons and could put her at a higher risk of death when compared to characters like Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow, who have changed sides.

Although Jon Snow already died once, researchers did not count his death because he returned.

Bran Stark and his sisters Sansa and Arya all stand a good chance of continuing to survive, the researchers suggest, because they've all switched sides.

And the Lannisters – Cersei, who is the current occupier of the Iron Throne, Tyrion and Jaime – are all also likely to survive because they switched sides.